by L. D. Davis
I helped him clean up after breakfast and by the time we finished, we were both yawning non-stop.
“Why don’t you sleep here?” Leo asked as I leisurely checked out his movie and music collection. There was an entire corner devoted just to entertainment. Books, movies, and various types of music were neatly lined up on floor to ceiling shelving.
I ignored his question entirely, but he was impossible to ignore altogether. He followed so closely behind me that when he spoke, I could feel his breath filtering through my hair and landing softly on my neck.
“Who still buys CDs?” I teased, picking up a random CD. “No iPod?”
“I have an iPod, but there’s something comforting about having a CD or even a record.” Beside me, he plucked a record off of the bottom shelf.
“I think I recognize some of this music from your bedroom from fifteen years ago,” I said, running my hand over a Nirvana case. “This is the same disc from fifteen years ago. Oh my god,” I gasped. I had reached his bookshelf and the first few books at the top were books I wrote.
He reached above me and gently ran a hand over the spines. He had each book in paperback and hardcover.
“You read all of these?” I asked, spinning around and gaping at him.
His gaze settled on me. His smile made me feel warm and fuzzy. “Of course, I did, Tabitha. I’m your number one fan, always have been and always will be.”
I felt the color rush to my cheeks. The words seemed to have a deeper meaning than what was on the surface and it made my breath catch ever so softly. I offered him an appreciative smile before turning my head back to the books.
“Oh, and I also have...” He put his hand on my hip to guide me to another shelf and with his other hand, he pulled a black box off of the top of the shelf. He balanced it with one hand because he never took his other hand off of me. My skin warmed where his hand rested.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Take the lid off and see for yourself.” He looked at me intently.
I hesitated before taking it off, but when I did, I gasped again. Inside was a stack of magazines, and I instantly knew what they were.
“You collected all of the magazines that I wrote for,” I said, picking up the top magazine in the stack.
“I also have copies of anything else you’ve ever publicly published—clippings from the school paper and even a short story you had written for Leslie.”
“She gave it to you?” I asked, feeling offended.
“No way. She let me copy it, though.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was completely astonished. I wasn’t very surprised that Leo followed my career, but he owned everything he could possibly own that was in connection with me. My own mother didn’t have half as much as Leo did.
“Will you sign all of my books?” Leo asked as he put the cover back on the box. He reached up to put it back and his shirt pulled up over his stomach; I felt my eyes widen. His stomach wasn’t made of those inhuman looking ripples like some guys had, but it was obviously hard with well-worked muscles, and there was a thin line of dark hair that started just below his navel and disappeared into his shorts.
I tore my eyes away as his shirt began to fall back into place, but it was too late. I was caught.
“I knew you were checking me out,” Leo said, his green-blue eyes bright with amusement and…damn…desire.
“You should probably lay off of the pancakes and bacon,” I said flatly as I turned away from him. I felt stupid for saying that, especially since I was the one who obviously needed to lay off of the pancakes and bacon.
“You want me,” Leo said in a cocky, but teasing tone.
“I want you about as much as I want an incurable disease,” I shot over my shoulder as I moved forward and started looking at the various framed pictures settled on different surfaces. Many of them were of Leo’s family, his trips to Italy, and of him in the restaurant, but there were a few old ones in there, too, and I saw at least two of me.
“So,” Leo said, right behind me, sliding his hand onto my hip again as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Thank goodness it wasn’t skin to skin, because I would have probably caught on fire. “What you’re saying is that I am like an incurable disease, right?”
“Yes, a really bad one,” I said insolently.
“So, in essence, what you are saying is that you want me bad, and that you can’t shake me,” Leo said, so proud of himself for coming to his ridiculous conclusion.
I turned around to face him, making his hand fall away from me.
“What I am saying is that you make me sick,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
He was already close to me, but he stepped in so close that I took a sudden step back, only to find that I literally backed myself up into a corner with the shelves at my back and to my right, and now Leo’s strong, muscular arm on my left as he rested his hand on a shelf behind me. He put his other hand on my hip again and took another unbelievable step, spreading his legs wide so that they were on either side of mine.
“So,” Leo said, his voice soft and sizzling hot just like his hard body that was now pressed against mine. “What you’re saying is that I make you hot and sweaty. What you are telling me is that I take your breath away and make you gasp for air. You’re telling me that I invade and then violate your body and wreak havoc on your senses and scramble your brain and make your heart beat erratic and unstable. If that’s what you’re telling me, Tabitha, then I like making you sick. I like being your disease, and I will infect you again and again.”
Holy. Shit.
Gawd. As if his words were so damn true, I felt my body heat rising and a thin layer of moisture pebbled on my neck. My lungs had taken another trip, because breathing was impossible, and good fucking grief, I could feel the length of him pressing against me like a soldier standing at attention at my gates. Every inch of my skin tingled and burned and felt like electricity, and my heart, my poor heart was going to give up at any second and kill me.
I could let him completely take over and get into my system, or I could fight the infection. Maybe there wasn’t an antidote, but I had the right dose of medicine to wipe away most of the symptoms.
“Why didn’t you invite Leslie to the party?” I asked in a rush of air as I tried to breathe. I swallowed hard as his eyes darkened and his body stiffened. “I mean, I know you guys haven’t been together for a long time, but that’s all water under the bridge, isn’t it?”
Leo inhaled deeply and let it out slowly through is nose as he stared at me. He knew what I was doing, and regardless of how he felt about it, it was working. He stepped away from me, like way away from me. He walked halfway across the room before he even bothered to answer me.
“I did invite her. She didn’t answer, and yes, it’s all water under the bridge, for me anyway,” he said as he took a beer out of the fridge. “For you two, I don’t know.”
I didn’t have to ask what that meant. I knew what it meant. He was talking about our girl code. I didn’t want to get into that with him. It was the reason our friendship had come to an abrupt halt nine years ago, and I wasn’t interested in doing that again with Leo. For the time being, it was time to walk away. I knew that judging by the way he leaned against the counter, one leg crossed over the other, the muscle in his jaw twitching slightly and the rest of his body stiff with…anger? Disappointment? Hurt? A combination of them all?
“I better go,” I said softly as I picked my purse up off of the couch. “If I don’t leave soon, I’ll never make it back in one piece. I’ll see you in a few hours for the beach thing.”
As I moved past him, he said one word. “Stay.”
I stopped and looked at him. “That’s…I probably should just go back…”
“You probably shouldn’t wrap your rental car around a telephone pole,” Leo said, sounding like he was reining in anger. He took a deep breath and his body relaxed a little, as did the hardness of his eyes. “It’s safer for you and for
the other people out on the road if you don’t drive while you’re sleepy. You can stay in the guest room, or you can take my room and I’ll take the guest room.”
I rubbed my bare arm, which seemed to have erupted in goose bumps as I considered it. I was feeling pretty heavy, very sleepy, like those moments against the bookshelf had sucked away what little energy I had left.
Leo drained his beer bottle in a matter of seconds and put it on the counter before walking over to me. He gently touched my elbow.
“Come on, let’s get some sleep,” he said.
Somehow, just by touching my elbow, he was able to guide me back across the room, down a hallway and to a bedroom. He flipped a switch and the room was bathed in light. The guest room had a tall, full size bed in the center of the room, an armoire, a nightstand, and a comfortable looking chair by a large window that no doubt had a view of the beach.
“You already know where the bathroom is,” Leo said, pulling down the duvet and top sheets for me. “And if you happen to wake up before me, you can have or do whatever you want, as long as you don’t leave without saying goodbye.”
He stepped away from the bed and went to stand in the doorway.
“If you need anything, just let me know,” he said quietly. He didn’t look angry and stiff anymore, but he didn’t look happy either.
“Okay,” I answered softly. “Thank you, Leo.”
He looked like he was going to say something, or a lot of somethings, but he pursed his lips, nodded once, and closed the door.
At four in the morning, my bladder woke me up from a deep sleep. It took me a panicky moment to remember where I was and where the bathroom was. As I headed back to my room, I heard the television changing channels through Leo’s slightly open bedroom door. I continued to the end of the hall and poked my head into his room. He was lying in bed wearing nothing but shorts, remote in hand, looking bored to death.
“Hey,” I said.
He bolted upright, prepared to leap out of bed. “Are you okay?”
“What? Yeah. I’m fine. Are you okay?” I asked.
“I can’t sleep,” he said, looking relieved. I felt relieved, too, because the awkwardness that had been between us earlier seemed to have been gone. “Is the TV keeping you up?” he asked.
“No. I got up to pee and saw that you were still awake. What’s on the tube?”
He shrugged. “Not much. The Fifth Element is coming on in a few minutes.”
“Love that movie.” I smiled.
He patted the bed beside him. “Come on in then.”
“Umm...” I looked down at my bare legs. I had forgotten that I was only in my T-shirt. I had kicked my pants off before going to sleep.
“Come on. I promise to behave.”
He looked like he really meant it, and since I was up, I was wide-awake again.
It’s only a movie.
I crossed the room and planted myself on the other side of his bed where he had pulled back the blanket for me so I could cover myself.
“What’s keeping you awake?” I asked him as I leaned back on the headboard.
“Just my thoughts,” he said, and looked away from me for a second. “What’s keeping you awake?”
“You are now.”
He grinned and said, “You love it. You love me, actually.”
“You’re really full of yourself, you know that? Some things don’t change.” I shook my head as he chuckled.
The movie started, and our conversation died down to the occasional snarky comment about it. Not even halfway through, my eyes started to close on their own accord. Stubbornly, I didn’t want to stop watching the movie I had seen numerous times, so I didn’t get up and return to the guest room. Eventually, my body gave up and I fell asleep in Leo’s bed.
Sometime later, as sunlight streamed in through the skylights, I was startled awake by his alarm clock blaring next to the bed. I was further startled by the fact that I was wrapped in his arms and my head was on his chest. One of my legs was draped over his, and my knee was touching his—
Oh, my god!
Leo groaned and rolled, moving me to my back in the process with him partially on top of me. He reached for the alarm on the table closest to me and smacked it off before falling back onto the bed. Just as he was beginning to sleepily wrap his arms around me again, I hurried out of the tangle of sheets and limbs and raced out of the room and back to the guest room to put on my pants. When I was dressed again, I slapped a palm to my head and chastised myself for falling asleep with him like that. I tried to ignore the very fresh memory of the weight of his arms around my body, the weight of his body on mine, the length and width of…
“Pull yourself together, Tabitha,” I whispered harshly as I put my flip-flops on.
I hurried across the hall to the bathroom. After I washed my hands and rinsed my mouth, I did the best I could do with my bed head and made my way out to the kitchen where I could hear Leo moving around.
Bare-chested with his shorts hanging low on his hips, Leo looked up from the mug of coffee he was stirring and smiled.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said and then offered me the mug. “Extra cream, extra sugar, right?”
I accepted the coffee with a slight nod. “Thank you.”
He winked at me before putting the creamer back into the fridge. He stood there at the open door, like he was searching for something.
“Are you hungry?”
“No,” I said, wondering how the hell he could be hungry after that huge breakfast we ate hours ago.
I sipped my coffee as I strolled over to one of the large walls of glass. In the dark, I didn’t see the infinity pool and the attached hot tub in the spacious back yard. A patio wrapped around one side of the house with several seating options, an enormous grill, and a bar, and there was a worn path from the patio doors that lead directly to the beach.
“Do you like it?” Leo asked. A second later, he stepped up beside me with his own mug.
I continued to stare out at the white sand, the crystal blue water that reminded me of Leo’s eyes, all bathed in bright sunshine.
“I love it,” I said easily. “It’s beautiful.” No wonder San spent so much time there to recover from her divorce. One can probably recover from pretty much anything there.
We were quiet for a short while, but Leo stood so close to me that his arm brushed mine whenever he lifted his coffee mug to his mouth.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” Leo finally said. “We still have a lot of catching up to do.”
“We’ve been catching up for the past fourteen or fifteen hours.” I took another sip of my coffee and almost sighed. He got the measurements for cream and sugar just right, just the way I liked it.
“Hardly.” Leo snorted. “We have been talking, but not really talking. We have nine years to make up for, Tabs. Nine long years. I want to know everything I’ve missed.”
“I don’t lead a very eventful life, Leo. There isn’t much to tell. Besides, I have a deadline I have to meet and—”
Leo stepped in front of me, blocking my view. He put his free hand on my cheek, and my god, the tiny charges of electricity flowing from his skin had me surprised my hair wasn’t standing on end. His eyes were like magnets, pulling my gaze to his.
“There’s no fucking way I’m letting you go like that, Tabitha. You’re not going to leave here with promises of keeping in touch like all of those other assholes and then just fade away. You’re not leaving here until I am permanently cemented in your life, in whatever capacity that is.”
Whatever capacity…
“We made that mistake nine years ago, Tabs,” Leo continued, dropping his hand to my shoulder. “Let’s not do it again. You can work from anywhere, right? You can meet that deadline from the moon as long as you have a Wi-Fi signal?”
“Yes,” I dragged the word out as I looked at him with suspicion.
“So, why don’t you hang out in Miami for a couple of weeks? We’ll hang out, we’ll go do so
me fun things, and you can work when I’m at work. You can stay here in the guestroom and have this awesome view every day,” he nodded toward the windows.
The guestroom thing turned out completely different than either of us expected the previous night. My face heated at the memory of how we woke up and where my knee was…
“Come on, it will be fun,” Leo said, his eyes lighting up with hope and mischief. Of course, there was mischief; he was still Leo Pesciano. “Don’t make me put you in a headlock until you agree.”
“If you put me in a headlock, I will chop off your tiny balls,” I warned, taking a step back from him, making his hand fall away from me.
His grin was so wicked that I took another cautious step back and winced.
“Baby, you know I don’t have tiny balls,” he said in a tone that sent shivers up my spine. “You practically molested me with your knee this morning.”
“Fuck you, I did not!” I exclaimed, sloshing coffee on the hardwood floor. “Shit.”
I walked past a chuckling Leo to go find paper towels and put the mug down.
“It’s okay,” Leo said, following me leisurely. “I know I’m a good-looking guy. You couldn’t help yourself, just like you couldn’t help curling up to me in the middle of the night and grinding your pu—”
I gasped and my eyes widened as I picked up a roll of paper towels and started back into the living room.
“Now you’re just being an asshole, as usual,” I snapped as I walked past him again. “And for the record, I grinded nothing on you. Who knows what you did to me in the middle of the night while I was unconscious.”
I dropped to my knees to clean up the coffee I had spilled. Leo stopped a few feet away.
“Damn, I think I like the way you look on your knees, Tacky,” he said and then finished up the sentence with a small groan.
I stopped and glared up at him. “Leo Pesciano, if this is your way of convincing me to hang around Miami for another two weeks, you are failing.”
