Page 80 of Wild Blades

She thinks I’m amazing.

However, are we going to continue to ignore the fact she hasn’t spoken to me since Monday?The day she sucked my cock, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

“Is this yours?” She points to the small framed photograph of Gretchen and me, which she then picks it up.

“Gretchen gave it to me.” I've never told anyone that. “Never missed a game without it.”

Handing it back to me, she places it in the palm of my hand and closes my fingers around it. “I thought you weren’t superstitious?”

“I’m not.”

The planets could stop spinning around the sun and cause a natural disaster for all I care as she holds onto my clasped hand and everyone around us becomes a blur.

It’s not just about my attraction for her, it’s everything about her I find fascinating.

I want her.

And yet that feels impossible.

She would never jeopardize her business because she’s not a risk-taker.

I know this because I watch her. Too much sometimes. I've watched how she analyzes each and every word she writes. The wording of articles that have been published and written about me, devours statistics, rereads contracts. She’s thorough.

Unlike me, she makes better decisions than I do; she makes lists, weighs up the pros and cons, and that’s why she’s an icon, and brave. Successful and prepared.

There is no amount of planning that could have prepared me for her.

Taking her time to consider her next question, she asks tenderly, “Does it make you feel like she’s here with you?”

“Always.” I feel like Gretchen sent me Kali for a reason and it has nothing to do with my career and everything to do with healing my broken heart.

It doesn’t feel torn apart like it did before she arrived in my life.

I feel… healthier, fitter, stronger… and dare I say it… almost… happy.

“Keep it safe.” Smiling, she tilts her head to the side and removes her hand. “I wish I had met her.”

“She would have loved you.”And told me to jump into the unknown.

“I’m so proud of you tonight. How you conducted yourself out there. You’re trying and you have no idea how much I appreciate that. We all do.”

The first compliment in months from Spike earlier, and now this one from Kali, displaces my emotions and I don’t know if I want to cry, jump for joy, or pull her into my arms and kiss the hell out of her.

The weight from dozens of eyes on us makes me tuck my photo safely back into my cubbyhole.

Kali shakes her head as if she was in a daze, checks her watch, and puts her business head back on. “So, no game tomorrow and I know you have training in the morning then a session with Ash and Joe, but I wondered if you could drop into the office to film a Q&A with Casey for the sixty-second sports skit for that funny YouTube channel. Have you seen it?” Reaching down, she pulls off her sneaker, then the other, and passes them to her bodyguard, who, if my memory serves me correctly, is called Max, and exchanges them for a pair of the sexiest pair of strappy black high heels. “The guy who owns the online channel is coming in to do a piece with Jayden Spurr. You know the basketball player?” She jabbers on and doesn’t let me answer, while I stare at her, completely mesmerized by the way she’s wrapping the long straps around her ankles and rolling the bottom of her cuffed joggers up another couple of times, making them shorter. “As soon as we launch KRTM, we’re going to be representing him. He’s such a cool guy, and funny too. You should meet him when you come in. And then we have the gala ball on Friday. Did you sort a date out for that?” Slipping on the other shoe, she uses the bench to prop her foot on and begins wrapping her other ankle in fine leather before she then ties it ina bow and rolls up the leg of her jogger to match the length of the other.

“No,” I answer deadpan, fucking annoyed that I assumed the other day we would go together. Stupid of me, I know that now.

Placing her foot on the floor, she looks up to the ceiling as if thinking. “Ask Lola. She’s perfect. Immaculate, well mannered, would look hot in a gold-colored silk dress.”

“She’s engaged to be married. I’m not asking Lola.” I pull off my helmet and throw it into my cubbyhole. That’s not happening.

“Looking the way you do, surely you have a little black book filled with names of damsels wanting to wear a pretty dress and accompany you to charity galas. Yes?” She checks the time on her watch again and curses under her breath.

She knows I don’t whore around, so I ignore her hideous question. I’m attending alone.

“Where the hell are you going?” I look down at her perfectly painted red-black toenails sitting in the sexiest shoes I’ve ever seen that have the elongated YSL logo as the heel and then check her joggers. She’s the only woman I know who could pull off that look.

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