Fire From The Sky

He watched her hands, the graceful little fingers curled around the semitransparent lemonade bottle. They tensed, then relaxed. The soft fuzz along her neck shimmered gold beneath the sunlight; the sun itself had begun drifting lower across the sky, a gigantic dandelion floating through a field of cheerful blue.

The arms he’d kept resting on his knees until now wrapped around Grace’s waist. Not tightly, because then he would have lost whatever remained of his self-restraint. The smoothness of her top against the youthful firmness of her stomach felt almost obscene beneath his rough palms, one knuckle still carrying the pale memory of a scar left by a scalpel. When had he gotten that one? Back in 2006? Spain?

Grace didn’t care about his scars, and even less about the possibility that maybe he should have been keeping himself under control. She offered him the bare line of her neck despite how cautious she usually was. A technical analyst always calculates risks.

“I am safe with you.”

Leon drew in a deep breath of her scent: almond, the flower crown perched atop her head, and the delicate sweetness of perspiration warmed by the sun. Being this close to her was wrong. Pressing his mouth against her skin, tasting her warmth and salt, was wrong.

It had been a fucking disaster from the very moment he started feeling this way about her, back in the middle of a burning chapel, when she looked up at him with those big, wet green eyes and cared only about Emily’s wellbeing. The way she'd said his name—

Leon!

—with relief he hadn’t earned at all back then.

Maybe never would.

Her clawing pleadingly against his thigh, holding his face even when it had been blackened by infection.  She could’ve left him there, the wheezing old man who disgustingly wanted her, even while her eyes brimmed with tears, bruises and scratches covered her body, and panic barely let her breathe.

You sick fuck.

And now she fit in his arms far too perfectly, and the sweetest sigh in the world escaped her lips beneath the gruff scrape of his kiss against her neck.

Leon felt drunker than he ever had in his life, and his blue eyes were no excuse for it.

“Leon…”

“Yeah,” he murmured, his mouth still on her skin. Grace trembled so much he could almost have believed she was afraid, and he found himself stubbornly trying to decode her. This was so different from what he was used to—the bold sex appeal, putting a collar around his neck and handing out affection in measured portions so he would bark like a good boy. “Want me to stop?”

“No!” she responded immediately.

That wasn’t something he could misunderstand.

He wasn’t restraining her, only holding her. She could have pulled away, but Grace leaned into him instead like a tame cat aching for affection. Leon’s lips moved slowly, only brushing over her skin. He didn’t suck or bite, didn’t want to leave marks, only wanted to feel her.

A faint, damp shine remained in the wake of his kisses. When he reached the sensitive spot beneath her ear, he paused there, touching the soft little lobe with his nose and drawing a shy smile across Grace’s face.

Emily’s dandelion tumbled free from behind Leon’s ear.

Grace turned toward him, closing the last inches between them. Their foreheads knocked together lightly, and her lips searched for his with purpose.

Then Leon kissed her properly.

It was even sweeter than he had imagined, carrying the fruity imprint of her lipstick and her own taste. They opened for each other at the same time, deepening the kiss, and Grace cupped his face in her palm. Leon felt her slightly bitten-down nails scratch at the nape of his neck, pulling him even closer.

The tiny sound that broke from her shattered whatever strength he had left to dust. He was a feather in a tornado, a marshmallow held over a bonfire, something that could not have stood further from the reality of his everyday life, from gun holsters, death throes and guts smeared under his boots.

Weakness had never felt this comforting.

He had kissed women before, plenty of times, actually. Back at the academy, you practically couldn’t pry him away from his girlfriend’s mouth. Then Ada. Claire too, a few times, then neither of them ever spoke of that again. Women beside whom he occasionally woke up during his thirties, years spent mostly at airports, mission briefings, hospitals and rolling-drunk. Booze used to make him forget how dry and underwhelming emotionless sex felt for him. He hated looking them in the eyes afterward; hated hurting them, hated feeling hurt in return, just because God had given him this quirk of instantly getting attached after exchanging body fluids.

Grace’s kiss was pure. Free of planning, free of expectation, free of burdens. There was only desire sparkling in every little flutter of her, palpable, almost out there to taste and touch. So much so that it felt as if the meadow itself exhaled around them, lascivious scents breaking loose into the spring air.

The dandelion crown slipped forward over Grace’s forehead. Leon’s face fell back against her half-bare shoulder, his lashes sweeping softly against her skin.

“Hey.”

“H-hi,” Grace echoed, her voice hitching.

“I like this shirt.” Another small kiss against her neck. “For the record… I’m finding this a little suspicious.”

Grace nearly choked. “S-suspicious?”

“I mean… around now I usually either wake up, or some mutant Nemesis weed bursts out of nowhere.”

Her nails dug crescent moons into his scalp as Grace pulled him back in and kissed him again. She was rushed, self-conscious, pink blooming across the peaches of her cheeks, yet somehow Leon was the one forced to retreat. Grace tried to press closer, and it took every tactical instinct he possessed to let her do it without letting her notice how hard he was becoming in his jeans.

Goddamn Elpis… or Elpis da bomb. And bees. Dandelions ripe with seeds the wind could scatter in a million directions.

Grace was warm even through the blue fabric of her shirt. He could feel the flailing of her muscles under his hands, and Leon desperately tried not to wonder whether her pussy had got wet a bit for him. This was neither the place nor the time. Grace didn’t seem like the type who would ever be comfortable with something like that in public anyway, and he himself had aged out of that. Long ago.

Grace, pressed against a tree, back taut as a bowstring, blonde hair all messy, an FBI analyst and a DSO agent going at it like festival teenagers—

He broke the kiss and shifted awkwardly where he sat, heat flooding his face.

“Just got a little sunburned,” he improvised after noticing Grace’s searching eyes had caught the redness.

She stared at him for a moment.

Then she stifled a tiny grin.

“I see.”

“Grace—”

She covered her mouth with her palm, trying to swallow back her laughter. There was no escape for Leon S. Kennedy: the facts were clear. In the end, his downfall had not been some grotesque genetic experiment, a presidential-level conspiracy, or a chainsaw-waving fanatic, but a beautiful twenty-six-year-old woman who had placed her hand on his knee at the bottom of a garbage chute.

He tilted his head to the side, enjoying the way that delicate hand smoothed down the hair at the nape of his neck.

Leon had certain weak points. Terrorists and some of his haters at the DSO or BSAA would have sold their souls to learn them, though chances were they had never considered that bumper-to-bumper traffic moving at the speed of a snail might be one of them.

Leon sucked on his teeth and gripped the steering wheel near the airport exit ramp. Beside him, Sherry visibly wasn’t nervous about missing her flight. She had kicked off her ballet flats, her necklace resting against the collar of her white blouse. She no longer wore gloves. Leon still hadn’t managed to break himself of that habit.

A driver behind them leaned on the horn as if that would magically change anything. If Leon hadn’t loved the Porsche so much, he might have reversed straight into him.

“So. Matching tattoos.” He circled back to their earlier topic. Transparent film covered the tiny tattoo on the inside of her wrist, keeping it sterile: a little smiling half-avocado. “Whose idea was that?”

“Oh, don’t pull my leg.” Sherry shot him a sidelong look. “You two are just going to end up seeing each other later because of this.”

“I raised a real little gremlin.”

“Claire helped too.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Also, you still haven’t told me a single thing about the picnic.”

Traffic lurched forward for maybe half a minute, and in the distance the outline of a descending Boeing became visible. Leon had crashed in planes like that before. Honestly, it would have taken less time to list things that hadn’t happened to him yet, though quite a few of those missing experiences had finally been crossed off on that sunlit meadow.

“It was a good idea. Thanks, kiddo.” He sent her a warm half-smile. “Emily loved it.”

“Only Emily?”

“You’re in remarkably good spirits when you’ve got a mind-numbingly boring conference waiting for you in fucking New York.”

“What’s wrong with New York?”

“Everything.”

“That isn’t an answer, Leon. And you failed to answer my previous question too.”

Sherry unwrapped one of the granola bars Leon had brought her. Among other reasons, she wasn’t worried about missing her flight because she knew he always thought of everything, as long as it wasn’t for himself. Just to be safe, Leon had shoved a paper bag full of painkillers, hand sanitizer, wet wipes, three granola bars, and a Subway sandwich into Sherry’s luggage.

You never knew.

“And Grace liked it too,” Leon finally answered, and that inevitably brought the memories of that day rising back to the surface. The frustration from the traffic melted away like ice under hot water. “And I kissed her. Or she kissed me. We’d need a sports referee to settle that.”

“Oh, that.” Sherry didn’t seem especially surprised, though after sending him eggplant emojis, pretending would’ve been ridiculous. “Good.”

“Let’s not blow this out of proportion, okay?”

“Not blow out of proportion the first healthy, amazing thing that’s happened to you since the Bronze Age?”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.”

Leon rubbed at his jaw. Sherry stayed quiet, only looking out the window, crumpling the granola bar wrapper into the pocket of her leather skirt. Leon knew that technique—oh, he knew it. Even as a kid she’d already been a master at squeezing the truth out of him through apparently disinterested silence.

Another airplane roared overhead nearby, this one heading toward the sheep-clouded sky.

“It really was,” Leon sighed. “The best thing that’s happened in a long time. In that sense.” He looked at Sherry for a moment, a soft light in his eyes. “Right after hearing you're recovering.”

Sherry touched his arm over his Hamilton watch and squeezed gently.

We’re in this together too, she had told him through the headset back in Gideon’s lab, when he’d been forced to face the cold facts. The worst part of dying had been knowing he couldn’t save his daughter from that ending either.

“You still taking the Oxy?”

“Way less now. I’m coming off it.” Then Sherry looked at him. “But Leon… I can tell you’re still chewing on something. Is it the age gap?”

At first, the answer was only a grunt, because he was wrestling with the parking machine.

The barrier lifted, and Leon smoothly backed the Porsche into a spot that looked available. He wasn’t entirely convinced parking was actually allowed there, but good luck to the poor soul who’d have the nerve to ticket him.

“It’s more complicated than that.” He pulled Sherry’s suitcase from the trunk and slid the handle free before handing it over. Sturdy, sand-colored, zip-locked—the Christmas gift from her boyfriend. “This is… a power thing. I know damn well what it’s like when control gets taken out of your hands. I know even better what it’s like when someone makes you think that’s good for you.” He averted his gaze. “Grace being attracted to me… maybe it isn’t even about me. You get it? She was under insane stress, and I came shambling in, throwing out my usual dumbass routine.”

“And you kind of fell for her.”

“Yeah, thanks for clarifying.”

He lit a cigarette, because at this point, there really wasn’t another option. The usual airport chaos unfurled around the terminal; suitcase wheels screeched over thresholds, the automatic doors tirelessly sliding open and shut. Armed guards with walkie-talkies paced back and forth, occasionally throwing suspicious glances toward rougher-looking travelers with a backpacks. Someone spilled their coffee.

“You know…” Sherry said, “if you're done demonizing yourself in forty different ways, I have a thought.”

“Forty?”

“At least.” She looked at him. “Listen, Grace isn’t eighteen, and she didn’t just fall out of a school desk. Yeah, she saw you handstand-kicking zombie heads off, but from what you told me, she also saw you as a disgusting drunk idiot. Facts are facts. Grace is raising a child. She’s not some confused little duckling that imprinted on you.”

Leon stared at the cigarette in his hand. It was probably time for him to quit too. “Very specific wording.”

“Just don’t make decisions for her. There are very few more irritating things you could do in a relationship like this.” They started toward the terminal, and Leon flicked the half-smoked cigarette into a storm drain. “The woman who yanks a piss-bucket over your head because you disappeared again like usual? She’s not being oppressed.”

Leon smothered a smile. There was something to that.

Grace didn’t only look at him with those impossibly cute, devotion-filled eyes when he was playing save-the-world with a shotgun in his hands. She looked at him like that while fumbling around with his herb plants, and awkwardly shuffling in front of her holding that Women’s Day bouquet.

No. He shouldn’t have thought about Ada. There was nothing in common between that story and this one. The silver ring on his finger reminded him never to confuse life-threatening danger with passion again, pain with destiny, care with whimsy.

Not in either direction.

“Oh.” His daughter’s voice yanked him back into reality. Sherry was grinning—not teasingly, but with genuine excitement. “You are lost.”

“No.”

“You’re in love.”

“Kiddo. I’m leaving you here.”

“Okay, I’m already where I need to be.”

Instead of answering, Leon just pulled her into a hug. “Go before you actually miss your flight.”

Sherry hugged him back, nodded, and thanked him for the ride. She pulled out her phone—maybe to coordinate the conference one last time, or maybe to call her mysterious boyfriend.

Partner, he corrected himself. A forty-year-old woman doesn’t have a boyfriend, right?

Hard getting used to that.

“Call her,” she ordered him with that real, smart Birkin smile. “After a first kiss she’s definitely checking her phone like a maniac, you old dork.”

The office felt especially soul-killing that day.

Most of Grace’s coworkers had been infected by the complaint-virus, which could be nearly as dangerous as some of the Progenitor variants. Between organizing and cataloguing two dozen crime scene photos, Grace listened to the struggles of dog-hair allergies, someone’s son applying to college, and several other things she immediately forgot.

Work wasn’t entirely to blame.

The photos had been taken in a half-burned building: zero casualties, but plenty of evidence of black-market activity and strange organic substances being sold. Another case handed to her because she was the initiated one—the FBI agent splashed over with a bucket of DSO-colored paint.

No. The real reason was that she’d been texting Leon under the desk. Leon Kennedy, with whom she had undeniably and irreversibly made out over the weekend, while Emily slept in the car beneath an emergency blanket cocoon, like an adorable little caterpillar.

Grace bit down on her finger as she replayed the film of that kiss in her mind again, for maybe the hundredth time now. Leon’s lips against her shoulder, against her neck—soft, unbelievably soft. Exactly like the way he spoke. Not a predator’s hunger, only warmth, only yearning, only the need to be closer to her.

That contradiction in him was agonizingly attractive.

Grace had done a little more digging too, and among other things found the database list of service vehicles assigned to Agent Leon S. Kennedy from 2010 onward. Cars totaled beyond repair. Motorcycles. SUVs. A bus. Even a goddamn airplane.

And this was the same man who always spoke to her so kindly, who even while kissing her seemed entirely preoccupied with making sure she felt safe.

The question of whether she felt safe around him wasn’t a problem. The danger was that she might explode from desire right there on the spot. Even in retrospect it gnawed at her that no matter how willfully she’d tried to curl closer against him, Leon had always pulled back a little.

Obviously to bring her back to her senses. Cool her down.

Because they couldn’t do anything... like that. Not there. Maybe not at all.

She was gawking at a selfie she'd somehow managed to talk Leon into taking. If it had been literally anyone else, it would’ve been terrible: shot from below, mildly confused expression, no filters, no flattering lighting, and a shower stall in the background.

Leon, however, wasn’t anyone else. And even in that amateur selfie, he looked so ridiculously handsome that heat immediately flared between Grace’s thighs. The thought crossed her mind that she could retreat to the restroom and take care of herself (not seriously, of course, because the very idea of getting caught already gave her a screaming panic attack).

She hurriedly pushed her phone beneath a pile of folders when an unexpected window flashed across her monitor.

Green, squared letters on a black background. Encrypted line. Not internal.

The computer didn’t label an intrusion, and Grace only had a wandering second to consider calling someone.

@>>>hunn>>miss ashcroft, perhaps someday over tea you could tell me how you managed to get access to fragments of Agent Kennedy’s files @>>>hunn>>though not the interesting ones. @>>>hunn>>these messages will disappear in fifteen seconds. don't worry, i'm merely the one who noticed you found this database with outdated security. since i happen to understand your motivations, let's overlook it @>>>hunn>>please somehow convince Leon to finally sit his ass down and stop trying to get himself killed. goodbye

It felt as if the air had been sucked straight from Grace’s lungs. Her eyes widened, and for a moment she thought she might actually piss herself, despite having fought Lickers in close combat before.

She should’ve known the DSO would notice that she’d shown any interest at all in one of their agents, let alone one of their most high-profile ones. Their system probably flagged anyone who searched Leon’s name in anything even slightly more sophisticated than Google. Grace had a bit of an affinity for computers. Extra university courses, and a fair amount of autodidactic learning during a very long period of her life spent wrapped in blankets between four walls.

“JesusMary,” she groaned, and returned to the black-market case photos. Metal cases full of packets. Tweezers stained with tar-like liquid. Discarded protective gloves and goggles.

She didn’t dare check, but she suspected the mysterious messages had indeed vanished without a trace. Still, she looked around her cubicle out of reflex, but thankfully no one was paying attention to her, or what she was doing. Dempsey had the day off.

She only dared text Leon back once she was sitting in her car, a safe distance from coworkers and cameras. She’d also saved the picture of him.

Grace: Emily has classes tomorrow afternoon. Would you maybe have the time—and want—to finally do our gaming date?

Leon answered first with a thumbs-up emoji, and Grace couldn’t decide whether it was a teasing callback, or simply Leon being Leon. Had that agent told him Grace had been snooping? It had to be someone who knew him and liked him—but probably not his adopted daughter.

Sherry.

Neither of them knew her, yet both of them knew… about this thing between them. They surely had opinions about it, too. Under any other circumstances, Grace would have thrown herself headfirst into that pit and tortured herself sick with the certainty that people must despise and judge her, but looking at Leon’s clumsy selfie, such warmth flooded every inch of her that it buried those urges beneath itself.

Would he kiss her again?

When he dropped her and Emily off, all she had gotten was a modest little kiss on the cheek. But not once since then had he tried to deny it or explain it away — it had become the new status quo.

Leon: 👍

Leon: Before this comes up, this is not a passive-aggressive thumbs up. This is a yes on my part.

Grace: Who briefed you about texting etiquette?

Those three dots she simultaneously loved and hated hopped across her screen.

Leon: A reliable source.

His daughter, Sherry. One hundred percent, Grace concluded, and that instantly made the black window with green text flash through her mind again. She bumped her forehead against the steering wheel and, holding her breath, typed her next message at lightning speed:

Grace: Leon, I looked into some of your old files. not entirely legally

What are you doing, what are you doing?! Her heart was pounding in her throat, and it only got worse when the three dots appeared again, just to terrorize her. She couldn’t unsend it anymore. Damn it, but it was better if he heard it from her, right? What would it look like if Sherry spilled it? "That little twenty-something you’ve been making out with has been spying on you."

Oh no. Someone kill me.

Leon: Sunshine

I hope one of those files wasn’t how many service vehicles I’ve totaled.

Grace exhaled with such force she nearly coughed up her own heart with it. She turned the ignition and turned up the radio, needing something to dilute the silence inside the car. Nelly Furtado was singing at the top of her lungs about man-eating.

Grace: …

and there was a bus too, right?

Leon: Look, those were difficult times.

Grace started driving home before someone walked up to her car and asked why she was sitting there tomato-red, simultaneously panicking and grinning.

Like a complete lunatic.

She stopped by the local grocery store to buy ingredients for dinner (she’d promised Emily homemade tacos). She also bought herself a bottle of rosé, because after this she needed it.

Her phone buzzed again, and another photo arrived — another selfie. Leon on his couch (Grace recognized it: gray fabric, barely used, almost new, with long pendant lights hanging above it). Some sports broadcast played on the TV, only the corner visible. Sandy bangs hung over his forehead, his stubbled face resting against his fist.

Leon: See? I’m trying really hard.

Grace couldn’t answer. She was too busy saving the picture. Wallpaper material. Hundred-and-fifty-times enlargement straight onto the wall. She would’ve been ready to go to war with this photo taped to her helmet.

She only had to pick Emily up at six after physical therapy, so she had enough time to make dinner. She changed out of her black business suit into something more comfortable, but this delay apparently planted doubts in Leon’s mind.

Leon: I didn’t accidentally send a nude, did I?

Grace chortled. After the selfies she’d received, she couldn’t imagine Leon taking naked pictures of himself, but if she’d been a little braver than she was, she might’ve floated the topic.

So many times she wished she were more daring. That she could just say the thoughts that absolutely appeared in her mind instead of locking them behind iron bars with her anxiety.

She poured the pre-packaged taco shells onto the kitchen counter, trying to picture a dick pic from Leon. She knew he’d never send her something like that.

Unprompted, at least.

In the end, she replied with a blushing cat GIF.

Leon: So if you come over tomorrow... can I kiss you again?

To hell with all her coworkers, dog allergies, college applications, and especially the DSO servers. Grace squirmed where she stood like a newborn fawn that still hadn’t learned how to stay upright.

Because the question — Leon’s question — wasn’t whether he would kiss her.

It was whether he could.

She would have found her way there from memory, but Leon had given her the address anyway.

It was a modern, secure building with a twenty-four-hour concierge service. Black, glossy floors and extravagant decorations on the beige-and-gold walls that resembled three-dimensional braids. Even the elevator made no sound, as though a light breeze had simply carried her up to Leon. It suited him perfectly, and not because of the elegance: it was pragmatic, easy to defend, safe.

In the silence, Grace thought she could hear her blood racing through her veins, the pressure of hot liquid straining against elastic walls. Under her taupe jacket she wore a white blouse and a red corduroy pinafore dress with black tights, though she had changed her outfit more than three times before finally leaving home. She had only put on lip gloss, and even that sparingly, because Leon had mentioned kissing, and she hoped it would happen as soon as possible.

Because this was a date. There was no arguing with that anymore. Just the two of them. This was really happening: Grace stepping out of the elevator, and Leon already waiting there, standing in the open doorway. He wasn’t much taller than her, and yet he still felt enormous, gigantic compared to her, as his hand smoothed up her arm in greeting, and those biceps—whose shape the fitted black turtleneck concealed absolutely nothing of. The material looked incredibly soft, and Leon had rolled the sleeves up, so Grace could once again see the upraised veins, the dusting of hair trailing toward his wrists.

She grabbed onto him and rose onto her tiptoes.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Leon’s voice rang out, smoother than usual.

“M-me? Oh. N-no, not really.” She shouldn’t have said that, but who on planet Earth would have thought she was the prettier one between them?

Smiling, Leon maneuvered them inside while Grace remained latched onto his arm like she intended to stay there all evening. “Careful, step. Closing the door.”

The thick security door clicked softly shut. Leon helped her out of her jacket when she finally, reluctantly accepted she couldn’t spend the entire evening hanging off him like that.

“I had a plan.”

“Mmm?”

“That you’d come up, I’d say something funny, you’d laugh, and then I’d kiss you.”

Grace blinked up at him, lips parting. It could have sounded like a smooth charmer line if Leon hadn’t said it with visible embarrassment, scratching the back of his neck with his left hand. Suddenly he didn’t seem much older than her at all, and Grace found herself wondering, involuntarily, how many girlfriends he’d had before. With that face? She would have guessed armfuls.

“I l-liked it t-this way too,” she smiled, adjusting her glasses.

Everything around Leon smelled of cedar, bergamot, and something light and salty that was maybe the lingering trace of freshly made popcorn. His apartment had gained a little more color since Grace had last been there; an electric guitar and a landscape painting had appeared on the wall, and sealed military storage crates sat stacked near it. The little plants in the kitchen window still looked miserable, although he had managed to save the rosemary and parsley.

On the coffee table, beside a volume of Guns&Ammo left open, waited a large bowl of hot popcorn and two PS4 controllers. As Grace looked around, she could feel Leon watching her; at her neck, her back... and a little lower, too. The skirt only just covered her ass, and the neckline would have been very daring if not for the blouse underneath. The awareness made her cheeks heat, but it stroked her pride too.

 “So, before I embarrass myself again—”

“A-again?”

“I just informed you I developed an actual strategy for kissing you, girl,” Leon hummed. A black belt circled his hips, and the cut of his black jeans was loose, a little 2000s. He took Grace’s hand; the coolness of his ring was paradoxically scorching against her burning skin. “If I remember correctly, I asked your permission for something.”

Grace nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck when she finally felt his lips against hers. It was slow, tentative, his fingers resting at her waist. Only then was she truly able to believe she hadn’t dreamed the whole thing in the meadow—that Leon really did thirst for her kiss, her scent, her, the result of one of Spencer’s horrific experiments.

The afternoon was still young. By the time they settled onto the couch, Leon tucked into the corner and Grace comfortably leaning back against his side, golden splinters of sunlight danced over their faces and hair, shining through the half-drawn curtains. The PS4 came to life with a familiar beep, and Grace examined Leon’s game library with sparkling eyes. She had to admit that while Leon’s list of neutralized mutant horrors was considerably longer, she had collected more platinums.

She had already been rambling about Elden Ring lore for twenty minutes before it hit her that someone might actually find this boring. Leon, however, only listened, faint crow’s-feet gathered around his cool blue eyes, his thumb absently circling the analog stick on the controller. He took her hand again and lifted it to his lips.

“So this is an Elden Lord’s hand.”

He kissed the backs of her fingers, and Grace swallowed the urge to launch into an explanation about the game’s different endings. Besides, who cared about any game at all when…

Leon launched COD in split-screen. Grace let out an appreciative whistle at the sight of his achievements and rank, though obviously there wasn’t much reason to be surprised. She felt sorry for the poor people the matchmaking system threw into lobbies with him—

—and then realized she was about to be his teammate, and immediately broke into a sweat.

Not long afterward she was shouting at bat frequency while her character ran frantically back and forth across the screen.

“LEON, B-BEHIND YOU!”

“I see him.”

“YOU D-DON'T SEE H-HIM! NO!”

Grace couldn’t see Leon’s expression, partly because she was using him as a backrest, and partly because she hadn’t taken her eyes off the TV at all. One thing was certain, though: he fired with complete cold-blooded composure, thereby inflicting severe emotional trauma on someone somewhere in the depths of the internet.

HEADSHOT. VICTORY.

“You can come out from behind the dumpster now,” Leon chuckled, his chest brushing against Grace’s shoulder blades. The light had turned amber over the passing hours, and half the popcorn was gone too, which was salted exactly the way Grace liked it.

“I-it was just strategy,” Grace retorted, but even with her competitive spirit flaring up again, one thing was obvious: Leon had been carrying these matches on his back. “Okay, y-you’re insanely g-good at this too. Is t-there anything you’re not?”

She set down the controller and reached for the popcorn bowl, but it unexpectedly slid farther across the table, onto the open magazine. Smiling to himself, Leon pinched a handful and shoved it into his mouth.

“Sorry, Sunshine.”

“Leon.”

“It’s a tax. Victory tax.”

Grace turned to face him, utterly incapable of hiding the curve tugging at her lips. Yes, axe-grinding Leon was appealing, and so was his sensitive, vulnerable self—but this impossible dipstick stealing popcorn from her outranked both by a mile.

For a long second she simply looked at him: the stunning hair falling over his forehead, the hands that had felt so wonderful touching her. She swung her tights-covered legs onto the couch, between the two of them, the tips of her toes brushing Leon’s shin.

She lowered her eyes, but regardless, her leg continued its sly journey. Pale skin showed faintly beneath the black tights, skin that bruised so easily, and beneath it Leon’s muscular thigh felt steel-hard. She lifted her other leg into his lap too, slowly, and dragged the sole of her foot along his inner thigh with a gentleness she could only hope was arousing.

The memory still lived vividly inside her of the moment she had massaged Leon’s aching toes, and how instantly wet his touch and his care had made her.

Leon froze. On the television screen his character collapsed, and maybe this was the first time he had lost, but he didn’t seem to care in the slightest. His controller joined Grace’s on the table, and he slid his hand over her ankle. His nostrils flared, and he opened his mouth to speak—but he didn’t say the first thing that came to mind.

“Grace, I’m afraid you have no idea how badly I want you.”

Grace drew in her lower lip. She didn’t dare speak because she was afraid she’d blurt out something that ruined everything—instead, she just kept stroking his thigh, a little higher this time. She saw Leon’s gaze flicker toward her leg, carrying that same thirst barely reined in as on that night when she’d brought him home from that putrid bar.

With feather-light gentleness, she brushed her foot against his crotch, and heat nearly raced down her spine when she felt the beginning hardness of Leon’s erection.

“Naughty.” Leon grabbed her waist and pulled her into his lap with irresistible force. Grace thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he scooped her up and rose to his feet with her, so effortlessly it was as though she weighed nothing at all. “The little lady spies on me, and afterward tries to kill the old man with her shapely little leg?”

“Oops,” Grace squeaked, her fingers tangling in Leon’s hair. She kissed him, nearly losing her glasses in the process.

Not long after, she found herself on her back on Leon’s bedsheets, which frankly deserved changing by now. From Grace’s perspective, though, in that moment he could have tossed her onto a pile of hay and she wouldn’t have cared. She propped herself up on her elbows and willingly let Leon firmly, yet gently, peel off her tights. He slowly rolled the nylon from her foot and immediately pressed his lips there afterward, scattering hungry kisses along her ankle, her calf, the edge of her knee.

“Beautiful,” he muttered, his large, broad hand gliding over her now-bare thigh. “Grace, tell me if—”

“I want it.”

It wasn’t entirely clear what exactly she meant by that, but it didn’t matter. Grace knew perfectly well that Leon would never knowingly do anything to her that didn’t feel good. Excitement left her barely able to breathe as Leon pushed up the corduroy skirt all the way to her navel, revealing her white panties decorated with little watermelon slices.

Fuck. At home she had thought they were cute. She hadn’t known how the afternoon would turn out, and she hadn’t wanted him thinking she had planned something. No lace, no thong, no strings. Still, she didn’t have long to dwell on it, because contrary to what she expected, Leon didn’t unbuckle his belt or climb over her. Instead, he knelt beside the bed, pulling her closer and hooking his fingers into the waistband of her panties.

“C’mere.”

Oh God oh God oh God

Her panties landed on the floor beside her tights, and in her embarrassment she immediately tried to snap her thighs shut, but Leon resisted. He spread her legs apart, staring at her as though she were a lavishly loaded buffet table, and then his eyes flashed.

“Leon, are you sure that—”

“Yes, Sunshine, I’m sure I want to taste your sweet pussy.”

He clasped his fingers around her thighs and drew an exploratory, wet stripe with his tongue along the line of Grace’s petals. Gently, he made his way in, finding her clit, tasting at first. When he traced the first circle over it, a muffled moan broke from Grace, and she grabbed the blanket beside her, jaw hanging slack. The sight alone—Leon with his head buried between her legs—was too much. Too perfect, especially with what he was making her feel.

Leon loved eating pussy, and it didn’t take a genius for someone to figure that out. He spoiled her with a devotion that seasoned every knowing movement. He closed his lips around Grace’s sensitive little spot and sucked at it, enjoying the way she trembled beneath his hands, trying more and more to rub herself against his face.

“Oh, fuck…”

Leon’s tongue found her entrance, sticky with her arousal to an almost embarrassing degree. He wet one finger, then his tongue wandered back to her clit while he first sank one knuckle inside her, then two. He started circling faster, sometimes sucking at her again, his finger moving in and out of Grace’s painfully throbbing pussy in a gentle but rhythmic pace.

Sounds escaped her she hadn’t even known she was capable of making. With one hand she tangled her fingers into Leon’s hair, trying not to pull, though she still ended up tugging it, and the sound that slipped into a groan against her thighs suggested he enjoyed it. Heat bubbled in Grace’s lower stomach, her breathing turning more and more ragged, her legs trembling around Leon’s head.

She screamed his name, humiliatingly loud, and came with her back arching into a curve. Looking down, she saw Leon lift his head and… his whole chin was slick with her. Embarrassed, she leaned toward him, still panting, and tried to wipe it away.

“Oh—”

“Relax, this isn’t cocoa powder,” Leon said, trailing his fingers over his chin.

Grace burst into laughter, disguising her embarrassment, and almost melted into the kiss Leon initiated. Still, she had to glance at her watch, which very clearly informed her she had only half an hour left to get back home to Emily.

She crept off the bed and stepped back into her panties. She waited for Leon to say something, but he didn’t seem like he had expected anything in return at all. He only looked at her, hands tucked into his pockets, face flushed and satisfaction obvious.

“Sorry, but… b-but l-later…”

“Shhh.” Leon smoothed down Grace’s tousled strands of hair. “You never have to apologize. Emily comes first. We’ll have plenty of chances for this.”

Grace searched for his eyes, but despite the easy, crooked smile on his face, she could feel something rippling beneath it.

No—not disappointment. Not expectation.

More like confusion, somehow, and Grace sincerely wished they had time to talk about it.

But Leon was right: the world’s time belonged to them now. They weren’t being chased anymore. They had each other now.

At the door she turned back toward him, her shoulders drooping a little.

“Did I d-do something w-wrong?”

“What?” Leon looked genuinely stunned. Horrified, even, by the thought alone; his palm immediately came up to cup her cheek. “No, Grace. Of course not.”

He pressed a light little kiss to her lips.

“You’ll text me when you get home?”

Grace rose onto her toes so she could breathe in the scent of his hair, eyes slipping shut.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “I’ll text.”