“Yes,” she answered. The succinct reply wasn’t like her.
He took a step toward her. “You said you needed some time to think. I’ve given you time. We need to speak about it.”
Leo’s throat worked as she swallowed and nodded. “You’re right. We do.”
In the next drop of silence, Jasper watched her: her fingers, fiddling with the beads on her handbag; her stare meeting his and then darting away, only to come back again. Her usual composure quavered. He prepared himself, a stone settling in his gut.
She cleared her throat, however, and surprised him with her next statement. “I liked kissing you, Jasper.” Her rosy coloring deepened. “But I feel guilty for it.”
Jasper nodded, understanding why. “Because I’m a Carter. Because I was there that night.” He’d seen her family killed. Hidden her from the men who’d broken into the darkened homeon Red Lion Street to slaughter the Spencer family. It was Leo’s worst memory, and Jasper was a part of it.
“Did I betray them,” she whispered, “by kissing you?”
He drew in a long breath, a blistering heat building under his collar. In the hours, and then days, after kissing her, he’d come up with a dozen reasons why it had been a lapse in judgment: Maybe he’d confused feelings of protectiveness with feelings of desire. The Inspector would surely be disappointed in him. Mrs. Zhao too. Not to mention what his superiors and fellow officers at Scotland Yard would think or say.
But the reasons had fallen through him like hollow excuses, while one truth continued to burn steadily: He cared for Leo. He wanted her, as a man wanted a woman.
Jasper stepped forward. “Do you wish you hadn’t kissed me?”
She worried her bottom lip, deliberating. His attention drifted to her mouth and lingered for a few thudding heartbeats.
“No,” she said softly. “But I’m not sure…”
He braced himself, hands clenching into fists. “Is Connor Quinn one of the reasons you’re not sure?”
Leo startled. “Connor?”
It pained him to ask and reveal his jealousy. But he needed an answer. “Is there something between the two of you?”
The corner of her mouth curved into a bewildered grin. “No. We’re friends; that is all.”
Jasper let the tension out of his hands, the release lightening a burden in him. He hadn’t realized his jealousy had been so heavy.
Leo’s composure seemed to rebound as she took a bracing breath. “I was going to say that I’m not sure we should change things between us.”
He shook his head. “Things have already changed. There is no going back.”
“What if it’s a mistake?” she asked, slightly breathless.
“It isn’t a mistake, Leo. I want to kiss you again,” Jasper said softly, holding her stare. “It’s all I can think about. I need to know if you feel the same way.”
Leo’s blush had tempered, though now, a torrent of pink lit the apples of her cheeks.
“I…” She blinked, and her glimmering hazel eyes went slightly unfocused. “Yes.”
The single word burrowed into his chest. A hot surge jolted through him, terrifying and thrilling in its ferocity. Jasper moved toward her, drawn by some irrepressible force.
The complications and excuses for why he shouldn’t want the things he did dissolved in the answering heat of her gaze. What the Inspector would think, had he been alive…what Mrs. Zhao or Claude might say…the scrutiny at the Yard…none of it mattered more than the promise of her mouth under his.
Movement in his peripheral vision knocked cold sense into him instantly. Mrs. Zhao’s small frame appeared in the sitting room’s doorway.
“Miss Leo, will you stay for dinner?” she asked, oblivious to what Jasper had been two strides away from doing.
Rather than come to an abrupt stop, Jasper sidestepped Leo. And instead of dragging her to him and devouring her mouth, he exhaled sharply and raked a hand through his damp hair as he pretended to have been walking toward the window instead of her.
Mrs. Zhao’s question hung in the air, unanswered. She peered between them, waiting. Leo recovered first.
“I’m…afraid I can’t, Mrs. Zhao. Claude and Flora are expecting me.” She started for the front hall, then seemed to remember her manners and turned back to him. “Goodnight then,” she said shakily, without making eye contact. She then spun back around and departed the room.
