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His blue eyes found mine, his face glowing from the light of the turned-on TV screen. “Anything,” he answered.
“Why don’t you play music anymore?”
He stared at me for a moment before he moved his gaze back to the TV. It felt like a dismissal. “I can’t expect to succeed in life on whimsy and foolish dreams.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means . . .” He looked back at me, his eyes sharp. “. . . that music is a distraction from the things I should be focused on.”
It was a few beats before his words sank in because I was more focused on the way he bristled, on the way his jaw clenched tight and his chest stopped moving as he held in a breath. All clear signs of his defensiveness.
But it wasn’t my intention to be on the offensive—not anymore. “Hey,” I murmured. “Lay down your armor, Callahan.”
He exhaled, and it was a long, drawn-out deflation as his frustration lost traction. “Sorry,” was all he said. His eyes moved away from me, back to the TV.
But now my curiosity was piqued. “What things do you think you should be focused on? The club?”
He nodded, his gaze drifting back to me casually. “The club is a start, but yes. The family business. I was . . .” He bit his cheek as he thought about his next words. “I’m supposed to take it all over. It’s what I’ve worked toward my whole life—what my father has been preparing me for.”
His answer didn’t feel right. “Is that what you want for yourself, though?”
He shrugged. “I’ve learned that what I want doesn’t really matter. I thought it did . . . I thought I could carve out a different path for myself. But it didn’t work out, so I don’t have many options.”
My heart ached at the way his eyes turned away from me again. Like he was ashamed, defeated. Like he didn’t measure up to whatever bar he’d set for himself. I wanted to know more, wanted the specifics of his hurt so that I could figure out a way to help him overcome it. But that would be going well beyond the boundaries that I needed to hold fast to for my own sanity. I couldn’t hurt myself to save another—not again.
So instead of digging into a topic that was clearly difficult for him, I chose to instead settle further into the couch and show him my support with a safe amount of physical touch as I rested my head on his shoulder. He paused his navigation through the TV’s streaming menu for a moment at my crossing of this line, and I worried that he’d shift away. But then he moved his free hand to my thigh under the blanket, stroking against my dress with his thumb, and clicked to start the movie.
It turned out that Marge may have been on to something, because as Leo and I pretended to watch The Outsiders it became more and more apparent that both of us were . . . distracted. Leo’s hand hadn’t left my thigh in the half hour since the movie started, and the feel of his broad palm wrapped around my leg had turned my skin into molten lava. It didn’t help that his thumb was skating a dizzying path back and forth, causing the cotton of my dress to fold in on itself as it rose higher and higher up my lap beneath the blanket.
The air seemed to ripple between us—but I didn’t stop him. I tried not to give any indication of the effect he was having on me, though it was becoming increasingly difficult with every swipe of that damn thumb. I took another long pull of the bourbon in my glass before chasing it with a bite of licorice, willing the flush on my neck to cool off before he looked at me again.
Because he would look at me again—he’d been looking at me a lot tonight, stealing glances when he thought I wouldn’t notice as the movie played on. It felt like he was caught up in some internal battle, and I didn’t know if it was about our conversation earlier or if he could feel the heat radiating from my body at his touch. Either way, I was content to pretend those looks weren’t adding fuel to the already incendiary friction between us.
“You want some more popcorn?” Leo asked, then cleared his throat. I chanced a glance at him, finding his eyes charcoal in the dark living room.
I eyed the bowl, seeing only a few buttery kernels left. “I’m okay, thank you.” I smiled.
His gaze fell to my mouth, and his eyes darkened further to match the sky outside the wall of windows. He pulled the bowl back, leaning forward to set it on the coffee table before settling back into his seat, gently squeezing my thigh before that glorious thumb made another sweep. But then his whole body stilled when he made contact with bare skin, realizing how high my dress had moved up.
I sucked in a breath, closing my eyes as he slowly and carefully used the pads of all five fingers to graze a featherlight touch against my skin. It felt so good that I wanted to melt into the couch and stay here until I could chase this feeling all the way to the end . . . to what end, I wasn’t sure. But I wanted it, tried to hold on to it so it didn’t slip away like a match struck just to be blown out.
“Mara,” Leo rasped, “that fucking sound.”
I opened my eyes to find his locked on me, glittering with feral intent. What sound? “What?” I whispered, glancing down to watch the movement of his hand as he made another sweep under the blanket, moving higher up my thigh.
“Do you know how incredible you look when your cheeks flush?” he asked, keeping his voice low. “Do you know how hard it makes me?”
God, my skin burned as I remembered what Leo looked like hard and hungry. My mouth went dry as I remembered how he’d tasted, how I desperately wanted to taste him again. “I think it’s just the bourbon . . .” I started to say, but then a finger skimmed along my panty line and I couldn’t help the gasp that poured out of me.
“Mm,” Leo rumbled, his body nearly vibrating with restraint. Is that what he’d meant? Remembering how I’d gasped that first night when I saw his kitchen, when I’d first tasted his food—he’d come undone at my reaction then, too. And it elated me, quite frankly, to know I could get to him like that. It felt . . . powerful. “Tell me to stop, Mara. Or tell me to keep going . . . I need some guidance here.”
Keep going, my body pleaded. I wanted to arch into his hand, wanted to give him all of me. Wanted to know exactly what he’d do with a slip of my boundaries. But my logical side was still fighting for control. “We shouldn’t, Leo. It’s . . .”
“It’s what?” he murmured into my ear, his mouth so close to my skin that I could feel the warmth of his next rough exhale. I needed to feel that five o’clock shadow rake across my body. To feel it burn against my thighs.
The question swam around in my head as I tried to form a coherent answer—it was an easy excuse to blame Larkspur and our professional relationship. But it wasn’t like we hadn’t already done this before. Was there really harm in doing it again?
Yes, I knew with clarity. And the truth of it had less to do with Larkspur or a flitting attempt at professionalism and more to do with the way my heart splintered into pieces the first time I walked away from him. I gave more of myself to him in the first hours of knowing he even existed than I’d given to anyone in years—and there’d been no consideration of the aftershocks, only of my plan to run. Now I knew I couldn’t run from Leo because of the business we shared, and escaping from the trenches of this longing was like sawing off a limb with the way it wound itself into the strands of my being.
