Mark shakes his head.
“Markus…”
“Nothing.”
“Markus Favre, if you don’t tell me right now why you’re frowning so hard you could lick your forehead, I’ll?—”
“I don’t understand you.”
My eyes go wide and I immediately push myself up to sit. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I just,” Mark says with a sigh. Then he sits down on the edge of the bed next to me and scrubs his hands over his face and beard. “You were screaming bloody murder, Leo. You blacked out and when you woke up it was in the middle of a panic attack so intense I thought you were going to be sick. Then I bring you here, get you settled, split to give Franc my statement only to come back to Justine’s to find her and Pierrebothcrying over you in their spare room like a goddamn wake or something.”
My cheeks go pink as I drop my gaze to my hands. “They were?”
“Yeah, and you can imagine what I thought when I walked in on that.”
“I’m sorry, teddy.”
He blows out a breath, rubbing his hands over the top of his shorts. “Don’t be, you don’t have to. Justine told me what you said to her, all the shit about your bio parents, about them. There’s nothing to apologize for but I don’t understand how you went from a panic attack to probably the most heartfelt thing you’ve ever said to Justine, and now you’re groggy from a nap but still in a decent mood.” Hazel eyes swing my way and the stare I feel has me turning toward them. “I, well, whatever. Forget it.”
Twisting my body, I face Mark, my gaze moving over his profile, every beautiful feature full of the tension he’s clearly carrying. “Tell me.”
He shakes his head and his shoulders sag, and for some reason it sort of breaks my heart.
Not like before. This is a different kind of heartache than realizing I might have blown my chance with this man. It’s full of love and guilt, a weird combination of my heart swelling while it breaks over the worry and confusion I see. All because of me.
Out of my boys, Mark has changed the most during our time apart and while it doesn’t affect how I feel about him, it scares me to think it’s changed how he feels about me in any way.
“Mark? Teddy, talk to me, please.”
Slowly lifting his head, he turns, his expression a touch dark. But instead of saying anything, instead of talking to me like I know he needs to, Mark’s eyes drop to my lips briefly before reconnecting with mine, his jaw ticking as he clenches it, looking at me in a way that speaks volumes.
And because I am in adecent mood, I decide to follow my overall line of thinking lately and lift my hand to cup his cheek. “Oh, teddy.”
Then I’m kissing him.
Without hesitation or any real planning, my eyes are closed and I’m pressed against his shoulder, his gigantic bicep smashed between my breasts, our bodies touching everywhere they can in this position and only separated by my kimono while my lips caress his.
Butterflies fill every inch of my stomach, fluttering wildly as my very last first kiss becomes a little less chaste.
Soft.
Mark’s lips are so incredibly soft and full, and they taste like cinnamon. I lick the seam as he turns, facing me to tilt his head, slanting his mouth over mine and grabbing my arms. Mark’s hands slide up my neck until he’s holding my face, every bit of my skin he touched now covered in goosebumps.
I lean into him, my fingers digging into his shirt, tugging the material just to get as close as I can and when I’m ready to straddle his lap in order to do that, Mark pushes me away by the shoulders.
“Leonor,” he growls, quickly getting to his feet.
My nose stings as I blink wide eyes, watching him tug his beard and start to pace. “Mark? What’s wrong, what did?—”
“Nothing,” he snaps, his frustrated stare narrowed on my face for a split second. “You’ve never done anything wrong in my eyes but that’s the problem.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen you as this perfect, untouchable goddess so fucking long that I was willing to forget my own feelings just to keep you around, but because I’ve also done that so goddamn long, I forgot damn near everything the second you decided to kiss me. A couple more seconds of kissing you after waiting for what feels like my entire life for literallyanythinglike that to happen, I would have made an even bigger mistake.”
Ignoring the way all of that actually hurts my feelings, I scowl and cross my arms against my chest. “Yourfeelings?The oneswhere you ignore me and run away because I’m a broken piece of shit, one that you’re even more disgusted by now because I kissed you? Or the ones where you judge the fuck out of me because I’m in a committed relationship with your three best friends? Or maybe it’s secretly fighting your jealousy over not getting to stick your dick in at least one of us? There are just so many options when it comes to your preciousfeelingsthese days.”
