Prologue #2
Some days it feels like it’s slowly destroying me. It’s cruel, and I pretend it doesn’t matter, but it eats me up inside every minute of every day. Especially when I’m alone in my quietest moments.
I guess Leon is someone I’m meant to feel only in my heart and never be able to touch physically.
“I know you’re lying. You think about me,” Leon states firmly, his chest puffing out with confidence.
“You think I’m lying?”
“I know you are. I know you better than anyone. Even better than your brother.”
Despite his cool facade, the way he’s looking at me—as if his mind is working overtime—tells me he thinks there’s more to us than just friends. I roll my eyes in feigned indifference. “Sure, you do.”
“I know that you hate it when the food on your plate touches each other. You say sorry even when it’s not your fault.
You talk to your car, the stove, your bicycle, and your laptop.
You bite the inside of your mouth when you’re deep in thought.
You’re obsessed with color coordinating your books on the shelf and alphabetizing your spice rack, and every time you leave your dorm room, you triple-check to make sure it’s locked. ”
He’s been keeping watch.
I don’t find it creepy; it’s sweet and makes me feel seen.
Finally, he adds, “And you cry at commercials about poorly treated dogs and Christmas adverts too.”
It’s game over for me if there’s a dog in a Christmas commercial.
“Careful, Leon, I might have to report you to the police for stalking,” I shoot back, my tone laced with sarcasm when in fact I’m doing everything I can not to squeal with delight at his detailed observations.
“You had better lock your door tonight just in case I attempt to break into your dorm then, huh?” He winks before picking up his beer and finishing the last sip.
“I’ll triple-check the lock, don’t you worry.”
“Or maybe you should leave it open.” His lips twitch, caught somewhere between a full-on smile and a smirk, making him look dangerously serious.
“I might just do that,” I call his bluff. My cheeks flush instantly as my nerves make me shift my weight from foot to foot. I feel jittery, like there’s so much nervous energy inside me that needs to be expelled.
“You won’t,” he taunts.
I tease him back with intent, “You sure about that?” The electric attraction between us tonight feels stronger than usual and gives off serious cat-and-mouse vibes. I’ve officially lost my mind.
“Leon, sweetie, I need another drink.” A voice that could cut glass breaks the tension-filled air swirling around us. Cynthia, Leon’s date for the night and a well-known puck bunny, curls her arms around his waist.
Stop touching what’s mine.
He’s not, but in my dreams, he is. I hate that he saw right through me and knows I dream about him now.
Dammit.
“Oh, hey, Erika. Isn’t Leon’s new bar amazing?” Cynthia asks, looking anywhere but at me.
“It’s Leon and Buster’s place,” I correct.
She waves me off as if pooh-poohing me. “Whatever, Ms. Know-it-all,” she mutters.
Leon throws her a dangerous look, then unpeels her arms from around his body. “Mind your manners, Cynthia. Don’t talk to my Erika like that ever again, you hear me?”
My Erika? Say, what now?
“Or?” she teases, missing the irritation bouncing off him.
“Or I’ll throw you out of my bar.” Leon pulls his wallet out of the back pocket of his dress pants and takes out a fifty. “You can see yourself home.”
A look of stunned surprise spreads across Cynthia’s face, her mouth falling open in disbelief, but not enough to keep her from snatching his money from between his fingers.
With a final glance, she lifts her nose in the air and quickly spots her target—a table of hockey players—and marches in their direction with determination.
Leon scoffs when Cynthia squeezes herself into the booth where some of his teammates are sitting. “Predictable.” He tuts.
“Maybe it’s time you changed the type of girl you date,” I suggest.
“Oh, yeah?” He crosses his arms over his broad chest and stands wide, his chin rising in challenge. “What type of girl do you recommend?”
“One that doesn’t jump from bed to bed. Someone who doesn’t have a thing for hockey players but likes you for just being you and not what you do. Or maybe someone that can’t be easily shooed away with fifty bucks.” That’s low.
“Know of anyone?”
“I might do.”
“Will you hook me up?”
“Nah. All you’ll do is break her heart.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you already did.” Shit, I said too much.
He flinches, his head tipping to the side. “Do I already know her?”
Avoiding eye contact, I ignore his question and quickly glance at the clock above the bar, my feet moving toward the exit.
“I gotta go. I need to study.” I don’t. I’ve done enough to sail through my exams. I’m reluctant to leave because I want to spend more time with Leon; hours are never enough, but I need to go before I say something really stupid that will cross a line I shouldn’t.
“Erika,” Leon shouts after me in what sounds like a warning.
“Bye, Leon. Congratulations on the bar. Tell my brother and Lily I said goodbye.” I wave over my shoulder and bolt out the door.
That was a close call. I nearly told him it should be me in his bed.
As if that will ever happen.
“Did you leave the door open just for me, baby?” A hushed voice startles me awake quicker than a sneeze.
Through the darkness, I try to make sense of the silhouette of a man towering over my bed before he climbs on top of me.
But when I try to scream, a hand is placed over my mouth, and it comes out more like a hnnghhh sound than the word help I was going for.
My eyes bulge out of their sockets as I gasp and choke, struggling for breath.
“Shush, it’s me. Leon.” He removes his hands from my mouth as I’m on the verge of having a heart attack.
I slap him a few times, half-heartedly but all he does is laugh. “What the hell are you doing, Leon? You scared the shit out of me,” I yell breathlessly, my fear turning into something entirely different… curiosity and excitement.
He grabs my hands to stop me from thrashing around and places them above my head, pressing his entire body against mine. “Don’t fight, Erika.”
I gasp, trying to control my breathing and slow down my heart, which shot up like a rocket taking off to the moon just moments ago.
“Maybe that’s how I like it,” I tease through clenched teeth, both annoyed and turned on all at the same time.
Goosebumps race across my skin, my voice shaky and cracking slightly at the end, while my stomach twists as if tying itself in knots.
“You want me to be rough with you?” he asks in a low, dangerous tone.
I try to speak, but no words come out.
“Speechless, baby?”
I nod in the dark, hoping he can see me as shadows dance across the room from what little street lighting seeps in from outside.
“Did you leave the door open for me?” He asks the same question that woke me up.
“I didn’t.” Natasha, my roommate, must have forgotten to lock it when she came in, which she often does. She’s such an airhead: all brains and zero common sense.
“Oh, how badly you lie.” He brushes his rough thumb back and forth across the palm of my hand as he stares down at me through the dim lighting. “What do you want, Erika?”
Finally, I find the courage to whisper, “I want you to kiss me like you crave me.”
“Well, that’s easy.”
“Is it?”
“You have no idea, baby.”
Without hesitation, he lowers his head, and his lips crash against mine, his fingers tightening around my hands, making my entire body come alive like a firework bursting across the night sky.
This kiss is not just a kiss to me. It’s passionate and sensual, full of meaning, yet at the same time, it probably means nothing to him because he doesn’t know he’s the only man I want to do this with for eternity.
Leon’s tongue pushes through the seam of my lips, and when our tongues touch for the first time, we both let out a needy moan.
His grip loosens around my wrists, allowing me to slide free and clasp his face with my hands, desperate to touch him in ways I have only dreamed about.
With him still on top of me, I part my legs as best as I can so he can settle between them. The comforter separating us does nothing to hide his huge erection as he thrusts his pelvis into mine.
He wants this.
Since when?
Always?
Just for tonight?
If we do go all the way, I guess I would be another name to add to his little black book.
And that’s not what I want.
“Tell me you dream about me,” he begs, his mouth pressing against mine as he runs his hands up the front of my neck.
“I do. I think about you all the time,” I answer honestly.
I thought one kiss from Leon would be enough, but it’s made me want him even more.
“You can never be mine, Erika. You know that, right?” Pulling back, his hard stare guts me because we both know how painfully true that is.
“Except I couldn’t stay away. You drive me crazy every single fucking day, and I’ve wanted to taste your sweet lips on mine for longer than you know.
When you told me you might keep the door unlocked for me, I wanted to see if you wanted me as much as I want you. ”
“I do. Natasha must have forgotten to lock it when she came in after me,” I admit. “But I almost didn’t lock it because I wanted to see what you would do, or whether you were bluffing.” My body temperature rises as I pause, then confess, “I’m happy you’re here.” Ecstatic is more accurate.
“I wasn’t bluffing, and the temptation to find out if you would leave it open was all too much. I needed to know.”
“My brother would kill you if he knew you were here.” He’s a Rottweiler. A bear is more accurate. It’s the nickname the fans give him because he’s a wall of solid muscle. Grumpy like a grizzly, too.
“He never needs to know we kissed, baby.”
“I won’t tell him.” I agree to keep quiet because I like Leon’s face, and my brother might rearrange it if he ever found out he snuck into my dorm in the middle of the night.
“Neither will I.”
“It’ll be our secret, Leon.” He will always be my secret.
“It kills me to tell you, but this can never happen again. When that’s all I want.”
Disappointment courses through my body, but I agree. “I know.”
What I really want to ask him is to stay here with me overnight and wrap his arms around me. I want to hold him, memorize every inch of him, all his freckles, scars, and hockey injuries.
But we can’t.
Years ago, he made a promise to my brother, one I thought he’d never break, that is, until tonight.
It’s just a kiss.
“Dream of me like I dream of you.” He drops his lips to mine one final time, and as quickly as it all happened, in a flash, he’s gone.
I catapult upward when my door clicks shut and run my fingertips across my lips, the faint hint of his aftershave lingering in the air, my mouth coated in his distinct flavor. I never want to wash it off.
Flinging myself back against the mattress, my moment of happiness is replaced with sadness, rushing over me like a tidal wave, leaving nothing but a memory.
That kiss was full of promises and things I want more of. The same kiss that isn’t the start of us, but symbolizes what could never be.