Page 25 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Twenty-Four

Kailey

A kiss to my wrist had my eyes opening, focusing after a few moments on the man curled up next to me in my bed.

I groaned and rolled over, backing myself against his frame, melting a little when his arm came around my middle, drawing me even closer to him. He was so big that his body dwarfed mine, that I could curl into him and find a safe harbor in the world.

Quiet.

Safe.

Peaceful.

Smitty.

“I’m debating,” he said a few moments later, his chin moving lightly against my head as he spoke, the words ruffling my hair.

I waited for more, content to lie there with my eyes closed, languid and relaxed.

But when he didn’t say anything further after a few moments, I prompted, “About what?”

He ran a hand down my side, up again, slow, slow trails of a roughly calloused palm prickling against my skin, making me shiver, my spine arch, hips bunching back against his pelvis. “Hmm?” he said, continuing the slow and steady motions.

It took a long time for me to process the query, to remember what I’d even asked, what he’d said.

Mostly because I had been fucked within an inch of my life.

But I was a fighter, and I got there in the end. “What are you debating?”

That hand drifted a little lower, stroking over my abdomen. “Ah,” he murmured. “I had things planned.”

I stilled, rolled to face him. “What do you mean?” I asked, staring up into his deep brown eyes.

“I mean,” he said, “that before I saw you in that blue dress with the underwear that should be illegal”—a mock glare—“but is definitely for my eyes only?—”

“I think we’re about to test the limits of your appreciation for my sass, baby,” I quipped, raising my brows.

“Or maybe yours for mine?”

A tug of his beard. “Precisely.”

Grinning, that beard twitching, he leaned down and kissed me.

I loved that I could taste his smile on my tongue, feel it sweep through, settling into my bones.

No, into my heart, as terribly cliché as that sounded.

“Now,” I said, that heart pounding when we finally broke apart, but I managed to pull it together enough to remember what had started this whole conversation.

And it wasn’t my blue dress.

Or the barely-there lace I’d bought strictly for his eyes. Not that I would admit that…or that I’d nearly blushed myself into spontaneous combustion just buying them at the lingerie store. There was a reason I bought my toys online (discreet packaging anyone?) and not in person.

Not that I was ashamed.

But holy hell, having someone advise me on the recommended sexual pursuits of my vibrator had taken me about three levels beyond my comfort with that part of my life.

And…tangents.

Oh, so many tangents.

But I’d been learning that sometimes when I thought about comfort levels, a lot of the time it was my anxiety talking.

Be uncomfortable.

Be ashamed.

Be…wrong because I was wrong inside.

So maybe?—

“Would you go to a vibrator class with me?” I blurted.

Which was so along that inner tangent and not close to asking Smitty what he had been debating that had drawn me out of my orgasm haze.

But his reaction was definitely worth the blush that chased my question.

His eyes went wide. His mouth dropped open. And then he did an impersonation of a goldfish that was both adorable and seriously hilarious considering it was happening on a six-foot-plus, two-hundred-twenty-pound professional hockey player’s body.

“A what?”

I grinned, pushed him lightly so that he was on his back and I could clamber on top of him. “Not what you were debating?”

His eyes went hot. “There’d be no debating that, little bird.”

My palms were on his chest, and I dragged my nails lightly down, trailing them over the faint notches of his abdomen. “So, you’d go?”

“Fuck no,” he said.

I started, brows raising.

“I’d be teaching the fucking master class,” he told me, voice going rough, hand lifting to cup my breast.

“Just for the record”—my breath caught when he brushed his thumb over my nipple—“that’s not a vibrator.”

A chuckle. He rolled it between thumb and forefinger. “I thought this was the On switch.”

“It is.” Laughter in my chest. “It definitely is.”

That laughter cut off when he flipped us, and I suddenly found my back pressed into the mattress, the warm, heavy weight of him on top of me. Before I could protest or make another joke or redirect our conversation back to what he’d been debating, he kissed me.

And then I wasn’t on mental tangents or worried about jokes or redirecting conversations.

I was focused on Smitty.

Because he made it impossible to do anything else.

A faint noise prickled at the edge of my consciousness, just as he was sliding down, his beard tickling me between my thighs, and I barely processed that it was my cell ringing before his tongue flicked out.

The rest of the world faded.

Just me.

Just him, and what he made me feel.

Which was so, so much.

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” I said, as I looked up.

“Well, we missed the brunch reservations I made,” he said, fingers laced through mine, “along with the movie I’d planned.” A kiss to the tip of my nose. “ And the dinner reservations. So”—he nodded at the dark trail ahead—“this is what we have left.”

“A scary trail that should be on that creepy true crime documentary we watched earlier?”

A flash of white, his beard twitching in the way I loved.

Because I’d been the one to make him smile. I was the one who brought him joy. I ?—

An arm weaving around my waist, drawing me against him in a quick movement that stole my breath, bringing my flush against him.

He pressed his mouth to the corner of mine.

“Love this,” he murmured, releasing me, and weaving our fingers together, drawing me forward again, tugging me along the manicured path.

“And I think the only thing we should continue to think about is how much better true crime is to baking shows to make love to.”

I shook my head. “There’s something seriously wrong with you.”

A tap of his finger to his lips. “Or maybe it’s the reality TV part and less about the actual content.”

The man had a point.

The man also wasn’t listening to me.

“Smitty.” I dragged my feet. “I don’t?—”

His reaction was instantaneous, his big body stopping in a fraction of a second.

He turned, releasing my hand, and crouched enough so that our faces were aligned.

“Shit, little bird,” he said, cupping my cheeks in those warm, calloused palms. “Is this too much? Do you need to stop? Are you feeling overwhelmed and?—”

My heart squeezed so hard that for a moment I was unable to find words.

Not that they were stopped up in the back of my throat like when my anxiety was gripping me and it felt like I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move or speak or even exist sometimes.

But the words didn’t come because I was so fucking touched that he’d react like that.

That he’d stop and check in with me.

Not push on and tell me to power through because we were doing this.

Not caring that the effort he’d put into planning this would be for naught if I couldn’t do it, and?—

He shifted minutely, the worry creasing his face, and I realized that he didn’t know the reason for my silence and was probably thinking that it was for the worst possible reason, that I was falling apart inside, unable to interact and?—

Still, there was patience in his demeanor.

Worry, yes, but he’d wait. Wait all fucking day if he had to.

And that unstuck me.

I moved closer, rising on tiptoe and pressing my mouth to his. I hugged him tightly, wanting to impart everything I was feeling onto him, wanting him to know, to understand exactly how much him reacting that way meant to me.

“Smitty,” I whispered, and his eyes locked with mine.

All the words swirled within me, stuck and not, pressing against me, desperate to get out.

And eventually they did. “I love you,” I said, my hand on the warm skin of his cheek, the soft bristles of his beard tickling my palm.

“I love you, and it’s not too much. I don’t need to stop. Not with you. Not ever with you.”

He sucked in a breath, spine going ramrod stiff. “Little bird,” he croaked, his hand covering mine. “Little bird, I love you so fucking much.”

Now it was my turn to hold still, to inhale sharply. Those words.

They were as good as his arms wrapping around me.

And under the rustling leaves of the trees overhead, the faint glimmer of the stars in the sky, the creepy as hell dark trail behind us, he held me tightly, those words between us, I felt light and fresh and new and unbroken.

I felt whole.

Myself.

Then I shivered, and Smitty seemed to unstick, one arm shifting, wrapping around my shoulders, the other dropping to his side.

He started walking, but instead of guiding me toward the dark and creepy trail, he turned us, towing me to the parking lot.

“What about your trail?” I asked, heels digging in again.

“It’s a trail with a kickass view,” he said, “but it’s a trail that’s not going anywhere, little bird.”

“But”—I glanced back—“we’re here already and?—”

A flex of movement, his body bending and straightening as he scooped me up against his chest. “You just told me you love me.” His eyes blazed into mine. “I’m not taking you on a serial killer trail. I’m taking you home.”

Home.

That was absolutely perfect.