Page 72 of Fighting Chance

“Well, I didn’t need to be told about the cocky part.”

Kieran snags a dish towel and steps toward me, holding his hands up in surrender as I move to step back. “Let me help you. It’s…” He chuckles. “It seems I got you really good.”

Leaning back against the cabinets, I lift my chin, allowing him to move forward, but what I don’t expect is how close he gets. Kieran doesn’t stop until our hips are aligned, his concentration solely on my face whereas my eyes wander to his arms, his biceps, the bulging veins as he ever so gently cleans my skin.

The softness of the movement steals my breath, and I suddenly can’t breathe, not when he’s this close to me.

Kieran falls silent as he stares, his heart shining in his eyes. The tension between us grows to such a feat it’s shocking that it isn’t a tangible thing I can clasp in my hand. “I adore your freckles,” he says softly, as if it’s a secret he’s been harboring.

“My freckles?”

He nods, his eyes roving my face. “There’s so many of them, and yet they make you who you are. I couldn’t imagine you without them.”

His lips part, his tongue darting out to lick them. Placing the hand towel down behind me, he lifts his hands and flips his hat backwards, allowing him to move forward ever so slowly. With an arm on either side of me, caging me in, he captures my undivided attention.

His lips are inches from mine—mereinches—and I have such a sudden urge to kiss him that I have to physically restrain myself from leaning forward.

His voice, a dark rumble of thunder, rolls through my body. “Tell me something that’s on your life list, sunshine.”

My eyes snap away from his lips. “I’ll share one if you finally tell me why you call me sunshine.”

He gives me a lopsided grin. “It’ll have to be a good one. No holding back on me this time.”

“When have I ever done such a thing?” I tease.

He leans forward a fraction, his chest brushing mine on every deep inhale I force myself to take.

“Tell me something that’s on your list,” he repeats.

I’m not sure why I say it.

Perhaps the gravel of his voice commanded me, the earnest way his eyes implored mine, or maybe it’s because the last time he asked me to share one in exchange for a secret he was so openly vulnerable with me that it felt wrong I shared such a miniscule item in return.

Or maybe it’s just because his cologne is so heady I feel like I’m floating, wholly wrapped up in the atmosphere that is Kieran Ashford. I’m spinning out of control and I never want to get off this Tilt-A-Whirl. I find myself blurting, “It’s a list of all the firsts I want.”

I lick my suddenly dry lips, noting how his eyes drop and stay there.

“What firsts are we talking about?” he drawls.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I push the boundaries of whatever is happening in this moment and lean forward, standing on my toes. Kieran meets me halfway, dropping his head to allow my lips to brush the shell of his ear. “I’ve never…been with anyone,” I confess.

Kieran stops breathing.

He pulls back ever so slowly, opening a fraction of space between us.

I expect to be bombarded with shyness, for that scorching blush to tickle my cheeks, to feel embarrassed that I’m twenty-five and have never been with anyone, but with Kieran’s eyes heating me like an inferno, I feel unequivocally free as those words part my lips.

“Never?” he asks, the timbre of his voice having dropped.

“Never,” I breathe.

Dropping from my tiptoes, I flatten my feet to get some much-needed space from the intensity of his gaze, but he just moves with me.

“And do you…want to?”

“Mm-hmm,” I murmur, nodding.

His swallow is audible. “Layla?—”