Draw Me In

by Megan Squires

  “Hi Leo.”

  “What happened to your face, Julie?” Realizing his hand was still suspended in the air fist-bump-style, he dropped it to his side and searched out my face with a gaze so intense it almost hurt to look at. An eclipse across his features. “Are you okay?”

  “I, uh. I was mugged on the way home.”

  “Oh my God!” He grabbed me by the arms, two warm hands wrapping around the small curve of my biceps. “Are you serious?”

  Damn. “No. That’s a lie.”

  His hands fell. “Why would you lie about that?”

  “Because apparently you make me lie in an attempt to save face. But this—,” I waved a palm across my blush stained cheeks, “—can’t actually be saved.”

  “I don’t like that I bring out the liar in you.” He was serious in his tone and expression and it made my gut roll with regret. “There are lots of things I want to bring out in you, but lying isn’t one of them.”

  We were still in the doorway, which was awkward, but I figured it would be more awkward to invite him in since he was my boss and since I currently looked like a clown/drag queen/zombie.

  “Okay. I take that back because it’s totally wrong of me to say you make me lie. If I’m gonna be a liar, I’m gonna own it. I lie because I want to impress you.”

  “And how would I be impressed by thinking you were mugged?” Leo took one step forward, the tip of his leather shoe crossing the threshold of my apartment so slowly it was as through he was testing for a trip wire or waiting for an alarm to go off. Nothing happened.

  “Would you be impressed to hear that I look like this because I suck at applying makeup and I was doing a test run for my headshots for your magazine article and I wanted to look hot?”

  “Yes.” He flashed that pearly white smile that made me want to be a dentist just so I could have the honor of scraping plaque off of those perfect teeth. “I would.”

  “Well then. There you have it.”

  Looking around me, Leo said, “Can I come in?”

  “Sure,” I conceded, an approximation of a welcome.

  He pulled something out of his back pocket, and then he stretched out his hand toward me. There was an envelope with the flap still open held between his fingertips. “Your boarding pass for our flight tomorrow.”

  I took it from him and set it down on the kitchen bar. “You know we can print these at the airport, right?”

  “Yes. I know.”

  We stood there, about two feet apart, in the small space between my kitchen and family room. I balanced one hand on the counter and pressed into it slightly because I found that I looked better when I sort of leaned on things rather than stood up completely straight. Don’t ask me why I knew that, it was just something I’d discovered over the years in my anatomical drawing classes. I was all about the body and its form and I thought bodies looked best when they were bent a little at the joints and gave the illusion of movement. Maybe I would look really good if I sort of laid down on the ground right now and stretched my legs out as far as they could go and bent my arms behind my head like I was a sculpture in the Uffizi Gallery.

  Or maybe I’d look like an idiot.

  I’d definitely look like an idiot. Scrap that idea.

  “Well, thank you. For the boarding pass.”

  We were still staring and I was still sort of leaning and had my hand popped onto my hip for a little added effect.

  “Are you posing?”

  “What?” My palm instantly coated with so much sweat it slipped off the counter and my shoulder slammed into the sharp edge as I faltered, completely rocked and lost all sense of balance. And dignity. I lost that too. “No. I’m not posing. That would be weird.”

  “It looked a little like you were posing.” Did it also look a little like I’d just crapped my pants? Because I was pretty sure that also happened.

  Leo’s head tilted at an angle in such a way that he was looking at me just out of the corners of his eyes. Two blue, enticing slits that challenged me to own up to the complete moron I was.

  “Maybe I was posing a little.”

  How that could manufacture a smile and not a look of disgust, I had no idea. But there it was, playfully carved onto his face and it looked so good I wanted to lick it, just to see if it tasted as good as it looked. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah, you were posing. Okay,” he reiterated.

  Holy Toledo, did he just accept that I was standing here in front of him in my apartment, striking a 1990 Madonna Vogue-style pose like it was totally normal? How much crazy could this guy handle? It actually made me question his taste in women, because if he at all was attracted to me like I thought he might be, he definitely preferred his women just south of normal. And I was currently residing in Antarctica.

  “Maybe it’s normal for you to pose and do weird things with your body when you’re in uncomfortable situations. I mean, I am your boss and I just showed up at your house completely unannounced.”

  “Oh, but I’m not uncomfortable. I’m really quite relaxed.” And apparently I’m a chronic liar, but we’ve already covered that. My nose just grew three inches. “And I don’t normally pose.” Lie again. “Just a new yoga move I was trying out.” Lies, all lies.

  “Well, I don’t normally show up without warning.” His voice was thick with honesty and it made me feel bad that I was feeding him lie after lie and he was eating it like it was his last supper. “And I don’t normally do this, either.”

  Leo smiled nervously, the tremble in his lower lip pinned back by his teeth, and before I could register what his words meant, my wish about tasting that grin from earlier was granted. Two full, warm lips pressed onto mine, sending a wave of shivers running the entire length of my body like someone was tickling my skin with a feather, drawing up goose bumps with each teasing stroke.

  Leo bent over me because he was so much taller, and something about doing so made his hips press forward into mine and that, in turn, made me want to die. But if I died, I would miss out of this amazingly unexpected kiss, so I started praying and asking forgiveness and doing whatever else necessary to keep from keeling over at this very point in time. I even threw in a few Hail Mary’s for good measure and I wasn’t a practicing Catholic.

  With our lips still connected, Leo wrapped his arms around my waist, tugging me closer to him so we were chest to chest, our hearts thrumming erratically against one another like they were having a drum off competition in a high school marching band. I slid my hands up his arms to his neck where I could feel his pulse point hammering out its own beat against my fingertips, that thick vein that pulsed with the passion I could tell he was feeling just as much as I was.

  Every inch of his body was all hard, defined muscle, but the way he yielded and molded to my touch served as the world’s biggest oxymoron. He was the most tender, yet firm, man I’d ever come into contact with, and it did things to my insides that it probably shouldn’t. Considering he was my boss. And considering I had a history of throwing myself at any man who asked for it.

  After I wrapped up my prayers begging to stay alive, I shot up another asking that Leo have more willpower than me, because right now the only power I had in me was driven by hormones, and those girls often escorted me to hole in the wall clubs and seedy hotels and cocktail parties where you hooked up with random guys as a “Thank You” for buying you a Lemon Drop. My hormones were backstabbing bitches and I could no longer trust them. Instead, I’d just have to put all my trust in Leo.

  When he tugged my lower lip into his mouth, I let out a little gasp in the back of my throat and apparently Leo heard it because all of a sudden he deepened the kiss, delving his tongue between the seam of my lips, tasting my mouth eagerly. Dragging my hands into his cropped, dark hair I jumped up in one gymnast-like move and hooked my legs around his waist, using my elbows resting on his shoulders to lift my mouth higher to his. I was all but begging for him to cup my ass with those palms of his, but he kept his hands s
ecured around my middle, even though the effort to do so had to be intense.

  His lips were so full, his mouth so sweet like I’d imagined it would be, like fruit dripping sugary juice. We played like this for a while—the back and forth of tongues circling around the other, the tug and pull of swollen lips sliding together in what had to amount to the best first kiss I’d ever had with anyone in my life. It was no train wreck, that was for sure. It was more of an atmospheric explosion of meteors because that’s what I felt deep in my stomach. Some tingling buzz that pulsed throughout me, shooting star-like jolts of electricity through my veins. One tiny cosmic burst, then another.

  This man was a kissing god. Like how Poseidon was the god of water, and Dionysus was a drunken party animal, and Apollo was into the sun and music. Leo was the god of making out and I was tempted to create my very own marble statue of him to commemorate this unreal talent he possessed. How he could leave me completely satisfied with merely kissing alone proved he had superhuman powers. Everything about what he was doing was totally tame, but it made me wild with an excitement and desire I didn’t even know possible. Yep, he was a kissing god and I worshipped his mouth like I was his newest convert.

  Then reality crashed in on us. Grand cosmic explosion. Or it crashed in on him, mainly, because I was suddenly still moving my lips against his in a way that became awkwardly more one sided than the two person endeavor kissing should be.

  Oh, I think maybe he was trying to speak. But I couldn’t really hear because I swallowed up every syllable that worked its way out of his mouth.

  There it was again.

  Reluctantly, I peeled my lips from his and withdrew an inch, figuring that was all the space he needed to get the words out. I wasn’t about to lose this close contact with this man.

  “I’m sorry.”

  What a waste of words and breath. I dove back in for the kiss.

  “Julie.”

  Leo slid me down his body until my feet touched the hardwood, but my knees didn’t lock into place like they should and my muscles forgot how to be muscles and my bones were all Jell-O. He had to hold me at the elbows to keep me somewhat upright.

  “Julie, I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Thinking he was referring to the whole part where he so rudely stopped kissing me, I summoned the help of my weary bones and legs and pushed onto my toes to bring my mouth closer to his. I really needed to make out with that face again.

  “Hey.” Bending slightly at the knees, his eyes dove down into mine. “Listen. I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have kissed you like that.”

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean, is there another way you’d like to kiss me? Because I’m all for experimenting.”

  I was certain he’d heard me, but Leo talked over my nervous stammer, his words heavier than mine, pushing their way forward. “It’s just that I was at home eating dinner tonight and was thankful for food that tasted like actual food after our adventure at Namaste this afternoon and then I realized that every thought I had was of you.” With the rough back of his knuckle, he swept a loose strand of hair off my cheek and tucked it behind the curve of my ear. It might have been an insignificant gesture, but it didn’t feel like one. “When I poured myself a glass of water I thought of you and how you would probably dump it all over my kitchen. When I changed out of my work clothes and into jeans I thought of you and how you helped pick them out. Hell, even when I turned on my stove I thought of you and how you burnt down your uncle’s neighbor’s house.”

  Though we’d only had a handful of interactions, I had somehow worked my way into Leo’s brain, like he was intentionally trying to make me fit. That had to mean something.

  “Basically, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  He paused. I froze.

  “I should go.”

  “No!” I placed a hand on his forearm to halt any action that he might be thinking of taking. Usually after declarations like this, someone bolted. I was not about to have him bolt out of this apartment. Not after the kiss that rocked my entire universe. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you, either.”

  Just one eyebrow shot up to a point. “Yeah?”

  “So you’re going to think this is really creepy.” Oh no, Julie, please don’t. “But I drew something.”

  “Me, right?”

  Jaw meet floor.

  How could he know that? He couldn’t know that.

  “How do you—”

  “Ian brought it by the office.”

  It was a shame I’d never make it onto that plane to Italy tomorrow morning because tonight I was going to be arrested for manslaughter. My brain scrolled through a list of nearby places to dump a dead body.

  “He what?” I couldn’t swallow. I needed to figure out who I might call with my one phone call down at the police station. “I can’t believe he—”

  “It was insanely impressive. What you can do with a pencil is nothing short of magic.”

  “Well.” I figured I was blushing, but I wasn’t sure if he could even see it under the cake of makeup that still camouflaged my face. “What your stomach can do with a washboard is pretty damn magical, too.”

  Leo did one of those silent laughs where his shoulders shrugged as though embarrassed while he said, “I’m not sure if you realize, but it was an incredible turn on to think of you taking the time to create something like that. Of me.”

  “Well, I was definitely turned on while creating it.” Oh sweet mother Mary, I needed to shut up. “I mean.” There was no backtracking with that one. “Never mind. That’s exactly what I meant.”

  “I’ll take it as a compliment, that you saw me fit enough to add to your repertoire of work.”

  “Oh, you’re definitely fit enough. Probably more fit than some of the actual statues I draw.”

  That’s not what he meant. Obviously. I was not smarter than a fifth grader. I wasn’t even smarter than a newborn at this point. It was all mindless babble that trickled out of my mouth like gobs of baby drool.

  Leo’s mouth shed a flustered smile. “I meant suitable.”

  “Right. You look damn good in a suit, too.”

  Crap! These bitchy hormones were making me an incoherent mess. I hung my head, muttering “Curses,” under my breath. This wasn’t going well.

  “Curses?” Leo still had his hands supporting my elbows, though I’d managed to regain the use of my most of my body again. Brain activity was still questionable, though. Synapses were misfiring all over the place and poor Leo had been caught in the crossfire.

  “Yeah, it’s something I say instead of actually cursing. There’s a long, boring story attached to it, but basically I got in trouble as a teen for swearing so I had to come up with a replacement I could use when I wanted to be defiant. Which was always because let’s face it, I was a teenager.”

  “LOL,” Leo chuckled, looking right into my eyes.

  “Did you just say LOL instead of actually laughing?”

  “Well, you said curses instead of actually cursing. I wanted to see if it had the same effect. Obviously, it didn’t.”

  Goodness, was he ever cute. That much I could make out, even in the dark that coated the apartment. During our kiss and following conversation the sun slid down in the sky, casting lines across the walls like diagonally printed wallpaper. But now everything was shadow. A few street lamps outside flickered on, their orange glow like that of a jack-o-lantern burning through the tall windows. Mr. Wong’s neon sign flooded light through the glass, giving our kitchen an eerie hue. Everything was dark, mysterious. Which only added to the mystery transforming in my head.

  Why on earth was Leo here? And why did he kiss me?

  Since I watched a lot of Murder She Wrote reruns with my mom as a kid, I decided to try my hand at cracking the case.

  “You didn’t come over here tonight just to deliver my boarding pass, did you?” I gave up on the posing and just stood in front of him, face to gorgeous face. His dark brows, this thick head of hair, his piercing eyes. H
e was exquisite. And I’d made out with him. Score for me, big time.

  “You’re right. I didn’t.”

  Aha! Clue number one. “You like me.”

  There was a playfulness in the smirk that stretched across his lips. “Wasn’t that obvious from all the kissing?”

  “Sorta. I mean, maybe.”

  “Should I make it more obvious?”

  Um. Obviously. I didn’t say that, but instead quit with the joking and let my true thoughts slip past, not at all feeling insecure, but honestly needing to ask him the question. “So, where do we go from here?”

  I knew from the moment I laid eyes on Leo in front of the David that he’d interested me. His voice. His touch. His demeanor. And now his kiss. It was all perfection and he intrigued me to no end, an infinity of captivation.

  And something about me intrigued him as well, I guessed. It overwhelmed me to think that maybe, somehow, we mutually felt the same way about one another. I recognized that for the rare gem it was, because most times lives didn’t sync. Feelings didn’t match up. Relationships never materialized. Timing was a funny, and often cruel, thing. It passed over potential happiness and left lives to chance, a fleeting vapor of what could have beens and what ifs.

  I thought Leo was a hot piece of meat (among other things) and he at least thought I was make out worthy. This could totally work. We were in tune. But what next?

  “Where do we go, Leo?”

  Engulfing my hands in his palms, he pulled me into his chest, his head resting on the crown of my hair. When he spoke, his jaw moved against me, and I could feel each word as he uttered it. “How about we start with the airport?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I think Pixie’s gonna give her problems again.”

  Ian and Leo were two people behind me in the crazy long line at customs. An Italian officer on the other side of the glass window eyed me up and down, his beady eyes like lasers scanning over my face. He flicked open my passport once more to my picture and then did the whole scan thing again.