7 | Still Hate Me?
As soon as we got home from the bar, Leo and I bickered like partners in a failing marriage. Naturally, Kadir and Wesley shuffled away like children watching their parents fight.
Wesley glanced back once from the stairs, eyebrows raised like he was trying not to enjoy the show.
Kadir took one look at the leftover stage energy still radiating off Leo and the rigid set of my shoulders, then turned and kept walking.
Neither of them said a word. The door to the upstairs hallway closed with a soft, deliberate click.
That left us alone in the entryway, still shedding coats and boots while the argument found its legs.
I kicked snow from my heels harder than necessary. “One song. That was the deal.”
Leo yanked his beanie off and tossed it onto the bench. His curls were still damp from the heat of the stage, disordered and dark against his neck. “It worked.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s the only thing that matters.”
I stared at him. The adrenaline from the bar made his voice rougher, lower. He looked too alive for a man who had just broken every condition I’d given him. “You agreed. You stood there and nodded and then you did exactly what you wanted the second the crowd made enough noise.”
He shrugged out of his coat and let it drop. “The first one went well. They wanted more. Kadir and Wesley could handle it.”
“You didn’t ask them. You didn’t ask me. You just decided.”
Leo’s jaw flexed. “Because it needed to happen.”
I stepped closer, the slate floor cold under my socks. “No. You needed to prove you could do something without waiting for permission. You would rather risk the entire project than let anyone else make a decision that involves you.”
He opened his mouth.
I kept going. “You assumed success would protect you. You assumed I’d swallow it because the room liked it. And you assumed the rest of us would clean up whatever fallout comes next, the way people always clean up after you.”
Leo went still.
The irritation didn’t leave his face, but something warmer slid in beneath it. His gaze dropped to my mouth for half a second before climbing back to my eyes.
I felt the shift the same way I’d felt his tongue on my ankle that first night with immediate, unwanted recognition.
He softened.
It was deliberate and elegant. The sharp edges of his posture loosened. His voice dropped into the register he used in interviews when he wanted people to lean closer. The aggressive tilt of his chin disappeared, replaced by something quieter, almost wounded.
“I only wanted them to remember what it felt like,” he said. “Playing together. Actually listening. The first song was good, Dasha. You saw it. The crowd wanted more and I knew the unfinished one could work if we just… stopped thinking so hard.”
I recognized the performance for what it was. He was repositioning himself as the misunderstood artist being scolded by the cold professional. Parts of it were even true, which only made it more effective.
“I didn’t mean to make your job harder,” he continued, softer still. “I thought once you heard it you’d understand.”
“You’re so manipulative.”
He reached out and rested one hand on my shoulder, the way someone might steady a person who was overreacting.
His thumb moved once near the base of my neck, slow and teasing.
The residual heat from the stage still clung to his skin.
I could smell cologne and sweat and the particular scent of him that always seemed to cut through everything else.
I looked down at the hand.
“I’m trying to apologize,” he said.
“You haven’t actually said you’re sorry.”
“You keep interrupting me.”
His other hand rose and brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek, then lingered to adjust the collar of my sweater as if it had been crooked.
Each small contact closed the distance another inch.
I knew exactly what he was doing. I stayed still anyway, caught between anger and the sudden curiosity of watching him try to handle me.
When I turned my face away, he hooked two fingers beneath my chin and tilted it back toward him.
The control in the touch was quiet but absolute. Heat slid down my spine.
“I’m trying,” he repeated, voice low.
“You’re very good at this.”
“I know.”
The honesty was worse than the charm. His thumb rested just under the edge of my jaw, warm and steady.
I could feel the faint rasp still left in his throat from singing.
The softness of his expression compared with the man who had challenged me onstage made resistance feel strangely cruel, even though I knew it wasn’t.
I understood, suddenly and with irritating clarity, why people kept forgiving him. He made you feel like you were the only person capable of seeing the sensitive man underneath the arrogance. The fact that I could see the calculation didn’t stop the calculation from working.
“Your act isn’t gonna work on me,” I said.
Leo smiled again, smaller this time. “You know, I actually kind of like it when you’re a bitch.”
He kissed me before I could argue.
There was nothing gradual about it. One moment his fingers were under my chin and the next his hand had closed around the back of my neck, pulling me forward hard enough that my balance tipped.
His other arm locked around my waist and the remaining space between us disappeared.
The kiss was rough and entirely different from the careful charm that had preceded it.
I made a startled sound against his mouth.
Then I grabbed the front of his sweater and kissed him back with every unresolved ounce of anger I’d been carrying since the bar. Leo walked me backward until my shoulders hit the wall beside the stairs. His body followed, pressing me firmly into the wood while his mouth opened mine.
It stopped being a performance immediately.
His hand slid into my hair and tightened, angling my head the way he wanted.
The other stayed hard at my waist, fingers digging in.
I pulled at his curls hard enough that he broke the kiss just long enough to laugh once against my mouth, low and startled, before claiming it again. The sound went straight through me.
He tasted like the whiskey he’d ordered at the bar.
The residual heat of the stage still radiated off him.
When he shifted his thigh between mine, I reacted before thought could intervene, grinding down against the pressure.
Leo’s breath caught. His hips answered with a slow, deliberate roll that made the wall at my back feel necessary.
“Knew you wanted this,” he muttered against my jaw, already moving lower.
“I still hate you.”
“You don’t kiss like it.”
His mouth found the side of my neck. I tipped my head without meaning to, giving him room.
One of his hands left my hair and slid under the hem of my sweater, palm spanning my waist, then higher along my ribs.
The touch was impatient. Nothing like Wesley’s steady corrections in the gym or Kadir’s slow, deliberate exploration on the terrace.
Leo felt like a man who had decided waiting any longer was a personal insult.
I dragged my nails down the back of his neck just to hear the sound he made.
He answered by opening me further against the hard line of him. The friction was immediate and filthy. A broken noise escaped my throat. Leo’s fingers tightened on my thigh hard enough to bruise.
“Still hate me?” he asked against my skin.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
His hand moved higher under the sweater, thumb brushing the underside of my breast through the thin fabric of my bra. At the same time his other hand slid down, fingers skimming the waistband of my leggings, then slipping just beneath it.
I caught his wrist.
Leo stopped instantly.
He stayed exactly where he was, breathing hard, his body still pressed fully against mine, but he didn’t push further. His forehead rested against mine for a second while we both tried to remember how air worked.
I was still half-wrapped around him. The evidence of how little either of us had actually stopped was impossible to ignore.
“We’re not doing this,” I said.
Leo looked down between our bodies, then back at my face. A small, dark smile touched his mouth. “We already did something.”
“We’re not going further.”
He accepted the boundary without argument, though he made no attempt to pretend the desire had vanished. His hand withdrew slowly from my waistband. The one under my sweater stayed a moment longer, fingers spreading across my ribs before he finally let that go too.
Leo stepped back just enough to give me room. His curls were wrecked. His mouth was swollen. The polished playboy version of him had been stripped away somewhere between the wall and the moment I’d grabbed his hair.
I fixed my sweater with hands that weren’t quite steady.
“You still broke the agreement,” I said.
Leo exhaled. “I’m sorry I ignored you.”
The words surprised me. They were quiet and stripped of performance.
Then he ruined the sincerity just enough to make it honest. “I’m not sorry about the song.”
I pushed away from the wall and headed up the stairs before either of us could decide the argument wasn’t finished after all.