Текст книги "Best Kind of Broken"

Автор книги: Chelsea Fine

Соавторы: Chelsea Fine
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

24 Levi

I could do it. She wants me to do it. She wants me to do whatever I want.

And I want… so… much.

I look at her bare stomach and stare at the skin below her belly button.

I could kiss her there. I could keep my palm around her calf and bend it to her body and lie down between her legs and lick a trail along the very low waistline of her ridiculous shorts. I look up at her, see the desire in her eyes, and almost do it.

But then I see the end of her scar peeking out from the bottom of her shirt and it’s like a train hits me, crashing into me and shredding up my insides with hot metal and shards of split iron until I feel nothing but pain.

What the hell am I doing? This is Pixie.

Pixie.

I can’t ruin her life and then sleep with her. That would be fucked up on so many levels. I’m not an angel, but I know the difference between right and wrong, and sex with the girl I maimed and nearly killed would be wrong.

Probably smoking-ass hot.

But wrong, wrong, wrong.

I force my eyes to stay on the scar, the only thing powerful enough to put distance between us, and with a deep inhale, I close my eyes and lift away from Pixie’s bed. My body is in agony as I back away from her hot, open body.

She stays in the sinful position for a beat, then pulls herself up until she’s sitting cross-legged. She takes a deep breath, and the light from her window shines blue on her chest as it rises with air.

I clear my throat and overenunciate my words. “Can I please use your phone?”

She slowly stands up and straightens her shirt before looking up at me. “No.”

“Ugh.” I pull at my hair. “Why are you such a pain in the ass?”

She makes a face. “Why don’t you ever let me take a hot shower?”

I lean in. “If you want a hot shower, then shower at night.”

“I can’t shower at night. If I shower at night, then I’ll have to dry my hair at night, and if I dry my hair at night, then I’ll have to straighten my hair at night, and then I’ll have to sleep on my straightened hair, and when I sleep on my straightened hair, it gets all poofy.”

I blink at her.

“I don’t like it when my hair gets poofy!” She thrusts her hands out like I’m supposed to know poofy hair is a nighttime-shower-related problem. “Why don’t you shower at night?”

“Because I like pissing you off!” I raise my voice.

She raises her voice to match mine. “Why?”

“Because fighting doesn’t hurt!”

It’s the most honest thing either one of us has said to each other in nearly a year and it just hangs there, in the silence, like a gaping black hole.

Her lips part, and I see the fight drain from her expression.

No.

No, no.

Fight, dammit.

Lavender-scented body heat starts circling around me, tucking me into something lost and safe, making me feel wanted and worthy and all the other things I shouldn’t feel.

She’s all big eyes and fragile bones, with her pretty mouth tilted up as she scans my face and softly asks, “Does it hurt you to be around me?”

It hurts and it heals.

It aches and it comforts.

I swallow and quietly say, “Does it hurt you to be around me?”

Neither of us responds as we gaze at each other in the moonlight.

I step back from the sweet, warm haze Pixie just wrapped around me with her goddamn goodness and shake my head. Not saying anything, just shaking my head like an idiot, I leave her room.

25 Pixie

This morning the electricity has been magically turned back on, and I don’t care about my cold shower as water runs over my shoulders. I stare at the simple white wall in front of me, thinking about last night.

The anger. The hurt. The cruel wanting we can’t entertain against the backdrop of the thing we don’t talk about.

Just thinking.

I rinse the conditioner from my hair and turn off the shower.

When Charity died, it was like the friendship Levi and I had died too. Our bond just sort of disappeared.

At her funeral, every instinct in my soul wanted to run after him and find comfort in the arms of the boy who was my hero, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face the shame I’d feel in his presence.

I had been reckless with Charity. I’d been reckless with me. And because of my poor judgment, Levi had lost his sister.

I didn’t know how to face him, so I never did.

And now here I am, living next door to him and trying to ignore pretty much everything that comes up between us.

My scar. The ghost of Charity’s memory.

The magnetic heat that just magically appears whenever we’re near each other…

Yeah. Lots of ignoring going on.

I wrap a towel around my body and step into the hallway just as Levi steps out of his room. Our eyes meet, and at first it’s really uncomfortable.

Like, Oh crap. I was hoping to avoid you until the end of time.

And then it’s normal.

Like, Hello, old friend whom I grew up with and trust with my life.

And then it’s dangerous.

Like, Can I help you out of your towel and slip you into something more comfortable? Like my bed, perhaps?

The tension in the hallway is hot and foreboding as his gaze strays from my face to every other part of my tiny-toweled body. And I’m checking him out in all his white-T-shirt-worn-jeans hotness, and my thoughts are going no place pure.

I feel the heat in my cheeks as I stare at the way his shirt pulls tight across his chest and molds to his muscles and, just when my body’s getting too hot for a towel, his eyes snap to mine.

It’s uncomfortable again. He goes back into his room and shuts the door behind him.

I stand confused for a second, barefoot and damp in the hallway, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with us. It’s like we can’t get our chemistry right. It’s either rude and mean, or sad and heavy, or hot and naughty.

Where’s the happy medium?

26 Levi

God damn.

Pixie needs to start wearing a muumuu wherever she goes. I can’t do this seeing-her-half-naked-all-the-time shit. With her long legs and flushed skin and her warm, wet body…

God damn.

I shake my head like that’s going to clear up all the guilt and lust I have warring inside me and exit my bedroom for the second time this morning. I have work to do. I have stuff to fix.

Douche bag Daren is loitering at the bottom of the stairs, making my morning just fucking perfect as I head to the front desk.

“ ’Sup, Andrews?” he says.

’Sup?

He’s a white boy in a polo shirt. ’Sup is he’s a poser.

I don’t respond.

“Is Sarah upstairs?” He scratches his neck.

“She’s busy.” Apparently, I just spew shit sometimes.

“With what?”

Not with me, that’s for sure. Though I could certainly keep her busy and—god damn, Pixie in her towel!

I sigh. “What do you want, Ackwood?”

He narrows his eyes. “Are you two… like… together?”

And now my head is swimming with all the possibilities of “together,” and most of them—hell, all of them—involve no clothes and tangled body parts.

“Why?”

He shrugs, all confident and douchey. “You seem pretty possessive of her; that’s all.”

“Whatever, man,” I say and move past him.

Pixie’s not mine. I don’t care.

I’m not sure where Daren goes after that because I force myself not to turn around. But damn if I don’t want to track him down and put a leash on him.

“Morning.” Ellen smiles at me from behind the front desk.

Haley’s nowhere to be found, so I assume she’s late.

“Morning. I called the alarm company this morning. Here’s the estimate,” I say, handing her a price sheet. “They can come out as early as next week to do the install. You just need to call them back to set up a time.”

“Perfect.” She smiles. “Your To Do list is on my desk. You’re awesome, Levi.”

I purse my lips and nod before heading to her office. I’m not awesome. I’m a loser who calls Pixie names.

But for some reason, Ellen doesn’t hate me.

When my parents split, I didn’t take their separation well. I knew they blamed me for Charity’s death. Hell, I blamed me. But after they left town, things just went even more downhill.

I no longer cared about my grades or school in general. Football wasn’t a problem for me because I got to step onto the field and do my job—and do it well—and step off the field without incident. It was the only thing I didn’t hate about my existence.

But at one of our last games of the season this past winter, I absently looked up in the stands for Pixie and Charity, temporarily forgetting how drastically different my life had become. I searched the stands for my personal cheerleading section, and when reality hit and I realized that I would never see Charity—or Pixie—cheering me on ever again, I just choked.

I couldn’t play. I didn’t want to play.

Not then. Not ever.

I was failing my classes. I was failing as quarterback. I was spiraling down a winding staircase of guilt and grief. And then I got the academic probation notice from Dean Maxwell.

Needless to say, I had no desire to try at anything in life, let alone my studies, so I lost my football scholarship and, therefore, lost my room in the dorms. The day I packed up my things and drove away from ASU in my truck, I was a homeless college dropout without a job or a future.

I was halfway to Copper Springs when I realized I didn’t have a home to go back to. Why I didn’t call one of my buddies to see if I could crash at his place, I’m not sure. Shame maybe? I probably didn’t want to explain how my parents bailed on me because, you know, I killed my sister.

When the Willow Inn showed up on the side of the road, I impulsively decided to stay there for the night and formulate a plan for my future in the morning.

Ellen was at the front desk when I walked inside. I forgot that Pixie’s aunt owned the inn. She knew who I was and she knew I’d almost killed her niece, so she was surely going to kick me out.

“Hey, Levi,” she said pleasantly as she looked at my duffle bag. “Need a room?”

I stared at her warily and nodded.

She smiled and started typing stuff into the computer before grabbing a key.

“How many nights?” She made it sound like I was just an average guest, but I knew twenty-year-old unemployed football players weren’t her typical guests.

“Uh, just one,” I said.

She glanced up, looked at my bag again, and said, “We’re having a two-for-one special right now. Buy one night, get the second free. Want to stay two nights?”

“Uh, sure.” I shifted uncomfortably.

“Follow me.” She led me up to a room, left me in peace, and I dropped on the comfy bed, trying to figure out what the hell my next step was going to be.

The next afternoon, Ellen knocked on my door. “You used to work in construction, right?”

“Yeah.” It had been one of the many summer jobs I’d taken to save up for my truck.

She sighed dramatically. “You don’t by any chance think you could help me fix the downstairs banister, do you?”

I paused, because I didn’t know shit about fixing banisters.

“I’ll give you another night for free for your trouble?” she offered.

“Uh… I don’t really know much about stair rails—”

“Oh, you can do it.” She waved a hand. “You’re smart and strong. I have total confidence in you.”

“I guess I could try—”

“Perfect.”

And that was the beginning.

Ellen kept finding things for me to fix around the inn and kept offering me another free night’s stay for my work. Three weeks went by before I realized I’d been roped into a job that came with room and board.

I tried to bail, but the woman was convincing and, by that point, I was actually starting to like fixing things around the old place. It made me feel… well… not useless.

So we made it official, and I moved into the old wing of the inn, where I had several bedrooms and a single bathroom all to myself.

Until Pixie.

Everything was fine until Pixie.

27 Pixie

I smell Levi before I see him, and this is why I have no business sharing a bathroom with the guy. If just the smell of him can drive me crazy, I certainly should not be anywhere near him when there’s hot water and soap involved.

“The sink’s broken?” he says.

I keep my back to him as I stir potato soup on the stove and point to the sink.

Things between us have been civil lately. Fake as hell, but civil. We haven’t argued in several days, but we’re not getting along either.

I’m not really over the erotic calf caressing Levi gave me last week, or the fact that it hurts him to be around me, but you know what? Screw him.

He’s not the only person who lost Charity. I lost her too, and then some.

I lost the only real family I’d ever known and the house I considered my safe haven. I lost my childhood friend and the keeper of the “best” part of our “best friends” heart-shaped necklace. The only thing I had left after the wreckage cleared was Levi.

And then I lost him too.

He promptly headed back to his life at college and left me behind in a town where nothing held any more significance for me and no one understood my pain.

Levi left me, and he didn’t look back.

Sharp bitterness heats low in my stomach as I think back to the many days and nights after the accident where I was too hollow to cry, and the only thing that kept me from tearing my hair out was the hope that Levi would come back home so I wouldn’t feel so lost, so alone anymore.

But he didn’t.

And then, when I was healthy enough to be discharged from the hospital so I could start my first semester at ASU two weeks late, I thought for sure Levi would hunt me down and at least say hello. Maybe give me one of his awkward boy hugs and just let me be silent against his chest for a moment. Like maybe if we embraced and pressed our broken hearts together, for a moment—just a moment—things might somehow be better.

But he didn’t.

The one and only time I ever saw him on campus was from across the library. I was seated in the back behind four textbooks when I saw him walk in through the squeaky double doors. He didn’t see me as he headed for the reference section, but just the sight of him, the visual confirmation that he was alive and breathing and twenty yards away from me, made my broken heart leap.

I immediately stood from my table with every intention of following after him and… and… and what, exactly? What was I going to say to Levi, who so clearly had nothing to say to me?

Where have you been?

Why did you leave me?

I’m sorry?

Why did you leave me?

Please forgive me?

WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?

I had nothing to say to him then, and I have nothing to say to him now, which doesn’t seem to bother him one bit.

So yeah. Screw him.

My heart dips. I look at the soup.

Levi works for a few minutes, and the only sounds in the kitchen are the bubbling soup and the occasional clang-clang of his tools.

I shuffle about, finding mindless tasks to fill my hands. I’m stacking rolls and rearranging napkins and scrubbing the counter. Mindless.

I hear him growl in frustration and look over at his body, laid out on the kitchen floor, his head and shoulders tucked under the sink as he twists and turns things with his hands.

He’s got one leg stretched out along the tile and the other bent at the knee, and the blue T-shirt he has on has ridden up his stomach a little, so there’s this bronze patch of tight skin showing just above the waistline of his jeans.

I need a break.

Twitching my lips, I gingerly step over his lean, frustrating body with one quiet Converse sneaker and head to the dining room.

“Hey, Sarah.”

Oh God. Daren.

He stops unloading a crate of club soda behind the bar and leans over the counter on his elbows. “Have you decided to go yet?”

“Go where?” I watch Angelo move Daren off the bar, then wipe the whole counter down with a white bar towel.

“To the Fourth of July Bash,” Daren says.

“Oh yeah. That,” I say, as Mable comes in and sets a lavender-and-sunflower centerpiece on each table. It shouldn’t work, lavender and sunflowers together, but somehow it does. “Uh, no.”

He wrinkles his forehead. “No you haven’t decided yet, or no you’re not going?”

“I’m not going.”

“What? Come on,” he says. “Bring a friend. It’ll be fun. You’ll feel normal.”

The idea of “normal” does something to me, and I hesitate, buying time as I watch Mable straighten a fork on table six before going to the kitchen.

“Please?” Daren implores me with those puppy eyes of his again.

God, he’s such a whiny baby.

I sigh. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Awesome.” He smiles.

“But not with you.”

His smiles drops. “Less awesome.”

I shrug. “I’ll bring a friend, and maybe we’ll see you there. Maybe.”

He smiles again. “I’ll take it.” He tilts his head. “So does this mean I’m forgiven?”

I lift my brows. “For kissing me without permission?”

“WHAT?” Angelo stops wiping down the bar and snaps murderous eyes to Daren. “You kissed Sarah without asking?”

Oh crap.

Daren looks like he might wet himself. “Uh, yeah. But I, uh, didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine, Angelo.” I give him a small smile. “It wasn’t a big deal. It was just a misunderstanding. We’re cool. I’m cool.” Angelo doesn’t look like he believes me. “Really,” I add. “I’m fine. I promise. And Daren already apologized, so see? Everything’s fine.”

Daren shrinks back as Angelo leans in to him and says, “I better not hear about you kissing any more ladies without permission. Ever. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ ’Cause if I do, make no mistake. I will twist your head off, slowly, and shove it so far up your ass it comes out your throat; you hear me?”

Daren swallows. “Loud and clear.”

“Good.” Then Angelo goes back to wiping down the bar like he didn’t just threaten Daren’s life.

Biting back a smile, I turn and head for the kitchen.

I love this place.

28 Levi

I’m staring at the piping above me, almost finished with the sink, when I hear Ellen enter the kitchen.

“There you are,” she says to my legs. “The install guys just left, so it looks like our new fire alarms are up and running. But I’m going to schedule a drill tomorrow, just to make sure everything works properly. I’ll let the rest of the staff know, but I’ll need you to monitor the control box. Got it?”

“Fire drill. Got it.”

“Thanks, Levi.”

I hear her leave. As I finish tightening the last bolt, something thwacks my leg. Looking out from under the sink, I see Mable standing above me with a less-than-happy expression.

I sit up. “Did you just smack me with a spatula?”

“Yes. And I will do it again if I have to.” She’s dead serious.

I furrow my brow. “Is this about the whore thing? I know I was mean—”

She smacks me again.

“Jesus, Mable!”

“That boy was in the dining room talking to Pixie again,” she says.

I blink. “Who, Daren?” It’s all I can do not to say “douche bag.”

“Yes, Daren. And I don’t like him.” She puts a hand on her hip.

I exhale. “Get in line.”

She stares down at me expectantly.

I stare up at her, dumbfounded.

“Well?” she says. “Are you going to go get Pixie or what?”

“Why?” I stand up, immediately on alert with all these visions of Daren hurting Pixie and how I’m going to kill him when I find him. “Is Pixie in trouble?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what the—ow! Mable, quit hitting me.”

She points the spatula at me. “You are that girl’s whole life, Levi.” Her soft wrinkles bore into me. “Don’t you dare let her get distracted by some guy who doesn’t know how to love her.”

And whoa.

When did we start talking about love?

I narrow my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She tosses the spatula into the sink I just fixed and makes her way to the exit. “You know exactly what it means.”

29 Pixie

I woke up this morning determined to be pleasant, but the moment I saw Levi enter the bathroom, my emotional barometer cracked. And suddenly I wanted to fight. Badly. I wanted to kick and scream and yell and get all kinds of angry.

Because he was right.

Fighting doesn’t hurt.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” I wave my finger in the air as I barge into the small bathroom with him, setting my stuff on the counter and staking my claim to the shower. “My ass is taking a shower first.”

He looks at said ass, then shakes his head. “Your ass is leaving.”

He moves to pick me up and I skirt past his hands and duck under his arm, climbing into the dry shower with my clothes on.

“You want to get wet, Pixie?” He’s got his wicked smile on, and I hate that I like it. “Because I can help you with that.”

Of course my dirty head is going all sorts of naughty places with his words, and I fail to see his hand reach into the shower.

“What I want is a hot shower.”

He turns on the water and the spray begins to douse the tank top and gym shorts I have on. I purse my lips as he grins at my slowly soaking pajamas. “Wet enough for you yet?”

Our eyes meet and the air around us begins to sizzle.

Because now we’re both thinking about a whole different kind of wet, and the heat filling the small bathroom isn’t coming from the steamy water running down my body.

I refuse to break our gaze, so I wait him out. His eyes flicker briefly, like maybe he’s scared or nervous, but then they wander to my chest.

The wet tank top is hardly working as any kind of cover, so the exact shape and size and tightness of my nipples is very, very apparent.

I let him look. If he wants to be an ass, he can be an ass.

He lifts his gaze to mine, but then his cocky-as-sin expression falters for a moment. Like he forgot this was me, Pixie Marshall, standing pretty much naked before him. And the realization does something deep to his eyes and funny things to my stomach.

I suddenly want to cover my face.

Not my boobs.

Not my white shorts that easily show off how I’m not wearing panties.

I want to cover my face.

Because what he sees reminds of him of everything he can’t erase.

He stares into my eyes, and now I’m trapped in a deep blue sea of rage and regret and hurt and loss. And I don’t want to be there. I want to be anywhere else. Because the deep blue sea is filled with a million things I can’t bring myself to admit.

It hurts to think about his pain. It hurts to look at it. And it sure as hell hurts to swim in it.

But here I am. Swimming in Levi’s deep blue broken sea, and I’m drowning right alongside him, just as hopeless and helpless as he is. Two castaways in an ocean of pain, and we’re not even clinging to each other for dear life. We’re just watching each other drift to the ocean floor, where silence and blackness might swallow us whole and take away the sorrow.

For long seconds we stand there, staring at each other as water beats down on me. And then his eyes fall to my mouth.

Oh crap.

My eyes fall to his mouth as well, and the atmosphere ignites. Now we’re in this steamy, tense standoff—half in, half out of the shower—heads tilted toward each other and eyes locked on mouths. And I know I’ve already surrendered.

I know I’m mad at him, hurt by him, but when it comes down to it, I trust Levi with everything I am.

And he has me.

He has me when I’m seven years old and scared of monsters. He has me when I’m brokenhearted in the eighth grade because Tommy Marchim won’t take me to the Valentine’s dance. And he has me when I’m nineteen and in the shower with my pajamas on, searching his eyes for my hero.

He has me.

He’s always had me.

And I’ve never wanted to be had by anyone else.

He leans closer, and the steam from the shower surrounds us like we’re in our own private cloud. Right here, right now, yesterday, tomorrow—whenever he’s near—I feel safe. Safe and loved. Because that’s exactly what I am, even if he doesn’t know it. Even if I don’t deserve it.

I lean in closer too, not seeing anything other than Levi’s body and a swirling cloud of hot fog.

Our faces are so close together I can feel each of his exhales sweeping over my cheeks. The silver flecks in his eyes glisten in the droplets falling all around us, reflecting off the white shower walls. The spray drowns out all other noise and makes it seem as though we’re enclosed in our own little white rainstorm.

I trace my eyes along his scruffy face, taking in the small dark hairs that dust his jawline and match the color of his long eyelashes. Then my gaze roves over his full lips, and I absently lick my own.

And then he kisses me.

Like he was born to do it, like everything about him knows exactly how to kiss me. His lips fit to mine perfectly, and it’s nothing like our first kiss.

It’s desperate and starving, and blindly passionate, as we crush our mouths together in the white downpour.

I kiss him back like he’s my very last breath, like I’d die without him—and maybe I would. I part my lips and our tongues meet, sliding over slick textured surfaces, as they dance and wiggle and taste and lick. And it’s just… so… perfect.

I rise up on my tiptoes, trying to pull his mouth into mine because he’s too far away. His tongue glides along the soft flesh inside my mouth. He’s still too far away. I bring my hand to the back of his neck and tangle my fingers in his hair, tugging and making a noise of protest because I’m so damn short and can’t reach him the way I want.

He grabs my hips and steps into the shower with me. Running his large hands down the back of my body, he lifts me up and presses me against the cool shower wall. I wrap my legs around his waist, my butt sitting in his hands as our hips push against one another.

And oh. God. Yes.

I’m eager and feisty and suddenly I’m like a kissing machine, just all hungry and frantic, and I’m making these moaning noises that would probably be embarrassing if I wasn’t so freaking turned on.

He pulls back and tilts his head to the other side before bringing his mouth back to mine, sucking on my lower lip before giving his tongue back to me.

My hands are gripping his white T-shirt, which is now completely soaked, and I’m pulling at the collar for no reason other than I just need to pull something. But the collar of the shirt is wet and loose and my clenched fist has yanked it down so Levi’s collarbone and top pec muscle are completely exposed, and there’s this dirty little piece of me that wants to sink my teeth into the bare patch of skin.

My God. I must be part vampire.

And when the hell did I get so horny?

And then I realize. It’s not that I’m suddenly horny; it’s that I’m with Levi. And here in his arms I can be Pixie, damaged and flawed, wet and dirty, and it’s okay. We’re okay.

One of his hands leaves my butt and runs up my rib cage, his thumb pressing into the indentations between each rib, my skin soft and giving. His hand moves higher and cups my breast over the thin wet cotton of my shirt, gently squeezing. I move my hips against him, desperate for more of his touch, and he responds by brushing his thumb over the hard tip of my nipple. Back and forth. Back and forth.

I moan with each swipe of his thumb, and muscles low in my belly tighten in response. He palms my breast again and shifts against me. God, he’s hard. And thick. And hot. And so many things I want to feel inside my now-aching body.

His palm moves down to my leg. His fingertips burn a trail of want into my skin as he runs his hand up the back of my thigh to where my butt cheek is completely exposed—because my white shorts have ridden up and are now acting more like a thong than running shorts—and grabs my naked ass, pressing harder against me.

And he’s kissing me—God, he’s kissing me—like he’s starving, and I’m just kissing and rocking and rubbing and, hell, everything my body wants to do against his.

I move my hands to his back and under the hem of his shirt. His back muscles are hard and thick beneath my fingertips, rippling with his movement, as I start to pull his shirt up. He shifts against me, and I’ve never been more excited in my life. For real.

The wet shower has nothing on me.

His mouth moves to my jaw—yes—and then my neck—oh God—and then he has his teeth running along my collarbone while his hand rounds my leg and glides up the inside of my thigh and—holy hell! This boy knows his way around my body.

He slides his hand up under my shorts until he’s cupping the naked V between my legs with his warm palm. I whimper in ecstasy as my body responds to his hot touch and grows more slippery as he begins to slide his fingers along parts of my body that really, really like being touched.

He kisses and sucks at my throat and chest as he slowly eases a finger inside my tight body while that clever thumb of his continues to slip and slide over my most sensitive spot. I squirm against him because I want more—need more—so much more. He slowly withdraws his finger and I whine and gasp in protest until he pushes it back in, all the while working his thumb against my hot, wet flesh.

I wiggle, I moan, I gasp, I beg as Levi kisses me and groans hot breaths of desire against my skin. He adds a second finger to the first and fills me thickly, pushing in and out of me as he increases the heavenly movement of his thumb.

My body begins to tighten and shake, my thighs quivering around his hips as he works me to the brink of sweet death, and I tip my head back, completely blind to everything but the white rainstorm. Then I cry out with pleasure as my body completely unravels and gives in to the magic of Levi’s hand.

My insides pulse as Levi brings his lips to mine and kisses me deeply. I whimper against his mouth, and it’s all I can do to keep my hands from falling off as I struggle to claw my way down his shirt and to the waistband of his shorts. I want to rip them off and fill my body with his until this blissful yet wanting hollow inside me purrs with satisfaction.

He kisses along my collarbone. I yank on his waistband. He pulls at my tank top—

And then the fire alarm goes off.

We both freeze. The drill.

The fire drill is today.

For a moment, we stay pressed together, breathing heavily against each other in the steam, our wet clothes warming between us.

But reality moves in fast, pushing through the haze. I’ve already made my decision. I am irrevocably and shamelessly interested in having Levi’s body inside mine. Levi, on the other hand, has pulled his head back from my collarbone and is looking into my eyes.

Not my eyes. Don’t look at my eyes.

If he sees me, he’ll remember, and if he remembers—

“Shit.” He pulls back, remorse and hatred in his eyes, and I want to scream.

But I don’t. I stay where I am, pushed up against the wall with Levi’s erection pressing against the still-quaking center of my body, and act like this is all just run-of-the-mill for me.

What’s that now? Oh, no. I do this all the time. I’m always humping guys in the shower with my pj’s on.

He gently lowers me to my feet; then he turns away.