Oh.
Oh.
I find myself grinning wickedly at him. “Don’t do what?” I ask playfully, before giving it another long, deep suck, swirling my tongue at the tip like a porn star.
He takes my wrist, and his eyes are smouldering, deadly serious. “Don’t,” he says quietly.
Something about his tone makes me quiver in anticipation. “Or what,” I whisper, aware that I’m taunting him now but unable to stop.
“Or I’m grabbing you, pinning you to the wall behind you, and showing you what happens when you tease me like this.” His voice is low and growly, and my pussy twitches with approval.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Mills.”
“Don’t start something you aren’t ready to finish,Stewart,” he bites out. My eyes widen. I’m pushing him to his very, very last limit. The air between us crackles with electricity, with fizzing chemistry, and with his frustration.
It’s decision time. Am I going to start it, and cut his restraints loose? Or am I going to back off and leave him wanting yet again?
“Leo, someone called Ariana is on the phone for you,” Em calls along the corridor, making us both jump.
“Ariana who?” he asks irritably.
“Says she spoke to you at the Great British Tattoo Show a while back, wonders if you have any vacancies? Gotta say, she’s sounding pretty desperate.”
“No idea who she is. Take a message, I’ll call her back.” He hasn’t looked away from me the entire time.
“No worries!”
We stay staring at each other for long moments, before he shakes his head and opens his own lolly. “Thanks for this.”
“No worries. I’ll…I’ve got some…tidying to do.” I don’t. My studio is already all in order, with Gary in situ in his cage while he gets used to the place.
But being close to Leo right now, having so thoughtlessly teased him, is making me feel guilty.
I can’t sleep.
Gary can, apparently, silent in his cage, but I can’t.
I’ve done all my usual tricks, tossed and turned this way and that, put my eye mask on for total darkness, and done deep breathing exercises until my head spun, but nothing is stopping my brain from whirring in overdrive.
It doesn’t help that the heat is still suffocating, and my fan is just blowing warm air at me. This is a horribly sticky night, and it’s maddening.
But it’s not the real reason I have insomnia tonight.
Leo fucking Mills is.
I know I need to shoot or put down the gun, as they say. We kiss. We share glances. My skin prickles with awareness whenever we touch now, even if our fingers brush when he hands me a mug of coffee. So I know this isn’t an awkward one sided crush. If you’d told me a few months ago that I’d have the red hots for Leo, I’d have laughed, dismissed it out of hand, and asked you what you’d been smoking.
“That was something special, and I think, in your heart of hearts, you know that, too…”
He wasn’t wrong when he said that. It istherebetween him and me. Maybe it always was, in some form or another.
So why am Istillhesitating?
Because, I acknowledge to myself, if this doesn’t work out, I lose pretty much everything that means anything to me, from my livelihood and independence to the most important friendships in my life – not just Leo, but all of them. Eli and Dean are Leo’s family; Emily has married into it, and I’d bet good money Liaden will follow suit, too. When they’re his family by either blood or choice, their loyalties can’t be axed in half like they would be if everything went sideways, so staying in touch with them would be problematic at best. How can anything be worth risking that?
But then, how am I meant to resist when someone who might just be the perfect man for me so openly and unapologetically wants me?
I have so much,somuch, that I could potentially gain if I take that final leap and hold on to him tight. But I also have an unbearable amount to potentially lose if that leap doesn’t go well, and it would make Peter’s betrayal and the impact it had on my life look likenothing.
