“My mother was redheaded and beautiful.”
“No surprise there.”
I blush with the compliment. “Thank you, Kayden.”
He drags a finger down my cheek. “Just speaking the truth, beautiful. Anything else?”
“I was close to her, and I think she died of cancer.” I shake my head. “I said that so matter-of-factly, but it didn’t feel that way when I remembered it. You know, Giada lost her mother to cancer too.”
“That doesn’t make you like her.”
“She’s alone. She has no one.”
“She has her brother and Marabella.”
“Not you?”
“I look out for her, and she knows it even if she doesn’t like it.” He gives me a heavy-lidded stare, his hands flattening on my bare legs beneath his shirt. “You aren’t alone. You have me now. You know that, right?” A firestorm of emotions attacks me, jumping around in my belly, and I cut my gaze. His finger slides under my chin and he gently brings my eyes back to his. “You have me.”
“For now.”
“Not for now. You don’t know that yet, but you will.” He reaches for the razor. “This is what you call trust.”
I close my hand around the razor, heat sliding up my arm and over my chest as our fingers touch. “Trust,” I whisper.
“Yes. Trust.”
We stare at each other and the air shifts and almost burns, the connection between us expanding, deepening, and he is safe and right in ways that matter more than ever after my flashback this morning. “Last night . . .”
The blue in his eyes darkens. “What about last night, Ella?”
“I just . . .” I wet my lips.
“We can go slow.”
“That’s not the point. I just wanted you to know that I . . . slept pretty good with you.”
He gives me a curious look, those sexy lips curving into a smile. “I slept pretty good with you too. Now. Shave me, woman.”
I laugh and am about to go to work, but I’m not ready to let go of his grumpiness from minutes before. “You know—”
“Don’t bring up Giada again.”
I pause mid-swipe. “How did you know I was going to talk about her?”
“Because I’m figuring out quickly that you don’t give up easily.”
“You can be a big brother to her.”
“See what I mean?”
“I’m serious, Kayden.”
“She has Adriel.”
“Who she resents.”
“She resents me.”