Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
JUNIE
They raided the picnic basket after the pools—Dahlia’s pastries and thermoses of coffee from Gilly’s, the café on Main Street that brewed the best espresso in three counties.
The pastries were still fresh despite the hour, charmed to stay that way, and Junie groaned at the first bite of a chocolate croissant.
“Dahlia’s going to kill me when she finds out I shared these with you,” she said around a mouthful. “She made them specifically for girls’ night, and I stole half the batch.”
“I’ll take the blame.”
“You’ll have to. She won’t believe me.” Junie licked chocolate from her fingers, only realizing belatedly that Leo was watching her with an intensity that had nothing to do with pastries. “What?”
“Nothing.” His voice was rougher than it had been. “Watching you.”
“Watching me eat? That’s weird.”
“You’re not eating. You’re…” He gestured vaguely. “Enjoying. With your whole body. Like the croissant is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“I mean, it’s a phenomenal croissant.” But her skin was heating under his gaze, her body responding to the want she could see in his expression.
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
“Doing what?” He sounded genuinely unconcerned.
“Looking at me like that. Like you’re memorizing something.”
His gaze didn’t move. “I am.”
“That’s—” She stopped. There was no good end to that sentence.
The air between them had shifted, the easy camaraderie of the tide pools transforming into tension of a different kind.
Junie was suddenly, acutely aware of everything: the moonlight on his face, the breadth of his shoulders, the way his rolled-up sleeves revealed forearms that did things to her rational brain.
“Make a wish,” she said abruptly.
He blinked. “What?”
“The pools. You’re supposed to make a wish at midnight under a full moon. It’s tradition.” She pointed at the largest pool, the one they hadn’t visited yet. “The Wishing Pool. Most powerful one here.”
“I don’t wish.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “I plan.”
“God, you’re exhausting.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the pool. “One wish. It won’t kill you.”
He let her drag him to the water’s edge. The Wishing Pool was deep, its surface still as glass, reflecting the moon like a perfect mirror. Magic hummed around it, ancient and patient.
“How does it work?” Leo asked.
“You hold a wish in your mind. Clear and specific. Then you speak it out loud. The pool listens.” Junie squeezed his hand. “It doesn’t grant wishes. Not exactly. But it creates momentum. Like the universe takes note and starts arranging things.”
“That’s incredibly vague.”
“That’s magic for you.” She released his hand and stepped back. “Go on. Wish.”
Leo stared at the pool. At the moon reflected in its depths. At Junie, watching him with expectation and challenge in her expression.
“You first,” he said.
“Fine. Coward.” But she was smiling as she turned to face the water.
Junie closed her eyes. She had a thousand wishes she could make—her magic stabilizing, her grandmother’s book returned, Victor Sable falling into a very deep hole. But standing here, with Leo at her back and the moon silver overhead, only one wish felt right.
“I wish,” she said clearly, “to stop being afraid of wanting things I might lose.”
The pool rippled. A single pulse of light, there and gone.
She turned to Leo. “Your turn.”
He stepped forward. Stood at the water’s edge, shoulders squared like he was facing a business negotiation. Then his posture softened, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet.
“I wish,” he said, “to be worthy of what I’ve found.”
The pool flared brighter this time—gold and silver intertwined, spiraling up from the depths before fading back to stillness.
“See?” Junie slipped her hand into his. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“It was terrifying.” But he was smiling. “I never make wishes. I make strategies.”
“Strategies are wishes with spreadsheets.”
“That’s reductive.”
“That’s accurate.” She tugged him away from the pool, back toward the blanket where the remnants of their picnic waited. “Now. More pastries. And you’re going to tell me about your childhood.”
“My childhood was—”
“Complicated, I know. So was mine. Spill.”
They talked for hours.
Not about the investigation, or Victor, or the uncertain future stretching before them.
Instead, they excavated the small, intimate details that built a person: favorite foods (his: properly made risotto; hers: anything Dahlia baked), childhood memories (his: learning to shift with his grandfather; hers: making mud potions in the backyard), secret fears (his: becoming his father; hers: already covered that one).
He turned to look at her, the moonlight on his face.
His hand found hers. “I want you, Junie. Not because my lion recognized you. Because I chose to see you, and once I did, I couldn’t look away.”
She kissed him.
It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t calculated. One moment, she was sitting beside him, pulse pounding with the enormity of what he’d said, and the next, she was in his lap, her hands fisting in his shirt, her mouth finding his with desperate certainty.
He responded instantly. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer, and the kiss deepened into raw and urgent. She could taste coffee and chocolate on his tongue, feel the rumble of his groan against her.
“Junie.” Her name was a rough exhale against her lips. “We should—”
“Don’t you dare say we should stop.”
“I wasn’t going to.” His hands slid up her back, fingers tangling in her hair. “I was going to say we should go somewhere more comfortable.”
She pulled back enough to meet his gaze. His pupils were blown wide, his breathing ragged, his usual control nowhere in evidence.
“The inn is a fifteen-minute walk,” she said.
“We can make it in ten.”
They barely made it in ten.
The walk back was a blur of tangled hands and stolen kisses, stumbling on the path because neither of them wanted to stop touching long enough to watch where they were going.
Leo’s arm stayed around her waist, heavy and possessive, and every time they paused—to navigate a steep section, to let a night creature scurry past—he pressed her against the nearest tree and kissed her until she forgot her own name.
The inn was quiet when they arrived, the lobby dark except for the witch-light sconces that burned perpetually low. Junie was dimly aware of Avine’s door being firmly closed—the innkeeper tactfully absent—as they climbed the stairs.
They reached Leo’s room. He fumbled with the key, distracted by Junie’s lips on his neck, and she felt a surge of triumph at having cracked his famous composure.
The door opened. They stumbled inside.
“Are you sure?” Leo asked, his forehead pressed against hers. “After everything—the attack, the talk, if this is too fast—”
“Leo.” She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I have never been more sure of anything in my life. Stop planning. Stop asking if I’m okay. I’m telling you what I want.” She kissed him softly. “I want you.”
His control snapped.
He lifted her like she weighed nothing, carrying her to the bed without breaking the kiss. Her back hit the mattress, and then he was above her, bracketing her body with his arms, looking down at her with an expression that was equal parts reverence and hunger.
“Tell me if you want to stop,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Leo.” She pulled him down to her. “Stop talking.”
He stopped talking.
They lay on the bed, hands exploring, clothes slowly disappearing into the darkness.
The moonlight through the window painted silver stripes across his skin as she pushed his shirt from his shoulders.
She traced the new scars on his ribs, the bite mark on his shoulder, the evidence of the fight he’d survived.
“These don’t bother you?” he asked, watching her face.
“These are proof you came back to me.” She pressed a kiss to the scar on his ribs. “These are beautiful.”
He made a sound—half-groan, half-laugh—and rolled them so she straddled his hips. His hands found the hem of her shirt, pausing there.
“Can I?”
“Yes.”
He pulled the fabric over her head, and Junie felt a flash of vulnerability—being seen, being known, all the things that terrified her. But then Leo was looking at her like she was the most incredible thing he’d ever witnessed, and the fear dissolved.
“You’re beautiful,” he said quietly.
“You’re biased.”
“Probably.” His hands traced up her sides, gentle but sure. “I don’t care.”
Junie leaned down to kiss him, her hair falling around them like a curtain. The kiss was slower, deeper, a conversation conducted in touch and breath. His hands mapped her body with patient intensity, learning her responses, cataloging every sound she made.
When they broke apart, both breathing hard, she could see the restraint costing him. The controlled businessman fighting with the predator underneath.
“We have all night,” she reminded him.
“I know.” His hands flexed on her hips. “I’m trying to make this last.”
“Don’t.”
His gaze darkened. “Don’t?”
“Don’t hold back.” She pressed her hips down, watching his jaw clench. “I don’t want controlled. I don’t want careful. I want you.”
The predator won.
He flipped them again, pinning her beneath him, and this time there was nothing gentle about it.
This was hunger and heat and too many days of denied wanting finally given permission to exist. Junie arched into him, meeting his intensity with her own, and when his mouth found the curve of her neck, she stopped thinking entirely.
“Junie.” Her name was a growl against her skin.
“Yes?”
“Stop me if—”
“I won’t.” She pulled his mouth back to hers. “I trust you.”
Those three words broke open the last barrier between them.
The talking stopped.
And the night finally, properly began.