Chapter 33
HEAT IN THE ROPES (LEO)
By the time I get back to Williamsburg, the exhaustion has settled where it always does after the second slot—deep in the joints, under the skin, behind the eyes where thought starts to drag.
I showered at the gym. It never really takes.
Camp leaves a residue. Salt. Fatigue. Impact. The feeling of a body worked hard enough that it stops feeling fully yours.
The apartment door unlocks under my thumb.
The first thing that hits me is food. Garlic. Roasted potatoes. Something green. Still clean enough for camp, just made by someone who cares whether I enjoy it.
The second thing is her.
Liz is barefoot in my kitchen in one of my T-shirts and tiny sleep shorts, hair down over her shoulders, wooden spoon in one hand. My shirt hangs off her like it’s still deciding whether it was borrowed or claimed.
I just stand there and look.
Then she glances over her shoulder. I see the relief before the smile catches up.
She takes me in before she means to—disheveled hair, fresh shirt, the drag in my posture, the stiffness in my ribs when I shut the door, the bruise high on my cheekbone.
The smile fades.
“Jesus,” she says softly. “Leo.”
“I’m fine.”
She gives me a look that says she’d have to work very hard to make that lie respectable.
“Mm-hm.” She turns the burner down and sets the spoon aside. “Sit.”
I don’t move.
She crosses the kitchen in three steps, and the intimacy of it hits harder than it should—watching someone come toward you like they already know what shape your pain takes.
Up close, she smells like my soap and coffee and something light that is just her.
Her fingertips graze the bruise on my cheekbone, then slide along my jaw, feather light.
I make myself hold where I am.
“Did anyone even look at this?” she murmurs.
I almost laugh. “What’s your verdict, Doc?”
Her mouth twitches. Then she takes my wrist. “Sit down before you fall down and pretend it was on purpose.”
I let her pull me onto one of the stools.
She stands between my knees, looking down at me with that focused nurse face that has nothing soft in it except the fact that it’s turned on me.
“What hurts?”
“Nothing dramatic.”
“Leo.”
“My ribs,” I admit. “Right side.”
She lays her palm carefully against my side under the shirt. Even expecting it, I tense.
“Bruised?”
“Yeah.”
“Deep?”
“Probably.”
She lifts the hem without asking. I let her.
The skin along my lower ribs is already darkening, ugly and mottled. Her face changes when she sees it, attention narrowing to the bruise.
“That’s going to be awful tomorrow,” she says quietly.
“Something to look forward to.”
Her fingertips skim just above the bruising, clinical and careful. The touch is the exact opposite of sexual and somehow lands deeper because of that.
“We’re icing it after you eat.”
“Okay.”
“Hands.”
I give her a look.
“Leo.”
I hold them out.
She takes one gently, turning it, studying the raw skin over my knuckles, the rubbed places at the base of the thumb, the faint swelling through the back of the hand. She traces one scraped spot with the edge of her nail.
“You rewrapped?”
“At the gym.”
“Good.” She lowers that hand and takes the other. “You split anything?”
“No.”
“Any dizziness?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“No.”
“Vision changes?”
“No, Doc.”
Her mouth curves again. Then she lets go of my hand and steps back.
“Don’t move.” She turns to the stove. “The macros should be close enough. I just gave it a little thyme, lime, and scotch bonnet so it tastes a bit different.”
I lean one forearm on the counter and watch her work. She plates the food and sets it in front of me. Salmon. Potatoes. Roasted broccoli. Exactly the kind of meal I’d usually shovel down without noticing.
Now I notice.
Because she made it.
Because she’s here.
Because her fingers were on my ribs ten seconds ago, and I can still feel the outline of them there.
She sets a fork beside the plate and glances at me once more, brisk again.
“Eat. Then I’ll decide what needs fixing.”
I laugh and pick up the fork.
Usually, after camp, I want silence. Protein. Water. A shower hot enough to strip the day off me. I don’t want questions. I don’t want anyone looking too closely at what training took.
Tonight, I sit on a stool in my own kitchen with a plate in front of me and Liz moving around barefoot in my shirt, and for the first time all day, my body starts to believe it’s allowed to come down from the ledge.
She leans into the freezer, comes up with an ice pack, wraps it in a dish towel, and sets it on the counter beside me.
“Don’t even think about refusing,” she says.
I finish chewing. “You always this bossy with patients?”
“Only the difficult ones.”
“So all of them.”
“Pretty much.”
She almost smiles. I nearly give one back.
Then she picks up the ice pack and steps between my knees, holding it out.
“I’m nicer to the ones I’m invested in. Hold this.”
I take it and press it against my ribs with a hiss. My hand tightens around the ice pack.
There are a hundred ways a woman can stand close to a man. Flirtation. Teasing. Invitation.
This is none of those.
This is worse.
This is care.
Her face is serious, all focus and quiet assessment. Her hair falls over one shoulder. My shirt brushes the tops of her thighs. She smells like soap and coffee, and I notice her nails are dark red.
“You’re going to bruise like hell,” she murmurs.
“Good thing I’m pretty.”
That gets a real smile out of her. Small. Quick. Devastating. Then she reaches for my hand. Her fingers settle over mine.
“Any reason you’re suddenly breathing like that?”
I hold her gaze. “You’re standing between my knees, Flash.”
She knows exactly what I meant and doesn’t step back.
“You’re injured. Try to keep the ego out of it.”
“My ego’s not the problem.”
“No?”
“No.”
I catch the small jump in her throat, and then the moment she realizes I saw it.
She adjusts the ice pack against my ribs, her palm steady through the towel, and my body reacts before my brain catches up—a hard pull low in my stomach.
Her eyes lift to mine.
“You still with me?” she asks, voice lower than it was a second ago.
“Still here.”
Her mouth tilts. Then, almost under her breath, she says, “It’s normal to fuss over your boyfriend when he comes home looking like this.”
The word lands.
Boyfriend.
My hand tightens on the towel hard enough to matter.
She hears it a second after I do. I watch the awareness move across her face. But she lets it stay.
“Hold still,” she says softly.
That does me in harder than the whole day’s work. I set the ice pack down on the counter.
“Leo,” she says, all warning and question.
I slide one hand to her waist. Slow enough to give her time. Firm enough that she feels what I’m asking for.
“I like the sound of that,” I rasp. “Say it again.”
My hand spans the small of her back, under my shirt. Warm skin. Barely there fabric. Her fitting into my grip like my body solved her before my head did.
Her lips part.
“Boyfriend,” she says softly. Then, “My boyfriend.”
My hands slide up her thighs and settle at her hips, the fabric there almost nothing under my palms.
My thumb skims the edge of the wing tattoo, and that one touch gets through.
“Your ribs—”
“Will still be bruised.”
I tip my head back enough to look at her properly.
“You take very good care of me,” I say.
There it is again, that tiny tell she can’t quite hide.
“I’m not done.”
“Show me.”
She laughs once, and the sound gives her away. “How does a man like you end up choosing this?”
I don’t answer right away. Then I tell her the truth.
“Because every other version of my life gave me too much room to think.”
Her hand comes up and touches my face. Her fingertips are against my jaw, skimming the bruise on my cheekbone, the edge of my mouth, the place where my lip got split earlier. She traces it gently, and the gentleness of it undoes me more than I want her to know.
I turn my face and press a kiss into the center of her palm.
Her breath leaves her in a rush.
Then I look back up at her, and the part of me that knows how to take over clicks back into place.
“Come here,” I say quietly.
I give her half a second to refuse. She doesn’t.
Then I pull her onto my lap in one smooth motion, careful of my ribs, less careful with everything else.
Her thighs bracket mine. My shirt rides higher on her legs. Her hands land on my shoulders automatically, and I feel the exact moment she realizes how hard I am.
“Oh.”
There’s surprise in it. Heat. A little awe.
I drag my mouth slowly along her throat and feel her shiver. “This what you were trying to diagnose?” I murmur.
She makes a sound that goes straight through me.
“I hated watching it,” she whispers.
My hand tightens at her waist.
She shakes her head, breathing uneven. “That’s not true. I want to hate it. But watching you like that…” Her eyes drop to my mouth, then back. “It makes me crazy. Makes me want you in ways that aren’t sane.”
That lands somewhere deep and primitive.
Her fingers slide into my damp hair.
I kiss her deeper.
No hurry now. No mercy either.
One hand at her waist. The other at the back of her neck. Her body melts and then arches, opening under me in stages that feel both innocent and not at the same time.
She tastes like sparkling water and salt and the last of the afternoon.
I kiss her until her breathing goes ragged. Until she stops pretending she’s holding on for balance and starts clinging like she means it.
Then I ease back enough to look at her.
Her lips are flushed. Her eyes are dark. My shirt has slipped off one shoulder.
Beautiful. Undone. Looking at me like she wants to take care of me and let me ruin her a little.
I know what I want too.
I slide my hand under the hem of the shirt and up her spine, feeling every reaction. The tremor in her. The tightening of her stomach. The immediate tilt of her body toward mine.
I stand.
Pain flares sharp through my right side. Her eyes widen. I lift her anyway, and her thighs wrap around my hips.
Worth it.
“What are you doing?”
I hold her gaze. “You don’t get to call me your boyfriend,” I say, voice rough, “and then act surprised when I do something about it.”
Her mouth parts. Color spills down her throat.
“You were never getting brave patient behavior out of standing between my knees with your hands all over me, Flash.”
I carry her through the apartment like that, feeling her adjust against me, her arms sliding around my neck.
The bedroom is dim, the blackout shades drawn against the afternoon light. I set her on the edge of the platform bed and step back, and for a moment, we just look at each other.
When I reach for my shirt, she stops me. “Let me.”
Her fingers find the hem, careful, lifting slowly. When she pulls it over my head, she skims my shoulders and arms, reading what the day left behind—bruises, swelling, the ordinary damage of my life.
She looks at it with her nurse face first. Then with something much less safe.
I push her back onto the bed and kiss her until she’s shaking. My hand slides down her thigh, then back up, slow and possessive, learning the heat of her through too-thin fabric.
She arches into me before she can help it. That one small shift nearly finishes me.
“Easy,” I murmur, though I’m the last thing in this room that’s easy.
Her touch changes. Slower. Less assessment than claiming. And when she looks at me, something in her face lands harder than I’m ready for.
“You’re a mess, Leo.”
“I’ve been worse.”
She presses a hand to my chest and pushes gently until I give in and lie back.
Then she climbs over me with deliberate movements, careful of my ribs but fully there. The weight of her lands all at once.
“Liz—”
“I’m going to take care of you,” she says, and it sounds half promise, half threat. “And you’re going to let me.”
She kisses me, careful of my split lip. “Your ribs,” she breathes.
“Are fine.”
“Stay,” she says softly. “Let me.”
She eases off me and undresses slowly, never taking her eyes off mine. I watch all of it. She’s beautiful, deliberate, unguarded in ways that matter more than nakedness ever could—a woman who has learned to trust my hands and is starting to trust what lives behind them.
Then she strips me down with the same quiet certainty and settles over me again, skin to skin, and the last of my control slips.
“Fuck,” I rasp when I fill my palms with her breasts, gently stroking her hardened nipples.
She groans into my mouth, thighs tightening, rubbing herself over my length in a way that makes my whole body go hot and mean, her nails scraping against my scalp.
My hands lock on her hips, guiding the rhythm. When I take her nipple in my mouth, she arches and rocks against me, chasing friction. I’m too far gone to pretend any of this means something else.
“Leo—”
I look up.
Whatever she was holding back slips.
“Can I have you bare?” she whispers. “I’m safe. I’m on the pill. I just… need to feel you. Nothing between us.”
“Yeah?”
She nods.
“Christ.”
I drag her down into another kiss, rougher this time, because the sound of her asking for me like that takes the last piece of judgment with it.
“Do it,” I manage.
She lifts up, her hand wrapping around me, and the slow stroke nearly finishes me before we’ve started. Then she sinks down, and I have to brace hard not to lose it on the spot.
She sets a pace that favors my left side, hands braced on my shoulders, never looking away. She’s careful even now, and the fact of it hits somewhere I can’t afford to name.
I’ve never felt this good, or this gone.
It builds slowly. Deliberately. Neither of us rushing the edge. I feel every shift, every adjustment, every moment of her choosing to stay.
When she starts to tremble, I hold her hips and steady her, and she gasps my name like it’s the only word she knows.
“Leo—”
“That’s it, Liz. Let go. Let me see you.”
She comes with a cry, and I follow her over, the pleasure washing through me sharp and consuming, erasing the pain, erasing everything but her.
After, she stays where she is, sprawled across my left side, her fingers tracing patterns on my chest that avoid the worst of the bruising. The room is quiet, the light fading, and we both know this isn’t simple anymore.
“Your ribs,” she murmurs, half-asleep.
“Fine.”
“Liar.”
Her fingers keep moving.
I let them.
She’s right. But she’s here, so I don’t care.