Page 33 of Love Walked In

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mari

I was leaning on the counter of the first-floor register, contemplating the exactly three hours of sleep Leo and I had let each other have, when Catriona’s astonished voice broke through my daydreaming.

“Is that Leo swaggering?”

“Huh?” I said intelligently.

“Morning!” Leo said with a huge grin, walking up to where Catriona and I were standing. I squinted. He was wearing a checkered scarf. It was black and dove gray, two non-colors repeating.

But still. Checks . For him, that was practically sequined tie-dye. “Hi,” I said, pretending that everything was absolutely normal and he hadn’t done something totally wild with his clothing. “You’re chirpy.”

“It’s a lovely day.” He sounded like he was on the verge of breaking into a Fred Astaire–style song-and-dance routine.

I couldn’t help but look out the windows behind him at the wet, dreary day, but I guessed he was looking at the world through sex-colored glasses. My fingers involuntarily found the small hickey he’d left high on my shoulder during round three.

Catriona said wryly, “If you enjoy a bit of drizzle, absolutely.”

Leo shrugged cheerfully. “Everything going all right here? What needs done?”

We discussed the day’s work for the festival.

We’d put tickets on sale day after tomorrow, so we needed to make sure everything on the website was right.

All of us would meet at the end of the day to decide what books we would order, to make sure we were as stocked as possible for the whole day.

It was like electricity was coursing under Leo’s skin, brightening his eyes and making him just a little bit jumpy.

Once he’d left the room, whistling something jazzy, Catriona turned and looked at me, eyebrows raised.

I subtly moved the neck of my sweater, hoping it would cover Leo’s love bite. “Don’t know what’s up with him.”

She snorted. “Of course you don’t know, and I live in Buckingham Palace.” She glanced at my neck. “Our Leo has hidden talents, it seems.”

“Aw, shut up,” I said without heat. I felt loose and pliant thanks to Leo’s hands and mouth, and my faint reflection in the window had pink cheeks and an extremely dopey smile.

“Well, when you’ve come down from whichever cloud you’re currently floating on, you were going to talk to Graham and me about how we might set up the gallery for the talks.”

I shook my head to drive the sexy fog away. “Of course. I just want to check the website and social media. See you down there in ten?”

She waved an elegant pale hand at me and left the room.

I looked at myself again in the window and my brain immediately slipped back to last night.

I’d woken up from a humid, formless dream with my mouth hungry on Leo’s skin.

He had made me come on his fingers, then pinned my wrists to the bed and fucked me so slowly that I was writhing underneath him, begging him to let me touch myself so that I could come one more time.

He made me wait, and wait, and wait, until he touched me instead and I blew up into smithereens.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d come more than once with a male partner, let alone had the kind of orgasms that left me shuddering and gasping for air.

I scrubbed a hand along my scalp and shook my head at my reflection.

I looked loved up, Suzanne would have said.

But this wasn’t love, just some good old-fashioned exercise.

Letting off steam. Even though I’d promised Leo we’d be exclusive, it didn’t mean that sleeping with him had to take on some great significance.

“Coffee?” the man in question asked from where he’d snuck up beside me.

“Oh, my hero,” I said without thinking, and he grinned while I mentally kicked myself.

“Let’s not exaggerate, it’s only coffee.” He handed me the red-striped mug I’d silently decided was my favorite.

I took a sip. Oat milk and one sugar, just how I liked it, and the comfort of it made me sigh. “It’s like I made it myself. Thank you.”

He gave me the kind of look that would burn my clothes off. “I like knowing what you like, darling.”

Jesus, I didn’t know an old-fashioned endearment could be so suggestive. A giggle escaped my throat. “I’ve created a monster.”

He glanced side to side, took the mug and put it down on the counter, then nudged me into a corner out of sight of the doorway. “A monster who’s just discovered sex with Mari Cole,” he whispered. “I can’t wait until I can have you again.”

The hot words flushed my skin everywhere. The idea of being had shouldn’t have made me feel like stripping for him then and there, I was a self-respecting adult woman. No one owned me, or took me. But some part of me didn’t mind when it was him. “You are such a secret alpha.”

“I really need to find out what that means.”

“It’s your fault for not reading what I tell you to read,” I said with a grin.

“Ahem,” Graham coughed from the doorway, and Leo stepped back, the pull between us evaporating.

“Leo, someone’s here asking for you,” Graham said. “Short, skinny bloke in a designer suit?”

“Oh,” Leo said, and with that one non-word my dark-eyed devil boy was gone, replaced with the burdened boss. But it wasn’t just the weighed-down look. There was confusion there, too. “I’ll go talk to him now.”

He moved away from me, but I found myself touching his arm. “See you later?” I asked softly.

“Of course.” But his smile didn’t reach his eyes. I let him go but made a note to myself to get downstairs soon and see who the short, skinny guy was.

Graham stared after Leo with a stern look on his face. “I need to have a chat with him, too.”

I blinked. “What kind of chat?”

His eyes narrowed. “The kind of chat where I tell him that if he breaks your heart, I’ll make him cry.”

A laugh burst out of me. “No, you’re not going to do that, because I don’t need anybody defending my honor. It’s not the Stone Age and you’re not my brother.” I stared at his shocked face. “You’re going to catch flies like that. What did I say?”

Graham shut his wide-open mouth, and his Adam’s apple bobbed, like he was choking words down. “Er, nothing. I… was just going to say of course you don’t.”

I shook my head. “I hope you don’t play poker, Blondie. Anyway, Leo’s not going to break my heart because I’m not that kind of person.”

“I remember now. You told me when we met.” A shift in the weather came over Graham’s face, from stubbornness to sadness. “Should I be worried you’re going to break his?”

All of a sudden, I remembered that I could count my time at Ross & Co.

in weeks, but that Leo and Graham had been in the same tight little crew for years.

And for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t shrug off the loneliness of that feeling.

“No,” I answered, even though I didn’t have any control over Leo’s heart.

I could only hope he wouldn’t be reckless enough to catch feelings for me.

Graham leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Mari, listen. You need to be careful.”

I rolled my eyes as hard as I could. “I don’t think what Leo and I are doing on our own time would wreck the store.”

“No, I’m not worried because of the bloody shop.” He puffed out a long breath. “I’m sure he’d hate that I’m telling you this and not him.”

I felt like I’d opened the door to a pitch-black room and that I’d see something I didn’t want to see when the light turned on. “Tell me what?”

“Leo was married before,” he blurted.

I blinked as the light turned on, fluorescent and viciously bright.

Marriage was for suckers, as far as I was concerned.

But it made total sense for Leo, being someone’s husband.

Someone so steady, so orderly, of course he’d get married if he got the chance.

Out of nowhere I saw him being domestic with an anonymous someone else.

Buying groceries together, going for walks, curling up together in a big bed late at night.

Day after day, year after year, until his hair was all gray and his straight back stooped.

It was ridiculous, to be jealous of something I knew I wasn’t suited for. Something that I’d never wanted.

But had I never wanted it? Or just thought I could never have it? Images flickered across my mind, fleeting moments of Mom and Greg kissing on the sofa, dancing in the kitchen, between screaming fights and silent treatments.

“Becca ended things a year before Alexander died,” Graham said, folding his arms tight.

“It gutted him. They’d known each other since they were kids and got married soon after uni.

Losing them both changed him. He was always serious and a bit shy, but he’s been walking around in a cold fog for ages.

The fact that he wants you,” he raked his fingers through his hair as he found his words, “that’s big, Mari. It’s important.”

Big. Important. Those words automatically made my toes twitch in my shoes, my legs tense with the urge to walk out of the room, out of the store.

How likely was it that I’d hurt Leo? I knew sweet fuck all about commitment.

As far as I was concerned, love was fickle, conditional.

It was Mom covering me with kisses and then running to Greg the second he walked in the room, it was her thin, pained voice begging me to think of Greg as Dad, even when he never acted like one.

It was my college girlfriend Dina wanting me when I was easy, and pushing me away the second I let her see the struggle underneath.

“We’re grown-ups.” I willed myself to sound matter-of-fact instead of panicky. “Leo makes his own choices. If he’s unhappy, he’ll end it.” I tilted my chin up. “I’m not sure why you’re the one giving me relationship advice, here. How are things with Catriona?”

Graham clamped his mouth shut. As far as I could tell, over the last few weeks he’d still been giving her the same longing looks when she wasn’t paying attention, but hadn’t found the right moment to actually talk. “You don’t play fair.”

I shrugged. “Just saying that neither of us really knows what we’re doing, here. Or has a monopoly on bravery.”

He sighed. “Fair enough. Let’s just try not to ruin other people’s lives with our bullshit, shall we?”

“Of course I can try not to.” I knew myself, and that would honestly be the best I could do.