by Ryan, Lexi
We grabbed lunch at a food truck on the way back to the car and left Chicago before one. Though I didn’t want to stay there any longer, I didn’t want to go home either. I know Levi doesn’t like that I’m looking for the Discovery collection, but he seems to understand there’s no point in fighting me about it and he didn’t bring it up again on the two-and-a-half-hour drive.
He bypasses the house and follows the road around the lake.
“I remember the cabin, but I’ve never been on this side of the lake before.”
He cuts his gaze to me, then shifts it back to the road. “You have, actually.”
My newest memories are from only a couple of weeks before the assault. How much more am I missing? I can’t help but think the most important memories are the ones I still can’t reach.
Levi parks, we climb out of the Mustang, and I follow him down to the rocky lakeside. The Jacksons brought in sand to make a beach on the house side of the lake, but here it’s rough and a little overgrown. He takes my hand and leads me through some tall grass and over some rocks until the shore drops off into the lake.
There’s a big rock perched at the edge, and he sits and lets his feet hang over the side of it. I join him, pulling my knees to my chest. I can see his family’s cabin across the water, and even though it’s a huge place with more than five thousand square feet, it looks small from here. The afternoon sun burns brightly above us and sparkles off the ripples in the water.
“It’s perfect,” I say. “Thank you for bringing me here . . . again, I guess.”
“I wasn’t ready to go back to reality yet,” he says, but red is creeping up his neck, making me wonder if he brought me out here hoping I might remember more. Is this where we made love?
“I’ve never thought about what’s on the other side of the lake,” I say.
“The property line is about a hundred yards that way.” He waves toward his Mustang and the woods beyond. “But there are a few acres of forest between the road and the next house. That’s why I like it. No one’s ever out here—not even my brothers.”
I laugh. “Funny, I’ve only ever been to the cabin because I wanted to be with people, but here you have this place where you get away from them all.”
He shrugs. “I love them, but sometimes it’s too much. There’s always someone in your business, always someone in your space. You can’t have a bad day without being expected to explain yourself.”
“Would you change it? I mean, if you had a choice, would you rather be from a smaller family?”
He narrows his eyes and shakes his head. “Not for the world.”
“I wish I’d had that growing up. Someone to make me talk when I was lonely. Someone to be in my space before I even realized I needed them.”
“But you have a sister. What was your childhood like?”
“It was good. A little lonely sometimes. Mom worked a lot, and Brittany is six years older than me, so when I was young, it seemed like she was always babysitting or cleaning houses or whatever. We all did as much as we could to make ends meet. We were trying to get by. I had neighbor friends, but girls can be . . .” I sigh and shake my head. “I’d have killed for a big family who was always around. Normal kid problems.”
“If I’d known you back then, we’d have let you be part of our crew. We’d have dragged you to the lake in the summer and brought you out here to sled and ride snowmobiles in the winter.”
“Like you did with Ava?”
He nods. “Sure. There’s room for everyone.”
I lean my head against his shoulder, oddly comforted by being hypothetically included. “You know what I love about your family?”
He pulls his gaze off the water and brings it to me. “What’s that?”
“Everyone else wants to be on Lake Michigan—not just because of the beauty of it but because of the status. Your parents could have afforded to buy one of those fancy houses along Jackson Harbor’s Lakeshore Drive or a luxury condo in Chicago, but instead they bought this place.” I shrug. “It says a lot about them, you know what I mean? They aren’t proud or pretentious. Just real people with very clear priorities—family and time together.” I wince, realizing I’m speaking of Levi’s late father in the present tense. “I mean, that’s what your mom’s like. I assume your dad was the same.”
He’s quiet as he studies me, and then he nods slowly. “He was. I wish you could have met him.”
“Me too.” I look up into Levi’s dark eyes. If I could read his childhood through the lines on his face, I’d study him until the sun set. Levi’s one of my best friends, but I don’t know his secrets or his fears. Suddenly, I want to know it all. “Do you miss him?”
Levi’s shoulders sag. The muscles in his throat move as he swallows. “Some days my grief makes me miss him. On those days, it’s this aching emptiness in my life. He was a big guy with a big laugh and bigger dreams. It’s easy to miss that.”
“And other days?” I ask softly.
“Other days my grief is something to be carried. A heavy coat in the heat that I can’t shake off. A hundred-pound stone I have to lug everywhere. He made everyone better, and when he got sick . . .” Levi turns away and digs a rock from the dirt. He tosses it into the water. “It shook me. It shook all of us. I watched all my brothers and my sister become the best versions of themselves in the light of Dad’s sickness. Brayden stepped into his shoes in the company and worked nonstop. Ethan was a star student in med school. Carter landed a job with the fire department, and Shay started writing articles and publishing years before she was expected to. Maybe they’d have done the same things if he hadn’t been sick, but it felt like they were trying to win him back. As if their achievements could make the cancer go away. But not me. I knew the score. Life’s not a game with a ref who’ll stop the clock when shit’s not fair. We could do everything right, and he was still going to die.”
“So you ran around with Colton and did everything wrong?”
He shrugs, his jaw ticking. “I wasn’t real analytical about it at the time, but pretty much. I did anything that pushed the boundaries of right and wrong, and then I just dove right into wrong.” He sneers. “And Nelson was happy to give Colton and me all the opportunities to do his dirty work. He exploited Colton’s addiction . . . and mine.” He digs another stone from the dirt.
“Addiction?”
“The thrill.” He smirks. “Adrenaline junkie.”
“Aren’t all motocross racers?”
“I imagine. On some level, at least. But not all motocross racers are stealing cars for a man who already had more money than he knew what to do with.”
“He had you stealing cars? Not dealing drugs?”
Levi’s fingers are dirty from digging out rocks, and he stares at them. “Just cars for me. But I don’t know about Colt.” He makes a fist. “He might have made some runs for some people.”
“Colton never told me details, but he alluded to Nelson’s shady friends. Like maybe all his old man’s money wasn’t from being a lawyer.”
“Oh, hell no. Nelson’s dirty down to the muck where he’s locked away his soul, and there’s gangster shit in there somewhere. He’s the polite, high-society face of the shitty people he protects in court. Nelson was responsible for laundering mob money.”
I close my eyes. Not because I don’t want to believe it, but because it’s so clear now. “That’s why he opened the art gallery.”
“You can’t buy your wife a fancy house with cash you make from selling smack. The bank wants to see the money trail.” Bitterness drips from Levi’s every word.
“Colton could have been working for his dad again.” I turn the puzzle pieces in my mind. “Maybe they got involved with the wrong guy, and something went south?”
He shakes his head. “He hadn’t done shit for Nelson in years. Not since he met you.”
I drag my hands over my face, then cringe when I feel how sweaty I’ve gotten. “When did it get so hot out here?”
“Are you ok
ay? Do you want to go back?”
“I’m fine. Just hoping I don’t look like a clown with makeup smeared down my face.”
His expression softens as he studies me. “I think you look beautiful, but we can go back whenever you’re ready.”
“No, this is good.” I grin. “It’s nice to give you a chance to thaw out after this morning.”
He cocks a brow. “This morning?”
“I was afraid you were mildly hypothermic after that shower.” I bite back a laugh.
“I’m glad I amuse you.”
“I just didn’t think cold showers were a thing anymore. I mean, at least not for men who know how to take care of business. Why not take a hot shower and jack off?” I try to keep a straight face, but laughter bubbles out of me. “It was surprising. That’s all.”
“You think I haven’t jacked off to the thought of you before?”
My eyes go wide and I turn my face away, too embarrassed to look at him.
“What? You brought it up.” He leans closer and lowers his mouth to my ear. “The thought of you under me has gotten me off more times than I can count.”
I meet his eyes. They’re as dark and intense as the day he came to Dyer to see me, but now I see a hunger in them too, and a chill races through me. “So what was different this morning? The cold shower, I mean.”
“You were thinking about him.” His gaze drops to my mouth and his full lips part with his slow exhale. “It screwed with my head. Call me old-fashioned, but I wasn’t real interested in getting off on thoughts of a girl who was fantasizing about another man.”
“Just because I was dreaming of Colton doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings for you.” The words are a pale reflection of the complicated, unnamed tangle in my chest, but right now they’re the best I can give. It’s not that I don’t feel more for Levi. I do—love, attraction, connection. It’s that I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do with it.
His gaze locks on my mouth for a beat before he tears it away. He doesn’t move, but he might as well. He withdraws, and the emotional barrier he throws up between us is as distancing as a physical wall. He’s working hard to hold himself back, and I’m sitting here wishing he wouldn’t.
The tree behind us has a long rope tied to a high branch. “Does that swing out over the water?” I ask, standing.
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Cool.” I pull my shirt off over my head then unzip my skirt, letting it fall to the ground.
Levi
Ellie is standing in front of me in a white lace bra and panties, looking like an image stolen straight from my fantasies.
She grabs the rope that dangles over the rock, wraps herself around it, and swings right out over the lake. The splash of her body hitting the water is followed immediately by her sharp squeal.
I grin when she surfaces. “You’re nuts.”
“Probably. The water is freezing!” she shouts. But instead of swimming back, she flips over and starts doing the backstroke toward the middle of the lake.
I strip out of my shirt and jeans as fast as I can and use the rope to swing in after her.
The water hits me like a bucket of ice. It’s been a warm autumn and the lake isn’t huge, so it’s not as cold as it could be, but swimming in Michigan in October is never a wise decision.
She giggles when I surface. “Race you to the dock!” she shouts, and then she’s swimming.
She has a fifty-yard lead, but I swam in high school and college. Catching her is no problem. When I pull even with her, I shorten my strokes so I can stay near her all the way to the dock. I slow just before we reach it, letting her pull herself onto the dock before me.
She stands in the middle of the dock with her arms wide in the air over her head. “I beat you.”
I take my time climbing the ladder and then make a big show of collapsing onto the dock, pressing my hand against my chest to exaggerate my exertion.
Looking down at me, she frowns. “Did you just let me win?”
I lift a hand, shielding my eyes from the blinding sun only to be struck dumb by the sight of her. Her long, dark hair hangs in wet waves around her shoulders. Her white bra is wet and her nipples poke through. I can’t take my eyes off those perfect peaked buds. Water drips down her body, calling me to follow its path from between her breasts, over the softness of her belly and her navel. My gaze dips lower, stalling at the white cotton panties that cling to her hips, translucent from the water.
“You let me win on purpose?” she asks, dropping to her knees to scowl at me. “Do you have no pride?”
“Maybe I was suffering ill effects of hypothermia. You’re crazy swimming in that.”
“That water wasn’t half as cold as your shower this morning.” She huffs. “I could have beaten you for real.”
I laugh. “Oh, really?”
“Yes! I demand a rematch. Back to the rock.”
She starts to stand, but something catches my eye on the opposite shore, and I grab Ellie’s hand before she can get up. “Wait.”
“What?”
I put my finger to my lips and nod toward the beach by the house, where a man and a woman stand. While I can’t identify him for sure from here, I’d bet money the man is Brayden. I literally don’t know anyone else who’d wear a suit to the cabin. And the blonde with him—
“Is that Molly?” Ellie asks.
“I think so.”
Brayden cups Molly’s face in his hands and shakes his head as he looks down at her. Then he backs away. I can’t tell, but judging by their body language, it looks like they’re . . . breaking up?
Ellie squeezes my arm. “Are they involved?”
“They hooked up once, but I don’t think anything came of it.” Brayden’s not exactly an open book, so how the hell would I know?
“Does he know about her and Colton? The kid?”
“Yeah. He knows about Noah.” I tilt my face toward the sky and close my eyes.
Lying down beside me, Ellie finds my hand and squeezes it. “Thank you for bringing me out here.”
I roll my head to the side and squint away from the sun so I can look at her. “You said that already.”
“I mean it.” She laughs. “Though if I’d known where we were coming, I’d have brought a bathing suit.”
I dip my gaze down to her breasts in her wet cotton bra. “What fun would that have been?”
She sits up a little, looking back toward the shore. “They left. I don’t think they saw us, so you don’t have to worry about them knowing . . . you’re here with me.”
I frown. “Why do you think I’d worry about that?”
“Isn’t that why you didn’t want them to see me?” She lifts a shoulder. “And why we’re here and not at whatever pre-wedding family gathering the Jacksons have going on today?”
Well, shit. “They looked like they were having an important conversation, and I didn’t want to disrupt them. Ellie . . .” I wait until she meets my eyes. “I didn’t bring you out here to hide you. I brought you out here to cheer you up and get you away from everything.”
“Okay.”
Shit. “I brought you here because I wanted you for myself.” I lean forward and catch a drop of water as it rolls down the side of her face. “I brought you to the other side of the lake because it’s my side. It’s my place. And because . . .” I swallow. “Because I have some nice memories here. I brought you once, and I was hoping a visit might help bring it back for you.” I grimace. “Stupid, I know.”
She brushes my shoulder with her fingertips. “It’s not stupid.”
We stare at each other, the silence stretching between us and growing heavier until I feel like I could snap under the weight.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” I whisper, propping myself up on one elbow.
“You are?”
I nod, and then lean forward slowly and sweep my lips over hers. I pause for a beat, our mouths close but not touching, our breath mingling in the warm afternoon sunshine. I wai
t for her to pull away, counting the milliseconds with the beats of my racing heart before I give myself permission to lean in and repeat the kiss. Just a sweep of lips. Once. Twice. When she moves closer, she does so slowly at first, and then suddenly she’s straddling my lap. She puts a knee on either side of my hips and lowers her mouth to mine.
It cuts something free in me, and my hands dive into her hair as our mouths open. Tongues touching. Hands gripping. Hunger. Need. She shifts her hips, rubbing against my erection, and damn it, I want more. I want to roll her under me and kiss my way down her body. I want to pull off these wet scraps of fabric and slide into her again. I want to make love to her out here in the middle of the lake in the middle of a sunny afternoon as a way to tell the whole world she’s mine.
Instead I wrap my arms around her and sit up. I lean my forehead against hers, and we both struggle to catch our breath.
She pulls back slowly. “Sorry. I . . .”
“Don’t apologize.”
She shivers, shaking in my arms.
“We’d better swim back and put on some dry clothes.” My mind skips forward. To going home, to climbing in bed, to holding her all night . . .
“Just because I was dreaming of Colton doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings for you.”
But I want more than feelings. From Ellie, I want it all.
Ellie
As Levi pulls his clothes on, I grab mine. “I’m going to go back here and change,” I say, motioning toward the trees.
Levi smirks. “You’re gonna get modest on me now?”
I shrug. I want to take off my wet underwear before I put on my clothes, but despite feeling brazen when I stripped down to my panties, now I’m suddenly self-conscious. Is it because he pulled away when I wanted so much more?
I step into the trees and peel off my wet bra and underwear before pulling on my sweater and skirt. The water was cold, and now that I’m in the shade, I’m shivering.
“You okay back there?” Levi calls.
“Almost done,” I say, wriggling my skirt into place over my wet skin.
A hand covers my mouth. I’m yanked back. I gasp but the man just presses his hand tighter against my mouth and holds me closer to his chest. He’s big and strong and my body stiffens in panic, but only for a beat. In the next breath, I realize it’s Colton. I smell him. I feel him. I know him.