Page 26 of The Only Shot that Mattered

“I disagree.”

They looked into each other’s eyes for several seconds before Kenna looked away. The silence was comfortable for several minutes as they listened to music and drank wine. Kenna felt Damien’s gaze on her, but she didn’t really mind it. She only wished she knew more about how to act when a man gave her so much attention.

Richard came back into the room with a few other servers following. Kenna watched as they placed dishes around the table and tried to keep up with what everything was, but there was so much variety that she finally gave up. It seemed they would be eating family style, which she appreciated because she wanted to try a little bit of everything. It smelled heavenly, and she realized she hadn’t eaten all day.

When the servers left, Damien asked, “What all do you want to try?”

“Everything.” And she was so serious too.

Damien must have picked up on how serious she was because he simply chuckled and said, “Got you.”

He surprised her when he picked up a plate and started dishing up for her. Once again, she wondered if this was how he was with every woman he was interested in. She didn’t know why that mattered, because all his attention seemed to be on her at the moment, but she wondered how long that would last.

When he reached his long arms over and placed her plate in front of her, it was her turn to stare intently into his eyes. “You know, you never answered me. Do you treat all your women like this?”

Damien paused on piling food onto his plate and gave Kenna his full attention. “I like you, Kenna. I don’t know why—scratch that—I do know why. Your innocence, your softness, and even that false ass tough exterior you try to put up. Plus, you’re easy as fuck to look at. All that draws me to you. What I don’t knowis why it happened so quickly. Tell me, Kenna, why is it that the first time I saw you, all I wanted to do was protect you?”

He paused for a moment, folding his muscled arms in front of him on the table and leaning in. The candlelight flickered across his chiseled features, and Kenna felt heat spread across her body, but what really did it for her were his next words. “I see beautiful women daily, but it’s been a long time since any of them fazed me, so what is it about you that made me want to explore every part of your body the moment I laid eyes on you?”

He licked his juicy lips before taking a sip of his wine. If Kenna didn’t know any better, she would guess that he enjoyed seeing her at that moment, eyes bulging and cheeks flushed. “To answer your question, Kenna, I haven’t treated a woman like this in a very, very long time, and I only have the desire to treat you like this at the moment. I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

“I…” She allowed the word to trail off as she bit her lip and looked around anxiously.

“Relax, love. It was a rhetorical question.” He picked up his fork and reached to dish up some more food onto his plate but paused when he noticed her still sitting there looking at him. He pointed the fork at her plate and said, “Eat before it gets cold.”

Without anything else to do and because it would keep her hands busy, she ate. Periodically, she looked up at Damien, catching his eye. The man didn’t seem to take his eyes off her when she was around, and now that they were alone, it made his gaze feel more intense.

After Kenna cut a piece of steak and put it into her mouth, she melted against her seat. “Oh my God, this is good.”

“Told you.” His features held a hint of amusement as he watched her. “How is the rest of your food?”

Kenna looked down at her plate. She didn’t know how, but the chef managed to get most of her favorite foods onto the plate. There was steak with a chimichurri sauce, shrimp with a garlicsauce, grilled salmon, garlic bread, mashed potatoes, broccolini, mushroom risotto, and caesar salad.

“So good. I don’t think I can go back to eating frozen pizzas and boxed mac and cheese.”

Damien sliced some steak and put it into his mouth, chewing slowly as he watched her dance around in her seat as she ate.

“You aren’t much of a cook, I take it?”

Kenna cocked her head to the side and looked up slightly with her lips in a pout. “Does handing my mama ingredients when she’s cooking count?”

He chuckled. “Nah, it doesn’t. It’s cool though. I’m not much of a cook myself. My mama kept me fed before college and then I was drafted to the NBA, so I never really had time to learn for real. I have a personal chef for off seasons. I guess I’ll have to hire him full time now that I’ll be retired.”

“Does that bother you?”

“What?”

“That you’re retiring,” she clarified.

Damien shook his head. “I was happy to finally announce my retirement. It’s sad, of course, but I feel better doing it on my time and on my own terms, instead of an injury or being dropped because I’m too old.”

Kenna giggled. “You don’t look old at all.”

“Yeah, but these joints don’t work like they used to. Playing ball does a lot of wear and tear to the body, so I feel old.”

Kenna shrugged because she understood what he said, but she meant what she said. He didn’t look a day over thirty. He had that grown man energy oozing from him, but he still had a youthful spirit that she found intriguing. “What do you want to do when you retire?”

“Get married.”

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