Leo Read online

  Her mouth falls open. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  She closes her mouth, then opens it again, then closes it once more. She looks pissed off, and frustrated as hell, but underneath the anger, I detect the slightest hint of relief. Like she’s glad someone else is finally taking charge.

  I wonder how long it’s been since anyone else really tried. Just the thought fills me with rage, but it doesn’t matter now. I’m here, and I’m damned if I’m going to let her keep endangering herself in the name of independence.

  ***

  Charlie

  I drive a little faster than I should, pissed at Leo’s highhandedness. I’m a grown ass woman, for crying out loud. I can look after myself. If I choose to sleep in my car to save money, that’s down to me, and no one else.

  And yet, I know, deep down, that I’m lying to myself. I’ve spent the last two weeks sleeping in my car because I barely have two nickels to rub together. Some days I only eat because Leo has Sheila ordering food in every four hours to keep everyone fuelled.

  Who am I kidding? I only eat at all because of Leo. And now he’s taken it on himself to follow me out into the wilderness, Christ knows why, and is intent on making sure I spend the night in a bed. I can tell myself I’m only going along with it because he threatened my job, or even because a proper bed, with sheets and an actual pillow, sounds really fucking good right about now, but we both know the real reason I’m not just putting my foot down and heading for the state line.

  I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. Even when I was with someone, more often than not, they wanted me to take care of them, not the other way around.

  Unless it was something to do with their car, and then I was supposed to just stay out of it altogether.

  Someone taking care of me, protecting me, while happy to let me do my thing when it came to cars? I’ve never had that before.

  Well, not since my parents died five years ago.

  I check my rear view mirror. Leo insisted I go ahead and just keep an eye out for his turn signals. He doesn’t want me ghosting on him again. Dude’s got issues, but if I’m honest with myself, I haven’t exactly helped in that department. Not that I’m blaming myself, either. My life hasn’t been full of trustworthy guys up to this point. Meeting someone who genuinely cares is taking some getting used to. I’m getting there, though. Slowly.

  In the rear view mirror, I see him indicating left, so I do the same and wait for the turn. I’m not prepared for it when I finally reach it, though.

  A pair of life size stone lions stand on top of an eight foot brick wall, one to either side of a driveway that has to be about forty feet across. A metal barred gate the same height as the wall is retracting to either side. Clearly Leo hit a button or something to open the security gate for us, but even so, I’m not sure this is the place.

  Who the hell lives here? Bill Gates?

  Behind me, Leo flashes his lights and I roll my eyes and turn into the drive. A quarter of a mile later, I’m still going, wondering vaguely if this is where he leads me to the middle of nowhere and then kills me with an axe.

  Then I round a corner and see the house.

  Ho. Ly. Shit.

  It’s not a house. Let’s make that perfectly clear right now. It’s a motherfucking palace. The frontage stretches away to either side, an apparently endless facade of brick and stone and a gajillion windows, all glittering as they reflect my headlights.

  I pull up outside the front door, which has five steps up to a portico and pillars to either side, so the poor stoop doesn’t have to get wet, I guess.

  I stare at the front door, which is nearly as wide as my car is long, then jump as Leo’s GTO glides in between me and the steps. His window winds down, and after a moment, I lower mine.

  “Garage is that way,” he says, pointing ahead. “Follow me.”

  He pulls away before I can respond, leaving me with no choice but to do as I’m told. Part of me is pissed that he’s giving orders. Most of me is so tired I’m driving on autopilot. Following another car is about the limit of my executive functioning right now.

  A few hundred feet farther on, he turns right, through an archway I hadn’t even seen, and pulls into a large courtyard. Ahead of us, a vast garage door rolls smoothly upward, and he parks at one end. There’s another car at the other end, so I pull into the gap in the middle. Exhaustion is really biting hard, and when I get out of the car, I’m pretty sure I’m hallucinating as I stare at the vehicle next to me.

  “Is that a Superbird?” I ask, slurring my words.

  Leo cups my jaw and tilts my head back, searching my face. Whatever he’s looking for, I guess he doesn’t find it, because he looks pissed.

  “Yeah. It was my dad’s. He was still working on it when he passed away. Never did get it quite road ready.”

  “What size engine?” I know it’s not going to be the Hemi. They only made a total of a hundred and thirty-five models of this car with the 426 Hemi engine. Even so, I’m looking at a piece of automotive history. Even in my exhausted state, my fingers tingle to lift the hood and get a real good look at it.

  “Hemi V-8.”

  I gape at him as he opens up my car and lifts out my bag. I’m so shocked I don’t even try to take it off him. “Say what?”

  He smiles. “It’s a 426 Hemi V-8. If you really feel bad about staying here, you can work on it in exchange for room and board. Come on. I’ll show you your room.”

  He walks away, but my feet are rooted to the ground. I’m pretty sure I’ve wandered into the Twilight Zone. The car next to me is literally the rarest classic car on the planet. It’s so rare, you can’t order parts for it. They have to be machined from scratch. And he’s just offering to let me mess around with it, ‘in exchange for room and board’?

  He looks over his shoulder and realizes I’m not following him. His forehead creases with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  I open and close my mouth a few times before finding any words at all. Typically, they’re not the right ones. “Do you know how much that thing is worth?”

  He snorts. “Of course I do. Dad used to get calls every six months, offering to buy the damn thing. Now I get the calls.”

  He’s not getting it. “But you’re okay with me working on it? Are you feeling okay? I think you may have been working too hard.”

  His face clears, like now he understands. That makes one of us.

  “You’re an excellent mechanic, Charlie. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you’re gifted, and you’ve clearly worked hard to expand your skill set. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have work on Dad’s car than you. Now come on. You must be wiped out. I know I am. We both need to sleep.”

  I know I’m being ridiculous, but I can’t stop the tears from falling as I follow him into the enormous house. He values me. Like, me. Not just a body he likes to put his hands on and a face he likes to kiss, but he really trusts me, enough to give me free rein over his dead dad’s unspeakably rare car.

  I can’t remember the last time I trusted someone like that. I certainly can’t remember the last time someone trusted me like that.

  I wander blindly down a corridor behind him, crying as quietly as possible. The room opens up around us, a gleaming display of granite worktops and copper pans hanging from racks on the wall. He dumps my bag, then turns around.

  “Are you hung— What’s wrong?” He’s in front of me in a second, hands cupping my face, thumbs wiping away my tears. “Honey, you don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. I was trying to help, but you can stay at the Caulville Caddy if you’d rather. C’mon, I’ll take you.”

  Now sobbing, I shake my head as best I can with him holding it, and try to stop crying long enough to explain. “You trust me with your dad’s car,” I wail.

  Not the rational explanation I was going for but it seems to be enough.

  He frowns down at me. “Of course, I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
/>   I can’t speak for crying and he enfolds me in his arms, wrapping me up tight and holding me against his chest while my tears soak into the fabric of his shirt. Eventually the flood fades, and I hiccup and burrow my face into the heat of his chest, now horribly embarrassed at having fallen apart so completely on a guy I barely know.

  It doesn’t feel like I barely know him, though. I’m pretty sure I know him better than any of my previous boyfriends, or employers.

  Which is he, again? Asks the little voice inside, and I carefully ignore it. Because he’s my boss, of course, but he’s also more than that. Isn’t he?

  “When was the last time you ate?” His voice rumbles through me, his chest vibrating against my ear, sending electric tingles across my skin and down between my thighs.

  “Um…” I struggle to remember, mainly because I’m now turned on and I can’t pull myself together enough to ignore it and have a conscious thought at the same time.

  “You need to eat.” He lifts me up onto the counter like a child, then turns to rummage through the huge icebox. “Okay, bacon, mushrooms, eggs… You like omelets?”

  “Er...y-yes.”

  He smiles at me and I swallow and press my thighs together as he reaches a frying pan down from a rack and sets it on the stove.

  Watching him move around the kitchen, cracking eggs, chopping ingredients, beating everything up together, I’m wondering if there’s anything hotter than a gorgeous guy making food for me with his own two hands.

  By the time he pours the eggs into the pan in a sizzling rush, I’ve decided this is absolutely the pinnacle of my life. It’s never going to get better than this. Safe, warm, and fresh food on the way from a hot man who just wants to take care of me.

  Well, technically, I can think of one way it could get better, but that’s not going to happen. I mean, if we were going to have sex, we would have by now, right? I can’t be getting my hopes up just because he’s making me food. And sleep sure sounds good right about now.

  I’m still trying to convince myself that I don’t need to find out what sex would be like with Leo when a plate full of steaming eggs appears in front of my nose. My mouth starts watering as the scent hits my nostrils and I take the fork he offers and dig straight in, burning my tongue in the process.

  Totally worth it, though. Damn, this guy can cook.

  I don’t care if it’s only an omelet. Gerry could burn water. He destroyed two of my pots before I gave up and told him to stay out of the kitchen on pain of death. Looking back, it’s possible he did it deliberately.

  Leo is so much better. And so much more of a man, I find myself thinking, eyeing the breadth of his shoulders and the lean taper of his waist as he digs into his own omelet. He looks up and catches me out, his lips curving with amusement. His eyes slide over me and his smile fades, replaced by something a lot hotter and an order of magnitude more intense.

  Somehow we finish our food, and then he’s picking up my bag and taking my hand and leading through what feels like three miles of corridors and staircases until he opens a door and leads me into a huge bedroom. It’s bigger than the three car garage we left the cars in downstairs and even has its own lounge.

  “That door through there is the bathroom,” he says, gesturing towards a dark, mahogany door.

  I nod, then look up at him. Dragging my eyes away, I look around, taking in my surroundings. Grey and blue and cream decor, unfussy but welcoming. It feels very calm and relaxing. I can’t imagine I’m going to sleep great, given the fire building in my belly, but it’s a really nice room. And it’s mine, at least until we go back to work the day after tomorrow.

  I force myself to refocus on his face, and the expression there makes my mouth go dry.

  “It’s a really nice room,” I tell him.

  “I’m glad you like it,” he says, gravely. “It’s mine.”

  I was about to ask him where he was sleeping, but the words die in my mouth. He’s sleeping here. Then…

  “Where am I sleeping?”

  His eyebrow quirks, and then he slides a hand around my throat, lifting my head so that he can kiss my lips, at first gently, then with increasing pressure. I gasp against his mouth and his tongue slicks over mine, gliding and thrusting, bringing back memories of his hand between my legs.

  I grab his shoulders, moaning into his mouth, and he drags his lips down the side of my neck, kissing and licking and nibbling at my skin. Lightning flickers through me, and I groan with frustration when his mouth leaves my neck.

  “Open your eyes, Charlie,” he tells me, and I’m powerless to resist his command.

  Forcing my eyes open, I see his boring down into me and my lips part, lust and tension sliding in my belly like snakes.

  “You’re sleeping here, Charlie. With me.”

  “Yes, please,” I breathe, before I can even muster a conscious thought, and a tension I hadn’t even seen leaves his face.

  His hands fit perfectly around my throat, squeezing just a little, making me gasp as my airway closes. It shouldn’t be a turn on but desire flows through my blood like warm honey, settling with heavy, heated promise between my thighs, sending a rush of moisture to my pussy.

  “God, you’re perfect,” he murmurs, brushing his lips over mine before sliding them down my throat, moving his hands to allow his mouth greater access.

  His hand covers my breast, and I arch into his touch, burning hot even through my clothes.

  I moan, my hands fluttering across his shoulders, in search of something to hang on to as my legs turn to jelly. His fingers slide beneath the hem of my shirt, the calluses on his palms sending awareness crackling through me as his touch skims up my body, taking my shirt with it.

  He ditches it, then looks down at me, fire and want lighting his eyes. He dips his head to lick across the upper swells of my breasts, and my head falls back as pleasure washes through me. His hands circle my ribcage, and then cool air washes over my nipples, just an instant before hot, wet pressure closes over one and he sucks it into his mouth.

  My legs give away and I cling to his wide shoulders, unable to think, or breathe, or speak. All I can do is moan and sigh and feel.

  His hands curve over my ass as he devours my breast, sliding forwards over my hips to meet at the waistband of my jeans. A moment later, he’s pushing the denim down my thighs. I try to help but his teeth close over my nipple in warning, a combination of pain and pleasure that makes my clit throb. I take the hint and hold on to his shoulders, letting him pull my jeans free.

  Then his hands skim up my legs, curving under my thighs to lift me against him. I wrap my thighs around his hips on instinct, then gasp as his thick, hard cock nestles firmly against my pussy, separated from my throbbing clit by just the thin cotton of my panties. He walks across the room, holding me against him, his mouth still tugging and sucking on my nipple, and the friction from his mouth and his cock almost sends me into orbit. Every step makes me squeal and my pussy clenches on empty air, sending moisture to soak my panties.

  He bends over and I feel the smooth softness of a duvet against my back. The sheets against my bare skin bring home to me how close I am to being naked and I start to get nervous. Then his weight follows me onto the bed, his hips pressing his thick cock against my clit and I cry out, nerves evaporating in a haze of sensation.

  He moves his head to my other breast and the combination of wet heat on one nipple and cool air chilling my dampened skin on the other makes me arch against him as fireworks sizzle under my skin.

  He rolls my nipple between his teeth and I gasp, arching against him, mewling as his weight presses me into the bed. The friction of his tongue and teeth against my breast become overwhelming and I try to pull his head away.

  He lifts his head and I groan with relief. Then his hands cover mine, drawing them free of his hair and lifting them over my head to wrap them around the wrought iron headboard.

  He holds them there, then lowers his head to my throat. “I want to feast on every inch o
f you,” he murmurs, before licking the side of my throat. “I want to taste every part of your beautiful body. I want to hear you scream my name. I want you mindless with pleasure, sated and limp from my touch.”

  God, yes.

  I gasp at his words, tension turning in my belly, dipping and sliding, making me wriggle beneath him.

  He slides a hand into my hair, fisting it and drawing my head back. I run my hands over his back, reveling in the feel of muscle bunching beneath my touch. But I want more. I want skin.

  “Too many clothes,” I gasp, pushing at his shirt.

  He smiles against my neck, then nips me and I yelp. “You want me naked?”

  The question makes me pause. Do I? My pussy’s screaming for more, more of his touch, his weight, his heat. But I’ve never done this before. What if I do it wrong?