His hands framed her face, tilting her chin up with his thumbs, and he kissed her, a result of waiting weeks for it to happen. Not careful or controlled but with everything he’d been suppressing breaking loose all at once.
She met him with equal intensity. Her hands gripped his shirt, pulling him closer as his hand slid into her hair.
Suddenly, the lights snapped on. The sudden brightness felt brutal after the soft anonymity of the candlelight. For a second, neither of them moved.
Leland still framed her face like he didn’t trust himself to let go. But he did.
Rain still battered the windows. The fan hummed uselessly nearby. The entire room smelled of damp, stormy air, heat, and him.
Leland dragged a hand down his face. “You should go to bed,” he said finally, voice raspy with restraint.
Julia stared at him. She knew that tone. The one where he retreated behind a wall of control.
Rising to her feet, she crossed the room. If he needed a reason not to, she’d give it to him.
In the bedroom doorway, she paused. “I’m going,” she said, her voice steady, even when her pulse was not, especially when she added, “But I’d rather not go alone.”
When she disappeared inside, she left the door open behind her.
He didn’t follow.
She heard him pacing. Stopping. Starting again. Like he was fighting himself.
Her pulse climbed with every passing second.
When he appeared in the doorway, she was halfway through changing, in only her bra and panties, her good ones, thankfully.
He stopped dead. His gaze didn’t skim down her body; it locked onto her face. “Are you sure?”
Julia nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Thank fuck,” he breathed as he closed the distance fast. One hand slid into her hair, the other dipped into the back of her panties and palmed her ass. She grabbed the front of his shirt as he lifted her against him and kissed her again.
This time, he didn’t stop. It deepened when she opened for him, his grip tightening, angling her head how he wanted it.
Not rough. Just certain. The distinction mattered, as if he’d already decided how this would go and was simply executing the plan.
Without breaking the kiss, Leland walked her backward, one measured step at a time, until the backs of her knees met the edge of the bed. She sat and looked up at him in the light spilling through the doorway.
Breathing faster, he looked down at her the way he might look at a problem he’d already solved. Something about it made her feel more exposed than her state of undress. Visible. Entirely seen.
He ran his thumb along her collarbone, moving lower to trace the lace edging her bra. “I’ve been thinking about this since the second day,” he said. “When you came to breakfast in my T-shirt.”
“That’s a little unsettling.”
“I know.” He unhooked her bra and slid it off her in one smooth motion. The humid air settled heavy against her skin.
He cupped her breast, and her nipple grew taut beneath the sweep of his thumb. Then he pressed her back onto the bed. Her panties came down, the fabric a whisper along her thighs, gone before she fully registered it. His shirt joined it on the floor.
He came down over her, kissing her throat, her collarbone, each trembling nipple, working his way down her body with the same quiet patience he seemed to apply to everything. He spread her legs, palms flat against her inner thighs, pressing them open and holding them there as he looked at her intimately.
She was too aroused to be self-conscious. The slight roughness of his fingertips against her sensitive skin made her hips lift toward him before she could stop herself.
She could’ve sworn she felt his smile on her skin. “Patience,” he murmured. “I’ll get you there.”
His deep voice and the promise of pleasure were all it took. Her breath left her in a long exhale, her hands twisting in the sheets.
Leland’s mouth found hers. The steady pressure of his tongue returned to the same spot again and again. He wasn’t rushing. He’d settled in with no plans to go anywhere.
