Breathe, Cassie. I have to remind myself when I catch Leo’s gaze and find him glowering our way. The hand I have on Jack’s shoulder slides up, to his collarbone, so that the V of my thumb and index finger almost touches the base of his neck.
The girl laughs as she whispers into Leo’s ear, her hair hiding the profile of her face, and it makes me boil inside.
How is she any better than me?
His hand slips lower down her naked back and I close my eyes, I can’t bear to watch him touching her skin the way I want him to touch mine.
Arsehole or not, every part of me is calling out, begging for the warmth and feel of his skin on mine.
I imagine that the hand just above my butt, is Leo’s and although it doesn’t feel like what his do, all of a sudden, it’s a lot more welcome.
Heat blooms in all the parts of me that crave him as his eyes sear my already melting senses. I imagine that it’s Leo pulling me closer to him as we navigate the dancefloor to a mellow big band number that I can’t name right now.
My heart is beginning to race, and my legs are shaking with the need to press together as I feel his breath tickle my neck, just behind my ear again.
Saliva pools in the well below my tongue as I lick the roof of my mouth. His face tucks into the crook of my neck and I feel the air being pulled into his lungs along with my scent.
My whole body is vibrating like it’s about to collapse in on itself when cold air swamps me and I’m yanked and hefted into another body.
Opening my eyes while my stomach loops the loop—like I’m about to drop into a sinkhole—they meet bright green fire. It takes me longer than it should, but I try to push away as Leo effortlessly carries me out of the smallish ballroom.
“Put. Me. Down.” I grit.
“No,” he responds, deadpan and surprisingly breathless.
“I swear to God—”
“You swear to God, what?” he bites as he pushes me into one of the shadowed corners towards the end of the hallway.
Flames lick at every square inch of me as he presses me into the wall with his whole body, holding me hostage. When I’m truly stuck between him and the panelled wall. The architrave digging into my back, he lowers me onto my feet, and we stand there breathing heavily into each other.
His eyes darken.
His nostrils flair.
He licks his lips.
Oh. My. Life.
“What do you swear, Cassandra?” His raspy rumble makes the air thicken in my throat.
“I hate you.” I do. I really, really do. I hate him for making me this desperate and crazy. For making me crave him the way I do.
“I hate you too.”
He does?
“I hate that you follow me everywhere I go. Every. Fucking. Where.” When he exhales his rigid body relaxes into mine.
Leo brings one of his hands up between us. I think he’s going to cup my face, but he flattens his palm on the wall behind me, next to my head.
I’m pleasantly claustrophobic, but there’s no way I’m going to show him how undone I am by his touch and attention.
I square my shoulders to him and grit with as much push back as I can muster, “Let me go.”
“Let you go?” he mutters with a dark laugh. “Let you go?”
“Yes.”