He laughed. “It was.” But then he let out a tiny creaking noise in his throat, a realization dropping: “Do you have someone?”
“No.” She turned one hand over, resting her palm on his chest. “It’s hard to date in this line of work. Most of my… whatevers have been guests.”
“？‘Whatevers’？”
“Hookups,” she said. Blood rushed to her face. God, it sounded so sleazy. She didn’t want to have to admit how pathetic her love life had been.
But Leo had gone stony and silent.
“What about you?” she asked. “Do you date a lot?”
“Are you really asking me this right now?”
“Yes?”
He exhaled a slow breath through his nose. “I’ve dated a little.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“Bradley will be more than happy to tell you that I’m a commitment-phobe, but it isn’t that.” He went quiet, and with nothing else to notice, it was impossible to miss how his pulse had ratcheted higher. “I think the problem is that I’m not the kind of person to fall in and out of love.”
And now her pulse was pounding. The implication landed heavily.
But she asked anyway: “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I fell in love once and stayed there.”
“Leo…”
“You don’t have to feel the same. I’m just explaining where I am. It seems important to not leave anything unsaid.” Pausing, he added, “Though I admit maybe when you’re trapped with me in a sleeping bag… after we’ve both almost died, might not be the best time. Shit, I’m sorry.”
Her body took over, responding to the idea of him lying here, wanting her, holding her while she slept, doing everything she’d asked him to do when the truth was that she wanted this just as much as he did.
She slid her palms up his bare chest, setting off an explosion of need in her blood, and Leo sucked in a sharp breath, going very, very still. Beneath her hands, his pulse hit so hard she felt it reverberating along his skin. Her fingers rose over the curve of his chest, dipped into the hollows of his collarbones. She gave thanks to the darkness, because feeling him without being able to see him heightened every other sensation. Lily noticed the definition of every cord in his neck, how the length of his throat stretched unbelievably long under her touch. His jaw was a sharp edge against her fingertips, his lips full and softly parted, panting when she ran her index finger over them.
She whispered, “Come here.”
He paused, but she felt the fight in him fall away. Digging her fingers into his hair, she leaned in, opening her mouth over his neck, sucking. A groan escaped her throat; he tasted so good, it made her feel feral, made her body press into his, hungry and sleepy and hot.
“Don’t play with me,” he said, and his voice vibrated against her lips. “Lily? I don’t have it in me to say no, but don’t do this out of pity or obligation.”
“I think you know me better than that.”
“You know what I mean.”
Her head was foggy, her body so wound up it was hard to pull coherent thought forward. But even if she’d been fresh at sunrise with a cup of coffee in her hand, she wasn’t sure she’d know the right words to say. What did he think was possible between them? He was in New York. Lily was here. Living in wide-open land was as natural as existing inside her own skin, and she was never going to carve the shape of her life around a man again.
But being this close to Leo felt just as natural. It felt right to share her body with him. And even more than that… it felt right to let him into her world. She hadn’t wanted to figure out how to build something lasting with a lover in years, but the thought that she could try with Leo flickered like a firefly around the edges of her thoughts, teasing.
“I’m just lying here in the darkness,” he said, “trying to imagine going back to my life the way it was last week, and I can’t. I can’t even imagine what that would look like.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know what it means, exactly. I guess it depends on what you want.”
“I don’t know.” She drew absent circles on the side of his neck. “Right now? I want you. Right this second, I want to feel you. But I guess if you need something more permanent than that, then… don’t kiss me.”
Please kiss me, she thought. Her pulse was rioting. His breath was warm and still sweet with the mint of his toothpaste and mouthwash. The kiss in the rain, against the rock, had been bruising and angry, but right now she remembered every other kind of kiss Leo could give and she wanted them all. Sweet, deep, searching, frantic. Her breath seemed to hover in her throat as he thought it over.