The next morning was probably the second most embarrassing morning of Leo’s entire life. When he was younger, one of his friends in town had told him how real men slept in the nude, and naturally, Leo had immediately decided to start doing just that. Right up until he woke up one morning to his father coming in to ask him if he wanted to try training with a new weapon that day, only for Leo to realize he’d accidentally kicked the blankets off of himself during his sleep.

  He and his father had somehow come to a silent agreement to never speak of that incident again, and Leo had immediately begun wearing underwear to bed. Just to be safe.

  While Leo’s current morning wasn’t nearly that bad, it was definitely one he wasn’t prepared for. Slowly waking from a remarkably pleasant dream where he’d been petting a large, warm cat curled against him, Leo froze as he finally came to, only to realize the dream hadn’t been fully a dream. Taylor was still clinging to him like she was afraid he’d run off the moment she let go, and his hand was moving almost of its own accord, gently stroking up and down the small of her back almost without thinking. But that wasn’t the embarrassing part.

  Taylor was awake. With her face hovering mere inches above his own. And staring at him with a terrifying look of something akin to hunger in her eyes.

  Leo remained frozen, staring back into those deep, black pools of her eyes as his heart immediately began racing and he panicked internally. A million different thoughts raced through his head in an instant, and he was practically paralyzed with indecision as he argued, pleaded, cursed, and debated with himself as to what the appropriate course of action was for suddenly finding himself in this scenario. In the end, he took the cowards way out.

  Closing his eyes, he desperately tried to will himself back to sleep.

  “Hey,” Taylor said, finally removing the arm she had wrapped over his chest as she poked him in the cheek. “You’re awake.”

  “No I’m not,” he tried, deciding such a tactic might actually have a slim chance of success.

  “Yes you are.” She poked him again.

  Well damn, so much for that genius plan.

  Sighing, he opened his eyes, staring up at his grinning partner. “Taylor… I know you’re still sort of learning how the world works and how to appropriately interact with people… but you do realize you’re sort of close? Right?”

  “Yes,” she nodded, her smile only growing wider. “I like being close to you.”

  “Taylor…” he began, reaching up and rubbing his eyes as he realized it might finally be time to have the talk he’d been putting off for as long as possible. He knew they’d have to have this conversation one day ever since their very first incident of her going to change right in front of him, but he’d been terrified of how it was going to go. “…do you remember the talk we had a while back? About propriety?”

  “I’m not eating anything right now,” she said, her brow furrowing.

  “No, not about chewing with your mouth open,” he said, exasperated. “The part about boundaries! Like changing in front of other people, or not yanking your shirt off in front of strangers you only just met!”

  “I’m not getting changed either,” she pointed out oh-so helpfully.

  “Lords help me… It’s not the action, specifically, but why you shouldn’t do those things. I’m a man, and you’re a woman. There are… urges, people feel, which are sort of hard to explain. And you doing those things makes them… difficult to deal with.”

  “You get weird urges… from me chewing with my mouth open?”

  Leo could only stare at Taylor’s incredibly confused face with his mouth agape, before he spotted a familiar twinkling in her eyes.

  Wait a second… Taylor tilts her head when she’s confused. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen this expression before.

  Slowly, he closed his mouth as his own eyes narrowed. “…You’re screwing with me, aren’t you?”

  Unable to keep it up any longer, Taylor immediately began laughing. He could only frown in disbelief as she shook against him, laughing harder than he’d ever seen her laugh before.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally managed, brushing a few loose strands of hair that had come free from her braid out of her face as she smiled down at him. “I knew I’d only get to do that one time. I thought it would be funny.”

  “Glad you can entertain yourself so easily,” he drawled, shaking his head as he struggled to comprehend what this meant. “So wait, you understand… that?”

  “A bit,” Taylor admitted, blushing ever so slightly and tilting her head as she continued. “Willow spent a few hours explaining stuff to me as we traveled yesterday. I had a lot of questions, and she was more than happy to answer them. In detail.”

  “Oh… well, that’s good, then,” Leo managed, wondering what in the world the two of them had actually talked about.

  “There’s still a lot of stuff I admit I don’t fully understand,” Taylor said, giving him a look he’d definitely never seen before, and Leo shuddered slightly as he finally understood what a freshly cooked steak must feel like as it was placed in front of someone. “But at least she helped me figure out some of the strange stuff I’ve been feeling these past few weeks.”

  Picking up right where it had left off, Leo’s heart began hammering away within his chest. To his horror, Taylor seemed to notice as well. With a curious blink, she returned her hand to his chest, watching as her hand ever so slightly trembled from the vibrations of his heart pounding.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  With her delicate senses, there wasn’t even the slimmest chance she didn’t feel how fast it was beating.

  Leo tried to mentally prepare himself for some sort of jest, or worse, a look of disdain to cross upon her face. Not that he thought Taylor would actually react in such a way, but anxiety was one hell of a drug.

  Thankfully, she merely smiled.

  “Does that mean you’re excited… or that you’re scared?”

  “Am I allowed to say both?” Leo asked genuinely, earning a snort from his partner. “Look, Taylor… can we take a step back here really quick?”

  “Sure,” she said, not moving to untangle herself from him or get up in the slightest. Shaking his head, Leo decided to just roll with it.

  “First, let me say that I’m glad that you managed to find another woman who could help talk you through some of the stuff you didn’t fully understand. I probably should have tried to help you with all that sooner, seeing as I know you better than anyone. But… well, I didn’t want to come across as if I was assuming anything and make you upset with me. You know, if I tried to talk about what certain feelings or urges meant, and you weren’t actually experiencing those things…”

  “That makes sense,” Taylor nodded, and Leo couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh of relief. Granted, he also choked on that same sigh when Taylor continued. “I was definitely experiencing both.”

  “…Both?” he asked dumbly.

  “Certain feelings and urges,” she confirmed, her eyes twinkling as she somehow managed to wrap herself even tighter around him, as if to prevent him from fleeing. Staring down at him with wide, hungry eyes, Taylor licked her lips like he was some magical beast she was preparing to pounce on, and Leo wasn’t ashamed to admit in that moment he experienced both more fear and attraction than he had in his entire life.

  “Taylor,” he managed, gulping as he finally realized what was actually happening. “Not that I’m telling you to stop, because trust me when I say you have no idea how okay I am with all this. But…”

  Leo struggled with himself for a moment, two halves of his psyche warring with one another. One half of his brain was currently screaming at him to shut up and let the feral woman keep doing what she was doing. But the other half, the one comprised of actual logic and not currently blinded by hormones, knew he had to be one-hundred percent certain of what was about to happen.

  Taking a deep breath, he reached up, laying a hand on Taylor’s shoulder and giving her a reassuring squeeze. “…Are you sure about this? I know I joke about this a lot, but when we first met, you were practically feral. You’ve definitely recovered a ton since then, and I’ve only recently come to realize I’ve had certain feelings for you as well. But I don’t want whatever this is to be because of some sense of obligation, or the fact that you… I don’t even know, imprinted on me, like some sort of animal? Even if nothing happens and we stop here, I want you to know I’ll still care about you. You’re my partner, and we’ve been through thick and thin together. You don’t have to do anything more than you already have been.”

  His words actually seemed to have an effect on Taylor, and she paused, pulling back slightly as she tilted her head in confusion.

  “Strange… Willow told me as soon as I mentioned having urges, that would be an end to the talking.”

  “Yeah, I bet that’s all Ember usually needs to hear,” Leo couldn’t help but laugh. “Those two definitely have… some sort of relationship. But it’s not the kind I would want us to have. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “You don’t want a house on the beach?”

  Leo tried to glare at her, but he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face no matter how hard he tried. Matching his grin, Taylor nodded. “Don’t worry, I understand. I’m aware there are a lot of things I don’t know. But there are also things I do know. I even talked it all out with Willow, to confirm what I was feeling made sense.”

  “Really? How did that go?”

  “She asked me what you did that made me feel this way, so I told her. How you always rush after me when I throw myself into a battle and focus on keeping me safe. How you take the time to cook for me, even when I know you don’t like eating monsters like I do. How you spent all this time teaching me how to speak and act like a semi-normal person again, helping me whenever I needed it. I told her I hit my head and lost my memories, just like you told Charles,” Taylor added as an afterthought.

  “Nice cover,” he nodded. “…What did she say?”

  “That if she were a few years younger, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of these feelings because she’d ditch Ember and snatch you up before I could,” Taylor snorted, her limbs tightening possessively around him for a moment seemingly without her realizing. “According to her, I don’t have anything to be confused about. She said when men do all those things you do, it’s considered pretty much natural for women to feel this way, and vice-versa.”

  “Well, I’m glad you appreciate how hard I work to keep you out of trouble,” Leo said, clearing his throat as he realized it was getting tight after hearing how much Taylor appreciated all that he did for her.

  “I do,” she agreed, lowering her face toward his own, not stopping until they were practically touching. From this distance, Leo could easily make out just how flushed Taylor’s cheeks were, and he shivered as her eyes stared piercingly into his own. “She also gave me a few ideas as to how I could both show you how thankful I am, and make sure you understand that you’re mine.”

  Leo felt as though he should possibly feel just a little bit alarmed at how possessive and clingy Taylor was acting. But in that moment, the logical side of his brain finally threw in the towel, deciding it had done all it could do and that this was going to happen one way or another. Throwing one final jab before it surrendered, however, Leo found himself speaking before he even knew what he was doing.

  “Don’t we need to get up soon?” he whispered, mentally kicking himself as his mouth betrayed pretty much every other fiber of his being. Here he had the woman he’d been crushing over for the past few weeks without even noticing literally wrapped around him, and he was worried about inconveniencing the three acquaintances they were currently traveling with.

  “The nights are longer on this plane,” Taylor whispered back, lowering her face the last few millimeters between them as she pressed her lips gingerly against his own. That was all the encouragement Leo needed to shut up and focus on what he truly wanted, and he closed his eyes as he kissed her right back.

  Despite all the big talk about wanting him and what she’d learned from Willow, unsurprisingly, Taylor’s touch was gentle, almost hesitant as they gradually moved from words to a more primal form of communication. Neither of them had any real experience when it came to anything like this, but the desire and hunger to fill those aching voids in their chests with love once more, to cover up all they’d lost with something new and precious to them, helped them along.

  It was a good thing no magical beasts ended up attacking during the final few hours leading up toward dawn, as Leo and Taylor definitely wouldn’t have been any assistance if they had.

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