38
T he car smells of food from the containers of leftovers Diane insisted we bring along as we drive home. One of the dogs yawns in the back of the car, and shortly thereafter, I do, too. It’s nearing 10:00 p.m., but I don’t want the night to end. Not yet. Not when he looked at me the way he did in the barn.
Leo’s fingers tighten on mine when we pull into the courtyard behind his place.
“Good birthday?” he asks, turning to me.
“Best ever.” My thumb strokes the back of his hand.
“I think I’m going to have to work on raising your standards. I barely did anything.” A small smile tugs at his lips as he opens his car door. “Let’s get these guys inside.” He indicates the dogs in the back.
Is that truly how he feels? Like he didn’t do enough for me tonight? I join him in the back and gather my leashes, but then the urge to set him straight is too strong. I grab hold of his sleeve to bring us both to a stop. He looks down at me, his eyes immediately going tender.
“You thought of me,” I tell him, adding weight to my words. “You remembered it was my birthday when I hadn’t even told you directly.” I look down at where our hands have found each other. “You always remember.” I bring his hand to my lips. “I need you to understand how amazing that felt.”
After a beat, he simply nods, placing his hands on either side of my face and pressing his lips to mine. It’s a soft kiss and over too quickly with the dogs tugging around our legs.
“I’ll walk you home,” he says. “Come on.”
We’re slow-moving on account of Boris, but eventually we reach my door where he holds all four pups at bay while I unlock it. My time is running out. How to know if he’s thinking what I’m thinking?
“Are you tired?” I ask. “It’s only ten o’clock. Do you want to have some tea?” The words spill out of me in a rush that I’m sure gives my state of mind away, but he doesn’t bat a single lash.
“I’ve got cookies in the car,” he says in that low, sexy voice of his. “From Dawn. If you don’t mind coming back to, um, my place.”
Thank God he’s smooth like that. “Let me bring the dogs upstairs, and I’ll be right back.” I don’t wait for his response before I head inside and rush through evening procedures. Cholula paces behind me when I put up the gate, hopeful, but she sits when I tell her to. “No more play for you tonight, girl.” I reach over the barrier to scratch her ears. “You’re going to be good?” She yawns, and I take that as a yes.
Leo is pacing outside when I open the door. “Ready?” he asks.
As ready as I’ll ever be.
Inside his door, he takes my coat before disposing of his own. “Make yourself at home,” he says, moving deeper into the apartment.
I follow him, the angles and shapes of his space now familiar rather than forbidden. “It smells good in here. I’m trying to figure out what it is.”
“Food from the restaurant next door.” He sets the bags of leftovers on the counter and starts rearranging the fridge.
I step up to his kitchen table and lean against it. “That’s what it is. I couldn’t place it last time, either. You know, I used to picture you living in a fancy magazine spread—cold, sterile, immaculate. It’s nice to have been proven wrong.”
He closes the fridge. “That’s interesting.”
“What is?”
“You, picturing where I live.” He stalks a few steps closer to me.
“I’m sure you did the same.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Can I get you some tea?” He gestures toward the counter without looking away.
I push off the table and meet him in the middle of the floor. “That was the plan, right?” My palms come to rest on his chest, his heartbeat reverberating underneath his shirt. It’s solid and urgent, matching mine.
“Plans change,” he murmurs, running his fingers up my sides.
The muscles beneath my skin ripple in response. I let out a sharp breath. “Yeah? What are you gonna do? Throw me up against the wall and ravage me?” It’s meant to be funny, a tongue-in-cheek nod to the other day in the barn, but even I hear the need in my voice.
He steps up close, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, a sultry continuous contact that makes my whole body vibrate with anticipation. I cling to him as his caress moves to my neck. “Do you want me to?” he whispers, placing a kiss just beneath my earlobe before pulling back to look at me.
His dark pupils probe for an answer, and all I can do is nod before he lifts me up and carries me the few steps to the doorway leading to his bedroom. With my back to the wide doorjamb, I lock my legs tighter around him as he presses closer. He’s hard, and the knowledge that I’m the reason makes me grip the fabric of his shirt tighter.
“Like this?” he asks, kissing his way up my neck. One of his hands slides lower to grip my ass.
“I don’t know… that I… feel ravaged enough… yet,” I pant, urging his mouth to mine.
He grinds his hips into me. Our mouths hover open against each other as if neither one of us knows how to get close enough. His breath is damp and hot. Demanding in the best way.
Leo lets out a low growl and spins me away from the wall and into the bedroom. A moment’s freefall and my back hits the sheets. I yank the bottom of his shirt out of his pants and push it up. He understands and sits back, tugging it over his head, and there it is, my favorite torso.
“I have a request,” I say, unbuttoning my jeans and shimmying them down my hips.
“Anything.” His gaze widens at the sight of my lace panties. “Oh, those are nice.” His hand sweeps across the fabric, which makes my hips buck up involuntarily.
“Will you flex for me?”
He stills, a sputtered little laugh interrupting his admiration for my undergarments. “Flex? As in…? He bends his arm, making his biceps and triceps dance.
“Mm, but like both.” I pull off my top and lean back on my elbows. “All of it.”
“Like this?” He steps off the bed and proceeds to do his best impression of Schwarzenegger, posing this way and that. His pecs swell, and his six-pack tightens in a way that makes my fingertips—and other places—tingle.
“God, yeah.” Dear Lord, he is a specimen of rare caliber.
“This does it for you?” he asks, turning his back to me to display his back muscles. “I’m not even that built.” He looks at me over his shapely shoulder, and I can’t help myself. My hand trails down across my stomach and between my legs to where I most want him.
His eyes pop open wide, and he’s on me a second later, pinning my arms above my head. “Oh no, you don’t.”
I laugh when he nibbles my neck. “But you make me so hot.”
He rolls me on top of him, unsnaps my bra, and rolls us again. I want to touch him, but by some kind of sorcery, he still has my arms locked in place.
“Good,” he says with a quick glance up before he takes one of my nipples in his mouth.
My shoulders rise off the bed toward him at the deep thrill caused by his deft tongue. Finally, he releases my arms so I can touch him, too, and I bury my fingers in his hair as he kisses wet trails across my chest.
“I don’t know why you’re always hiding beneath oversized sweaters,” he says, his palms dragging down my sides to my hips where his fingers hook around the lacy waistline of my panties. “You should be naked all the time.” He crawls down the length of my body, baring me completely.
“You’d like that.” My eyelids half-close in delirium at what will come next.
He pulls down his pants and boxers in one go and reaches into the nightstand for a condom. I watch him roll it on, and the way he palms his rigid length makes my insides clench.
I beckon for him, and he obliges, but instead of blanketing me with his fine body, he rolls me onto my side and slides up behind me. It’s a new sensation, how the fine hairs on his chest tickle my back, how his hardness presses into my butt cheek, how his hand now reaches everywhere…
I turn my head as far as I can to allow for a kiss, and as our tongues dance, he rakes his nails down my chest, all the way past my ribs, my navel, and lower. He uses one finger to part me, and when it sinks in deep, I push back against him with a small yelp.
He holds still, his lips skimming my shoulder. “You good?” he whispers.
Good is an understatement. I feel like I’ll blow if he so much as exhales too hard. Heck, maybe I’ll go for it. “Give me more,” I say, moving my hips a little.
He’s quick to oblige, adding another finger, and now I couldn’t stay still if my life depended on it. The position we’re in has the flat of his hand pressed up against my entire sex so when he starts working his fingers, every last sensitive nerve ending joins in a chorus of pure elation. I come hard and fast, my hips quaking beneath his grip, and all the while he whispers encouragement against my neck—how sexy I am, how beautiful, how hard I make him. I’m ready for more before the first orgasm has completely subsided.
“I want you,” I pant. “Come here.”
I don’t have to ask him twice.