New Romantics

Chapter 15

Time stopped—wholly and completely—as the small, dimly light hallway fell away, and my senses became overwhelmed with him. The touch of his lips, his scent, the taste of his mouth, and the soft, deep hum vibrating from deep in his throat when he closed the gap between our bodies, pressing me into the door behind me. I thanked all of my lucky stars for the door, for the threshold I clung to, for the way he anchored us into the breathless moment, hands moving to rest on my hips when I grabbed his arms and arched against him.

Leo's kiss was unlike anything I'd ever felt before.

It was perfect and expert and—

God. It made me want so much more.

When the hunger in my kiss intensified, Leo pulled back slowly, as though it were painful to do so, and looked at me from beneath long, dreamy lashes, his mouth flush, warm breath ragged against my mouth, those big, strong hands squeezing my waist. "I—"

I pressed another kiss on his mouth. "That better not be an apology."

He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed a groan. "I already asked for your forgiveness, remember?"

Oh, right. The memory swam somewhere in the back of my hazy mind. "You're forgiven."

"I was actually going to ask if you needed help getting back to your bedroom." His words sent a lightning bolt sizzling through my entire nervous system, and I shifted against the door, earning a deliciously devious grin that made me ache.

I wanted to tell him yes, and that I needed a lot more than just some assistance from him, when a thump at the door—suspiciously sounding like someone falling against the door—made me pause. Dani muttered a low curse from the other side, and Sasha not-so-quietly shushed her.

Oh. My. God.

At the end of the hall, laughter echoed through the stairwell, and the door burst open with a heart-stopping bang, Leo's roommate, Mason, emerging with a big bag of groceries in hand, a girl I recognized from living two apartments down the hall stood right behind him.

"Leo!" Mason crooned. "There you are!"

And just like that, the moment fizzled out.

"You were looking for me?" Leo asked, a thread of surprise in his otherwise neutral tone.

"Well, I was about to call you after I helped—" he jerked his chin at the girl on his heels, "—Zoya here with her stuff."

Zoya shot Mason another thankful look and smiled at Leo and me.

"About?"

"Dude, have you not heard?"

"Heard what?" A sharp edge clipped his words. "What's going on?"

"Dude!" Mason exclaimed. "About rush! We're going to be—"

Leo waved him off. "I don't care about rush right now."

Pausing at Zoya's door, Mason's bright eyes sparkled with the mischief of a trickster concocting his most masterful plan. He knew a secret that he couldn't wait to share with Leo. Whatever was going to happen would be an event that could not be missed. "You're going to want to hear this!"

As he said this, Leo's phone vibrated with an incoming call. Fishing his phone out of his pocket, Leo looked at me with a frown that said we'd have to revisit his offer later, and that frown turned into an all-out glower when he saw the number on the screen. "Fuck." And then, to me, "I have to take this. Do you—?" He glanced back at Zoya's door. Do you want to pick up where we left off, later? His eyes asked.