Chapter 13: The Lie and the Threshold
The dorm door clicked shut, a sound swallowed by the roar of blood in her ears. Outside, the rain had started, a soft patter against the single, fogged-up window.
Leonid leaned against the door, watching her. The shift in his gaze was immediate, electric. Gone was the gentle boy from under the cherry tree. He looked at her the way he eyed a match point—hungry, focused, dark.
She shrugged off her damp coat, letting it fall to the floor beside her bag. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She felt reckless, buoyant, like she’d jumped off a cliff and was only just now realizing there was no ground below.
His bed was narrow, the dark sheets rumpled. The scent here was pure him—laundry detergent, cold ash, clean male skin, something deeper underneath. Jennie breathed it in, filling her lungs with it.
“I should put water on for tea or something,” he said, not moving. His voice was rough.
“I don’t want tea,” she said.
He pushed off from the door, two long strides closing the distance. His hands came up to frame her face, warm and callused against her chilled skin. “Jennie. You gotta breathe.”
She realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled a shaky laugh. “I’m breathing.”
“Does your roommate mind you staying so late?”
Her roommate… Rosé. Her friend, her cover. The guilt came, swift and sharp, but it couldn’t take root. The ache for the boy in front of her was older, more potent.
“She thinks I’m at our civics study group,” Jennie murmured. “Because Kai is leading it.”
His thumb stroked her cheekbone. A flicker in his eyes. Kai’s name hung there, ugly and real.
Jennie felt a surge of defiance. She reached up, placing her small hand flat against his chest, over the faded print of his t-shirt, feeling the solid heat and the heavy, slow thud of his heart. His breath hitched.
She tilted her chin up. Her bottom lip trembled, but she didn’t look away. “Leo. Stop asking.”
He searched her eyes for another long beat, for any whisper of doubt, any shade of forced hesitation. He found none. He nodded once, a sharp, surrendered jerk of his chin.
He lowered his head, but didn’t kiss her. His lips brushed the high arch of her cheekbone, a whisper-soft trail across her skin down to her jaw, his mouth hovering just below her ear. “You’ll tell me. Anything you don’t like, you stop me. I mean it.”
A promise. Not sweet, but stark. It wound its way inside her, calming the frantic edge. She nodded, threading her fingers through the black curls at the nape of his neck. “Okay.”
His lips closed over the sensitive spot just below her jawline, a firm, sucking pressure that pulled a gasp from her throat. It would bruise. The thought sent a dark thrill up her spine. Her head fell back in a silent offering. One of his hands slid down from her face, tracing the length of her neck, the edge of her collarbone exposed by her sweater, before slipping underneath the soft wool.
His fingertips were warm and unforgiving on her ribs, tracing the lacy edge of her bra. He cupped her, a single, testing squeeze that drew another choked sound from her. He broke from her neck, breathing hard, and found her mouth again. This kiss wasn’t the desperate, slow fuse of before. This was fire catching.
He walked her backward toward the bed, his lips never leaving hers. Her calves hit the metal frame, and she stumbled. He caught her easily, a thick arm banding around her waist, lowering her onto the mattress.
The springs groaned a protest. He hovered over her, a solid weight on one elbow, one long leg pinned between hers. The lamp on his desk threw the left side of his face into harsh relief, his cheekbone a sharp edge, the softness of his mouth now curved with a new kind of intensity. In the half-light, he looked like someone else. And she had made him. With every ‘yes’, with every touch, with this choice.
His eyes were on her chest, on the rapid rise and fall he caused. He tugged at the hem of her sweater.
She lifted her hips, letting him pull it over her head, the cool air biting her skin for a second before he covered her again, a long, hot line from her sternum to her belly, bracing himself above her. The denim of his jeans was rough against her thighs. He traced the curve of her bra, the pale pink silk dampening under his touch. Then his fingers found the front clasp, and with a soft click, it came undone.
He didn’t look right away. He kept his gaze locked on her face, watching for any change, the way she watched the subtle twitch in a hawk’s eye before it dove. When she gave a small, almost imperceptible nod, he looked down.
His expression changed. The levity was gone, replaced by a raw, fascinated kind of reverence. He dragged the pad of his thumb over the peak, his breath shuddering out.
“So fucking pretty,” he muttered
He dragged the pad of his thumb over the peak, his breath shuddering out. The reverence in his touch was absolute, a silent language that spoke of years of watching
a silent language that spoke of years of watching, invisible, from the bleachers. A breath hitched in her chest. Then his mouth was on her, hot and wet, engulfing one taut bud and suckling hard.
The groan was hers; it echoed off the cinderblock walls.
Jennie’s hands scrabbled over his shoulders, her nails digging into his dense muscle through the thin cotton, scrambling for purchase as liquid heat pooled low in her belly. His other hand worked its rough magic on its twin, his callused palm pinching and rolling her flesh until her back arched. He switched sides, a blissful punishment delivered between scraping teeth and a gentle tongue that felt anything but gentle.
“I wanted to touch you,” he rasped against her damp skin, his voice unrecognizable, thick with his own need. “I saw you leaving Ynez’s Literature class in that blue sundress sophomore year, and I had to go into the john just to stand in the stall and think about what your nipples would look like.” He licked a long stripe up her sternum, his eyes locking with hers, challenging her, begging her. “Pucker up for me again, baby.”
He moved with intimidating intention, his hands shifting from worship to ownership. He flipped her onto her side. Before she could comprehend it, her black leggings were being peeled down over her hips, his grip unyielding.
A fresh jolt of fear at their necessary denial, of someone discovering this, fought with the overwhelming desire for him to see. She gasped at the contact. He chuckled low in his throat, and the memory-fueled heat and sheer reality spiked in equal measure. Jennie recognized his adamant nature not as dominance, but as expertise born from determined tempo, one that left her amidst forgotten hours.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Jennie,” he choked out as air hit her skin. Her panties followed a moment later, a fleeting whisper of silk before joining the growing pile on the floor.
Naked, colder now but infinitely more awake, every atom electrically charged by that stark exposure. He fell back on his elbows between her parted thighs. Jennie stared up at the popcorn ceiling but reached up, grabbing a pillow from the bed, and remained rigid.
One broad, veined hand clamped hard on each of her thighs, pinning her open, burying his mouth against her. The initial pressure was focused on her clit, a suckling pull that had her crying out before dissolving into shouts.
A guttural curse left her lips as his deft tongue flicked the throbbing apex faster. Then he plunged deeper, stretching lower, spearing into