by Keeland, Vi
Harper extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Fern. But who’s fornicating with whom and where’s the witch?”
Fern ignored Harper’s hand and instead pulled her in for a hug. “Nice to meet you, too, darlin’. Any friend of Presley’s is a friend of mine.” When she pulled back, she held Harper’s shoulders and gave her the once-over. “Is this a uniform you’re wearing? Are you a flight attendant for American Airlines or something?”
Harper looked down, seeming utterly confused. “A uniform? No, I’m not a flight attendant. This is Christian Dior.”
“Who?”
I chimed in, “It’s a designer, Fern.”
She shook her head. “Shame. Someone should be paying you to look that fancy.”
Harper’s brows were still pinched tight when Fern excused herself. “I’d love to stay and chat, but it’s my Mahjong night, so I need to get myself cleaned up. You two enjoy your evening now.”
After Fern walked away, Harper shook her head. “You’re going to have to explain what that woman just said.”
I laughed. “Come on. I think we need that wine you brought for me to do that.”
***
“I cannot believe you didn’t call and tell me you’re hot for your ex’s brother.” Harper sipped her second glass of wine. “Do you think maybe deep down you want revenge on Tanner?”
I shook my head. “I have zero desire to get even with Tanner. Maybe I did six years ago when I caught him cheating on me again and he walked out, leaving me with a one-year-old, but I’m long past that. I actually feel bad for him. He can’t seem to get over the life he lost enough to start making a new one. And that’s a shame, because he’s young and healthy with a great son, and he’s missing out on some of the best years of his life—and Alex’s.”
“Okay… Being with your ex’s brother still sounds kind of messy. I mean, how do you think Tanner would take the news if that happened and he were to find out?”
Just thinking about that scenario had me guzzling the rest of the wine in my glass. “Oh, I know exactly how he would take it—horribly. Tanner has always lived in Levi’s shadow. Levi was a first-round draft pick into the NFL. Tanner was a second. Tanner is six-feet tall. Levi is six foot three. But things got much worse after Tanner’s injury. He resents his brother’s success. Last year, their entire family went to Arizona for the Super Bowl to watch Levi play, but Tanner refused to go. Instead, he stayed home and bet against his brother’s team. Levi wound up with a Super Bowl ring, and Tanner wound up five-thousand dollars more in debt.”
I shook my head. “Tanner sees Levi’s life as the one he should be living. So I’m certain seeing Levi and me together would not go over well. It would be a disaster, really.”
Harper wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound pleasant. I guess we’re just going to have to find you another man to—what did Fern call it?—boink. We’re going to have to find you another man to boink. That shouldn’t be too hard. I read an article on the flight down that said there’re a hundred-and-sixty-million men in the United States. Finding one to make you forget all about Levi shouldn’t be so hard.”
I nodded and smiled, though all I could think was… A hundred-and-sixty-million men in the United States, and of course, the only one I’ve wanted badly in years is the one I can’t have. Great. Just great.
CHAPTER 9
* * *
Presley
“I still cannot believe how much we got done this week.” After returning from the bathroom, I looked around the inn in amazement.
Apparently a visit from Harper was just what I needed. Over the last four days, not only had we painted six of the fourteen bedrooms, we’d also painted the living room, ordered new window treatments, and had all of the rotted pipes on the second floor replaced by a reasonably priced plumber whose name I’d gotten from Jeremy.
Harper had also offered to help with publicity for the grand reopening, and somehow talked both the local paper and local news station into agreeing to cover the huge event she told them I’d be throwing to celebrate next month. It had been a whirlwind few days, and I was exhausted, but also sad that she was flying back home tomorrow.
Earlier we’d gone to dinner at one of the local restaurants, and now we were sitting around drinking spiked lemonade. Mine was going right to my head. I’d dug out some old photo albums to show Harper what the inn had looked like back in the day, and she sat flipping through the pages.
“Wow, Tanner was super hot in college.”
I peeked over her shoulder at the photo she was checking out. “Ummm…that’s not Tanner. That’s Levi. I think you’re looking at one of the scrapbooks his grandfather made. He made books of both his grandsons. But Levi has a few more since his career didn’t end as soon as his brother’s.”
She flipped a few more pages and stopped on a shirtless picture of Levi taken in front of the inn. He was all dirty and had on work gloves, leaning one elbow on a shovel. His bare chest glistened in the sun.
Harper lifted the book closer. “Damn, I might need to start watching football. He’s something else all sweaty.”
“That picture looks like it was taken in the last few years, probably during spring planting,” I told her. “As far back as I can remember, the brothers would come over to The Palm Inn every year and plant all the flowers out front. They were probably only six and eight years old when that tradition started. I know from talking to Thatcher that Levi was still doing it even last year. He’s a Super Bowl MVP and flew home for a weekend every April to plant his grandfather’s flowers. Obviously, he could have afforded to send a gardener in his place, but he never did. I guess it’s things like that that confuse me about how Levi can sell this place so easily. The Palm Inn meant so much to his grandfather and the entire family.”
Harper flipped another page. “Did Tanner come home every year to help, too?”
I shook my head. “He stopped doing it in college.”
On the next page was a newspaper advertisement. Levi had done an underwear modeling campaign for Adidas. Harper pointed to the very noticeable bulge in his gray boxer briefs. “They stuff these sometimes, you know.”
“I’ve seen the man up close and personal in his underwear. There’s no stuffing going on there.”
“Wow.” Harper picked up her lemonade and gulped back the rest. “Is it getting warm in here?”
I sighed. “Tell me about it.”
Harper flipped a few more pages before shutting the book. “I think we need a plan B.”
“For the inn?”
“No, for the innkeeper. Screw forgetting about Levi. I think you should fuck him out of your system.”
I laughed. “I think you’ve had too many spiked lemonades.”
“Oh, I definitely have. But hear me out.” She shifted in her seat, pulling one knee up on the couch to face me. “Why does Tanner or anyone have to know? You and Levi are both adults. Clearly you want to boink him, and from everything you’ve told me, it sounds like the feeling is mutual. He’s only here for a little while longer, so it’s not like things could get too serious. Why not screw him so you can move on?”
“We’re going to need refills for this conversation. Hang on a minute.” I got up and went to the kitchen to get the pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator.
“Hey!” Harper yelled from the living room. “Grab your notebook with your to-do list while you’re in there!”
“Okay.”
I emptied the remainder of the pitcher into our glasses and set the notebook down on the table.
“I think I was too shortsighted earlier in the week,” Harper said.
I chuckled. “I think your vision miraculously improved when you got a look at what’s in Levi’s pants.”
She pointed at me. “Maybe, but humor me for a minute anyway. You’re lusting over this man, right?”
Considering I’d dreamed about Levi hovering over me again last night, I didn’t bother to deny the truth. “I’m definitely attracted to him, yes.�
�
“And if you continue to keep your distance, is that going to change?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
She leaned forward and opened a random page on the scrapbook she’d been thumbing through. Of course, she just happened to open to the underwear ad again. Tapping the page with her nail, she said, “The answer to that question is a big, fat no. That is not going to change. How could it? We’re attracted to who we’re attracted to. So if it’s not going to change, why suffer through the next month or however long he’s here? Fuck him out of your system. Have a no-strings-attached fling—one no one has to know about.”
I chewed on my nail. “I don’t know. That sounds easy, but the reality would be different.”
“Why? Because it will be tough when he leaves and it’s over?”
I shrugged. “That’s one reason.”
“You’re already into this guy. Isn’t it going to be tough when he leaves after you spend another month secretly going to bed with your hand down your panties thinking about him anyway?”
She’d nailed that. “I guess.”
“So why not enjoy that time? It’s going to suck when he leaves either way.”
“What if we get caught?”
“By who? Fern? Pretty sure she’d high five you both and keep her mouth shut. The only other person in this big, old place is Alex. That’s easily solved with a lock on the door and your face pressed into a pillow to muffle the screaming from multiple orgasms.”
“I don’t know…” God, I must’ve been drunker than I thought because Harper was starting to make sense. Or maybe it was the thought of multiple orgasms. It had been a while…
She picked up the notebook that contained my to-do list from the table and opened to a fresh page. Clicking the pen open, she scribbled across the top.
To do with Levi
I chuckled. “Are we making a dirty to-do list?”
Harper wiggled her eyebrows. “We certainly are.” She put the pen to the paper. “Tell me one thing you fantasize about doing with him.”
Yep, I was definitely drunk, because sober me wouldn’t have participated in this. Though, even in this state, I felt my cheeks blush. “Well, every day he goes out back and does pull-ups in that big oak tree. Sometimes I imagine he’s naked while doing them, and then I walk out naked, too. I wrap myself around him like a koala and he’s a tree, and he keeps doing the pull-ups. Hoisting us both up and down.”
Harper smirked. “Nice start.” She then jotted down koala pull-ups. “What else you got?”
“Well, I also have this running fantasy that I’m watching him do the pull-ups from my bedroom window with binoculars, and then I lie down on the bed and…you know…go to town on myself. And when I’m just about to orgasm, I look up at the window and see Levi with the binoculars. He’s watching me masturbate from outside.”
“Oooh… I like that one.” Harper wrote down voyeur masturbation.
For the next half hour, we polished off our spiked lemonades, laughed a lot, and added more than a dozen sexual to-do tasks to my list. It was the most fun I’d had in ages. But Harper had to fly home in the morning, and I didn’t want her to have a raging hangover. So rather than make another pitcher of spiked lemonade, I grabbed her a water bottle and some Motrin and told her to drink up before going to bed.
But as I walked around and shut off the lights, another fantasy hit me. “That peach cobbler we had for dessert at the restaurant was orgasmic, wasn’t it?”
“It sure was.”
I pointed to the notepad. “Sit on Levi’s face while eating that pie.”
Harper had been drinking water and spit it out all over the place. “Oh my God. That is most definitely going on the list!” She picked up the pen and spoke while jotting something down. “Double orgasmic peach cobbler.”
We started to crack up, but a knock interrupted our laughter. At least it interrupted mine. I looked up to find Levi standing in the doorway to the living room.
My eyes widened. “Levi… What are you doing here?”
His brows lifted. “I own half the place.”
“No, I meant I didn’t know you were back.”
He looked between Harper and me and seemed to smirk. “Oh, I’m back.”
My palms started to sweat. “I didn’t hear you come in. How long have you been…standing there?”
Levi tilted his head, and his smirk elevated to a cocky smile. “Not too long.”
Oh my God. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. What if he heard? I suddenly felt pretty damn sober. “Umm…well, this is my friend Harper. She’s leaving early tomorrow, so we were just going to bed.”
He nodded. “Nice to meet you, Harper.”
Harper stood and hiccupped. She covered her grinning mouth. “Nice to meet you, too. Your family’s inn is beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Her eyes shifted to me. “Although there’s a lot to do around here. Presley and I made a list. You might want to take a look at it and get going on some of the new to-do tasks we added.”
My eyes nearly bulged out of my head, and I lunged for the notebook on the table.
Levi squinted at me. “Everything okay, Presley? You seem stressed.”
“I’m fine!”
He nodded slowly. “Right.”
“Alright….” I grabbed Harper’s arm and tugged. “We’re going to bed. Welcome home.”
Levi never moved from the living room doorway as he watched me drag my friend out of the room.
Harper waved over her shoulder. “’Night, Levi. Enjoy your to-do list!”
Somehow I managed to get Harper to her room without her yelling anything too obscene. But for the next half hour, I lay in my bed with my heart pounding. What if he’d heard us? What if he’d been standing there listening the entire time? Oh my God. I covered my face with my hands. The things I said I wanted to do to him. My head began to ache, and tomorrow’s hangover hadn’t even started yet.
After another twenty minutes of lying there freaking out in the dark, my mouth was so parched that I needed a bottle of water. But there was no way I wanted to run into Levi again. So I cracked open my bedroom door and listened for any sounds of someone moving out in the common area. Finding it quiet, I snuck down the hall and peered around the corner to see if any lights were still on. They weren’t, so I breathed a sigh of relief and went to the kitchen for a drink.
I guzzled half a bottle of water before turning to slink back to my bedroom. But I froze at the sight of Levi standing in the kitchen doorway. My hand flew up to cover my racing heart. “Oh my God. You scared me.”
“Sorry. I was just going to head out to grab a bite to eat.”
“Oh…there are leftovers from lunch in the fridge, if you want. I made chicken pot pies this morning.”
Levi held my eyes for a moment. “Thanks, but I think I’m going to go out.” He walked over and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “I have a real hankering for peach cobbler.”
Oh.
My.
God.
My jaw dropped to the ground. I had no idea what to do or say.
Levi winked as he walked to the door. “Get some sleep. I wouldn’t want you to be too tired to work on that to-do list.”
***
Late the following afternoon, I took advantage of the fact that Alex was at a friend’s house and decided to sit out on the porch to enjoy the cool breeze.
Harper had gone back to New York this morning, and I’d been anxious all day, wondering when I might run into Levi and have to address what he’d walked in on and clearly overheard yesterday.
I’d brought one of my books to read, but soon after I opened it, Levi came out of nowhere holding a beer. He looked so amazingly good in his ripped jeans and a plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows, showcasing the prominent veins of his strong forearms.
My heart sped up as he sat down next to me.
Levi settled into an Adirondack chair. “Your friend went back?”
“Glad she had a chance to come visit.”
We sat in awkward silence for a bit. He took a long sip of his beer, and I didn’t know if it was my imagination, but his tongue lingered in the opening of the bottle before he slowly pulled it out. It almost looked like…yeah. Is he messing with me?
He turned to me and smiled. Suddenly burning up, I quickly looked away.
Then Levi reached out and handed me his beer. I took a long sip—a really long sip. Maybe he sensed that I was going to need alcohol for the conversation that might ensue over the next couple of minutes. But it unnerved me to have my mouth on the same spot where I was pretty sure he’d been simulating oral sex just a few seconds ago. At the same time, I could’ve been so on edge that I’d misinterpreted that.
The next thing he said freaked me out for a moment.
“It’s really hot…”
“Hmm?”
“In the house today,” he clarified.
I realized he was referring to the AC—which was indeed broken. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet since I’d only discovered it after I got back from taking Harper to the airport.
“Yeah. The AC is broken again.” I handed him back the beer and rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should sell this place.” My shoulders sank in defeat.
Levi gave me a surprisingly empathetic look. “Let’s not have this discussion now, okay? I’ll get someone in to fix the AC tomorrow. I know a guy.” He sighed and took another sip of his beer.
If we weren’t going to be arguing about The Palm Inn, there was only one thing left to talk about. I needed to get what I wanted to say over with.
I cleared my throat. “About what you overheard…”
“Yeah.” He smirked. “That was completely crazy.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“I mean, peach cobbler? Chocolate cake would be way more appropriate for that scenario, don’t you think?”
The fact that he made light of it gave me momentary relief.