Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
LEO
“You did it!” Sal clinked a glass with Leo at the bar. The atmosphere was festive and joyful, but Leo was still apprehensive. “I have to admit, I never thought you’d pull this off when you got cut off.”
Leo shook his head. “We have the money, yes. But we still don’t know about the land. We shouldn’t celebrate yet.”
Sal leaned over the bar. “Do you really think your mom is going to go on record saying she doesn’t think the children of the village deserve a playground?”
Leo took a sip of his beer. “I don’t know. She’s capable of a lot of things I never thought.”
“Get your negativity out of here,” Sal said with a wag of his finger. “We’re manifesting.”
“I don’t put much stock in manifestation,” Leo muttered.
Sal rattled the ice in his glass. “That’s because you’re a fool. Like you’re a fool for not telling Emma you want a relationship.”
“Shh,” Leo said, then shot a glance over his shoulder. Emma sat in a booth with her mom and Arizona, laughing and clinking together glasses of Santa’s Revenge.
“You need to have this conversation. Doesn’t she leave tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Then put your big boy britches on and go talk to her.”
“Fine.”
His heart was galloping as he crossed the crowded bar. Everything was teetering on a precipice—the project, his career, his relationship with Emma. He was unmoored, anchorless. But Emma was a lighthouse in the shitstorm of his life. And she would still believe in him, even if he let everyone down.
She didn’t care that he was a prince. She didn’t even care that he was the worst kind of prince with no real job and virtually no money. Emma took him as he was, warts and all.
“There he is,” Lisa said as he approached. “Congratulations, Your Highness.”
“Let’s not celebrate too early,” he said with a grim smile. “Emma, can we have a chat?”
“Of course,” she said. “You’re okay?” she asked her mom before she got out of the booth.
“We’re great.” Lisa gestured to Arizona, who was wearing a new Christmas tree collar donated by a local pet store owner.
When Emma stood, Sal slid into the booth and started asking Lisa about gardenias. He and Cal had a garden every spring.
Leo closed his hand around Emma’s, and he led her out into the wintry streets. It was late. The booths were vacant, ready to be moved back to storage the following day. And Emma was leaving in a matter of hours.
“You’re quiet,” she said with a nudge. “More quiet than usual, I mean.”
“I’m trying to figure out how to say this. I’m not…good at talking about my feelings.”
They pulled to a stop under a streetlight and faced each other.
“Really? Your mom wasn’t a founding member of the gentle parenting movement?” she said with a smile. “Sorry. Not everything needs a joke. I’m just nervous. Talk to me.”
He took a breath and was silent for a moment. “I know you live thousands of miles away.”
“Right.”
“And your family and work and whole life are in New York,” he said.
She nodded.
“I think you’re amazing. Strong, resilient, ridiculously talented. You deserve to have everything you’ve always dreamed of. I don’t want to destroy the plan you’ve been working toward your entire life. But I think losing you forever would kill me.”
She bit her lip and reached over to take his hand.
“I don’t want to lose you either, Leo. I’m having crazy strong feelings for you.
You stood up for me even when it cost you everything.
I’ve never seen anyone love something the way you love this country.
It’s even made me question some things about my own life…
” She was quiet for a moment, then snapped back to attention.
“But I don’t know how to rectify these two realities.
We live in different countries. I have my mom and my plan to worry about, and our apartment and—you’re a prince, Leo. ”
“Barely,” he said.
The words were on the tip of his tongue. He loved her. He had known it for a while now. But if he said it too soon, it could scare her away for good.
He reached over and touched a strand of her hair. “These weeks that I’ve spent with you have completely changed my life. I don’t want to date anyone else. I want you in my life forever.”
She averted her gaze. There was another long pause. “What if my dad uses me to hurt you?”
A pang hit his heart. “I don’t care about your dad, Emma. Your family doesn’t define you. I’ll find a way to keep you safe from him.”
But what was he going to do from thousands of miles away? Buy her a doorbell camera when he got his first paycheck from the zoo? If they even hired him.
“So then what?” Emma asked. “We date long distance? That never works out.”
Leo sighed and stared off into the distance.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when I get a real job.
Maybe I’ll find something that requires travel to America,” he said.
“I don’t want to let you go, but I’ve also never had fewer resources.
I can’t even afford to give you what you deserve. ”
Her hand closed over his. “I don’t care what you have to ‘offer.’ This isn’t the eighteen hundreds. It’s not like I have a dowry full of gold pigeons waiting for you either.”
“Gold pigeons? Is that an American thing?”
“No, it’s—never mind.” She huffed, visibly frustrated.
They were at an impasse. Again.
“Long distance is better than nothing,” he said. “Maybe we could meet in the middle.”
“Where, on a random island in the middle of the Atlantic?” she raised an eyebrow. “I just don’t know that long distance is going to be enough for me, Leo,” she said. “I want all of you, not just a couple texts a day and visits twice a year. That’s not a partnership.”
“Try. Please. For me,” he said. His grip on her hand was ironlike. “I can’t watch you get on that train tomorrow and disappear from my life forever.”
She was biting her lip again and seemed to be considering. Instead of answering, she threw herself at him and kissed him hard. There was a desperation in it.
“Is that a yes, or a goodbye?” he asked when she pulled back.
She put a hand on his cheek. “It’s a ‘we’ll try.’”
Relief flooded his body. No matter what happened with her job or his project, at least they had each other.
“I’ll take it,” he said. He dove back into the kiss, burying a hand in her hair. His heart was still beating too fast.
He would show her what a lifetime with him could look like.
The moon was high when he pulled back and grabbed her hand. He tugged her down the street toward his new apartment, his insides a tangled mess of desire, yearning, and fear.
The second he opened the door, he moved to pull Emma to him, but Cooper bounded over. Then the kittens meowed. Shit. He had woken up the entire menagerie.
Emma smiled and tossed Cooper a treat, then pulled Leo into the animal-free bathroom. She immediately removed her stitched-up coat. He did the same, and they came back together. Her mouth was warm against his, but she trembled in his arms.
“You’re cold,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she said, but her teeth chattered.
“Let’s warm you up.”
He leaned past her to turn on the shower, then draped two towels over the heated towel rack. Hot water pumped out, filling the room with steam. He shed his sweater and tugged her to him. Their tongues danced, and her hands raked down his back and then went to her own clothes.
In a flash, they were both naked. He pulled back to look at her. Her hair tumbled down her bare back, acres of curves waiting to be touched. Claimed.
She was his, damn it.
He grabbed her more roughly than he intended, hoisted her up so she straddled his waist. Her bare breasts teased his collarbone, and her nipples stiffened in response. He bent to nip them, bottom lip dragging over her silken skin. She shivered again, and he carried her to the shower.
This was all he wanted. She was all he wanted. She was here, under his fingertips, a dream in the flesh. But in a matter of hours, she would be gone. Again. What if she never came back? What if the distance was too much?
The warm spray ran in rivulets down Emma’s torso, and steam curled into the air. She kissed him with a hunger he’d never known, like she was trying to squash a lifetime of passion into this stolen moment.
She forced a hand between them and found purchase on his dick, which probably could have supported her weight all on its own by this point.
He met her hunger with heat, running a hand over the magnificent topography of her body, trying to memorize every peak and valley by touch.
She unwound her legs and dropped to her feet, and he pushed her into the spray to keep her warm while he sampled every inch of her—neck, breasts, stomach, and bikini line—before trailing a finger over her delicate folds.
Her back arched in response, and she yanked him back to her. He ached to be inside her, but a previous shower escapade in college had ended in disaster when the water had washed away all the natural lubrication.
She deserved tenderness, patience, finesse. Something he would give her forever if only she’d let him. He left the shower running and led her gently out of the spray. The towels were warm, and he wrapped one around her before lifting her to perch on the edge of the vanity.
Her eyes were dark with need as he dropped to his knees and guided her legs apart and over him to rest on his shoulders.
He was hard as steel as he buried his face between her thighs, tongue circling and swirling.
She went rigid as a board, breaths coming in short, ragged gasps.
He slipped a finger inside her, and her moan echoed in the small room.
The floor was hard and unforgiving on his knees, but he would have happily stayed there forever. Bringing pleasure to this remarkable woman was one of the most fulfilling duties he’d ever had.
She must have been at the edge, but she pushed him back with her legs. His eyes met hers.
“Condom. Now,” she said.
He grabbed the other towel and dashed into the flat, dodging around the kittens, who seemed to have dragged a pizza box out of the trash.
He rolled on a condom, and in seconds, he was back.
She still waited for him on the counter.
Her towel had fallen open, revealing every centimeter of her beautiful figure.
She reached for him, and they met like two seas, crashing together and coalescing until they were a nebulous vortex of heat and need.
He took her, claimed her. Filled her from within. She wrapped him with her legs and her warmth, and it was everything he could do to not lose control immediately.
Their damp skin slapped together as he moved, slowly at first, then more urgently.
Stay. Stay, he mentally pleaded with every thrust. As if he could transfer the idea to her via dick-induced osmosis.
He had never connected with someone on this level. It was so far beyond a mere physical yearning. He craved her laughter, her cheeky glance from across a room. She was fearsomely addictive, and being apart from her was misery.
Didn’t he have a duty to himself as much as his people? There had to be a way to make this work. He would find it.
Her entire body went tense, and her chin tipped up like the sensation was growing and changing inside her. He allowed himself to get lost in the rich emerald of her eyes as she clung to him with shaking arms.
With a final thrust, he drove them both to the shuddering brink. Her legs went limp, and he gathered her to his chest, his nose in her wet hair. He draped the towel around her with one arm. His legs shook, and he breathed hard from the exertion.
“Leo?” she said softly.
“Yes?” He drew back to look at her, and his heart went haywire.
There was love in her eyes. He could see it. She was going to say it.
“I—”
Her phone rang in the front room, and she froze. Her lips pressed together in a grimace.
“I should get back to my mom,” she said hurriedly.
His pulse evened out as a pit formed in his stomach. Hardly the profession of love that he was hoping for.
“Of course.” He helped her off the counter.
They awkwardly got dressed and prepared to leave the apartment, but she stopped and looked back at him.
“What is it?” he asked.
She took both his hands. “I wish I didn’t have to leave tomorrow. Promise to pass on the news as soon as you hear something? Even if it’s the middle of the night.”
“You have my word.” He kissed her again and hoped against hope it wouldn’t be the last time.