by Pippa Grant
Read books.
Go to bed early.
Toss and turn because it’s so weird that my apartment is empty.
Watch grown-up TV.
Oops. I’m leaving the elevator and knocking on the door to my left.
Too late to back out now.
And when Levi opens the door and smiles at me, scruffy-faced and crinkly-eyed, I forget every reason I have for not wanting to be here.
No, that’s not right.
I forget every reason I shouldn’t want to be here as badly as I absolutely, unquestioningly, desperately desire to the pit of my soul to be here.
“Hi,” I breathe as I step into his foyer. “Oh my god, your glitter hair.”
He closes the door, his smile growing three sizes. He’s in cargo pants and a black T-shirt, with nails that are short and cleaned of all polish now, and when he leans in to kiss my cheek, I smell cinnamon and yeasty bread again.
“Hi,” he whispers.
That’s it.
One tiny syllable. Barely a syllable, even.
I drop my bag, throw my arms around him, and suddenly we’re making out like teenagers who only have fifteen minutes before Mom gets back from the grocery store.
My hands go everywhere, from the sandpaper of his cheeks to the strained cords in his neck to the soft silkiness of his shirt to the hot sinew of his arms. I slide my fingers under the hem of his shirt and up his taut abs and broad pecs, then around to scrape my nails down his back until I’m grabbing his ass.
He’s devouring my mouth, walking me back against the wall. Something thunks to the ground beside me, and I almost pull out of the kiss, but Levi growls, “Leave it,” against my lips, and then he’s pushing my own loose blouse up and over my head while I tackle the button on his pants.
My shirt gets caught on my ponytail, but I bat his hands away. “Leave it,” I repeat back to him while I dive into kissing him again.
His stubble is rough against my lips, stirring long-neglected nerve endings back to life with the delicious sting.
He pinches my nipples through my new lace bra, and I hook one leg around his hips and try to grind my clit against his leg.
“Naked,” he gasps.
“Now,” I agree.
His shirt goes flying while I rip open his zipper and yank his pants down, revealing that glorious hard-on again.
It still amazes me that I do this to him, and I smile as I wrap a fist around him and stroke.
“No, ma’am.” He grabs me by the wrist, then snags my other hand too, when I try to reach for him again, and holds both arms over my head, pinned to the wall, while he works my pants one-handed. “I want inside you this time.”
“I just want you.”
He lifts his dark, hooded gaze to mine, dips his hand into my silk panties, and strokes my seam, thumb to my clit while he slips a finger inside me. “Like this?”
“More.”
Two fingers. My hips jerk against him, and he circles my clit with his thumb while he fucks me with his fingers. “Christ, Ingrid, I love your pussy.”
“She’s pretty—oh god, just like that—enamored—Oooh, yes, more—with you—Levi, oh my god oh my god oh my god, I’m coming.”
I am.
He’s jerking his fingers inside me while he nips at my breasts through the lace and does that magic with his thumb, and I’m coming like I have a hair-trigger release.
My entire body is unraveling under his touch. My shirt’s still hanging off my ponytail, my hands are pinned to the wall over my head, his hard cock is bobbing against my leg, and I’m clenching so hard against his fingers that I’m suddenly worried he’ll never be able to strum a guitar again.
The crashing wave of my orgasm mutes the thought, and I throw my head back, press my pelvis into his hand, and ride the euphoria through spasm after spasm of pleasure that’s so much better than anything my locked drawer at my bedside can do for me.
“So fucking gorgeous.” He rubs his scruffy cheek against my neck and sears a kiss beneath my ear, and my walls clench around him again with one last resounding aftershock.
My chest is heaving as I attempt to catch my breath. Clearly, more exercise needs to be in my future.
Also?
I need to get this man off.
Right now.
Preferably with him buried balls-deep inside me.
“Levi?” I pant.
Seriously. Not kidding about the exercise.
He presses hot, wet kisses along my jaw. “Mm?”
“Take my pants off and fuck me, please.”
His head jerks up. “That…wasn’t good?”
“That was transcendent.” He’s still holding my wrists, so I arch my hips and belly to rub his hard length. “And now I want more.”
His momentary panic disappears behind a cocky smile. “I’ve awakened a beast.”
“Mama’s horny and there are still cobwebs that need clearing down there.”
He buries his face in the crook of my neck and makes a noise.
“Laugh now, but you are in for the night of your life. If I can stay awake past eight.”
“I fucking adore you.” He slides his hand under my waistband and squeezes my ass, inching my pants down.
“Thank god, because I am not for everyone.” I can’t arch back into his touch and still rub my stomach against his hard-on, because I’m a woman in my mid-thirties who’s had three kids, not a gymnast.
Note to self: Become a gymnast.
Other note to self: Did he slip some kind of hormone or pheromone up my vajayjay, because I really am desperate for more, and that was already one hell of an orgasm.
“I’m letting your hands go, but if you stroke me again, I’m gonna come on the spot, so don’t ruin this for both of us, okay?”
“Tell me you’re not a one-thrust wonder, because I’ve been looking forward to this for days.”
“Only days?”
“It took me a while to catch on that you actually wanted me, and I don’t like to waste my fantasy time on things I can’t have.”
He’s inching my pants down now, and I suck in a breath and wonder if the light will highlight my faded stretch marks.
I hope not.
But then, I did just tell him I have cobwebs in my vagina.
“Are you telling me you touched yourself and thought about other men after we met?”
I can’t look away, and I can’t help touching him. His cheeks. His hair. The curve of his ears. “No. I touched myself and thought about a hamburger that someone else cooked for me or cheesecake. I can totally get off on cheesecake.”
Gah, that smile. It’s infused with angel juice or something. So potent it should be illegal. “So if I have cheesecake for dessert, and some happens to get smeared all over both of us…”
My eyes cross as blood surges to my clit and makes me feel achy and empty and desperate. “Can you hurry up with my pants? Or let me help?”
“Is it me you want, or am I just a convenient conduit to cheesecake?”
I break his rule and double-fist his cock. “These cause babies. If I’m willing to risk that, you can trust it’s you I want.”
Poor guy’s face takes a minute to settle down. “So double condoms.”
“Wasn’t kidding. And I’m on birth control. Now take my pants off and do me against the wall, please.”
He squats and yanks my pants off, leaving his own on the floor when he rises, pressing kisses from my thighs, up my belly, to between my breasts on his way up. My breath catches when he unhooks my bra, letting my breasts sag in all their post-maternity glory, but he smothers them with kisses, murmurs, “So gorgeous,” and then he’s scooping me into his arms like I weigh no more than a rag doll, devouring my mouth again as he carries me into his living room.
It’s not until he sets me on the couch and reaches into a bowl on the end table that I realize the entire room is lit with candles.
There’s a table for two set in front of the windows overlooking the city ligh
ts, right where he had a couch the last time I was here, with roses in a vase, a bottle in an ice bucket, and two wine glasses at the ready.
And my breath leaves me.
It’s so thoughtful.
And I don’t question who set it up.
He did.
He did this for me.
“Hungry?” he asks as he settles next to me on the wide couch, his thick length pressing into my belly.
“Only for you.”
I wrap my arms around him again, kiss him hard and deep, and then the two of us are fumbling with the condoms he grabbed, my hands shaking a little, his clumsy as well. “Naked Ingrid makes my brain short-circuit,” he says as our fingers collide.
“I do not.”
“You do.”
“Are you sure it’s the real me and not your fantasy me?”
“You—”
He cuts himself off and attacks me with a kiss, takes a condom and drops the rest on the floor, and makes quick work of satisfying my sperm phobia without my interference. I fling a leg around his hips, feel the slide of his hard length against me, forget where I am, and roll us both off the couch.
“Aaaah!”
“Oof.”
“Ohmygod, I’m so sorry. Are you—”
“Still horny as hell? Yes.” He snags me by the waist, takes control of the rolling-onto-each-other game, and suddenly I’m beneath him, his tip probing my opening while he hovers on his elbow. “Are you okay?”
I arch my hips and feel him dip inside me, and everything swims into focus.
Levi.
Me.
The thick, soft rug under my back.
His head breaching my entrance.
Cinnamon and sweat and man teasing my nose.
The cool air and his gaze lingering on my chest making my nipples tighten in that delicious way that I can feel all the way down between my legs.
“Never better,” I whisper.
He holds my gaze while he pushes into me, every inch utter heaven, my clit pulsing and my breasts aching, my already swollen, satisfied vajayjay rejoicing at more attention.
“Fucking exquisite,” he breathes.
I tilt my hips and take him deeper while my fingers skim his cheeks and down his neck. I want more. All. Everything. “Kiss me.”
He groans as my hands go lower, my thumbs brushing his nipples, and then he’s kissing me, his tongue clashing with mine while he pulls almost all the way out and thrusts back into me again.
There’s no time to worry about remembering what to do.
My body knows.
He’s brand new and exciting, but familiar and right. And he’s making me remember what it feels like to be alive.
Not just in my satisfied-but-still-desperate nerve endings, but in the part of me that used to take a train to Paris, or hop a flight for a long weekend of hiking in Iceland, or drive six hours for a clandestine getaway with a guy for no reason other than that I wanted to.
“God, Ingrid, you’re so tight.” His voice is strained, sexy, desperate.
“I want to feel every bit of you.”
I want him.
I want him so much that even being this close to him, having him rocking inside me, kissing me, whispering that I’m beautiful, that I turn him on—it’s not enough.
I want him more.
Deeper.
Harder.
Forever.
I gasp as the word sneaks into my conscious thoughts at the same moment that he hits a magic spot deep inside me and sends my body coiling tight, pleasure building on exquisite pleasure, anticipation and glory and champagne fizzles, skin on skin, our eyes locked, his dark and hot and heavy-lidded, mine suddenly feeling unexpectedly wet even as everything inside me is spiraling fast and furious toward taking flight to the stars again.
“Levi.”
“You drive me fucking wild, Ingrid.” He’s slamming into me, every thrust magic, making me see glitter and confetti and sequins in the candlelight.
“Oh god, oh god, right there, I’m—right there, Levi.”
He pumps his hips to mine once more, and my body shatters into a billion sparkly iridescent snowflakes, the spasms in my core squeezing him tight while he groans and drops his head to my shoulder, his cock pulsing in time with my orgasm.
His skin is slick with sweat, his breath ragged, my name whispered reverently on his lips, and in this moment, I’m a fucking goddess.
Floating in the heavens, all billion bits of me, centered around a core of sheer, blissful, luxurious, pulsating ecstasy.
I’m one with the world, and my world is Levi, and nothing else exists or matters.
He kisses my forehead, then the tear that slipped down my face and into my ear. “Ingrid?”
“That was—wow.” I wipe it away, blink my eyes open, and dig deep to not let the hotness build more behind my eyeballs as he strokes my cheek and gazes at me like he felt it too.
Like in this moment, I’m his world.
His touch—his kindness—his voice—I could love this man.
I could so easily love this man.
But that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?
I could so easily love any man. And I have. I’ve loved any man, which is why I don’t let myself get close, or go on dates, or fall in love.
I can’t afford to lose one again.
I’d survive. But I wouldn’t want to.
Levi drops his face until our noses are touching. “I want to kiss you more,” he whispers.
“You’re in luck, because I’m here all night.”
When he smiles at me, I feel that same overwhelming brightness flood my chest that I felt the moment I held Zoe for the first time. Hello, my love. We’re going to have a beautiful life together.
It’s like I’m seeing a smile for the first time.
Hearing waves rolling on the beach and smelling the ocean air after a decade in the desert.
Tasting cheesecake after nothing but rice cakes for weeks.
Knowing every hoodie I’ll ever toss on again will be dewy-soft felt on the inside and never get pilly or hard or snag on my rough elbow skin.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he murmurs into my hair. He’s still trailing his free hand over my arm, down my hip, and back again, like he, too, is afraid if we stop touching, all of this will disappear.
I get it. I can’t stop touching him either. “What about my bookstore?”
“I like it. It’s nice. What are you thinking about?”
You.
My fingers connect with the raised edge of his button scar, and I smile. “I’m still wearing socks. And they might not match.”
He blinks at me, and suddenly, we’re both cracking up.
This.
This is what I want.
I can’t have it—not long term. My kids deserve someone who’d be around more than he’s gone, and honestly, I do too.
But tonight?
Tonight, I’m going to make the most of every single minute.
Twenty-Five
Levi
She’s everything I didn’t know I was missing.
The thought won’t stop bouncing through my head as I sit with Ingrid at the small table I set up in front of the windows overlooking downtown. She’s wrapped in my favorite bathrobe, moaning over bacon-wrapped scallops that I pan-fried myself while she slipped into the bathroom to freshen up.
She gestures to her mostly-empty plate. “Seriously, when did you learn to cook like this?”
“I went through a Cooking Channel phase during my Chase the Beat tour.”
“When was that? Two years ago?”
“Five.”
“Five?”
“I was on the floor talking about the stage set-up with my tour manager when Tripp called to tell me James was born. He’s five, so…”
She leans back and sips her wine, the robe gaping open enough to tease me with what I know is hiding underneath. “I like that you remember things based on family events.”
“Wha
t else would I track it on?”
“Seriously? That was the year I took home three Grammys, maybe?”
I shake my head. “Nah. That’s all frosting. And I like the cake better.”
She purses her lips, and my cock leaps again. I want her hands on me again. I want her mouth. I want her legs wrapped around my hips.
Now.
For dessert.
After dessert.
Before bed.
In the shower.
Against the glass windows.
In the morning.
The next day.
The day after.
“So if you like the cake better than the frosting, what’s your stance on chocolate chip cookies versus gelato?” she asks.
I reach across the table and slip my hand into her, rubbing her soft skin. “Gelato sandwich with chocolate chip cookie bread.”
“Ooh, you’re cheating.”
“Nope. Dreaming.”
“Well, if we’re dreaming, I want a birthday cake with cheesecake on the bottom—graham cracker crust, please, but a thick one, because I want to taste it—and a layer of salted caramel gelato on top of that, then a massive layer of brownies, which you’d have to pre-bake and smush on to get it right, so I’m probably doing this out of order, but I really want that graham cracker crust too, and then a huge swirl of homemade whipped cream, sprinkled with peanut butter cups and topped with a cherry, served by a shirtless man with glitter in his hair.”
“When’s your birthday?”
She laughs and squeezes my hand. “Nope. Not telling. You’d probably do it, and then I’d eat it all and die of a sugar coma.”
“I could get you a small one.”
“And then I’d let my kids eat it all.”
“Now you’re being difficult on purpose.”
Her eyes go distant, but she’s smiling. “Can you imagine Hudson on that much sugar?”
“You’d have to put a tracking device on him then turn him loose in Reynolds Park to run it off.”
“The poor squirrels.”
“And geese.”
“And the fountain.”
“And the rage yoga people.”
“Rage yoga? That’s a thing?”
Her eyes go comically wide, and I can’t decide if she wants to join the class, or if she’s mad at me because she thinks I made it up.
I lift my other hand. “Swear to god. It’s a thing. They almost took Beck out a couple years back when he pissed off the entire female population of the world.”