I turned in his arms… and he stood right there in the ruins with me.
The emotion shining in his eyes was impossible to question, impossible to deny. There was nothing for me to do but trust it.
Trust him.
God, I fucking wanted to. I wanted to. Because I knew him. This Leon.
My Leon.
And if I stopped looking for reasons to doubt him, for one goddamn second, I might realize there weren’t any.
His knees dipped, palms closing around my face as he brought his eyes level with mine. “Believe me when I say this, Lissa,” he said, his gaze dark and determined. “You’re no substitute. You’re my first choice. Every fucking time. No one else has ever come close.”
I let his words sink into me, over me, through me. I let myself hear them, really hear them, and then I let myself believe them. He might not mean them in ten years, five years… two, even, but he meant them now… and that’s all any of us was ever guaranteed.
I swallowed over the knot in my throat and reached up to wrap my fingers around his wrists, clinging on tight. “Okay,” I breathed, nodding up at him through watery eyes. “Okay.”
I was in danger of becoming a fool for this man. I was in even greater danger of not giving a fuck about it.
He bent down and pressed his lips to mine, softly, reverently, then pulled back, his irises glowing brightly in the moonlight.
“I love you, Lissa,” he murmured, a lopsided half-smile breaking out over his face. “I’m so fucking in love with you. And I’ve never felt anything like it.”
The world around me faded; narrowed to the man before me and the beautifully chaotic words that cracked my heart open and fused it back together again. Stronger somehow—fuller, better than before. More.
His forehead touched mine. “That’s how I know.”
I ran my fingers up and linked them through his, and then I lifted on my toes and claimed his mouth.
I’d only ever allowed myself to see love as something that turned us into the weakest version of ourselves; that forced us to relinquish power and control to someone else.
And in some ways, love was a weakness.
But being loved by him… I’d never felt stronger.
THIRTY
LISS
“Will I see you at Danny’s tonight?” Leon asked, his breath ghosting over my cheek, fingers drawing my hair back over my shoulder where he pressed a soft kiss, and then another. A shudder drifted through me, and I closed my eyes as I pulled in a steadying breath. After leaving the party, I’d stayed the night at Leon’s place. We’d spent the last twelve hours together, and still, I couldn’t seem to make myself get out of his truck.
“Not if I see you first,” I murmured on a breathy exhale, because he’d expect nothing less.
His warm chuckle heated my skin before his teeth nipped at it. He drew back, eyes dancing as they settled on my face. He arched a brow. “We’ll see, Snow Queen.”
I shook my head wryly as I looked back at him across the center console of his truck as we sat parked a few houses down from mine. My heart almost overflowed with the depth of what I felt for him, and it was so dangerously easy to get lost in the promise of his eyes as they held mine. My heart pumped faster, lips parted, mouth forming the words that flew up my throat—they were there, they were right fucking there, waiting.
I loved him. I knew I did. There was no denying it. And if I said the words, I’d mean them. Every single one. But then they’d be out there, and there’d be no taking them back. I dropped my head with a tight frown and swallowed them back, reaching for the handle.
Leon grasped my shoulder and tugged me round. His big palms encased my face before he dragged my head to his and brought his mouth down on mine. He kissed me with a passion I could feel to the tips of my toes and the roots of my scalp. I was dizzy and breathless by the time he eased back, and I sat, dazed, for long seconds before scrambling the mixed-up parts of my brain together and pushing open the door. I took three unsteady steps away from the truck before he called, “Hey, Snow Queen.”
I pivoted to the sound of his voice, my eyes lighting on the sight of him leaning over the roof of his truck. The late-morning breeze lifted his hair, his eyes like twin beams of sunlight warming me from the inside out, and I had to focus to stay upright.
“Yeah?” I swallowed.
“I’m happy to wait, sweetheart.” Quiet understanding colored his warm, blue eyes as they glowed with emotion. “I want you to say it when you can’t fucking hold it back, and there’s not a single doubt in your head.” My heart pole-vaulted, bouncing like it was trying to spring out of my damn throat. “You hear me, Lissa?”
If there was any part of me still clinging on to the notion that I might have been able to hold some small part of myself back… it was gone. Just like that. And so was I, my fingers falling free from the cliff without resistance. The ground below rushed toward me at a dizzying pace, the wind sweeping over my cheeks and whipping through my hair as I plunged from the edge.