Chapter 19 #2
Italian food wasn’t my forte, so I’d triple-checked with them at the restaurant that they’d gotten his order right. I would hate for the place to “accidentally” burn down by a grease fire because the ravioli got soggy.
Since I had to work the night at the club and he was returning to the hospital tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to see him as often as I wanted.
He had all-day shifts, which meant our times of availability would clash.
I didn’t dare sneak away from the club anymore in case some other shit went down during my absence.
The place was quiet since the nurse overdosed, but it felt more like a calm before the storm sort of thing.
I picked up my phone to text Leo that I was there, but then I looked at the paper bags and had an idea. If I showed up at the door, he wouldn’t really make me return to the truck for us to eat, would he? He couldn’t be that cold.
I grabbed the bags in my right hand and carried the wine in my left.
At his front door, I stopped to stare at the doorbell.
Fucking idiot. Why hadn’t I bought him flowers or chocolates or something?
Did older people do that when they liked someone, or had I watched too many shows with Nik?
Leo didn’t seem like the type of man who would want flowers.
He had none around. Or maybe he didn’t because no one gave them to him.
The front door opened, and Leo appeared, dressed in a pair of loose cream linen pants, a blue shirt half tucked inside, but which looked deliberate, and a pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his sharp nose. His hair was tousled and shiny like he’d washed it and used conditioner or something.
God, I want to kiss him.
His brows furrowed. “Why didn’t you ring the doorbell? You’re standing out here like you’re having second thoughts.”
“No, no second thoughts.” The light behind him shone through his pants, and my throat went dry. He was going commando. I could make out the imprint of his dick behind the linen, and he wasn’t exactly flaccid either.
“Leo—”
“Hmm?”
“Are you deliberately turning me on?” I dragged my gaze back up to his. “Because it’s fucking working. If you don’t step back, our food’s gonna be on the floor, and I’m going to be on my knees sucking you off and not giving a damn that the neighbor across the street will get to see everything.”
Instead of moving back, Leo took a step forward until we were so close I could smell his minty breath. It made me want to cup my hand to breathe in it and smell if mine was up to par, but I didn’t.
Leo ran his nose across my cheek. “Be good, dollface,” he purred in my ear, and the rumbling in my stomach wasn’t a hunger for food but other things—carnal things. “I’ll punish you if you drop the food. I’m really hungry tonight.”
I didn’t get the feeling he was talking about just food. I closed my eyes and hung on to the handles of the paper bags for dear life. The way he was sniffing me, lips trailing along the side of my neck—
“What is that smell?” Leo’s displeased tone dragged me out of my trance. He leaned in again, closer this time, inhaling along the front of my shirt before stepping back, his lips tight and eyes boring holes through me. “You don’t smell like you.”
“Huh?” I was still trying to catch up, my thoughts lagging where my body had already gone. For a second, he was flirting with me, and the next, he was looking at me as if he wanted to murder me.
“You were with someone before you came to me. You reek of them.”
His tone was thick with disgust as if I’d been contaminated and he couldn’t stand the thought of having me touch him.
“What? No—I—”
Jess.
Fuck.
Jess had hugged me, but that couldn’t be what Leo meant. He sounded jealous. Angry. But he wasn’t the jealous type. Was he?
“She’s just a friend,” I blurted out. “Well, not exactly, but—”
“I suggest you decide which version of the truth you’re offering before you speak again.” Then the door slammed in my face.
I blinked rapidly. What the fuck just happened? I rang the doorbell.
“Leo! Leo, it’s not what you think. She’s already in a relationship with two of my friends. I swear it was nothing.”
Still no movement.
What the actual fuck? I stared at the keypad and contemplated unlocking the door myself, but I didn’t want to force my way into his home anymore. I wanted to enter because I was invited, dammit.
“Leo, I swear she’s my friends’ girlfriend.”
Ah, fuck it.
Just when I was about to reach for the keypad, the door opened. I breathed in a sigh of relief. “Why do you smell like your friends’ girlfriend?”
“I visited them before I came here, that’s all, and we talked for a bit. I’ve been pouring all my energy into pursuing you.” I didn’t bother to hide the hurt panic in my tone. “Trust me. There’s no one else I’m fucking with. You have to believe me.”
He stared at me as if weighing my words against my reaction.
Finally, he nodded. “I believe you, but get this, Sergei. If you sleep with anyone else, it’s because I decide to share you, so don’t get any ideas if you’re really serious about me.
” He reached for the bags and took them out of my hand, including the wine.
“Thanks for dinner, but I still don’t like the smell of her on you.
I’d suggest a shower from head to toe, and don’t bother putting those in the laundry. Just burn it all. Have a good evening.”
For the second time that evening, he closed the door in my face. I just stood there, staring at the closed door as if I could still see him through it. His words replayed in my head, slower this time. More deliberate.
If you sleep with anyone else, it’s because I decide to share you.
A slow grin tugged at my mouth before I could stop it.
He was jealous.
Leo Cavanagh—controlled, distant, impossible to read—had just all but staked a claim on me.
The man who barely let anyone close enough to touch him had admitted, in his own twisted, careful way, that he didn’t like the idea of me being with anyone else.
It was the most honest he’d been about what we were to each other since I started stalking—no, dating—him.
Did this count as dating? Eating dinner in my truck in his driveway and getting his door slammed in my face for bringing him dinner?
Yup… I could work with that.
At least he’d said thanks for dinner.
I exhaled, some of the tension leaving my shoulders, even if the disappointment still lingered beneath it that I wasn’t spending the evening with him. I pulled my shirt up to my nose and inhaled. There it was. Jess’s cucumber-rose-scented soap—body spray or whatever the hell it was.
I turned on my heel and headed back toward my truck, the evening air cooler than I’d anticipated. For now, I’d take the little crumbs Leo offered me in his version of what was happening between us.
Because Leo wasn’t running, and if Leo wasn’t running, I was winning. The grin stayed on my face the entire drive to the club.