Page 116 of The Clinch
Leo turns to face me. He hooks his thumbs under the band of my sports bra and lifts. I raise my arms, and he peels it off with the same careful control he brings to everything, then tosses it behind him without looking.
Cool air rushes over my skin, and I shiver.
His attention moves down my body without apology—my arms and shoulders, the curve of my waist, the ink climbing my thigh.
“You’re staring.”
“I am.”
He covers my chest, palms warm and rough. He holds, claiming the weight of my breasts. My back arches into him before I can stop it.
Leo bends his head and kisses down my throat, then lower, lips lingering on me. Heat blooms fast, urgent and impatient, and my brain stumbles for distance it can’t find.
“Leo—”
He straightens and reaches for my compression shorts, peeling them down my thighs. I step out of them and stand there bare, the air cool, my pulse too loud.
His attention sweeps over me again, slower this time. Neither greedy nor casual. Focused in a way that makes me feel seen and exposed at once.
He steps out of his own shorts, and my body gives me away immediately. I’ve been here with him before. I know what comes next.
I shouldn’t be this skittish.
He’s just a man.
It’s the wanting that’s dangerous. The way I’ve stopped planning exit strategies because leaving would hurt more than staying ever could.
“Shower,” he says. Not a suggestion.
He guides me to the bright ensuite, glass and tile and clean lines. He turns on the water, adjusts the temperature, then pulls me in with him.
The spray hits my shoulders, and I groan at the relief. Steam rises fast, fogging the glass. Leo steps in close, skin to skin, and the whole shower shrinks around us. He’s dense, solid, all controlled strength. Up against him, I feel smaller than I am, and for once it doesn’t read as danger.
I want him, and right behind the wanting comes the fear that I won’t be able to pull away.
Leo holds me at my hip, certain. His breath brushes my temple.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs against my skin.
His hands slide down my sides, over my hips, then around to my back. He squeezes, pulling me flush to him.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, low and quiet.
I look up at him. His blue eyes are softened in a way I rarely see, the fighter’s intensity gentled into something raw and real.
“You’re stealing my line, Brooklyn,” I try for levity.
He doesn’t laugh. His expression flashes once, and his hands release me as he presses them to the wall, leaning down to me. “I am.”
I let my fingers slide down his chest, caressing the hard ridges of his abdomen. Our eyes connect as he allows me to feel, allows my fingers to skim across him, take him in. His forearms cage my head as he slides his mouth over my collarbone, then further down, nipping the swell of my breast. He kisses it, his face a delicious sandpaper across my skin.
He keeps kissing me like he can’t stand the idea of space between us.
“I’m in trouble with you,” he murmurs. His mouth hovers at mine. “The real kind.”
Something rises in me to meet his words.
It dies behind my teeth.
