"COME ON. I can’t afford to be late," I say, dragging Leo from the restaurant.
Lunch went much like everything does with Leo—easy, comfortable, and fun. We didn’t talk about anything profound. No deep, dark secrets were revealed. We just ate lunch and enjoyed each other’s company. It was by far the best date I’ve ever been on. All fifty minutes of it. I’d give anything to make it last longer, but knowing that we will be going out again tonight makes it sting a little less when I see the tall tower of the newspaper building only a block ahead of us.
"How long do you have?" he asks.
"Six minutes."
"I only need two." He grins mischievously. I want to be alarmed by the flicker in his eyes, but as he pulls me down the side street, I lose any desire to care. "I need to talk to you for a second."
"Five minutes." I count him down to distract myself from getting lost in his hypnotic ways.
Leo abruptly stops me, pushing me off-balance. I slide my hands over the curved muscles of his shoulders to keep on my feet and…well, just to cop a feel. I close my eyes. As if looking at Leo weren’t hard enough, touching him gets me every time.
Fuck. I just moaned again. And Leo verifies it with his smirk when I peek open my eyes.
"Just so you know, I’m going to kiss you."
I stumble back at his honesty. My shoulders meet the cool brick of the building. It’s lunchtime on a busy Chicago sidewalk, but I’m with Leo James. Fuck the rest of the details. The sounds of the city whirl around us as I close my eyes in anticipation of finally feeling his lips pressed to mine. Yet they never come. My eyes flash open to find him watching me.
"Not right now," he corrects, and I sigh with a mixture of relief and disappointment, causing his smile to grow. "Sarah, tonight. I’m going to kiss you. Not on a sidewalk, but in my bed."
"You’re pretty confident, huh?" I snark, needing some way to disguise my desires. I know there is no way to deny that he turns me on. I won’t even try to pretend otherwise.
"Nope, just optimistic." He leans in close, pinning me against the building. His lips taunt me, but it’s the look in his eyes that silences my response. "When’s the last time someone kissed you, Sarah?" His hands move up my sides as he licks his lips, holding my gaze hostage with his every move.
"Forcibly or by choice?" I ask with my head lost in a fog.
"Excuse me?" he growls as his eyes flash with an odd combination of anger and something else I don’t quite recognize.
"No! Nothing like that!" I exclaim.
"Then what’s it like, Sarah?" He lifts his eyebrows questioningly.
"It’s just… My last kiss wasn’t one I wanted. It was from my ex and it was…weird."
"Right. Weird." His reaction leaves me puzzled, but when his shoulders relax, so do mine.
We stare at each other for a few seconds, but the moment is officially gone.
"I need to get back." I push myself off the wall, attempting to regain some sense of composure that doesn’t make me look like a starstruck teenager.
Leo catches my arm, stilling me. "I was serious about tonight. I’m just giving you some notice so you could work it out in your head first," he tells me with a surprising amount of understanding.
"We’ll see about that." I give him a patronizing smile that only causes the heat to flare back into his eyes.
"Oh, we will, ángel," he says in a Spanish accent that pretty much guarantees that we will, in fact, be kissing tonight. Maybe not in his bed though. I can at least stand my ground on that one, although I’m not really sure why I would want to.
"I’m going to be late," I reply in a dry, bored tone even though, on the inside, I am anything but.
"I’m picking you up tonight."
"I can just—"
"You’re going to be late if you stand here and argue with me. I’ll see you at seven." He smiles a knowing grin.
I glance down at my watch and realize I have less than a minute to clock back in from lunch. "Shit."
"See ya tonight!" he shouts as I take off speed-walking around the corner and toward the door of the Tribune.
JOHNSON DOESN’T say a word as he drives through town. He silently smokes as I stare out the window feeling utterly lost. After an hour of driving in circles, he pulls up to a building about ten minutes from my apartment.
"It’s safe to assume I’m going to lose my job for this." He puts the car in park and gets out.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I ask as I catch sight of the Building Foundations sign above the door.
He rounds the hood and opens my door. "Get the fuck out," he growls.
"Fuck you," I respond.
"Sorry it’s not one of those fancy-ass richy-rich places Slate would have taken you to, but this is all I know."
"You can’t check me into some nuthouse without my permission." I look at him like he’s the one who should be checking in.
"No, but at three p.m. every day, there’s a grief therapy group session. I come on Wednesdays." He shrugs.
I knew Johnson had a dark past, but we’ve never talked about.