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Leo let her draw away again, the broad smile on his face showing that he liked giving her the upper hand for a while, but they both knew it was never going to last. Alex kissed him again, feeling the softness of his lips, the strong brush of his jaw. She felt hard muscle flex and suddenly he gripped her wrist, pulling her arm up, her fingers away from his ribcage. His other arm pulled her against him and he turned her around, crowding her backwards against the wall.
Then he kissed her. Tender at first and then with a mounting hunger which made her gasp. Leo knew just how to kiss a woman. Enough control to let her know that he could produce almost any reaction he wanted, and yet just the right amount of surrender.
His lips left a trail of fire across her cheek. She felt his teeth gently nip at the lobe of her ear and she gasped. ‘Tara...’
The retreat to the character’s name was no mistake. This wasn’t real, and he was telling her so. Just something they both wanted to do before their real lives reasserted themselves. He kissed her again, this time soft and slow. She knew there would be nothing more. There was a trace of regret in his eyes, as if he was finally waving Tara goodbye.
‘I’m glad we waited.’ His body was no longer pressing against hers, and he let go of her wrist. ‘If I’d done that when I was twenty-one, it would have totally blown my mind.’
‘And now?’
‘It’s totally blown my mind.’ He chuckled, whirling her around in a loose embrace and planting a kiss on her forehead. ‘But I’m not going to make any promises to call.’
‘Because...?’ She knew why. However much she ached for Leo, he wasn’t the man she wanted.
‘It’s a while since I gave anyone my full attention.’
And he wouldn’t give it to her. For a while maybe, it would seem so, but Leo always had something else on his agenda. He was afraid of missing anything. He’d committed himself to watching and waiting because he’d missed the most important moments of his life, the moments in which he could have answered Joel’s calls.
‘And I deserve nothing less.’
He grinned. ‘Right in one. Can I get you something else? A drink maybe?’
He was doing this well. Making it clear that she was welcome to either stay or go, and that even if the kiss had been just one moment in time it wasn’t one he regretted. And that was why she had to go.
‘I should probably get home. Will you call the car for me, please?’ She picked up his glass, imagining that she could taste his lips on the rim before the brandy hit her tongue.
He nodded and made the call. The car arrived within minutes and Leo escorted her downstairs, holding the door open for her and exchanging a quiet word with the driver, as if he’d just entrusted him with something precious. Then he watched as the car drew away.
Maybe she should text him, the way she’d done that morning, from the bus. She took her phone out of her bag, but that was as far as she got. That was something that had started a long time ago, but tonight had been the final ending.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LEO AS A FRIEND. A good-looking, charming friend who seemed to get just how she felt, and who might be around for longer than just a fleeting love affair. It was a thought. Stranger things had happened...
They could have lunch from time to time, talk about their lives and promise to see each other again some time soon. No pressure. No expectations. It wouldn’t matter that Leo was so bound up with the past that he couldn’t contemplate anything more than a slightly distant relationship with the present.
All of that assumed that Alex could forget about the kiss. It was just one kiss. How difficult could it be? Particularly when the need to think about Saturday’s race meeting was so pressing.
The attendance of an outside broadcast crew had persuaded the manager of the sports centre they normally used to allow Together Our Way to take over the main track instead of being consigned to the cramped practice track. A lot was hanging on this and it had to go well.
There was still more than an hour to go before the start of the meeting but Alex saw his car in the car park outside the sports centre when she arrived. He was inside, fiddling with his phone, and when she rapped on the window he looked up.
His eyes. His smile...
Her skin began to tingle and Alex reminded herself yet again that she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about the kiss. It had been an ending, not a beginning.
Leo finished typing a message on his phone and swung out of the car, reaching back inside to pull a bag from the back seat.
‘You’re joining in?’ Or perhaps the sports bag was just for show.
‘Thought I might just give the impression that I would, if asked.’
‘Okay. What happens if I don’t ask?’
‘You’ll ask.’ He started to walk towards the sports centre and she fell into step beside him. ‘You won’t be able to resist putting me up against a bunch of skinny kids and watching them beat me.’
‘You’re thinking that you’ll bravely suffer the humiliation of letting them win, are you?’
