Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Archie
Leo is not going to leave this alone.
I can see it in the set of his jaw during the Uber ride home. The way his eyes keep cutting to me when he thinks I’m not looking. The questions are piling up behind that ridiculously handsome face, and I know exactly what’s coming the moment we’re alone.
I try to head it off. I chatter at Elizabeth about the production, compare it to other versions, and launch into an anecdote about a disastrous school production of Macbeth I was once in. Elizabeth laughs. Leo makes appropriate noises.
But his hand finds mine in the dark of the back seat, and his grip is tight.
It’s determination along with affection.
Shit.
The moment our bedroom door closes behind us, I pivot to Plan B.
“So,” I say, turning to face him with my most distracting smile. “That was fun.”
“Archie—”
I step closer. “The play, I mean. All that death is actually very life-affirming, you know. Reminds us to seize the moment.”
“We need to talk about—”
“Do we though?” My hands land on his chest, sliding up to his shoulders. “I can think of better uses for our mouths.”
Leo gives me a stern look. “That’s not going to work.”
“What’s not going to work?” I’m already tugging at his collar, working the top button loose. “I’m just helping you undress. Very boyfriendly of me.”
“You’re trying to distract me,” he says.
I deposit a kiss on his neck, letting my lips linger on his skin.
His breath catches. Almost. I almost have him.
“Archie.” It’s his no-nonsense voice, sounding like it’s been dredged up from somewhere deep inside him.
This is the thing about Leo. He calls me out on my shit.
I don’t think I’ve ever had someone who will stand up to me quite like Leo does.
I stop kissing him and step back, letting my hands fall to my sides.
“Can we just leave it?” I ask. Apparently, I’ve advanced to Plan C now: pleading.
His gaze locks onto mine.
“No. We can’t.”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket.
“Oh, come on—”
But he’s already typing.
I don’t try to stop him. What’s the point? Google exists. My past exists. The information is out there. It’s always been out there. I’ve just gotten very good over the past year at making sure no one thinks to look.
I flop down on the bed and stare at the ceiling. I might as well get comfortable. This is going to take a while.
Silence. Then more silence. Then the particular quality of silence that means he’s found the Wikipedia page for Archibald Mansley.
A choked sound comes from him.
“You won a Rhodes Scholarship when you were eighteen?”
“Well, if it’s on my Wikipedia page, it must be true,” I say, sneaking a look at him.
Leo’s face goes through about six different expressions and lands on something between awe and shock as he continues to scroll.
“It says here you were the youngest winner in fifty years. And you were offered a professorship at Oxford when you finished your second doctorate.” He looks up. “You turned it down.”
“The robes are unflattering.”
He lowers the phone slowly and sits on the edge of the bed. He continues to stare at me like I’m a stranger who’s wandered into the room wearing a familiar face.
He’s not going to give me an easy out. I doubt Leo Brennan has ever given anyone an easy out in his life.
“Why the hell do you keep that part of yourself hidden?” he asks.
I try not to flinch at the question.
“Does it change how you see me?” I counter.
“What do you mean?”
“Does knowing I’m a genius change how you see me? Do you regard me differently now that you know?”
“You’re deflecting,” he says.
“It’s a legitimate question,” I reply. “What’s your answer? Does it change your opinion of me?”
He doesn’t answer immediately, which is answer enough.
I sit up, suddenly tired of being horizontal for this conversation. Then I lever myself to standing because if we’re discussing this, I’m not doing it flat on my back like a patient receiving bad news.
“That’s what I thought,” I say to Leo.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I’m trying to understand you, Archie. That’s all I want.”
His words cut at me.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to understand me?”
His dark eyes pin me. “Why? Because you’re the most fascinating, contradictory, irritating, infuriating person I’ve ever met,” he growls. “Because every time I think I’ve figured you out, you reveal another layer I didn’t know existed.”
He’s closer now. When did he get closer? His thigh is pressed against mine, his hand fisting in the front of my shirt.
“Because you make me laugh and you drive me insane, and I don’t know which one I like more.”
And then he’s kissing me like it’s just an extension of our conversation, his tongue sliding into my mouth to tangle with mine.
It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s not a question. It’s the verbal equivalent of everything he just said—frustration, demand, and slight fury—channeled directly into my mouth.
I should push him away. I should use this interruption to redirect, deflect, crack a joke about his technique, hobble to the bathroom on my crutches to regroup.
Instead, I grab his shirt and haul him closer.
Because if Leo Brennan thinks he can crack me open with a speech and then kiss me like he’s won something, he’s got another think coming.
I bite his lower lip. Hard enough to sting. Hard enough to say “I’m still here and I’m not surrendering.”
Leo growls against my mouth.
Good.
I fist my hand in the front of his shirt and yank, and buttons scatter. I’ll apologize for the shirt later. Or I won’t. It’s an ugly shirt.
“That was expensive,” he says against my mouth.
“Bill me.”
His hands find my waist, steadying me as I wobble on my good leg because one of the many indignities of a broken ankle is that you can’t be shoved passionately against walls. You have to be carefully maneuvered to the nearest horizontal surface like fragile cargo.
Very sexy. Very romantic.
Leo seems to reach the same conclusion because he guides me backward toward the bed, one arm tight around my waist, taking most of my weight, the other hand cradling the back of my head.
It’s infuriatingly considerate. Even in the middle of whatever this is—a fight, a seduction, a negotiation—he’s making sure I don’t stumble.
“I can manage,” I say against his mouth.
“You have a broken ankle.”
“Which has never stopped me from anything.”
The backs of my knees hit the mattress and I sit down hard, which isn’t ideal for dignity but does put me at an interesting height relative to Leo’s belt buckle.
I reach for it.
“Archie—”
“What? You wanted answers. I’m giving you answers.” My fingers make quick work of the leather. “Just not the ones you asked for.”
“That’s not—”
I pull him free and take him into my mouth without preamble.
The sound he makes is deeply gratifying.
But Leo doesn’t do what other people do. Other people grip my hair and lose themselves. Other people let me run the show.
Leo pulls back. Cups my jaw. Tilts my face up to look at him.
“No,” he says.
“No?”
“Not like that. Not as a deflection.”
“It isn’t a deflection. It’s a blowjob. There’s a difference.”
“Not with you there isn’t.”
The accuracy of that statement is offensive.
He eases me back onto the bed, careful of my ankle in a way that makes me want to scream, and kisses me again.
There’s something almost angry about it.
Not at me, exactly. At the situation. At the fact that I won’t give him what he actually wants, so we’re here instead, trying to communicate through the only language I’ll let us speak tonight.
I pull him down on top of me because I need the weight of him, the solidness.
I need something to push against. My shirt disappears.
His ruined one joins it. His hands are everywhere, on my chest, my ribs, the waistband of my pants, and I’m arching into him, trying to set a pace he won’t let me set.
The cast is a problem. It’s always a problem. I can wrap both legs around him, but I still can’t get the leverage I want, and the frustration of it feeds directly into the energy between us.
“Stop treating me like I’m fragile,” I say.
“Stop pretending your ankle doesn’t exist.”
“It’s just an ankle.”
He shifts my cast onto a pillow with the practiced ease of someone who’s been managing my injury for weeks. Even now. Even in the middle of this. He’s taking care of me without asking permission.
I hate how much I don’t hate it.
My pants are gone. His too. I hook my good leg around his hip and pull him against me.
“I want to ride you,” I say.
Leo’s gaze drops to my cast. “We’ve had this conversation. Every time.”
“And every time you’ve given in. Consistency is a virtue, Leo.”
“Archie.”
“Wasn’t a suggestion.”
He gives me a look—half exasperation, half something darker—but he lets me push him onto his back. I straddle him, bad ankle carefully positioned to the side, and reach for the lube on the nightstand.
This is better. I’m in control up here. I can set the pace, the angle, the terms of engagement.
I prep myself while Leo watches, his hands gripping my thighs, and his expression does something complicated that I refuse to interpret.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re taking notes.”
“I’m always taking notes.”
“Well, stop it. This is sex, not a board meeting.”
“My board meetings are nothing like this.”
“I should hope not.” I sink down on him, and we both groan. “Although it would certainly liven up the quarterly projections.”
“Are you going to keep talking?”
“Have you met me?”
He thrusts up, and I lose my train of thought for a second.
Only a second.
“Rude,” I manage. “I was making a point.”
“Your point is noted.” He does it again, harder, and the smirk on his face tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing.
This is what it’s like with Leo. Every move met with a countermove. I set the pace, and he changes the angle. I try to take him apart, and he rearranges the pieces into something I don’t expect.
I grind down, slow and deliberate, and watch his composure fracture. His head tips back, exposing the line of his throat.
I lean forward and bite the tendon in his neck.
His hands fly to my hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.
“Careful,” he says roughly.
“Where’s the fun in careful?”
He sits up without warning, one arm banding around my waist, and suddenly, we’re face to face, chest to chest, and the new angle drives him deeper.
“Oh—” I clutch at his shoulders. “That’s cheating.”
“It’s strategy.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Only if you’re losing.”
I am. I’m losing. Leo’s found a rhythm that makes my vision blur and his mouth is on my neck, my collarbone, anywhere he can reach. His hands are holding me exactly where he wants me, and I’m supposed to be in charge here, but I can’t remember why that mattered.
But if I’m going down, I’m taking him with me.
I clench around him deliberately. His breath punches out against my shoulder.
“Archie—”
“That’s my name.” I do it again. “Don’t wear it out.”
He retaliates. His hand wraps around my cock and strokes, matching his rhythm, and for a moment, we’re locked in a mutual arms race of sensation where neither of us can gain ground because we’re too busy trying to destroy each other.
“Come on,” I gasp. “Is that all you’ve got?”
His eyes narrow.
In one fluid motion, he lifts me off him and lays me on my back. Before I can protest, he’s repositioned my cast on the pillow, hooked my good leg over his shoulder, and driven back into me at an angle that makes me see entire constellations.
The efficiency is devastating, but it shouldn’t be sexy.
It is indecently sexy.
“Still talking?” he asks, breathless.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out except a sound that I will deny making under oath.
He drives into me, and my head tips back as my hand flies to his arm. I can feel the muscles working under his skin. His rhythm is hard, fast, relentless, and his hand is still on me, and I can’t—
There’s too much happening at once, his fingers tightening around me, the weight of him driving me into the mattress, and I’m making sounds I can’t control, sounds that bounce off the walls of this room, and I don’t care, I don’t care—
My hands grip the sheets, his shoulders, anything I can reach. The cast thumps against the pillow with every thrust, which should be ridiculous, but I’m too far gone to care.
“Leo— I can’t— I’m—”
It hits me like a wall. My spine arches off the bed, my vision whites out, and for a few seconds, there is nothing in the world except Leo’s hand and Leo’s body and the sound of my own voice saying something that might be his name.
He follows immediately, shuddering, his forehead dropping against mine.
Not because he won. We both detonated at roughly the same time. I just happened to have hit the fuse a fraction earlier than Leo. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
We lie there, breathing hard. My good leg has slid down from his shoulder at some point and is now draped over his thigh. His hand is in my hair. Neither of us moves to disentangle.
“That didn’t answer my question,” he says eventually. His voice is hoarse.
“It answered several of your questions. Just not the ones you wanted.”
There’s a huff of laughter against my collarbone.
We’re quiet for a moment. The ceiling is very interesting all of a sudden.
“Nine point eight,” I say.
He lifts his head. “Nine point eight?”
“Lost point two for the shirt. That was good fabric.”
“You’re the one who ripped it.”
“Under provocation.”
He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. The one that makes his eyes go warm and does something reckless to my pulse.
I’ve never had anyone who could keep up with me before.
Not like this. Not someone who meets every escalation with an equal and opposite force. Who doesn’t let me win just because I’m louder. Who doesn’t back down, or give in, or decide I’m too much work.
Every other person I’ve been with has either let me steamroll them or tried to slow me down. Leo does neither. Leo matches the pace and raises it.
And he does it while repositioning my cast on a pillow, without breaking stride.
I don’t know what to do with someone like that.
I also don’t know what it means that instead of feeling unsettled, I feel exhilarated. Like I’ve been sparring with amateurs my whole life and have just met someone who fights in the same weight class.
“Rematch tomorrow?” I offer.
“You’re insatiable.”
“Competitive,” I correct. “There’s a difference.”
His thumb skims my hipbone. “Is there?”
I don’t answer that. Some questions are better left alone.
Especially when the answer might reveal more than I’m ready to give.