22. Leo
22
LEO
O live steps out of the shower, her gorgeous body glistening with water droplets dripping from the ends of her hair onto her luscious curves. I hand her a fresh towel. My pulse spikes and blood rushes below when I see the marks I left near her collarbone. I couldn’t help myself. I want to mark her for the entire world to see that she’s mine. If someone asked me yesterday what word describes me, possessive wouldn’t have been one of them. I guess that has changed. But I was nice, and they’re out of sight.
I can’t get enough of her—I don’t think I ever will. The towel cinched around my waist doesn’t hide her effect on me. Not that I want to keep things from her anymore.
Her eyes give me an appreciative once-over, focusing on the tent under my towel. “Again? Seriously. You’re like a machine. Not that I mind.” She snickers, drying herself off. I wish I were that towel. Finished, she wraps it around and tucks the edge in the side to anchor it over her chest, showcasing her cleavage.
It’s almost embarrassing how desperate I am for her.
“I can’t help it. You rev me up. You turn me on like a light switch. You melt my butta, woman! I thought we were doing the no-pants dance.” I tease while shaking my hips, holding onto my towel. She tosses her head back and laughs. I love the sound.
“You’re too much,” she says, “but I love it.”
I lean against the doorframe and gaze at her intently as she towel-dries her beautiful hair, then brushes it. I realize I might look like a creeper. “Do you want some privacy?”
“No way. You stay right there, mister. I don’t want you out of my sight,” she demands with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “You’ll be sick of me by the time I leave.”
Not possible. My chest swells with an emotion I won’t reveal until the time is right. That could be today or two months from now. Yes, I’m confident that this is only the beginning for us. It’s an amazing feeling, but how will I handle being away from her for weeks on end?
She catches my eye in the mirror. “Not that I mind you looking all dreamy at me like I’m your favorite candy, but you have to stop. At least for now. You promised me we’d talk.” There’s a serious edge to her voice now.
“I know.” I resign with a sigh. “We will.”
“Good. I need to blow-dry my hair a little first.” She unwraps the towel hugging her body, flashing more of her beautiful skin, and puts on a white robe from the hotel. She pulls the dryer off the hook on the wall.
“Can…Can I do it for you?” The need to take care of her almost knocks me out. It’s unfamiliar but thrilling all the same.
“Um.” She pauses, staring at the hairdryer, then at me. “Sure. As long as I can do yours. Even trade.”
I usually let my hair air-dry because blow-drying it makes me look like a poodle instead of a lion. But hell, I’m up for some laughs. “Anything you want.”
“I’ll remember that later on.”
I take the dryer from her and let her brush her hair out one more time. This is mind-boggling, and it’s hard to mask my emotions. I can’t keep my eyes off her natural beauty.
She pulls out the wide cushioned stool from under the counter and sits on it, facing the mirror. “I’m ready. It doesn’t have to be completely dry.”
I stand behind the stool and turn the dryer on low. She drops her head back slightly, closes her eyes, and relaxes her shoulders. As the air blows the strands around, I inhale deeply, smiling when the familiar floral scent of her shampoo overpowers the bathroom.
Her hair dries faster than I would’ve liked, and I turn off the dryer. Her eyes flutter open. “That was nice. I was ready to fall asleep.”
“Want me to brush it again?” I’m going to get on her nerves.
Her face lights up. “Yes. It’s so relaxing.”
I brush through the knots, and she doesn’t complain. “I love what you did to your hair. Did Tonya push you to do it? She has the power of persuasion.”
“Not really. We were talking to her hairdresser, and I had an impulse. She encouraged me, too. It worked out that she had time. New hair, new clothes…it works wonders.”
“I’m glad you had fun and it wasn’t awkward.”
“Not at all. Tonya is a force to be reckoned with, though.”
“You’ve got that right.” I place the brush on the counter. “My turn.”
She stands and points to the other robe hanging on the wall. “Put that on. You must be cold.”
I wave it off. “Nah. I’m good. I run warm most of the time.”
She raises her hand close to my shoulder, then gently glides her fingertips down my arm. “I can confirm. Hot to touch.”
She taps the seat, and I sit in front of her. It feels incredible as she brushes through my curls and the warm heat from the blow-dryer swirls over my shoulders. If I had a tail, it’d be wagging, and my tongue would be hanging out the side.
When she turns off the hairdryer a few minutes later, she says, “I’m jealous of your curls. Never cut your hair. It’s too sexy.” Her fingers tickle my scalp as she runs them through.
“Even when I look like a poodle on a humid day?” I point to the fluff ball on my head.
She wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind and kisses my cheek. “Should I call you Fluffy now?”
Our eyes lock in the mirror, and without warning, bolts of electricity consume the oxygen in the air. Every molecule and cell in my body vibrates. I turn my head and our mouths collide, our tongues and lips fight for dominance. She releases her hold and I push the stool back, then loop my arm around her waist and pull her between my legs. The robe opens and I push the material to the sides, exposing her delectable skin. My hands skim up her ribs, my thumbs trace under her breasts, then blaze a trail down her hips to her generous ass.
A contented hum escapes her lips. “Our talk can wait a few more minutes.” She bends over and flicks my towel open, exposing how hard I am again. “This won’t take long.”
I’m all for it. No more words need to be spoken. There is no tenderness with our kissing, only pure, unadulterated lust. Sucking. Biting. I guide her onto my lap, and she sinks down onto me, her heat almost unbearable. Grunts and gasps echo off the walls. For a moment, we don’t move, enjoying the feeling of our bodies connected again. Her robe slips off her shoulders and hangs from the crook of her arms. She moves up and down, and we catch sight of ourselves in the mirror. I’ve never done this before, and it’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen. It’s the best kind of torture.
“You bring out a side of me I didn’t know I had,” she says with a shuddering breath. “You being inside of me is indescribable.”
I wrap one arm around her lower back and rock her against me while I massage her breast with my other hand. She pushes her chest forward, urging me on.
She tilts her head back and looks toward the mirror. I’m captivated by her hungry gaze reflected in the glass as she watches us. “Kiss me,” I beg. “I need to taste you again.”
She grabs fistfuls of my hair, angles my head to where she wants me, and claims my lips with a searing kiss I know I’ll feel for days. Our breaths quicken and the sounds of passion fill the room. I don’t know if they’re coming from me or her or both of us. Her hands land on my shoulders, squeezing them like a vise.
“I’m almost there, baby,” I whisper against her swollen lips.
The mix of her body vibrating against mine and her sexy moans set me off. The pain turns to pleasure. I jerk my hips one more time and scream her name as her insides contract around me. Our exquisite moans blend as we hold each other in a gripping hug.
“Holy shit,” I mumble, trying to catch my breath. “That just happened.”
“It sure did.” She rests her forehead on mine.
We burst out laughing.
* * *
We clean up again , then Olive goes to the left side of the bed, still naked—no complaints here—and I go to the right, also naked as a jaybird, like this is our norm.
She slides under the comforter. “Get in the bed, sexy.” She flings my side of the blanket open for me, then smooths her hand over it.
I shuffle under the blanket and shiver. “It’s cold. Come and warm me up.”
“Yeah, okay, Mr. I-Run-Hot. Excuses to invade my space,” she quips. “Already so needy.”
Out of pure instinct, we wrap our arms and legs around each other, our warm bodies not helping with my problem below. If I had my way, we’d stay in this bed wrapped up like this until the second she has to leave.
“Something hard is digging into my hip.” Olive looks under the covers and then at me with a playful grin. “Oh, it’s you. I thought it was a steel pipe or something.”
I narrow my eyes and grab her ass. “You think you’re funny, don’t you? I know a way to get rid of it. Should I show you and put our pillow talk on the back burner?”
She gasps. “No way. How are you able to go another round?”
“It’s your fault.”
She huffs. “Whatever. I’m spent. Only cuddles from now on.”
“All right. I’ll behave.”
She kisses my nose. “Good. Now start talking.”
I readjust under the thick comforter, stuff a pillow under my head, and face her. She does the same, then hooks her leg over my hip. That doesn’t help either .
I trace my finger over her bottom lip. “Y’know, you didn’t have to sing me a song to make me kiss you. You could’ve smacked those plump lips of yours on mine at any time. I don’t mind when a woman takes charge sometimes, like you did before. Remind me how it’s done.” I run my hand up her outer thigh.
Olive shakes her head in amusement, then nudges my chest, keeping me from getting closer. “Leo, I’d love to ‘show you how it’s done’ later. Stop deflecting. My questions are piling up. I don’t know where to start. First, Tonya told me you haven’t danced in years but wouldn’t tell me why.” News to me . “Then you sang tonight like you were fucking Freddie Mercury himself. And according to what the people were saying around us, you haven’t done that in a while either. Are you famous and I’m the only one who didn’t get the memo?”
I crack up. “No. Far from it. I’ve lived here forever, remember? It’s a small island—everyone knows everyone.”
“Hmm. Makes sense. And here, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Would’ve been cool if you were famous.” She shrugs, the corner of her mouth tilting upward. “Too bad.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is?” I peck her lips.
She pulls her head back and pins me with her stare. “I do wonder—are you the same person I met on my birthday?”
“Oh, I guarantee I am. There are layers I keep hidden from everyone, but I’m not going to hide anymore. Not from you.”
“Good.” She caresses my cheek. “Start talking when you’re ready, and let’s see where it leads. We’ve got all night.”
I can’t believe I’m going to spill my guts to Olive. It’ll bring up a lot of painful memories, but maybe this is where my healing will finally begin. I like that she’ll be the one I tell my past to and how it has shaped me. I’m not proud of everything I’ve done since Corey died, but I did it to survive.
Here it goes. Time to walk down memory lane.
“I had a cousin. His name was Corey. We were born a couple weeks apart and were inseparable. It was like we were twins. We basically grew up in this hotel because our moms worked here. Corey’s mom, my aunt Betty, is married to my uncle Mason, Ma’s brother.
“Anyway, you can probably figure it out. We were best friends and did everything together. We had fun, we got in trouble, we annoyed the shit out of our parents.” I relax into the bed while I think about the stupid things we used to do. “Because we fed off each other and I did more crazy shit than him, our parents put us in a hip-hop dance class when we were ten years old to keep us occupied and to burn off the excess energy we had. It pissed us off in the beginning until we realized we were pretty damn good at it and it was fun. We took lessons all through school.”
I massage my forehead, trying to get the past in order. Sometimes I forget when things happened.
“Corey heard me singing in the shower a couple of times without me knowing it. Things snowballed, and my parents urged me to try out for the school musical, Footloose , in tenth grade. Corey tried out too. He could dance, but he didn’t like to sing as much. We both got parts in the play. I was Ren, and he was Willard.” Her eyes widen and a relaxed smile curves her lips. “You know Footloose , right?”
“Yes. Of course. Great soundtrack. I would’ve loved to have seen it.”
“Maybe you will. I have video clips of it somewhere.” I wiggle out of bed. “Be right back.” I wander into the other room to grab some water bottles from the fridge.
“Don’t you dare put clothes on. I want you naked and back in this bed,” she yells. I snicker.
“See…showing me how it is,” I say, holding up the bottles when I return. I hand her one, then climb back under the covers. “Damn, girl! You wore me out. I need to hydrate—my throat’s killing me from screaming your name.” We drink some water, then place our bottles on the nightstand.
She nods and her mouth ticks up on the side. “I should pat myself on the back. Making a guy scream like that is new for me.”
“I don’t want to hear about other guys. I’m your only guy from now on. Got it?”
She smiles brightly and nods in agreement.
“Now let me see, where’d I leave off? Oh, okay. Fast-forward through high school, we became a hit with our performances. Puberty made an appearance, my voice improved, yada yada.”
“Am I the only one who says you sound like Freddie Mercury?”
I chuckle. “No. It’s all I’ve heard.”
“Did you become famous? Maybe try out for American Idol or some other talent show?”
“Nah. Not really. Word did get around though. People encouraged me to pursue acting and all that. I loved singing and dancing, but I didn’t need to be famous to do it. Corey and I started to street perform during tourist season. We made a shitload of money,” I admit, feeling nostalgic.
“Did you go to the same college?”
“Yep. Seattle University, but we didn’t go for performing arts. I went for hotel management, for obvious reasons, and he went for marketing.” I stop and am quiet for a minute. Then I take a big breath and continue. “Unfortunately, my dad died right before we left for college. Corey got me through that tough time. Hmmm, that was so long ago.”
She runs a hand down my arm, compassion oozing out of her. I close my eyes.
“He was my best friend, Olive. My ride or die, my partner in crime, whatever you want to call him. We did everything together. Anyway, during college, we kept up the dancing lessons and street performances. We did competitions and all that, but not to become famous. We made good enough money at it that we traveled between semesters and during the summer.
“We came up with the idea to blog and then moved on to vlogging our adventures too. It was wild, how it took off. We had thousands of followers and it kept growing. Social media was fucking crazy.” I shake my head and grin. “We had so much fun.”
Memories surge forward in my head, things I’ve refused to think about for way too long. Smiling and laughing comes naturally when I think of the best times of my life. Olive props her head on her hand and watches me as if she can see them too.
She traces my lips. “There’s that smile I love. It’s my new favorite thing?—”
“What?” I protest. “In the shower, you said your favorite thing was my love stick.”
“You’re ridiculous. Love stick ? I’d never call your cherry-flavored lollipop that.”
I crack up. “It doesn’t taste like cherries.”
Before I can say anything else, she covers my mouth with her hand and says, “We can discuss names and flavors later. Keep talking.”
“Right. Before long, we decided we should be professional travelers on a budget. Our parents said they’d back us as long as we finished college.” I grab my bottle from the nightstand and twist the cap, then down the rest of the water. “I’m babbling, I know.” I toss the empty bottle to the floor.
She kisses me. “It’s okay. Babble, laugh, scream, cry…I want to know everything.”
“Okay. Fast-forward to after we became successful professional travelers. It sounds fancy, but we were just two guys in our twenties, having the time of our lives and traveling the world for work. And then…Corey got sick. Literally—one day he was fine, and the next he wasn’t. We had no idea what was going on. After tons of tests, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. It’s the deadliest kind.”
She releases a breath. “Shit, Leo. I’ve seen how people suffer from that during my training. I’m really sorry.”
I memorize the freckles on Olive’s shoulder, remembering that horrible day and everything that followed. She takes my hand and laces our fingers together, then holds them against her chest. Her heartbeat taps my skin.
“I remember when the doctor told us the diagnosis. I refused to believe it was true, especially when they said the survival rate to live past five years was maybe twenty-five percent. The entire time Corey was sick, he was the tough, positive one.” My voice cracks and my eyes well up. “And all for what? He didn’t live past a year.”
Olive gets up, slips into the bathroom, and comes back with tissues. She quickly jumps under the covers to stay warm. I look at her with bleary eyes. She captures the tears running down my face with a tissue. “I hate seeing you cry. I wish I could take the pain away.”
I pull her close to me again. Her body heat warms me after recalling the bitter memories.
“He died five years ago in March. Right before the lockdown. When he did, a part of me died too. I can seriously understand how twins feel when the other one dies. Lost? It’s a fucking understatement for what I was. It ripped my heart out to watch him turn into a different person, to see the cancer eat away and suck the life out of my best friend. I dropped everything to be by his side the entire time. I thought I could help him through it and then we’d continue pursuing our dreams. I didn’t think I could live without him, but he made me promise to keep doing what we started.”
This is just as hard as it was then. I pull in a shaky breath.
“The real shitty thing is that I wasn’t there when he took his last breath. He was under hospice care at home. That day, I went out to pick up something for my aunt at the pharmacy. The doctor said he still had some time, but by the time I got back, Corey was gone.”
A giant sob surprises me. The painful ache in my chest returns, stealing my breath as if I’ve walked into his house again, where he took his last breath without me.
Olive embraces me, her grip tight. I bury my face in her hair and inhale her beautiful scent.
While stroking the back of my head, she says, “So, let me guess. You haven’t danced or sung since that day.”
“Even before that. I didn’t want to if he couldn’t do it with me. We were a team. It didn’t feel right without him.”
“What did you do after? What happened to your job, the blog…?”
“I gave it all up. I was stuck here on the island because the pandemic hit, and everything reminded me of him. The hotel was empty. I had way too much time to think—there was nothing else to do. As soon as the lockdowns were lifted and travel resumed, I contacted travel magazines. I offered to be a journalist since that was my minor in college and I had experience with traveling. As soon as I got an offer, I jumped on it and left. That’s how I got my current job as a hotel critic.”
“And it became your escape. But how do you deal with the traveling? That was part of what you and Corey did too. Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Yep. It’s different, though. I only critique fancy hotels, not cheap ones or hostels. Corey and I showed people how to travel on a budget. Now I visit stunning locations, but I don’t get the same pleasure from them as I did the crazy places we went to. I do my job and go to the next hotel.” I shrug. “It provides a distraction from this place and all the pity I get here. Over time, I guess it’s gotten easier. Either that or I’ve grown accustomed to the heavy burden on my chest.”
“I know that feeling. My dad’s death is still fresh for me.Sometimes it feels like someone put a cinderblock on my chest. Especially when I think about things my dad will never experience—walking me down the aisle on my wedding day or holding his grandchildren.”
My heart swells as I realize that, not only is she dealing with her past in LA, she lost her dad not long ago too. She hasn’t had as much time to grieve as I have, yet her empathy shines through.
“It’s hard to believe it’s only been a few days since we met.” She plays with a strand of my hair. “I had no idea you were dealing with so much. You’re like the sun. Happy, goofy, social. Everyone gravitates to you… Is that all an act?”
“No. I’ve always been like this. It’s the side of me that I show. The dark part I keep hidden deep down here.” I point at my heart.
“I’m not sure that’s good, Leo.”
“No, I know. I don’t let it rule me like I used to. It’s easier to come home now, but I always need to leave again after a while. I don’t like talking about Corey much. It brings everything back, and it seems everywhere I go around here, someone mentions him. I mean, it’s great that people remember him, but?—”
“He must’ve really been special,” Olive says.
“He was.” I rake my hand through my hair and switch gears. “Anyway, all the things that were ours from traveling, blogging…I packed them up and stored them at Mom’s and in Aunt Betty’s attic. I don’t want to look at that stuff. And I’m embarrassed to admit this—” I stop, tears stinging my eyes and choking my throat.
“You can tell me anything,” she assures me.
“The last time I was at his grave was at his funeral. I couldn’t go again.”
“Leo, look at me.”
My cloudy gaze locks on hers.
“That doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human. Everyone deals with death differently. Didn’t you say something like that to me?”
“I know, but I still feel like shit because of it. He deserves better than that. Guilt wears me down every day. Especially when I’m here. I could go visit him any time, but I don’t. I’ll drive out of my way to avoid going near the cemetery.”
“Okay, so what’s different about this week,” she asks. “Why the change? Dancing, singing?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Her eyebrows furrow.
“You arrived.”