So instead, he just gave her a light squeeze before letting go. And she smiled. Warm. Bright. And entirely Mattie.
He’d just stepped back from the table when Vera appeared from the middle of the crowd, glass in one hand. This time her cocktail was a frothy green substance, unlike her normal drinks, which tended toward pinker hues.
“Is this where you two have secreted yourselves? Why, you can’t even hear the band from here! It’s a shame there’s so much noise tonight. They’re really the bee’s knees.”
“Actually, Vera,” Mattie said as she slid from her chair, “Leo and I were just thinking about finding John and seeing if we could borrow his car. We’re a bit tired and thought we’d call it a night.”
“You were?” Vera asked in surprise and then glanced between them. Suddenly, she blinked her violet-blue eyes. “Oooh.” She paused as a knowing gleam leaped into her gaze. “Oooooooh.”
Mattie didn’t try to dissuade the heiress. Instead, she smiled smugly and boldly reached for Leo’s hand. Leo knew he blushed. He was afraid that even his neck colored, but he didn’t avoid the symbolic declaration. In fact, he felt warmed that Mattie was so openly announcing that she’d chosen him.
“Finally!” Vera clapped her hands before reaching into her white-sequin-and-pearl clutch and withdrew a calling card. “I hardly use these anymore, but I keep them for occasions just like this.”
“Are you writing us a congratulatory greeting?” Mattie arched one of her auburn eyebrows as Vera began to scribble a missive on the back of the scrap of paper.
“Heavens no. I’m notthateccentric.” Vera laughed. “What I am doing is letting the hotel know that you can have my Duesenberg. I’m not fit to drive back tonight, and you might as well travel home in style. It will be so much more romantic to ride under the stars rather than beneath the roof of John’s old Model T.”
With a flourish, she handed the perfumed cardstock to Mattie. Leaning close to her, Vera spoke in a lower voice that still managed to carry to Leo’s ears, too, despite the noise buffeting them. “Have fun, and don’t take things too seriously. That is the quickest way to ruin a delightful affair.” Then, stepping back, she cried to both of them, “Enjoy the Duesy, darlings!” before disappearing into the crowd.
“I enjoy having a wealthy chum.” Mattie smiled impishly up at Leo. He wanted to kiss her then and press his lips against the wide mouth that had fascinated him for years. But he’d waited this long, and he certainly wasn’t going to have their first embrace in a speakeasy that reeked of bootlegged booze, imported cigars, and cheap cigarettes.
“Being friends with Vera has its perks,” Leo admitted, although he wondered a little about her cavalier approach to romance. But then, unlike the heiress, he rarely did anything lightly.
“Who’s going to drive?” Mattie asked.
“How is that even a question? Obviously you.” Leo chuckled as he gently rested his arm on Mattie’s shoulders, something he’d imagined doing more times than he could ever count. He’d underestimated howgoodit would feel. His hand brushed against the soft skin of her upper arm. He’d never felt something so smooth and inviting.
“You don’t mind giving me the wheel, then?” she asked as they left the establishment together and started picking their way through the warehouse.
“As long as you don’t break our necks.”
She smiled at him. “I can manage that.”
Mattie reached up and laid her hand over his as they stepped into the street. A city with its narrow alleys, glaring streetlights, and pungent odors had never seemed so beautiful to Leo or filled with such potential.
“I like this.” Mattie tipped her head up at him, her skin somehow still glowing despite the unforgiving glare of the artificial lights. She had the amazing ability to take any harshness and transform it into softness.
“What?” Leo asked, leaning his head closer to hers as they walked along. A motorcar or two passed, but otherwise it was quiet, peaceful even.
“Us getting along. Not fighting. Walking together.Workingtogether.”
“I like it too.” More than anything. He traced his fingers over her skin. She shivered despite the humid night air. His touch had done that. Inspired the pleasure. And he wanted to give Mattie more. He wanted to give her everything.
“I feel so wonderfully alive—so energized!” Mattie snuggled her body against his. “I never thought mere emotions could do this. Did you?”
They’d rounded the corner now, and Leo could see the brilliant lights of the hotel’s marquee, big and bold as it declared the establishment’s presence to the world. It, like the woman in his arms, shrank from nothing.
“Yeah,” Leo admitted. “I did.”
“How—” Mattie began to ask, but he was spared from answering by the doorman, who snapped to attention at the sight of them. The older gentleman clearly recognized Leo and her as Miss Jones’s friends. With the efficiency of a butler on an old English estate, he arranged for one of the bellhops to pick up the Duesy. The exchange, blessedly, had distracted Mattie, but it hadn’t Leo.
He knew the powerful effect of emotions because he’d battled them for so long. Unlike Mattie, he didn’t have many feelings bouncing inside him. He didn’t often have little spurts of joy or whispers of affection. He couldn’t find inanimate objects cute like she did, and he’d never sobbed over a sad picture show, although he’d watched her bawl duringSomething to Think About. But on the rare occasion when Leo did feel, it roared through him.
The sleek Duesenberg pulled up to the curb, and the bellhop jumped out. Mattie slid into the driver’s seat. After stripping off the white gloves she’d borrowed from Vera, she caressed the steering wheel and emitted a little breathy sigh. Leo hadn’t thought he had any space left in him to burn, but clearly, he did.
He wanted her hands on him like that, her lips parted in the pleasure he’d given her. Drawing in air, he quickly pulled open the passenger door and sat down in his seat, glad that the style of men’s trousers had grown roomier in recent years.
Mattie pressed on the accelerator, and they sped off. At this time in the evening, traffic in Chicago was thinner but still thick enough that Mattie couldn’t race the machine. They didn’t talk as the Duesy rumbled through the city lit by streetlamps and the glow from apartments,hotels, restaurants, and clubs. It was as if they’d agreed to take this time for each of them to adjust to the monumental change.
