Page 156 of Kingmakers, Year One

Leo gives a low laugh.

“I mean . . . yeah,” he says. “I kinda do.”

Just when I think Leo couldn’t possibly surprise me again.

“Pity is a dangerous emotion,” I tell him. “It won’t be reciprocated.”

“I know,” he says. “And I’m not saying we’re going to be friends or that I’ll lower my guard. But Anna . . . if I lost you, and he was the one dancing with you right now . . . I’d be so fucking devastated. I might have tried to kill him, too.”

“You still have to tell the Chancellor. You can’t just let this slide . . .”

“I won, Anna. I won you. That’s punishment enough.”

I don’t entirely like that answer. I’m afraid of what Dean might still try to do. If Leo thinks their grudge is over, I highly doubt Dean agrees.

Leo can tell I’m not convinced.

He wraps my hair around his hand and gently tugs to force me to look up into his eyes. He holds me pinned in place, one arm wrapped around my waist, the other hand cradling the back of my neck. He turns the full intensity of his gaze on me.

“Anna,” he says. “He’s not a threat to me. No one is. When I have you, I’m fucking invincible.”

All Leo’s power and determination burns in those golden eyes. His face is terrifying in its beauty. His body thrums with strength. I can’t do anything but believe in him when he’s like this.

“Alright,” I say. “I trust you.”

Leo gives me a wicked grin. “I don’t know. I think you need a little more persuading . . .”

He takes my hand and pulls me back through the crush of students, over the uneven sand. He takes me all the way off the beach.

For a second I think he’s going to lead me into the trees where everyone likes to sneak off and hook up. I pull up short, feeling an irrational aversion to the place where I saw him with Gemma Rossi not so long ago.

“Not in there,” I say.

“Of course not,” Leo agrees.

Instead he takes me back up the path away from Moon Beach, all the way to the fields on higher ground. It’s a warm night—the grass is tall and fragrant, sprinkled with patches of pale blue wildflowers. The breeze makes a soft whispering sound all around us.

Only when we’re far away from anything else does Leo lay me down in the grass and gently removes all my clothes.

I’ve never been completely naked in the outdoors like this—not since we were little kids skinny dipping. Strangely it brings me back to that time when I had no fear or shame, when Leo and I seemed like one person, having never been apart.

I’ve loved him through every stage of our lives. And I love him most today—I’m amazed at the man he’s becoming. Overcoming his weaknesses. Amplifying his strengths.

“You’re a goddess,” Leo says, looking down at my nude body glowing in the moonlight.

He lifts my foot in his hands, that he’s just stripped of shoe and sock. He presses his thumb into the arch of my foot, massaging me. I groan from how good it feels.

Leo kisses my foot, then he runs his tongue from my heel, all the way along the instep up to my toes.

“Don’t!” I laugh, trying to pull my foot away, but he’s got it locked tight in his grip, and he’s looking down at me with that hunger, that fire, that I know means he’s about to do something kinky to me.

“You think I care about licking your foot?” he says. “I’ll run my tongue over every fucking inch of this body.”

To prove it, he starts sucking on my toes.

I give a little shriek from how strange that feels—I’ve never had my toes in someone’s mouth. It makes me shiver and squirm. But there’s also something erotic about Leo’s warm lipsand tongue on such a sensitive part of my body, and something even more sexy in the proof of how rabid he is for me. Nothing about me could disgust him. He wants all of me.

Leo starts licking and biting and kissing his way up my leg, up the calf to my inner thigh. Now I can hardly stand it, I want him to go higher still. His mouth feels indescribably good and I want that tongue on my pussy, I fucking need it. I’m spreading my legs, begging him to give me relief.

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