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Oh…maybe that was just me.
Leo got out of the car when he saw me stumbling towards him like the town drunk. I was bobbing and weaving enough to make a prizefighter proud, but no matter what I did I couldn’t manage to make my limbs work properly.
When I was a few feet away from him, my body stopped trying.
I collapsed, dropping to my knees in the slick, muddy grass, and Leo caught me under my arms before I went face first into the muck. I was done. Drained. My energy had been depleted, then rebuilt, then sapped again, over and over and over through the evening. And like a battery that’s charged too often without proper rest, there was nothing left to fill up now.
I was spent.
“Sleep,” I muttered, my face pressed into the damp material of his shirt.
“I think you might have earned a nap.” He stroked my hair in a way that felt tender, comforting, and not at all what I expected from him. It was nice to have him here, as much as I’d initially resisted the idea. Turned out having a partner who wasn’t a three-pound canid might come in handy from time to time.
Leo eased me into the passenger seat, and I meekly protested, “Seats’ll get wet.”
“Yes. They will.” He clicked my seat belt into place and made himself comfortable in the driver’s spot. Well, as comfortable as a six-foot-five man can be in a car designed for the convenience of a much shorter woman.
I must have drifted off before we were even on the road, because the next thing I knew there was a pillow under my head and someone was tugging my boots off.
“Goway.” I rolled over onto my stomach and tried to kick the person at the end of the bed.
“Tallulah, I know you’re tired, but you can’t go to sleep in those clothes. You’re soaked to the bone, and if I learned anything from my grandmother, that’s a sure-fire recipe to catch your death of cold.” The way he said it, with his honey-sweet Louisiana accent, was a pure delight.
“Good.” My face was pressed into the motel pillow, which smelled like fabric softener and something mustier. Age.
“No. Not good. You think I want to explain to Sido why I let you die?”
“She’ll replace me.”
Leo sighed, a very long, loud sound like something a parent might do to express their disappointment in a petulant child. “She won’t want to replace you. She actually likes you.” Under his breath he added, “Gods only know why.”
I laid still and let him pull my boots off my feet. He might be on to something. The longer I stayed in the soaking clothes, the colder I got.
“Leo.” My voice was barely over a whisper, and even saying that much felt like it used too much energy.
“Yeah?” My boots thudded to the floor next to the front door.
“Can you start the shower for me?” I was pretty sure I could manage to keep myself propped up when I was in it, but the idea of getting up, figuring out the motel tub, and waiting for the water to get warm sounded like more work than I was capable of.
“I’m not going to wash your hair or anything. Like, you’re hot and all, but this isn’t my sneaky way of seeing you naked, just so you know.”
I laughed into the pillow. Not a laugh, really, but a short little wheeze of amusement.
“Don’t worry, I can handle the nudity parts on my own.” Rolling back onto my side, I lifted my head to get a better look at him. “You never struck me as a prude.” I was smirking—at least I thought I was—so I hoped he’d know I was teasing him.
“I don’t want to see a woman naked unless
I’m going to be able to very thoroughly explore that terrain. And quite frankly, your terrain is like one of those treasure maps that leads people to their death. I would only be setting myself up for disaster.”
He offered me his hand and pulled me up into a sitting position. I still felt as floppy as a rag doll, but I did keep myself upright. Hurray!
“I’m not a cursed map,” I protested.
“Fine, but you do belong in someone else’s glove box.”
“This metaphor is getting weird.” I think I knew what he was suggesting, and it had nothing to do with my temple purity and everything to do with a certain unlucky priest. “Cade doesn’t own me.” I don’t know why I was protesting. I had no sexual interest in Leo, and this was about the least sexy scenario we could find ourselves in.
Okay, well maybe no interest wasn’t the whole truth. I mean, the guy was a demigod and looked like a walking slab of human perfection. I’d have to be dead not to find him attractive.
