by Jewel E. Ann
Levi got out. “It’s not dark quite yet, and we’re under a sky full of clouds.”
Parker opened the tailgate and climbed in back. He handed her the beer and pizza then climbed in beside her, their backs resting at the front of the bed, near the back window.
“That’s why I got a twelve-pack of beer. By the time we’re done, we’ll think we see the stars.” She grabbed a beer and twisted off the top then handed it to him.
“Did I mention that I really like you?”
She twisted off the top to her beer and clinked it against his. “I like you too.”
“Twelve beers might not make us legal to drive.”
She took a long swig. “That’s why we’re in walking distance from home.” She set her bottle on the edge of the truck and opened the pizza box between them. “Have you ever had pizza and beer in the back of a pick-up truck in the middle of a barren field?”
Levi grabbed a slice of pizza and took a big bite then shook his head. “No,” he mumbled, “never.”
“Then you really haven’t lived.” She stretched out her legs and crossed them at the ankles, releasing a deep sigh after another long pull of beer. “Here’s what you can expect. It’s going to be a little rough going with the mosquitoes as the sun sets. But once we get enough alcohol into our systems, we’ll be good. Mosquitoes? What mosquitoes?”
“Tomorrow we’ll be hungover and itchy as hell, probably with some mosquito-transmitted disease settling into our bloodstream.”
Parker giggled. “So you have done this before.”
“No. Just an educated guess.”
They drank more than they ate, which wasn’t a good thing. By four beers Parker was slipping into her drunken state.
“So let me get this straight…” Parker leaned back flat to look at the stars that weren’t there “…you played lacrosse in college and you still play, but sex is your workout of choice? Maybe you’re just a sex addict and you’re trying to justify it by making it seem like it’s heart-smart.”
Levi spit out part of his eighth beer as he laughed. “Where did that come from? You asked me about college. How did my playing lacrosse turn into a sex addiction problem?”
She sighed then giggled. “I don’t know. It’s your problem, not mine.”
He lay down beside her. “I’m so fucking buzzed right now, I can’t even defend myself against your crazy accusations.”
“It feels so good to not feel.”
He chuckled. “That makes no sense.”
“Is it the amount of time you have sex that makes it workout-worthy or the positions?”
“Fuck me … your thoughts are so damn random.” He slurred his words a bit as he laughed.
“Tell me! How much alcohol do you need before you can tell me what I want to know?”
“Fine. It’s both.” He rolled onto his side, head propped up on his hand.
She rolled over, facing him, mirroring his pose. “Favorite position?” Her body tingled from the alcohol, and her judgment was delayed, but her mouth asked the question anyway.
“For pleasure or workout?”
“There’s a difference?”
“Of course.” He wet his lips and let his eyes roam down her body.
Drunk Parker liked it. Sober Parker would be very disappointed in her.
“Workout,” she said.
“Standing.”
“Against a wall?”
“No wall. Just standing.”
Parker let her eyes drift shut.
“What are you doing?”
“Imagining it.”
He chuckled.
“So nothing? No wall. No desk. Nothing? Just you doing all the work?”
“Are you … imagining me?”
Her eyes blinked open. “No. Yes. No.”
“Were you imagining you?”
“Yes. No. Yes.” She giggled. “I don’t know. Stop making me blush. I can’t think right.”
“You started this.” He bent his leg and nudged hers.
She nudged him back. “Pleasure?” She bit her lip.
He reached over and pulled at her hair, removing some dried paint. “Don’t you think this is a dangerous conversation after twelve bottles of beer? When my brain is fuzzy, and my eyes can’t focus, and my hands feel like they want to wander a bit.”
Parker sat up, a little wobbly. “I need more pizza. Did you eat the rest?” She spotted the box on the other side of him. “There it is.” She threw a leg over his midsection and leaned up, stopping when his hands gripped her waist. “Oh …” Her gaze dragged along his torso as she sat astride him. She giggled. “Well, now you know my favorite position.”
As she started to reach for the pizza, Levi sat up, bringing them face to face.
Shallow breaths. Drunken gazes. The lingering scent of whatever made Levi smell so fucking irresistible—like a crisp, cool day lost in a grove of pine and cedar wood trees. Parker couldn’t decide if she wanted to inhale him or devour him.
“When’s the last time you did something really stupid?” he whispered in a throaty voice, sliding his hands up the back of her shirt.
He could touch her or she could breathe, but the two couldn’t coexist.
“I-I’m drunk. And this is … wrong.” Her words came out breathy as she gripped his biceps to steady herself or stop him. Maybe stop herself. She didn’t know. But buying a twelve-pack of beer in an emotionally vulnerable state and drinking it with a man who looked like all kinds of trouble—that was the answer to his question.
Levi grinned. “So am I. And it probably is. But … do you wanna do something stupid with me?”
Her eyes blinked slowly as her lips parted. “How stupid?”
With one flick, he unfastened her bra. “Pretty fucking stupid.”
The screech of crickets and croaking of the toads by the pond across the road marked time while they both waited for Parker’s next move. It hurt to think. So she didn’t.
“I hope you’re good at stupid.” She lifted her arms.
Levi’s eyes lit up the night. “You have no idea.” He pulled off her shirt and then shrugged off his.
Her sluggish gaze shifted between his eyes and his bare chest. “Well, damn …” She wet her lips and grinned.
He pulled her bra off her arms and tossed it over the side of the truck.
“Hey—”
He shoved her hands behind her back, clasping her wrists in one hand, tugging them down just enough to force her chest forward and her head back. “Shhh …” He ran his tongue down her neck. Cupping her breast, he brought her nipple to his mouth and sucked it so hard she jerked and moaned, head falling back even more.
In the half seconds of reprieve where his mouth moved with precision from one erogenous zone to the next—and he knew them all—Parker’s brain tried to find sobering thoughts. But after that much alcohol, it was fruitless.
“Don’t come …” she whispered, eyes fighting to stay open as Levi manipulated her like a rag doll, making her body bend and submit to him.
He released her arms, and she fell forward. He cupped her face in his hands and devoured the skin along her neck and jaw. “What did you say?” he whispered in her ear.
“I told…” she feathered her fingers down his chest “…myself not to come yet.” She grinned when she felt his lips pull into a smile against her cheek. “I think it’s a lost cause.”
“God, I hope so.” Levi pressed his mouth to hers, thoroughly exploring it. He tasted like beer and every ounce of desire she’d craved since Gus pinned her against the fridge.
Parker unfastened his jeans with clumsy hands then pushed against his chest, breaking their kiss. “Back.” She beamed, feeling drunk, high, and overly-confident.
Levi grinned, inching back while she teased his abs. His eyes drifted shut when she scooted down, releasing him from his briefs, and did what she only did after four beers, a week from hell, an unexplainable death, the loss of something that was never hers, and a man who made numb feel like
nirvana.
“God … damn …” Levi fisted her hair controlling her every move.
After a minute or so, he pulled her away, sat up, and lifted her hips like she weighed nothing. “Stand.” He laughed as her legs buckled like spaghetti.
She giggled, grabbing his hair to steady herself. “The cars driving by see my headlights. Get it?”
He peeled off her jeans and panties, tossing them over the side of the truck too.
“Not cool.” She frowned.
“Turn.” Holding her hips, so she didn’t trip over his legs, he helped turn her so her ass was level with his face.
“Ow! Did you just bite me?”
Levi licked the bite mark on her ass and grinned. “Down.” He guided her into a squat.
“You could ask nicely.” She laughed, falling back into him, not a shred of balance left in her body.
“I could. But I’m so fucking buzzed all I can feel is my dick, and all I can think about is where I’m going to put it.”
“Thanks for your honesty, Drunk No Lie Levi …” She sighed a small laugh. “Hope you don’t flub up.”
He jabbed her entrance with the head of his cock.
“Jesus…” she gasped “ …Christ …”
He pressed his hand to her back, pushing her forward until her hands rested on his legs.
“Flub up?” He chuckled. “I’m not that drunk. Hold on, this could be a rough ride.”
He lifted her up a couple inches and jerked her back down onto him.
“Fuck!” Her chin dropped to her chest and the second his right hand slid between her legs, she saw the stars.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Too many hours after the alcohol wore off and just as the sun started to edge its way into the morning sky, Parker eased off Levi’s chest. Cringing when Old Blue creaked, she climbed out of the truck bed, shaky on her legs, searching for her clothes. She dressed as fast as one could with a painful hangover, walked the half acre to the fence, climbed over it, and clumped her way up the yard to her farmhouse.
She eased open the back door to the kitchen then closed it slowly behind her.
“Good morning.”
Parker whipped around. “Caleb.”
He smirked, nodding to the counter. “Coffee?”
There was no way to hide the guilt on her face. She felt the heat crawl up her neck. “Shower. But thanks.”
Caleb continued to eye her with that stupid smirk. “Long night or early morning?”
“If only it were any of your business.” She glared at him as she slipped off her shoes and walked toward the stairs, but he kept grinning as he returned his focus to his phone and sipped his coffee.
She carried an extra hundred pounds of guilt as she climbed the stairs, straight into the bathroom. After flipping on the exhaust fan and turning on the shower, she stripped down and stood in the middle of the bathroom with her face buried in her hands as she cried. There were no words to explain why she felt so incredibly guilty. Why she felt like a cheater again. Why she felt like a terrible person.
Gus was dead. He had been married. They never had sex. Levi wasn’t married. They were two consenting adults. And for a few hours after too many beers, she enjoyed life again—emotionally and physically.
Sex. How could something that seemed to ruin everything one minute, feel like the exact thing she needed the next? And she did … she needed to do nothing more than feel connected to another human without having to use words or make sense of it in her head.
Still, the guilt won over. It always did. Parker sat on the toilet, desperate to relieve her full bladder. “Shit!” She grimaced, leaning to the side. When she finished, she wiped the steam off the mirror and glanced at the refection of her backside. On her right butt cheek there was a red bite mark.
“Lovely.” She closed her eyes and wiped a few more tears before getting in the shower.
*
“Stop looking at me like that.” Parker laughed even as she hugged her nauseous stomach, sitting on the end of her bed, staring at the unpacked suitcase on the floor—talking to the suitcase. Maybe she needed to bury it too. That required saying goodbye and that was too much to ask. How could she say goodbye when part of her still waited for him to knock at the door?
Parker rolled her eyes when a real knock sounded at her bedroom door. She hurried and slipped on her shorts and tee then fingered through her wet hair as she opened the door.
“Dad,” she said, narrowing her eyes, expecting to see her mom, if anyone, knocking on her bedroom door the morning after a drunken night.
He rubbed his chin. “Uh … Old Blue is in the field … with a half-naked guy in the back. Should I call the police?”
“No! I-I’ve got it. Don’t call anyone.” She shot past him to the stairs. “Especially—”
“Your mom?”
“Exactly.” Parker slipped on her shoes, ignoring Caleb and his dumb-ass grin, and ran out the back door. She figured Levi would have woken up by then and gone home. If he wasn’t careful, crows would be pecking at his bits and pieces.
As she approached Old Blue, a bare, hunched back appeared in the bed, moving stiffly. Levi was on all fours and lumbering to his feet. She stopped in her tracks, eyes flitting between the road with cars going by and the burly man standing in the bed of her truck, shirt off, hair a disaster, jeans unbuttoned and holding on for life low on his hips. He brought his fists up to his chin, elbows out, and twisted his torso side to side, mesmerizing her with the shifting and rippling of his muscles. Levi stopped when he spotted her.
“Morning.” His face pulled into something between a grin and a grimace. Maybe a grin gone wrong or a grimace trying to redeem itself.
Parker swallowed hard then opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The previous night replayed in her head. Her naked body pressed to every part of his. The flex of his muscles when he moved behind her, above her, beneath her. What she couldn’t see clearly in her mind, she could feel along her skin. Those lips sucking her sensitive flesh. The slide of his tongue between her legs.
Those hands were not the delicate hands of an artist. They were large, strong, and controlling. Parker liked every single fucking thing he did to her with his hands—palming her ass like he owned it and fisting her hair so she knew it.
Levi fastened his jeans and pulled on his shirt. “You’re not real talkative in the morning.”
Old Blue whined when he jumped out of the back. “You have that look.” He walked toward her.
“Look?” She managed a shaky word past her lingering thoughts and an enormous hurdle of regret.
He nodded. “The what-do-I-say-about-last-night look.”
That was the look for sure.
“About last night …”
Levi grinned. “It happened.” He shrugged. “It didn’t happen. Totally up to you.”
There was an option B. She liked that.
“What if it happened?” she whispered.
“Then we talk about it.”
“And if it didn’t?”
“Then … what didn’t happen?” His lips twisted, concealing his amusement.
Before Gus, the answer would have been: the night before happened—once the previous night and another three times in her head that morning. But Gus happened, which meant the night before should not have happened.
“It didn’t.” Her gaze left his and settled on the clumpy dirt around her shoes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for something that didn’t happen.” The hard ground crunched beneath him as he walked past her toward the Westmans’ house.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Parker re-cleaned the kitchen after the pigs made a mess and half-assed the cleanup. Their kids were doomed. Aunt Parker would be their only example of cleanliness and organization.
Normally she wouldn’t have cared about the mess, but it required her to deal with the worst part of the farmhouse—the view from the kitchen sink. She needed to plant a blue spruce in front of it
to hide the Westmans’ house. It was like a gigantic tombstone staring back at her.
Would the day ever come that she stopped being mad at Gus? She knew he didn’t die on purpose, but something inside of her blamed him for her broken heart. He could have died without breaking it, had he not been carrying it around. That’s how things got broken. Even children knew that. Why didn’t he leave it alone? Let it be. Mind his own business.
Just as she grabbed the last wet dishtowel, Levi walked out with Rags on his leash. He watched the dog sniff for the perfect place to lift his leg, and then he looked toward Parker’s house. After a few seconds, he dropped his head and rubbed the back of his neck. When Rags finished, they headed back to the house. Just before he shut the door, Levi looked back toward the farmhouse. Parker took a step backward even though there was no way he could see her.
“Levi … Levi … Levi …” She shook her head. “Pretty fucking stupid. Sex. No condom. No questions.” Parker was on the pill, but he didn’t know that. Didn’t ask. She wondered how many Levi spawns might be scattered throughout the world. How many stupid moments he’d had in his past.
“I probably have HIV or herpes now. Great, Parker. Just great,” she mumbled, taking the dishtowels to the laundry room. Aunt Parker needed to work on other areas of role modeling.
*
The threesome ate dinner together. Afterward, Piper and Caleb invited Parker to watch a movie with them. She planted herself on the opposite end of the sofa. The movie didn’t hold her attention quite like the couple beside her. Caleb’s hands covered Piper’s, both resting them on her baby belly. Their presence made Parker feel lonelier than when she had truly been alone. Gus took their love to the grave with him. If she couldn’t share what they’d had together or how much she missed him, then maybe it never happened. Maybe it wasn’t real. Who would ever believe her?
“I’m going to bed.” Parker stood.
The happy couple smiled. “Good night.”
The wood floor creaked beneath her as she climbed the stairs. She turned left but after two paces, she sighed, turning the opposite way to her new room. The only thing constant in her life was change.