The Right One - Felice Stevens Page 0,55
ex couldn’t hurt you anymore. So?”
Spots floated in front of his eyes, and Morgan had to get away from Leo’s penetrating gaze that left him stripped raw and naked and completely vulnerable. Those black days returned with a vengeance, pulling him under like a rip current, leaving him to drown.
His breath came in short, hard pants, and he strode away to the other side of the small apartment to stare out the window at the street five stories below. “He hit me, all right? Is that what you want to know? If he had a bad day, he’d take it out on me. At first it was a few shoves or a slap, and he’d apologize and blame it on the stress of his job and trying to make partner, and I loved him, so I brushed it off. After about a year and a half it started to escalate: black eyes, a broken wrist…” Morgan tried to laugh it off but couldn’t. He could barely breathe. “Every time it happened, he’d swear he’d never do it again. He made me feel like I should be lucky he loved me. I was a small-town nobody, a stupid kindergarten teacher. He was the one with the high-powered job, the one who made the money. He told me I was nothing and he was my everything.”
Morgan hadn’t heard Leo’s footsteps, but somehow he found himself in Leo’s arms, leaning against his hard, muscled chest, his cheek pressed to Leo’s. The shaking subsided but not the pain of revealing what he’d tried so hard to hide. To forget.
“The last time, he punched me in the head so hard, I had to go to the hospital because it made me so dizzy, I thought I had a concussion. And the doctor suspected something was wrong. He gave me a look filled with such pity, I knew I had to make a choice because if I didn’t leave him, eventually I’d end up dead.”
A shudder rippled through Leo. “What did you do?”
“I walked out. Left everything and ran away in the middle of the night to Chris and Sean’s. I stayed with them for almost a year, too afraid Jeffrey might find me if I went somewhere on my own. He followed me to their apartment a few times, so Sean got a restraining order—he’s my lawyer. Moving here was my first step at being on my own and starting a new life.”
“So…at Peter and Marla’s barbecue, that’s why you ran away from me, isn’t it?” Leo’s words rumbled comfortingly through him, and Morgan could’ve stayed all day as they were, standing by the window in the waning sunlight. “You were afraid of me because I hit the table.”
“I didn’t know you, so yeah, it freaked me out a little.”
Leo’s large, rough palm cupped his cheek, and Morgan gazed into a face both tender and fierce. A tiny scar bisected Leo’s top lip, and Morgan leaned in to kiss it, touching the tip of his tongue to the mark.
“How about now?” Leo asked. “Are you afraid of me?”
Morgan fell into those blue eyes. “No.”
“Good.” Leo’s mouth crushed his, and Morgan wrapped his arms around Leo’s neck and sank into the kiss.
* * *
SIXTEEN
* * *
Listening to Morgan’s story of abuse at the hands of his ex without punching a hole in the wall took all of Leo’s inner strength. The thought of someone physically hurting the man enraged him. But that would make him no better than that piece of low-life shit, and Morgan didn’t need to see that.
He could rage later.
Right now, Leo had to show Morgan, the only way he knew how, that he was wanted and that bastard ex was wrong. Morgan was everything—too good for Leo, but he was a greedy son of a bitch and couldn’t let him go.
Especially when he made those soft, sexy noises into his mouth as they kissed. They twisted Leo’s insides until he couldn’t remember anything except the driving need to take apart Morgan’s body inch by perfect inch. Leo tangled his fingers in all that silky hair and held Morgan steady as he took control of his mouth. Their tongues played together, licking, tangling and rubbing in hot, wet slides that left him gasping for air.
“Bed,” he panted.
Morgan grabbed his hand, and they stumbled the few feet to the alcove, where they fell on top of each other, their hands roaming and touching as he continued to press wild, frantic kisses wherever he could