They sank in, spreading eager lips with deep tilts of their heads, tongues dancing, making out like they were the only two people in the park, oblivious to the stares and giggles of people walking by.
She disappeared into the feel of his strength, his strong kiss, and no longer gave a damn about the case, about Harp, about Chet, about Val, Tony, or Victor King.
All that mattered was Leo and his lips as they grew stronger, more insistent. She surrendered to the caress, mind reduced to fantasies about how many places she ached to feel those lips and that tongue.
She pulled back with a gasp, meeting his hooded eyes.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he whispered.
She shook her head. “Me neither.”
“I try and… useless. Hopeless.” His words trailed off as his eyes fell to her lips. He licked his. “Are you ready?”
She swallowed hard, still reeling from the kiss, but managed to nod. “Where’s your car?”
He motioned over her shoulder, and she turned to look across the grass, deeper in to the park, raising an eyebrow at the sight that met her in the middle of the grass.
“That’s a helicopter,” she said, looking back to him.
“Gold star for Ashley.”
Unmoved by his teasing, she blinked. “But that’s a helicopter.”
“You mean our helicopter.” He picked up their bags, carrying them both in one hand while offering her his free arm.
She took it with an astonished look, gripping his bicep as her mouth dropped open. “You landed a helicopter in Central fucking Park? You had Dior open their doors for you in the dead of night…” She shook her head at him. “Who are you? You realize this is not normal behavior, right?”
“Feels normal to me.”
“You can’t just throw money around like this.”
“No? Because I think I just did.”
“Who gave you a permit for this?”
“I have good friends in handy places.”
Frowning at him, she let him pull her across the grass and toward the chopper, where a blond pilot had his feet up on the cockpit dash, flipping through a newspaper and smacking his gum.
“We just agreed on Central Park an hour ago.” Jessica continued ranting even as Leo dropped their bags and helped her up the steps and into the chopper. “How did you secure a helicopter, a pilot, and a permit to land said helicopter in the most famous park in the world… in an hour?”
“Joey stays on call for me,” Leo said, climbing in behind her.
Jessica assumed Joey was the pilot who was stowing their bags in the rear of the aircraft. “Joey stays on call for you… Of course he does. What’s next, huh? Do you keep Barack and Michelle on call, too? Are they going to greet us once we touch down in the Hamptons?”
“Damn.” Leo clicked his teeth, eyes shining at her as he handed her a champagne glass. “Now you’ve gone and ruined the surprise.”
Jessica took the empty glass with a frown, yelping when a pop blasted through the air, just before Joey turned to them from the cockpit, champagne bottle in hand. Bubbles tumbled over the rim and down his hand as he motioned to her glass with a smile.
“Yes, please. Thank you.” Jessica held out her glass, shaking her head as Joey filled it to the brim. “You’re insane, Leo Romanovsky.”
Leo held out his glass next, meeting her eyes as foam raced to the rim, fizzling away mere moments before it could bubble over.
“And you’re worth it, Ashley Williams.”
Ashley Williams.
The smile vanished from Jessica’s face.
The truth slapped her around and didn’t let up.
This isn’t real, Jessica.
It never would be.
***
Jessica was shocked when the helicopter began its descent into the Hamptons, feeling like they’d only just taken off a few minutes ago. When Leo leaned over and placed a kiss on her lips, it occurred to her that one hundred years could fly by with those lips of his on hers, and it would always feel like seconds.
His kiss left her with a tender smack. “Turn around.”
In her line of work, she’d learned never to turn her back. Not to anyone, under any circumstance. Not even someone she trusted with her life.
She turned her back to Leo, senses leaping to new heights when he draped a black scarf over her eyes and tied it behind her head.
Entrenched in darkness, she turned back to him and reached out, thankful when her hands brushed those familiar boulders under his skin—he liked to call them shoulders. She clutched them. Minutes later, a click hit her ears and a crispy whoosh of cold wind engulfed her.
He took hold of her waist and lifted her out of the helicopter. Not for a single moment did she feel fearful, off-balance, or worried that he would mishandle her. She shuffled when she felt the ground under her feet.
A cool breeze prickled her cheeks, and the mist of fragrant ocean water further soothed them, its salty scent calming her senses. She knew the waves were close—could hear them crashing—and she kicked, looking for sand, but all she felt was gravel.
Her quaking fingers traveled up and down Leo’s solid arms, amused that she knew each tattoo she was touching even though she couldn’t see them. Her nails trickled along his wrist where she knew a flame encircled his skin, lapping a fiery path to his elbow and serving as a gradient backdrop to the rest of his tattoos. Her nails trailed up his forearm, passing the Buddha she knew lived there. She scratched softly at the hurricane whirlwind that swirled at his elbow, and the mysterious woman who grinned on his bicep. It flexed as she touched it, and she pictured the woman’s smile moving, the way it always did when he tightened his arm.
She yearned to ask about each and every one. The story behind them. Why he’d chosen them. What they meant to him. She yearned to probe deeper.
She inhaled when he moved behind her and encircled her in those arms, tightening them around her waist. His woodsy scent dropped in and surrounded her, making the cold feel less cold, the salty scent less jarring, and the tightness of her bones less debilitating. He took a step forward, and she did too. Their bodies tapped, his arousal apparent on her backside.
“Are we at the ocean?”
“My favorite place on earth,” he said.
He released her, took her hand and pulled her after him.
She followed his lead, gasping when the ground became uneven. The creaking of wood swirled in her ear, mixed with the soft lap of water, which seemed to be right below her. The lap grew louder, nearly drowning out the sound of the helicopter’s rotor whooshing back to life in the distance. She heard it fade away, and said a quiet good-bye to Joey.
As the surface at their feet grew more unsteady, she tightened her hand around his, clapping a hand to his arm.
“You’re okay.” He laughed, tightening his hand, arm brushing hers as he came in closer. “We’re almost there.”
The warmth of his hand left hers, but he didn’t let her go lonely for long before taking her forearms.
“Step up.”
She heeded the whispered order, clutching his forearms in return, lifting her foot and setting it down, trembling as she dug her nails into his skin.
“I got you. I promise. Two more steps.”
She took the steps with ease this time, sighing when she felt a solid surface under her. As she bobbed from foot to foot, Leo’s laugh swooped in from behind her, his arms coming around her waist once more, moving her forward.
A lock clicked. A door creaked. Warm air hit her, and he removed the blindfold.
She had to blink several times, struggling to get her eyelashes back into place and make sense of the blurry picture before her. Soon, her vision cleared.
“Wow,” she gasped.
The yacht’s interior was all white, but the double tray ceiling was lined with black crown molding and dotted with recessed lighting, making the room jump out and dominate the eye. Wall-to-wall windows allotted an unobstructed view of the black ocean o
utside, and the red moon peeking in. A white area rug sat in the middle, topped by a white U-shaped sectional lined with colorful throw pillows.
“This is my home away from home,” he said. “I heard it was a blood moon tonight and I wanted to share it with you.”
19
“You know, this boat is a real pussy magnet,” Jessica said later that evening, instantly realizing the words she’d just said were way too Jessica Borgia. She could almost see Chet shaking his head.
“I didn’t bring you here for pussy,” he said, eyebrows leaping. “Although, that would be wonderful.”
She took in his smirking lips, and rolled her eyes. “So why did you bring me here?”
Leo frowned. “I wanted you to see this moon. I wanted to feel you in my arms again. To kiss you again. I want to know everything there is to know about you.” He shrugged. “I can keep going…”
“Everything about me?” Jessica swallowed, for the first time accepting what a mistake it was to come here.
“Everything,” Leo said.
She couldn’t conquer her smile, and she played her toes against his where they peeked out from the heavy outdoor blanket draped across their legs. He’d given her one of his plush cashmere sweaters so they could lie out on the deck of the yacht and look up at the moon. The pool chair they shared was deeply cushioned, and the size of a queen bed. After adding throw pillows and a blanket, Leo had made it so comfortable out there Jessica was on the verge of falling asleep. They’d even been forced to kick the blanket off their bodies, letting it bunch and settle around their calves as their body heat permeated and assumed the job of keeping them nice and toasty.
They spent the next few hours curled up, deep in conversation, emptying champagne bottles like the liquor was going to rot. Two bottles later, and Jessica knew she’d given Leo too much of herself. By the time she changed the subject, she’d already spilled her best childhood stories, and all her hopes and dreams. She could already hear the grief Chet was going to give her once she got home. As much as she hated it, she still had a job to do.
She watched the red moon, hardly able to croak her next words. “Tell me more about your brothers.”
“What do you want to know?”
She wondered if she should go straight for the kill, or ease her way in.
Then, it hit her.
He’d brought her to this beautiful yacht, a red moon was shining down, sultry music was wafting out of the stereo system, and he’d yet to make a single pass at her. She no longer had to worry about asking too many questions, or jumping in straight for the kill. He would give her a kidney if she asked. Their boundaries were obliterated.
“Val.” Her heart hurt the moment she breathed the name. She recognized the feeling, and every second she spent looking at him, it deepened. “Tell me more about Val.”
Leo ran the beds of his fingers along her arm. A buzz had come to fruition for both of them, so his honesty spilled out in a heartbeat.
“I love him sometimes. I hate him sometimes.”
The wire strapped to her chest itched the way it always did when Leo let new information slip. “Of course you love him,” she whispered. “And of course you hate him. Sounds like a sibling right of passage to me.”
“When we were kids, I was outrageously jealous. He was always better. Faster. Stronger. Smarter. Always. We both knew it. Even at home. Him and Pop always had a deeper connection. I lost count of how many nights I’d walk in on the two of them having these conversations… You know, deep conversations, the kind that make you forget that there’s still a world spinning around you? They’d always be immersed in those kind of conversations, and they would stop talking the moment I walked in.”
Jessica cuddled her head deeper into his chest, looking off into the water and taking a chunk of his sweater in a fist. Their legs tangled together. His voice hummed through his chest and tickled her cheek.
“It got to the point that I actually started testing it,” he said. “And it kept happening, time and time again. Silence when I walked in, and the conversation would pick up the moment I walked out. They have a connection, as father and son that I never had with Pop. I try to connect, but… He just isn’t as into me as he is Val. I guess he doesn’t love me as much.”
Jessica’s head shot up, and she cradled her arms on his chest as she met his gaze. The pain she saw there almost sent the truth spilling from her lips. She almost told him Val and Tony only had a connection because of a terrible thing they’d been involved in together. A terrible thing that would never taint Leo the way it had tainted them.
“Maybe he believed I was as inadequate as I always felt,” he said.
“Oh, Leo…” Jessica breathed. “You are beating the absolute shit out of yourself right now. You can’t do this to yourself. You will go insane.”
“One time,” Leo smiled, as if he hadn’t even heard her, “in high school, Pop called the house and said he was picking up some KFC. It was just me and Val in the house that day, and he asked Val if I wanted anything. I was asleep in my room. Val didn’t bother asking me, even though he knew I hadn’t eaten all day, and he told Pop I didn’t want anything. So Pop came home with just enough food for him and Val. I woke up starving, came downstairs, saw them throwing down, and hit the fucking ceiling. I was starving, Val knew it, and to this day I think he did it on purpose. I think he knows… he’s always known… how I felt, and I think he wanted me to feel it. To remind me of my place. Where I stood.” Leo’s eyes filled. “It’s stupid. So little, so insignificant, so stupid, but I actually cried over that shit, because it started fucking with a part of me I’d never really addressed. The part of me that hated Val for being… so much better.”
“I get it. And it’s not stupid,” she said. The story he’d just told her wasn’t about chicken. It was about love. Why hadn’t Tony brought home enough food for both brothers, just in case Leo woke up hungry? Just to drive the point home that he loved all of his sons the same. It left Jessica wondering how many other ways Tony had slighted Leo, perhaps unknowingly.
“I stay telling you things.” He looked down from the moon, smiling at her. “I swear to God, I tell you things I’ve never told anybody.”
“You don’t tell me anything.”
“I done told you some things.” He beamed.
Jessica bit her lip when her smile stretched on for too long. “So you might as well keep telling me, then. Tell me all of it.”
“Don’t get me wrong.” He lifted a shoulder. “I know Pop loves me, and I love him more than myself. It’s just little things like that. And then Novsky…” He scoffed. “Val made a few keyboard swipes at Cornell, and Novsky blew up. Of course it did. And that was it. He’ll always, always, always…”
Jessica frowned, waiting for him to finish.
“Be faster. Stronger. Smarter.” Leo breathed in. “Better.”
Jessica opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Finally, she managed. “Leo…”
Leo licked his lips, fighting back the pain that was taking over his eyes.
“You have no idea—” Jessica’s voice broke, and she dropped her head, trying to find control. When she looked back up, she clawed her nails into his sweater. “How wrong you are.”
Leo’s eyes left hers.
She scooted closer, trying to reclaim them. “I think you should tell Val how you feel, and then you’ll see. You’ll see how wrong you are.”
“I would never breathe a word of what I just said to him.” Leo’s eyes hit hers. “And don’t you do it, either.”
“I would never do that. I just think it would help if you told him how you feel. You might be surprised.”
“Let’s change the subject.”
Jessica wasn’t used to Leo withdrawing. That was her forte. It threw her into a long moment of silence.
“Okay,” she said, stacking her palms on his chest and pushing her chin into them. His deep breathing made her head rise and fall. “Why didn’t you want me to see your apartm
ent today?”
“What?”
“When you called me and asked me to meet you, I wanted to meet at your apartment, but you said no.”
“Why have I never seen your house in Westchester?” Leo countered.
It was a fair question. One that ended her curious line of thought. “Tell me more about your family. Your dad,” she whispered. “Taking guardianship over Zoey ten years ago. He’s a good man for doing that. Pure of heart.”
When she saw nothing but love spreading in his eyes at the mention of his father, it solidified that he really had no idea who his family was. What they’d done. What they were capable of. Even after everything he’d shared with her about feeling cast aside by him, it was clear Leo had nothing but blind love in the deepest parts of him when it came to Tony.
He let his fingertips travel to her hipbone, trickling over the loops of her jeans. “Pop always says Marcus would have done the same for any of us.”
“Zoey’s dad?”
“Yeah. Him and Pop were both orphans, grew up in the same foster home. Marcus’s real family was always in shambles, they couldn’t care for him. Pop never knew his real family. They swore to each other to never let their own kids know the feeling of having no place to call home.”
“What about Zoey’s mother?” Jessica asked.
“Orphan.”
“Wow.” She moved her eyes back to the sky.
He stared with her. “Sometimes I get the feeling Zoey thinks she deserves this. Like this was her destiny, and she’s just some pawn in an unstoppable family legacy. I think that’s why she was so adamant about not having kids before Val knocked her up. She’s scared to bring another child into the world that might end up alone, like she did. Like her folks did. If only she knew… having both parents in your life doesn’t mean you aren’t alone.”
Jessica’s eyes danced from one winking star to the next. “You feel alone?”
“Sometimes.”
“Me too.”
“Then I met you.”
A smile spread on her lips. “Me too.”
“Why did you choose me?”
Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3) Page 20
