“Well,” I manage eventually. “That’s very kind of you to say, Sergeant Twinkle.”
Leo doesn’t smile. He’s watching me with a look I’ve learned to recognize over the past few weeks. The one that says he’s seen through whatever I’ve just done and is choosing not to call me on it.
“Elizabeth being gone means you no longer have to sleep in my bed,” I say because I’ve apparently decided the best way to handle this moment is to give Leo every possible off-ramp.
His eyes don’t leave mine. “That’s true.”
“Your old room is exactly as you left it. You’re free to resume your solitary existence,” I say.
“Very considerate of you.”
“I’m a considerate person. It’s one of my many qualities.”
We’re sitting about a foot apart on the sofa. The TV is off. Neither of us is making any move to get up.
I should just say goodnight. Just stand and hobble to my room, close the door so this can stay what it’s been. Fun. Temporary. Safe.
“Or,” I hear myself say, and my voice drops in a way I didn’t authorize, “you could not.”
“Not what?”
“Not resume your solitary existence.” I can’t quite look at him. My gaze has fixed itself somewhere around his collarbone, which feels like a reasonable compromise between eye contact and fleeing the country. “If you don’t want to.”
The silence that follows is so complete I can hear my own heartbeat.
Then Leo’s hand moves to touch my face. His thumb traces my cheekbone, so gently it barely qualifies as touch.
I look up.
His eyes are dark and serious and full of an emotion I don’t have a name for. But it makes my ribs feel too small for everything inside them.
“I don’t want to,” he says.
And he kisses me.
It starts the way our kisses usually do. His mouth on mine, warm and certain. My hands finding the front of his shirt, pulling him closer. There’s the familiar chemical reaction that happens whenever Leo Brennan touches me, the one that bypasses my brain entirely and goes straight to every nerve ending I own.
He pulls me onto his lap in one smooth movement, and my legs settle on either side of his hips before my brain has even processed the maneuver.
“Careful,” he says. “Your ankle?—”
“My ankle is fine. Stop worrying about my ankle.”
“Your ankle hasn’t completely healed yet.”
“Well, right now, it’s the least interesting part of my body, so maybe redirect your attention.”
He redirects his attention.
He lifts me like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and my arms tighten around his neck.
“Show-off,” I mutter.
“You weigh nothing.”
“I weigh a perfectly normal amount for a man of my height and bone structure, and I resent?—”
He carries me down the hall and then presses me against the bedroom door and kisses me. It’s deep and unhurried. The kind of kiss that has no agenda.
