Page 38 of Hex and the City
Fuck. I gulped as he pulled in closer, running a finger down my bicep.
“I want to taste the rest of you, too. Your torso, your arms, that beautiful ass.”
“Fuck,” I breathed, watching as he inhaled my scent, his face only inches from my chest, his breath hot on my skin.
His hand closed around my crotch, fingers searching curiously through the denim. “I want to taste this, most of all.”
“That’s enough.” I pushed him off, grabbing my jacket, shrugging it on. “We’re supposed to be working. Keeping things professional. This was a mistake.”
“Like hell it is,” he snapped. “This is fucked up, Max. You kissed me first. What am I supposed to think?”
“Nothing. You’re supposed to think nothing.” I opened the canister of alcohol wipes on the desk, wiped down the mouse and the keyboard. “Because that’s what this was. Nothing.”
“Look at you, so gung-ho about not needing to pick up after the mess we made here.”
I shrugged, balling up the wad of wet material and shoving it in my pocket. “Saw her do it before she locked up. Made sense to me. See? I’m cleaning up our mess.”
“What about this mess, Max?” He grabbed my arm and tugged. “You don’t just put your lips on someone’s mouth and chicken out. What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” I growled, hoping from the bottom of my ass that he wouldn’t throw the dragon story in my face. Again.
“Prove it.” Leon raised his chin. “Kiss me again. Show me you’re not a coward.”
Standing there, defiant and expectant, every muscle tensed in his body, Leon was the very picture of everything I wanted. Someone bold and brash, running on confidence instead of pure competence, his stupid smiles and his naive sweetness making even the iciest parts of me puddle into warm honey.
More than anything, I wanted to bend Leon over that counter, tear his jeans down, fuck him so hard that he’d never forget the shape of me. Fuck him so hard that he’d beg me to stop, and I’d know he was lying.
But I lied instead.
“I’ve heard enough. I’ve said enough. We’re leaving. Car. Now.”
“Max,” he snarled, chasing after me. “I’m not some kid you just get to order around. You’re not allowed to just tease me and leave me hanging like that. Be a fucking man.”
“Obfuscate,” I whispered, ignoring him as I discharged another last load of diamond dust to cover our escape. The air glittered with magical chaff, offering plenty of time for us to lock up and leave.
I pressed my fingers over my lips as we exited. Even worked up to the point of wanting to beat my ass, Leon still knew well enough to stop ranting when we no longer had the privacy of the store to keep things quiet.
Or for any other purpose, really. God, I’d completely fucked this up. He was right. I’d acted impulsively, too cowardly to follow through. But why? Didn’t Leon say he was just passing through town? Was I scared of hurting him, giving him a taste of something we could only share for as long as he stayed in Dos Lunas?
Was I scared of being hurt myself?
“Penetrate,” I muttered, conjuring the crystalline lock picks I’d used to open the shop up, hating the implication of the magical word I always used to trigger the spell. That was the other thing. As much as I wanted to — oh God, penetrate sounded so crude — to have sex with him, I wasn’t just looking for some one-night stand. It just wasn’t my thing.
Then what the fuck was I looking for?
I secured the front door, dismissed the lock picks, stuck my hands in my pockets as I stalked across the street and back to my car. Leon trailed after me, glaring angry holes into the back of my head, grumbling indistinctly until the both of us had actually reached my car.
I unlocked it, dying to get in despite knowing that it would only force me into a tiny metal box with the guy I’d pissed off with a kiss. One of the best kisses of my life, too. I reached for the door handle. Leon smacked my hand away, turned me around, shoved me against the door.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” Leon said, clear brown eyes boring deep into mine. “Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll back off.”
His hands on my shoulders, his thigh once again between my legs, but more by circumstance than intent. I could throw him off easily, drive a wedge deeper between us even as I drove us away from this place. Then we could go our separate ways.
Then I could lose the one person I wanted badly enough that I’d kissed him, like a fool, in the middle of a mission. I could make him hate me because I was too dumb and too stubborn to figure out why the idea of letting him in frightened the world out of me.
“I don’t — ” I started to say, glimpsing a flicker in his eyes. “I don’t know.”
He lowered his head, burying his nose and his mouth in the corner of my neck, warm lips tracing soft, wet shapes in my skin, burning away the cold of the night.
