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His nostril’s flared and my nervousness increased. “I don’t want to hear about your previous lovers, lacking or not. Do you wish to hear about women I’ve had sex with? Should I tell you how they serviced me, how they compare to you in bed?”
Pain lanced through my heart and I gave him a wounded look. “No.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear about men you fucked either.”
His comment about comparing me was mean and cutting, something I didn’t deserve, but I don’t like fighting so I remained silent, curled against the door of the car. Leo didn’t try to talk to me and by the time we pulled up to his house, I was desperate to get out of the tension-filled space. Before Mark could get to my side, I flung my door open and darted out, anxiety filling me as I tried to decide if I should even stay.
Leo got out of the other side and looked at me over the roof of the car. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have to be here. I mean, I can go home if you’d like.”
His jaw dropped slightly. “Why would I want you to go?”
Mark discreetly walked away, leaving me alone with Leo in the semi-darkness of the artfully illuminated driveway. “You’re mad at me, so you probably don’t want me around.”
The purpose and strength in his stride distracted me as he came around the side of the Rolls, his mouth tight and annoyed. “Why in the world would you think that?”
I hated how small and scared I sounded when I said, “You were upset with me.”
He took my hands in his own and hunched down a bit so he could look me in the eye, his gaze searching my face. “Is that how it was with your family? When they were mad, they didn’t want to see you?”
Uncomfortable, I tried to pull away, but Leo held me fast. “Kind of. I really don’t want to talk about it, please.”
“Fine, but listen to me. We may get mad at each other, we may fight and yell, rage and scream, but no matter what, you need to know that I don’t want you to go anywhere. Ever.”
“Ever?” I tried to make a joke of it, even though I not so secretly found the thought thrilling. “Isn’t that a little permanent?”
He only smiled then bent to give me a brief but warm kiss. “It is.”
I didn’t know how to respond to him, so I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “What time is it?”
“Close to eleven.”
I muffled a yawn, suddenly tired. “Yikes, I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“Come on, sweetheart, you’ve had a long day.”
“Try a long couple days.” I cuddled into his side as he put his arm around my waist and walked me into the house, the cool air conditioning feeling nice against my skin.
“True.”
When we made it up to the bedroom, I found a very pretty, silky cornflower-blue nightgown with spaghetti straps lying across the bed.
“Is this for me?”
Leo glanced over his shoulder at me as he took off his gold watch and set it on the elegant silvery white dresser made of raw, bleached wood. “I don’t think it’s my size.”
Rolling my eyes at him, I picked up the soft fabric, running it through my fingers and thinking of how expensive it felt, then thinking about Joy’s “sugar daddy” comments. “It’s lovely, but Leo, you don’t have to buy me such expensive things.”
He finished unbuttoning his shirt in silence, then took my hand in his and led me back to the bed before sitting on the edge. After pulling me between his legs, he took the nightgown from my hands, his long and skilled fingers stroking my skin as he did. I watched him as he carefully put the silky piece of fabric down, then looked back up at me, his gaze unexpectedly sad.
The need to soothe him had me cupping his cheeks, stroking his neck, and basically petting him. Thankfully Leo seemed to bask in my attention, and my skin tingled when he ran one of his hands up the back of my thigh, to just below the base of my ass.
“Do you want to know what one of the happiest moments in my life was?”
Thrown by his unexpected question, I nodded.
“I told you how we were poor growing up, right?” I nodded, looping my arms around Leo’s neck as he scooped me up onto his lap, cradling me close like a security blanket as he talked. “Well, I started working as soon as I could, doing anything and everything around my neighborhood to make a buck. My hard work paid off and when I was seventeen, I was able to move my mom out of the ghetto and buy us a house.”
“At seventeen?”
“Yep.”
“Doing what?”
“I worked my way up through the Cordova Group. First as a currier of sorts, then an assistant, and finally becoming part of their security team.”
