Page 64 of The Clinch
The question drops between us, heavy and impolite.
Her lips part, then close. “Confident much?”
My mouth curves. But there’s nothing soft in it.
“You’ve been very good at pretending,” I say.
Her shoulders pull in. “Leo?—”
Maybe I should stop here, shift the topic, make a joke and let the moment pass. There’s still room.
Her gaze holds mine, caught.
Instead I say it out loud—the thing that’s been sitting between us since Jessica declared we were a fake couple.
“I told myself you were temporary,” I say. “I knew I was lying before I finished the thought.”
Something moves through her face and goes still again.
Her pulse beats fast and stubbornly under my thumbs. The tension travels up her legs in tiny tremors she thinks she’s hiding.
I tip my chin toward the frozen frame on the TV. “And now you’re sitting on my couch trying to pretend this doesn’t affect you.”
Her breath catches. I watch her weigh it—the flush, the stillness, the way her body stopped cooperating with her a long time ago.
“Tell me the truth.” My eyes are locked on hers. “Do you want me to touch you like that?”
Shock hits her first, then a flush spreads, betraying her. A small sound slips out that she tries to swallow.
“That sounds like a yes.”
Her knees draw in, then ease out again, indecisive. My thumbs press into the tender spot under her arch. Not an escalation. Just the same touch, suddenly impossible to mistake for something else.
“You know where the line is,” she finally manages.
“That’s my problem.”
Her lips part, close.
“You feel it too,” I say, quiet and precise.
Her chin lifts, defensive. “Maybe I just?—”
“You got burned,” I say.
Her eyes harden. “Yes.”
My hands don’t stop, maintaining the same pressure, the same pace. “I’m not asking you to trust me tonight.”
She doesn’t move.
“I’m telling you this isn’t nothing. And I’m done pretending it is.”
The words cost something. I feel it after—the specific weight of having said the true thing out loud for the first time without performance or cover.
She doesn’t answer.
My thumbs make the same slow circle they’ve been tracing for the last ten minutes, and I watch her try to stay composed under it. She’s doing well. Her face is neutral. Her breathing almost steady.
