"Don't you dare apologize."
"I'm not usually..."
"I know." I reach up and wipe my thumb across his cheek, catching a tear he probably doesn't know he shed. "I know you're not. That's why this matters."
He catches my hand. Brings it to his mouth. Presses a kiss to my palm, soft and warm, and closes his eyes.
"Come on," I say. "Sit down before you fall down."
I lead him to the bed. He follows without resistance, which tells me how far gone he really is. Leone Costa does not get led anywhere. He goes where he wants, when he wants, and everyone else ads. But right now he lets me pull him across the room and push him down onto the mattress and he doesn't argue.
I kneel in front of him and unlace his boots. Black tactical, caked with dust and something darker.Blood, I realize. I pull them off one at a time and set them aside. His socks follow. Then I stand and unbuckle his belt, sliding it free from the loops, coiling it on the floor beside the boots.
He watches me work. His eyes track my movements, heavy-lidded, exhaustion dragging at him.
"Lie down," I tell him.
He shifts back on the bed, swinging his legs up, settling against the pillow. The bruise on his chest looks even worse in this light, a dark stain spreading across his skin. I find a blanket folded at the foot of the bed and shake it out, draping it over him.
He catches my wrist before I can pull away.
"Stay," he says.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Stay here. With me."
I don't hesitate. I kick off my shoes, what's left of them after running barefoot through a building full of bodies, and climb onto the bed beside him. The mattress dips under my weight. He shifts to make room, and then his arm is around me, pulling me against his side, and my head is on his shoulder, and my hand is on his chest, careful to avoid the bruise.
His heartbeat pulses under my palm. Steady. Strong. Alive.
"Sleep," I murmur.
"Can't."
"Try."
"My head won't stop." He stares at the ceiling. "I keep seeing it. The hallway. The door. What I would have found if I'd been too late."
"You weren't too late."
"But I could have been. Thirty minutes later. An hour. If Emilio hadn't found that contact, if Claudio hadn't been ready to move..."
"But they did. And you were. And I'm here." I press my lips to his shoulder, the bare skin warm under my mouth. "I'm here, Leo. Focus on that. I'm here."
He turns his head and looks at me. In the dim light, his eyes are dark pools. Unreadable. But his hand comes up and cups the back of my neck, that familiar grip, thumb pressing into the muscle, and he pulls me closer until our foreheads touch.
"I love you," he says, then frowns. “And you can keep calling me Leo. I like it.”
The words hit me like a wave. Unexpected. Overwhelming. He's never said he loves before. Neither have I. We've shown it in a hundred ways, in touches and looks and the violence he committed to bring me home, but the words have never crossed the space between us.
Until now.
"I love you too," I whisper back. “Leo.”
He kisses me. Soft. Gentle. Nothing like the desperate, devouring kisses we've shared before. This is new territory. Something quiet and fragile and just budding. His lips brush mine and linger, not demanding anything, connecting.Being.
When he pulls back, his eyes are closed.
