“Of course you did.”
“We could have parties. Rachel Laker does. You know. Those big galas.”
“We could.” I deserved a prize for not snorting like a loon.
“The O’Donnelly Petting Zoo.” He chortled. “Nobody would ever think that someone who owned a petting zoo would have mob links.”
“Wait until Shay’s twenty-one next year and then have him establish it on his birthday or something. Frame it as him giving back to the community. It’ll fuck up the SEO on his name. We can build toward that. Make sure we have pigs there too.”
His lips pursed. “Just in case there are any references to our pig farms? Good thinking.”
“Not just a pretty face over here.”
“Gorgeous face,” he corrected.
“So long as you think so.”
“No.” His tone shifted, turning oddly serious. “You need to think it because it’s the truth. You’re fucking beautiful, Star. Say it.”
Because he rarely used that voice on me, my brows lifted. “I’m fucking beautiful.”
He dipped his chin. “Now, say it like you mean it.”
I hated how predictable my body could be around him. That voice, his urgency, the demand, the meaning—they combined and triggered the faintest stirrings of a blush.
That fecker.
I released a huff. “I’m—” I paused. Knew sarcasm or snark would get me nowhere with him. “I’m beautiful.”
He twisted and cupped my chin, using his thumb to direct the soft pad as he gently tilted my head back. “Not just beautiful. Immaculate.”
“Hardly.”
“I see what no one else does. I see the real Star. And you are. A fucking gorgeous woman. And a wonderful mother?—”
“Hardly,” I croaked out, wondering how he always knew where the dark shadows of anxiety trespassed in my soul.
“A fantastic mother. The mother our children deserve.”
With me melting, the height difference between us went to war with my synapses. I could feel my breathing quicken and my heart race. Softness curled inside my being, overtaking the hard shell that I used to get by.
Only he brought this out in me.
Only he made me cravethis, him, instead of wanting to run for the hills.
I sucked in a breath that smelled of his new aftershave—a faintly incense-like aroma the kids had bought him because Katina had said his other one was for old men. This scentedheady and warm and spicy. It slithered through my olfactory system, laying claim to that sense too.
Gently, he shuffled me forward until my back pressed into the window. The cool glass contrasted greatly with the wall of heat in front of me.
His eyes, so sharp usually, wicked humor and intelligence evident for all to behold, were soft with love.
For me.
It still boggled my mind that Conor O’Donnelly loved me.
All my battered and abused and broken and volatile edges didn’t matter to him. He loved them because he loved me.
When I swallowed, a hungry cast seemed to mask his features. I wasn’t surprised when his lips caressed mine or that he kept it gentle at first.
