Love on Hold

by Mia Miller

  He exhaled, and his shoulders sank.

  “You’d think, Leonie Marsh, after everything we already know of each other and with you being as smart as you are that you’d know a woman running from me would be the last thing I wished for.”

  I’d been wrong. I hadn’t been just a coward. I’d been incredibly selfish too. Of course, I’d triggered his fears. Just like he’d triggered mine.

  I pushed myself onto my tiptoes and raised my hand to touch his, but he moved just a little, just so he was out of reach.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  He went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “You’d think that after all this running, I’d just go the other way, right?”

  I swallowed and watched his eyes sweep down my body, taking in my prickling skin and my heaving chest.

  “Then why is it, Leonie Marsh,” he accentuated my name like it was something tasty on his tongue, “that all I want to do”—he stepped closer, put one arm and then the other on the wall, and trapped me—“is come after you. Come after you until I make you stop running. Come after you until you run back to me.”

  His forehead touched mine. I felt his lips moving whisper soft across my own. I wanted him to breathe me in, consume me, take everything I had until the heat burning me away fell quiet.

  I slowly raised my hand again, and this time he let me touch him. I touched his chest and felt his heartbeats.

  My lip raised in a half-smile.

  “You were right when you said that we are in sync. Your heart is beating as fast as mine.”

  He sighed again, and I wished he’d kiss me already.

  “How did you know it was me last night at the pool?”

  “I wasn’t sure. But your body, your hair …”

  “How could you tell from just one picture?”

  His arms moved from being braced on the wall to cupping my ass and lifting me against him. With my shoulders propped on the wall, my core touching his, I was at his eye level.

  “I looked at that picture a hundred times. It is seared into my brain.”

  “When did you find out my identity, exactly?”

  “My roommate is sort of a hacker. After you ran, I had him help me piece together the puzzle that is Leonie.”

  “And what about that nurse?”

  He grinned.

  “Carrie is not for me. Not even on my radar.”

  I smiled.

  “Kiss me,” I pleaded.

  “Hold on,” he whispered, making me groan, which in turn pulled a smirk onto his lips.

  “What are your plans for tonight?”

  “I wanted to feel sorry for myself and drown in self-loathing.”

  He chuckled and let me down.

  “Well, instead of you quoting the Grinch, how ’bout I finally take you out and feed you?

  “Okay.”

  “Okay …” He actually sounded surprised.

  “You know my number,” I said as he backed toward the door.

  I wanted him to stay. This moment was too perfect to be interrupted.

  “Leonie …” He called my name like a forbidden song he’d yearned for since years back.

  “Yes?”

  “Stop running away from me.”

  I smiled.

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’ll go back to the front and pay, tip included. ’Cause that’s the best fucking haircut I have ever had in my life.”

  He winked at me and turned to leave.

  “Wait! I think all bets are off, and all rules thrown out the window. I need your name as well.”

  He flashed the most beautiful smile in the world.

  “It’s Joel. Joel Thomas.”

  “Joel. Nice to finally meet you.” I returned his smile.

  “Finally is right, Sweetness.”

  He closed the door of the break room behind him, and I collapsed onto a chair, looking at the ceiling and breathing deep so I could steady myself. It hadn’t been so difficult, after all.

  Twenty-One

  “Kiss Me, Joel.”

  LEONIE

  “So, what do you want to do?”

  Joel had been waiting for me in front of my building, wearing a smile so wide and so brilliant that I could have sworn I felt it. When I stopped in front of him, he reached his hand to grab mine and pulled me a little closer so I had to tilt my face to look at him. For a second, I thought he would kiss me. He didn’t.

  Kiss me, Joel!

  “Aren’t you gonna kiss me?” I said aloud.

  “Hold on,” he said, and I could swear he was amused.

  “I’m up for whatever.” I answered his initial question and meant it. I trusted him and was eager to spend some time face-to-face with him. In the flesh. Near his heat and his smile. “But you really should make good on those dozens of promises to feed me something.”

  We decided to go downtown to find some place to eat, and when we walked up the sidewalk, Joel had intertwined his fingers with mine and led the way, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for us to go hand in hand. It actually felt the same way to me too. I stopped abruptly when I spotted one of my favorite places up ahead.

  I tugged at his hand.

  “Can I show you something?” I asked him.

  The corner of his mouth tipped up.

  “I thought you were hungry. But yeah, anything you want. About time I had a tour from a local.”

  “It’s just my favorite comic book store, but I’d be happy to give you a tour another time.”

  “Okay. Why a comic book store though?”

  I pulled him inside.

  “You’ll see.”

  We avoided the recent issues stands and the collectible items part of the store and went toward the back where there were huge shelves with comics lined all the way up to the ceiling.

  “Whoa! You’ve brought me to the inner sanctum.”

  There were bean bag chairs spread on the floor, and between them were baskets of old issues of superhero-themed comics. There were a few isolated readers, but since it was a late evening and almost closing time, we had the place mostly to ourselves.

  I grinned.

  “Exactly. I want you to meet Nocturna.”

  Joel started flipping through old magazines until he found the Batman section, and I turned to the shelves. The one I wanted was, of course, close to the top and there was no ladder in sight. I took off my heels and carefully stepped on to one of the shelves, trying to reach my targeted comics. I was as high on my tiptoes as I could get, when I felt his hand on the small of my back.

  “Sweetness, what the fuck, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

  “You scare too easily,” I said, snickering and turning back to my task.

  “I do this all the time at the supermarket. They have my favorite potato chips yae high.”

  I still couldn’t reach the last shelf.

  Joel’s touch became more urgent, his hands moved to my hips a second before he lifted me and stepped back.

  “Wha—”

  “Relax,” he said as he placed me back on the floor as if I weighed nothing. I flushed and knew I was blushing a deep pink.

  “You know, you always make fun of your own height, but I happen to love it.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. It lets me do this.”

  “Thank you.”

  He just closed his arms behind my back, pulled me flush against his body, and placed his head on mine.

  “And I can do this.”

  Kiss me, Joel!

  He kissed the crown of my head, sending trembles down my spine.

  “You’re the perfect size for a cuddle,” he murmured.

  I raised my face to his, silently begging him for that kiss.

  Instead, his lips went near my ear.

  “And I bet being able to move you around so easily makes for a fun time in bed.”

  I suddenly forgot what we were doing in the first place. His lips touched the lobe of my ear in a whispered-kiss, an
d I felt that ache between my thighs that he was able to summon without even realizing it. I felt like I would melt on the spot.

  “Promise to stop hanging off shelves and living dangerously?”

  I started rolling my eyes but only nodded when I saw the seriousness in his look.

  “Look for the magazines with purple spines, to the right.” I indicated the area, and he returned his attention to the shelves as I pulled my shoes back on.

  It was an hour later, once we’d been almost chased out of the store by a tired clerk, that we entered a burger joint.

  He ordered for the both of us, but not before waiting patiently for me to decide, and to tell him what I wanted.

  “I’ve been thinking about your career.” I started with a subject I knew he was struggling with but knew I may have a solution for. I’d fixated on paths and possible schemes for him ever since he’d mentioned his desires to write investigative stories in the absence of a portfolio. My mind just worked like that, connecting the lines pretty fast, so I had turned the focus on him.

  “What career,” he asked, but the light in his eyes was dulled out.

  “The one you’ll get very soon,” I encouraged him before giving a small shrug. “I mean, if you want it bad enough, stop postponing it. I know you said your dad was blocking you from interviews, but I think I have a solution.”

  His brows furrowed, so I went on.

  “Police departments. I bet your dad’s influence doesn’t extend over them. They give tips to journalists all the time. Sure, you would have to freelance for a while, but it would land you plenty of material to create a portfolio.”

  He lit up then.

  “How did I not think of that before? God, that’s brilliant! I could cover missing persons. I could cover major crimes!”

  I nodded.

  “Do you think they’ll take a young freelancer seriously?”

  “If you write about what concerns them, who cares about your age?”

  He took my hands in his and started listing all the possible ways this could develop. His beam of happiness captivated and delighted me. I might as well have found a new purpose in life.

  “Okay, I have a question,” I said as we were walking back towards campus.

  “Shoot,” Joel said, his thumb pressing on the hollow of my hand and making me feel those small circles all the way to my core.

  We’d had spectacular fun thus far, but he still hadn’t kissed me, and I felt like I needed the taste of his lips on mine, as if it would be the antidote for everything that was bad in this world.

  “Did you mean what you said in the comic book store or are you secretly repulsed by me?”

  He stopped abruptly and circled my waist in a smooth, rapid move, pulling me tight against him and forcing me to look up.

  “You’ve always said the weirdest things, Leonie. I never know whether to be amused or worried. What are you talking about?”

  His head was lowered enough that, if I raised myself on my tiptoes quickly, I could capture his lips with mine. This cat-and-mouse game was something I wanted to win, so I resolved not to cave. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t tempt, though.

  “You haven’t kissed me.”

  He barked a laugh and squeezed me tighter.

  “Just want to take my time with you,” he answered quietly.

  Pleasure fluttered across my body from my nose to my toes.

  “Oh? Is that what you tell all your dates?”

  He put us back in to motion and slipped an arm over my shoulders in a protective gesture that made me want to cuddle into him and never let go.

  “Leonie … is this really a first date?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean …” He paused. “How many people have their first date two months into their relationship? We have watched movies together. We have eaten together. You have told me secrets …”

  “You heard me come …” I put that out there but tried to sound matter-of-fact about it.

  He gave me his eyes, and they were crinkled at the corners.

  “You’re being very feisty tonight.”

  I made a face, which was supposed to convey my annoyance at his calm and composure but only made him burst into laughter again.

  “Come on, Sweetness. We’re having a sleepover at my place.”

  I realized we’d walked all the way to Oak Creek, which was the unattainably expensive part of campus, and he was pulling me toward a high-rise apartment complex, nodding to the doorman as we passed. We entered an elevator, and the second the door closed, I found myself up against the wall, supported by one of Joel’s large arms that had lifted me off the ground. His heat was intoxicating. His other hand touched my face with a tenderness that made my insides feel gooey.

  “I am extremely glad we finally stopped playing around. I can’t remember a time I had so much fun with a woman, Leonie.”

  His thumb caressed my cheek slowly, and I turned my face ever so lightly. I took his thumb between my lips and sucked, closing my eyes. Joel’s consequent small groan made me smile.

  Goodness, that sound did things to me.

  “Come on, my little minx, let me take you inside.”

  The apartment was nice and spacious with stylish furniture that didn’t look like it was bought on a student’s budget.

  “Is your roommate rich?”

  He frowned at my question, saying, “Levi? I guess …”

  “How do you know him anyway?”

  Joel shrugged.

  “He placed an ad, I answered. We hit it off. Yo, Levi!” He bellowed the last words toward a room at the end of the hall with its door ajar.

  A man as tall as Joel but almost twice as built made his appearance.

  “Is this your texting chick?”

  I made a twirl as a joke.

  “This is me.”

  The men both laughed, and I took the time to notice the geek that didn’t look like he had a geeky bone in his body named Levi. He had pale skin and dark hair that needed a cut. His beard was trimmed, though. Both his hair and beard were dark, but what I found striking were his black, bottomless eyes. He was almost as handsome as Joel.

  I felt Joel tugging at my hand.

  “Say good night, Levi,” he said to his friend over his shoulder while leading me toward what I assumed was his bedroom.

  “Good night, Levi,” Levi called behind us, his bearded mouth moving into an amused smirk.

  We established we would watch a movie and I was sleeping over because, apparently, it was too late for me to cross the campus again.

  He suggested it.

  I agreed.

  We both knew it was a lie.

  I walked out of Joel’s bathroom, wearing just my panties and a shirt he’d lent me. It felt huge around me, larger than any dress I owned, really. He was seated on the edge of his bed and watched me with the slightly amused expression he seemed to exhibit every time I was around.

  Unlike me, he was wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt, and he rested his weight on his arms, his gorgeous chest on display. I approached him slowly, and when I reached the bed, he spread his legs, making room for me. I caressed his hair, and he closed his eyes, letting me touch his skin, trace lines over his shoulders, down his biceps, and back toward his pecs. He wasn’t bulky, but all his muscles were well defined and hard.

  “You know, someone could teach anatomy using your body.”

  He opened one of his eyes.

  “Are you lusting over me?” He smirked.

  “Depends on whether you like it or not,” I whispered, remembering one of his first few texts.

  He sat up and hugged me, his forehead pressed onto my stomach. It felt intimate and warm and like something I’d never realized how badly I needed.

  “You have no idea how happy I am to have you here,” he mumbled against the fabric.

  I took his face in my hands and lowered myself into his lap, breathing the words, “Me too, handsome. Me too.”

  “Leonie.” His voi
ce vibrated close to my skin.

  “Yes?”

  “Give me that sweet mouth now,” he commanded.

  Then, his mouth was on mine, finally, finally! I wrapped my ankles behind his back so I could draw him closer. And closer. I licked at his lower lip, and he moaned.

  Whoosh!

  The delicious sound went straight to my belly. I wanted to test all the ways in which I could touch him and all the places I could kiss him to get his groan to echo in the room again and again and again.

  He lowered himself onto the bed, taking me with him, as he nibbled my bottom lip. I opened my mouth wider for him, letting him devour me. Suddenly, it made sense why he’d waited for the whole day and night to savor a kiss. It wasn’t just a kiss. It was wet. It was wild. It was delicious and consuming. It was ours to enjoy, away from the world.

  Twenty-Two

  “Mesmerized.”

  JOEL

  I woke up with my heart full of all things Leonie. She’d left early, but the sweet perfume of her hair still lingered on my pillow. The obsessive taste of her kisses. Her enslaving laughter against my neck. Her little moans against my mouth. I was drunk on her. She’d touched my body everywhere and kissed my shoulders and my stomach with something close to idolization. She’d let me undress her and I’d worshiped her body, discovering all the many places where she was ticklish. Her body was delicate. Her skin was silk. The moment she had put her mouth on mine, I was undone.

  We hadn’t even had sex. We’d kissed for what seemed like hours, and the elation of that alone was unbelievably satisfying.

  I huffed a laugh. My first sleepover with a woman, and it had been inebriating, making me wonder what came next.

  I rolled onto my back and mused about her heart-shaped ass against my groin. I touched my erection, imagining how she’d feel wrapped around it. Her hands, her mouth, her pussy. I wanted it all. I wanted her to look up at me with those magnificent eyes and blow against my skin. I almost came just from that thought.

  Needing to find a single ounce of self-control, I let out a deep breath, sat back up, and immediately spotted the note on the nightstand.