by J. Saman
He nods. “You took it off before your shower one morning. You were afraid that the water and soap would make the silver tarnish or something.” He smiles like that was a ridiculous reason to take it off, but finds it endearing all the same. “I knew I was going to be leaving you soon, and I grabbed it.” He runs his hands through my hair. “I wanted it with me. Partially because it signified us being together forever, and I thought that if I had it then it would somehow lead me back to you,” he smirks, touching my jaw tenderly. “I was also afraid you’d rip it off your neck and throw it out the car window or something once you realized I’d left.” I laugh because that sounds like me.
“So you gave it back to me?” I ask, suddenly realizing that I’m standing here in my bra. My very see-through lace bra.
“So I gave it back to you,” he echoes. Fingers thread themselves into my hair, ripping the elastic holding my hair in a ponytail out with a slight zing of pain. My damp hair tumbles down my back as he grips it, holding me tightly to his body. He’s walking forward, pushing me back until I reach the edge of his bed where I sit down, looking up at him. Heated eyes rake themselves over my covered breasts before they make their way back up to mine.
“We should talk,” I whisper, betraying my lack of conviction.
We really do need to.
We shouldn’t be doing this.
“We will. We’ll talk a lot, but not right now.” His shirt hits the floor and before I can formulate a coherent objection, his mouth is on my neck, kissing a trail down to my breasts. He cups them firmly, before squeezing me, making us both groan. “Jesus baby, I forgot how fucking amazing your tits are.” Reaching around my back, he removes my bra with incredible one-handed dexterity. His mouth is on me before the bra hits the floor, making me arch my back. He sucks my nipple like he’s starving for it, while his other hand continues to grope.
I need to stop this.
“Levi,” I moan out, and then I freeze because this is too much. I’m not a prude, I’ve had my share of lovers in the past, but this is different. Levi is different, and I don’t want this to happen before I even know what’s going on with us.
We need to take this slower, dammit.
I’m afraid if I close my eyes again he’ll be gone. I’ll be left alone. I realize I’m probably being foolish. He’s told me over and over again that he loves me. That he wants me forever, but suddenly I’m needing reassurance.
Sensing the shift in me, he pulls his head up, crawling up my body and pushing us farther onto his bed until we’re lying in the middle of it. He pulls back a corner of his comforter, covering my chest with the blanket and then wraps his arms around me. “What is it?” His face is looming over mine, searching for answers.
I shake my head, not entirely sure.
What am I asking him for?
Do I want to just jump into another relationship full steam ahead?
Is there even a lesser possibility with us?
“Okay, I’ll start then,” he says, shifting so he’s lying next to me, playing with a strand of my hair. “You already know I love you,” he says this so matter-of-factly that I frown, making him chuckle. “Baby, what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m already yours. I’ve never stopped being yours. So tell me, what are you looking for from me? From us?”
I shake my head again, feeling sort of foolish. “I don’t know how to answer that.”
“Hmm.” He brushes his index finger over his lower lip. Back and forth. Back and forth. It’s distracting. “Do you want to move in with me and Tanya?” That was not what I was expecting. He went from asking me on a date to asking me to move in with him?
How on earth can I do that?
I’m not normally one to be concerned with what others think of me, but all I can think is: slut. She goes from one man’s bed to another. From moving to London with Tom, to living with Levi in a matter of weeks. If that doesn’t scream slut, then I don’t know what does.
Only, that’s a stupid thing to think, right?
Maybe that’s my way of saying that I’m not ready for that yet.
“I can’t move in with you, Levi. Not right now anyway. I’m not nearly ready for that.”
“Okay. Then what are you ready for?”
“Christ, I’m so stupid right now. I feel like I have no brain function left.”
He chuckles before leaning down and kissing my lips softly. “All right, here’s how it’s going to go.” He’s all business now as his eyes rake over my face. “You’re mine and I’m yours. No one is leaving the other, no one is moving away, and we’re together.” I give him a look, but he continues, ignoring it completely. “We’ll take it slow. Date. Hang out a lot.” Now I’m smiling. “Go out to eat, to movies, or knowing you, museums.” I laugh at that because I used to drag him to the Museum of Fine Art in Boston all the time. He was a good sport about it, but museums are not his favorite. At. All. “I’ll earn your trust and you’ll earn mine, and eventually we’ll live happily ever after with cute little Levis running around.”
“Cute little Levis huh?” I cock a brow at him. Why doesn’t this freak me out the way it had when Tom talked about starting a family?
“What? You want princess Laras too?”
I smile and nod.
“You got it. We’ll have a litter of little Katz babies one day, but right now, Lara, it’s just you and me. It’s just us and we’ll figure out the rest as we go along.”
I smile at him. Like huge, because I think that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. “I like that.”
“Me too.”
“But I feel weird. I just broke up with Tom two weeks ago.”
“No, you didn’t. You two haven’t been together for weeks.” I start to protest, but he cuts me off. “Amara told me that you hadn’t talked in the weeks before you officially ended it, so as far as we’re concerned, it’s been long over.”
“Traitorous bitch,” I growl, making him snicker. “Why does she tell you everything?” I shake my head, resolved to have a little chat with my BFF. Do I have an argument for what he’s saying? No, because that’s sort of how I feel about it too. “Whatever,” I grumble under my breath.
“Good, now as I recall I was sucking on your nipple.”
A gust of a laugh breaks out of my mouth. “You were,” I nod.
“Would you like me to continue with that?”
“Um.” I pretend to think about this. “I think I’d like your pants off first,” I smile, rolling out of the blankets, pushing him onto his back and straddling his hips.
“Damn, baby.” He shakes his head, looking at me in wonder. “Have I told you how sexy you look sitting on me like that?” His hands slide up to cup my breasts again. I make quick work of his pants and zipper before he slides them down, kicking them off to the floor. “Your turn,” he says, grabbing my hips and tossing me onto the bed with a yelp.
So much for going slow. That lasted all of thirty seconds.
We’re naked, rolling around on his bed in the most delicious of ways.
I keep telling myself I should feel all sorts of wrong about doing this.
But I don’t.
This is Levi. This is us, and nothing has ever felt so right before in my life.
His fingers have been teasing and taunting me. Playing with my nipples, my clit, the sensitive skin of my inner thighs and stomach. He’s driving me insane. Finally, when he senses I’m about to beat the shit out of him or finish the job myself, his tongue moves in on just the right spot, making me cry out his name on a long, lingering moan.
Kissing a trail up my stomach, in between my breasts, his mouth finds purchase on my neck as the last of the aftershocks of my orgasm finish. “Lara, I need to be inside you baby,” he pants, looking up at me sheepishly, “but I don’t have any condoms here.”
This makes me chuckle, earning an annoyed scowl from him.
“I’ve never brought someone home before. It never felt right to do that with Tanya here, ya know?” I nod, bringing his lips
down to mine to kiss him. I don’t think I’ve ever met a twenty-six-year-old who cares more for his little sister than this man.
“I’m on the pill still, and I’m clean. What about you?” I ask, smiling against his lips because he’s so damn cute I can’t stand it.
“I’m not on the pill, but I’m definitely clean,” he says with a smirk.
“Then why aren’t you fucking me yet?”
“I forgot how demanding you can be when it comes to my cock.”
“I forgot how annoyingly patient you can be when it comes to giving me your cock.”
He groans. “God I love it when you talk to me like that.” He slams his mouth back onto mine as he slowly enters me, coaxing a loud moan from my lips.
I realize in this moment that there is nothing like being with Levi. That no matter how long we’ve been apart, and all of the bullshit in between, he’s my one.
It’s always been him
We spend most of the day alternating between making love and napping, and by the time we’re able to pull ourselves out of bed and shower, Tanya is getting home. We have dinner together, the three of us.
Like a family.
And for the first time in seven years, I feel whole.
Epilogue
Levi
January 10th, two years later
I’m late. I hate being late. I know this about myself, but there is dick all I can do to change that. It’s snowing like a son of a bitch outside and the train was running slow.
Today is not our anniversary, but it is the day that I left her nine years ago and then came back into her life seven years later. So, being the sick bastard that I am, today is the perfect day for this. I jog up the slippery steps of our brownstone, trying not to bust my ass on the freshly fallen snow that’s covering the hidden ice beneath it.
We bought this house last year after I finally convinced Lara to move in with me. Amara moved in with Grayson, therefore Lara ran out of excuses. She sold her apartment, I sold mine, and now the three of us—Lara, Tanya and I—are living in a pre-war brownstone on the upper west side. We’ve got four bedrooms, three full bathrooms and more room than we probably need.
I don’t care though. I love this place.
It’s home.
I unlock the front door, pushing it open only to be greeted by total darkness. Shit. This is not how this was supposed to go. “Lara? You here baby?” I call out.
No answer.
Fuck.
Tanya is at her friend’s house until nine, and if Lara is not here waiting on me then everything is going to be ruined. I pull my phone out of my coat pocket, before I hang it up, leaving my boots by the front door, just to piss Lara off.
She says only children do that. She’s probably right, but I’m just going to be putting them back on, so why bother putting them away?
Eight-thirty. I’m only a half an hour late. She wouldn’t have gone out without texting. I walk through the foyer down the hallway, bypassing the empty living room and office. Pushing through the door to the kitchen, I stop mid-stride when I see the best thing in the world—Lara dancing around the kitchen with her headphones on as she stirs something that smells amazing on the stove.
My girl is the worst dancer on the planet.
It only makes me love her more.
She insisted we redo this kitchen when we bought the place, and since she likes to cook, I couldn’t argue with her. We knocked down three freaking walls to do it, but it looks amazing now, so well worth the hassle in the end.
I’m smiling like a stupid bastard in love.
I can’t help it.
This girl just does it for me.
She spins around in one of her horrible dance moves and lets out a shriek when she sees me standing there. Ripping her earbuds out with one hand and grabbing her chest with the other, she looks pissed. “You scared the crap out of me, and you’re late.”
I smile. I’m a glutton for punishment.
“You asked me to make you dinner tonight, and you’re a half an hour late,” she says, annoyed by my smile.
“Sorry, I got stuck at work and it’s snowing like hell out there, so it took me forever to get home.”
“Whatever,” she grumbles turning back to the stove.
She can never stay mad at me for long.
I walk over to her with purpose in my steps. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I pull her away from the stove and over to the already set kitchen table. I pull out a chair and push her down into it, covering her lips with my fingers when she opens her mouth—most likely yell at me.
I get on my knees in front of her, pulling the box out of my pocket and setting it into her hand that I flip palm side up. She gasps, but it’s not what she thinks it is. “Open it,” I tell her softly, watching her eyes that are now filled with apprehension and maybe happy curiosity.
She pulls the top off the white box, looks at the contents for a beat and then raises her head until our eyes meet. “It’s two keys?” she says this like a question.
“They are, but not just any keys.”
“Levi, we already live together, so what gives?”
Damn she hates surprises.
“This is the key to the safe deposit box that I inherited.” I point to the smaller of the two silver keys in the box. Her eyes widen as her mouth forms the most adorable O shape. “I’m giving it to you now.”
“But…why? I don’t even know what’s in this box. In fact, I forgot all about it.”
“I figured you did.” She shakes her head, not understanding. “The box contained a lot of things when I found it in California. I transferred all of the contents of it to New York when I moved here after getting Tanya back. Originally it had a shit ton of cash, stocks in mine and Tanya’s names, as well as some other things.”
“Jesus. Your grandfather left you all that?” I nod. “So why the fuck are you giving it to me?”
I smile. “Well, let me amend that. It’s for us really, but I wanted you to hold onto the key and know about it.”
“Okay,” she says wearily, making me smile. She’s about to ask me about the other key, but I can’t let her do that just yet. It will fuck up my plans, so I pull out the other box, removing the first from her hand and setting it on the table.
“Oh, and I’d like you to hold on to this too. It was in the safe deposit box with others like it, but I don’t want this one to stay in there anymore.” I hand her another box, making her eyebrows furrow.
“Do you want me to open this one or just put it somewhere with the key?” She’s so damn perfect I can’t stand it.
“I want you to open it.” She lifts back the top of the black box and gasps. Her eyes fill with tears as I reach in and remove the flawless, carat and a half, emerald cut diamond. “I picked this one because it was the smallest in the box, and I know you’d never wear something that was too big or flashy,” I explain. Her eyes widen when I say this, but I feel the need to continue, so I ignore the question in them. “I had it set to fit you, but if you’d rather we change the setting, we can.”
“Um.” Speechless. Perfect.
I slide the ring onto her finger, and once it’s where it’s meant to be, I cup her cheek, drawing her eyes up to mine. “Lara, I knew the moment I met you that you were everything I ever wanted. That you’d be the only one I’d ever want. Forever. You’re my home. The love of my life. My perfect soul mate. Will you marry me, baby?”
Tears stream down her face as she stares into my eyes. My heart is racing and her silence is starting to make me panic. I thought we were in the same place. Maybe I rushed—
“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you,” she laughs, throwing her arms around my neck and kissing the ever-loving shit out of me.
“I thought we could do it at our home in St. Bart’s,” I say into her neck, making her freeze before pulling back and looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Uh, Levi. I don’t know if you’ve been sipping from the crazy well again, but we don’t have a house in St
. Bart’s. Though I would be open to eloping on an island instead of a big wedding.”
“Chicky, you’ve already forgotten about the second key.” I pull the larger of the two silver keys out of the first box. “This key goes to the house in St. Bart’s.”
“Just who the fuck was this grandfather of yours, and why on earth did he leave you cash, diamonds, stocks and a fucking house in the Caribbean?” She’s getting a bit hysterical and I’m only going to make that worse in a second.
“You’ll find out when you meet him. The plane leaves in four hours.”
The End
End of Book Note
Hi, all of you wonderful people, thank you for reading my book!
I hope you enjoyed reading about Lara and Levi. When I first wrote this book, I really enjoyed writing Lara. She was fun and witty, and had a really good heart despite her confusion with life. Levi and I had a lot of issues, and at more than one point in the story, I found myself actually rooting for Tom to keep Lara. Not an easy thing when you’re the author and have the story all plotted out, but still made for some good drama.
You can contact me at [email protected] or Twitter or Facebook or Goodreads. You can SUBSCIBE to my mailing list and get updates, sales, promotions, giveaways and new release info. It’s also check available on my website for updates. http://jsamanbooks.com
Other books by me:
Start Again (Start Again Series #1)
Start Over (Start Again Series #2)
Love Rewritten – Pre-order for $0.99 (Release date 6/12/17)
Love you all!!!!
Oh yeah, please leave a review. I’m an indie and need all the help I can get.
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