“We’ve got to go,” he said, letting her hear the regret in his voice.
“You sure?” She grinned and bit her lip, drawing his eye to that lush, sexy mouth.
“Hell no, I’m not. But on the other side of this mountain, there’s something I want you to see.” Feeling boyish and excited, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You’re gonna like it.”
He handed her one last layer and went to feed his dog.
***
Downhill wasn’t all that easy—especially with the ice coating the rocks for most of the morning—but it was a cakewalk compared to last night’s climb.
And, Leo had to admit, it could’ve been a million times harder and she’d still be smiling like an idiot.
They paused rarely throughout the day, but each and every time, he gave her looks that sped her pulse up, sent warmth to her belly, and had the two of them grinning like kids.
As she took the lead after lunch, she had to consciously relax her mouth, purposely turn those lips down. And maybe, just maybe, she put a little extra sway in her step.
When he let out a low, quiet wolf whistle, she knew she’d been caught out. “What?” She squinted at him over her shoulder. “You think you’re the only one with swagger?”
He shook his head with a grin. “No. No way, Leo Eddowes. You’ve got swagger for days.”
She gave in and let the smile reemerge, a little flirty, a little prim. “Why, thank you, sir.”
She’d walked another few steps when he caught up and passed her. “That what it’s about?” He turned and walked backwards. “Swagger?” His expression changed, became challenging, as if he knew that under all her bravado she was a vulnerable ball of nerves and emotion—an open, beating heart, ripe for destruction.
She didn’t like the shift. What was it with this guy getting serious all the time? What was it with her falling into his traps?
Right. A trap, Eddowes?
“Might be.” She meant to turn it into a joke, to say something, but she couldn’t. Not with him.
Who’s the one making things serious here, huh?
“Sometimes, when you’re neck deep in the mud, eighty guys all trying to get the same thing you want…where you’re a woman, weighed down by literal boobs and centuries of misogyny…and oh, hey…you’re Black, to boot?” She threw a hand up into the air. “Well, sometimes, you pull yourself out of the shit with nothing but swagger.”
“Swagger didn’t get you here.” He sounded so certain, as if he knew her inside and out.
That certainty put her back up. “Think you know me?” She kept her voice light. “What do you reckon got me where I am?”
“Intelligence. Mostly. Good instincts too. I…reckon”—he underscored the word more than she had, leaned a little too close when he did it—“there’s a decent dose of talent in the mix. I’ve seen your reflexes. I’d bet they’ve been honed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you were born with some…connection with the sky. An ingrown understanding of gravity or mechanics or things that go vroom.”
A shiver went through her, starting high and shimmering through her quads and kneecaps on its way down, into the earth. She was like a lightning rod, only instead of electricity from the sky, she drew it from him. Or him from her. Something like that. And it freaked her the hell out.
“Am I right?”
Right on target.She opened her mouth to make some jackass comment and stopped when he put up his hand.
“I won’t tell you you’re special, ’cause we both already know that’s true—and I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. But what you’ve accomplished? Most people couldn’t do even a fraction of that. Beat out thousands to become an elite pilot. What were you? Firehawks? I’ll bet you were.” When she didn’t deny it, he went on. “And unlike me, you’re not a big, strong white man, so that makes you at least a hundred times more qualified than I could ever be. But that’s not even it. Not the…” He snapped his fingers lightly, his eyes looking everywhere for some elusive word. “There’s something deeper than all of that. Something solid, at your core. It’s the thing that I get. The place where we inters—”
She snorted to cut him off, to keep him from saying the big stuff. The dangerous stuff.
Not at all fazed, he cocked his head and watched her closely. “You believe in doing what’s good, what’s right.”
“Right? You mean like good versus evil?” A sigh drained slowly from her lungs. “You saying it’s all black and white, Elias? It’s not. I do what I can to help, but…” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Wait. This is pretty rich coming from the king of sacrifice himself.”
He stopped his slow, backward walking and stared at her, incredulous. “You think I gave up my life on purpose?”
She waited.
