Page 154 of The Clinch
“I can do that.”
“I know.”
He puts both plates in the dishwasher, movements slow but automatic. I watch the line of his back under the T-shirt, the easy competence of his hands, the way even fatigue doesn’t make him careless.
It should read domestic. Safe.
Instead, something in me reacts the way it always does around him, as if competence in a man built like that is its own kind of trouble. As if the quiet, controlled way he moves through space only makes it easier to forget what he could do if he ever stopped holding himself back.
There’s something reckless in how much I like this.
When he turns back around, drying his hands on a dish towel, I’m still looking at him.
His attention settles on me with a kind of precision that feels physical. My skin prickles before he says a word.
“Come here.”
There’s no point pretending I was going to do anything else.
I slide off the stool and walk to him. He hooks a hand around my waist and pulls me in until my body fits against his.
He’s tired. I can feel that too. The drag of the day in his shoulders, the weight of camp still sitting in his body.
It doesn’t make him gentler. It makes him feel denser somehow, all force packed tighter. Less like a man winding down, more like one pared to the bone.
The kiss he gives me is slow and unhurried, making the apartment tilt around us.
When he lifts his head, his thumb brushes once over my lower lip.
“How was your first day really?”
I let my forehead rest briefly against his jaw, breathing him in.
“Overwhelming,” I admit. “And good. And terrifying. And kind of amazing.”
His arm tightens at my waist. “That sounds about right.”
I smile against his skin. “Apparently tomorrow is supposed to break the heat.”
He makes a quiet sound that is not quite agreement. “They’re saying storms.”
“I’ll take storms over this. At least the city might cool off.”
His hand slides once along my back, steady and absentminded in a way that feels far too good.
“I’ll have the car downstairs at eight.”
The words are calm. Decided.
I lift my head. “Leo?—”
“It’s supposed to pour. You’re not doing the subway in that.”
It’s thoughtful. Protective. Entirely in character.
Something shifts inside me. Not objection. Not even close. Just the unmistakable sensation of the next piece of my life clicking into place before I have chosen it, and the more dangerous recognition that some part of me likes the sound it makes.
Then his hand closes at the back of my neck—controlled and claiming—and want moves through me so fast, it nearly takes my footing.
