by M. Leighton
That was a turning point for me. That was the day I took all those lemons life had thrown my way and turned them into lemonade.
“Turns out it was the best thing I could’ve done. She had to help me with the colors at first. I didn’t know braille and I hadn’t learned the textures yet, so she described them to me. We kept them in a narrow dish in alphabetical order so I could get to what I needed. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked. I was just so…desperate. Or whatever the word is for ten levels past desperate. I just knew I had to do something. I had to get it out. So I did. And it changed my life. I still don’t know what that first painting looks like to anyone else. I only know what it looked like to me.”
“I’m sure it’s beautiful.”
“I doubt it. It’s probably a psychotic mish-mash of colors. I hadn’t figured out the part about outlining yet. But that would come. The following semester, that next fall, I went back to school and changed my major to painting. One of my professors suggested the quick-drying paint. I’m sure you can imagine what that was like for me. I might as well have found the Holy Grail. But after that… Well, the rest, as they say, is history.”
“God, Evie! I…I can’t even imagine. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Christ, I’m just…I’m just sorry.”
I lean up on my elbow and feel for Levi’s chin, pressing my finger into the indention there before I touch my lips to it. “Don’t be. Everything happens for a reason. I adjusted. I moved on. I had to leave that night in the past. Well, as much as I could anyway. No sense dwelling on something I can’t change. I have to live my life in the now. That driver stole enough from me. I can’t let him take any more.”
“You’re probably the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
I reply with a laugh, “Your dad is a senator. I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration.”
“You don’t know him.” Levi’s voice falls flat, old anger evident in the tone.
“What happened with you two?” I ask tentatively.
Levi’s big, warm palm cups my cheek, and he scrubs his thumb over my cheekbone. “Unforgiveable things, but nothing that I want to ruin tonight by talking about.”
“It’s hard. Forgiveness.”
“Yeah, it is. Have you been able to do it? Forgive the ones who did this to you?”
I take a moment to think about it, about where I am in my life and where I’d be if I hadn’t been able to move on from that night. When I answer Levi, I’m certain of my words. “Yeah. I have. I’ve had to. Otherwise it would’ve crushed me completely. Taken even more from me.”
He says nothing for several long seconds. “That’s impressive.”
“You could, too, you know. It’s just a matter of letting it go.”
“‘Just’,” he huffs wryly. “If only it were that easy.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, like it’s a piece of cake. It’s definitely not easy. But what it is is simple.”
“Maybe. But there are some things I can’t let go.”
“Maybe if you try—”
He interrupts me.
“You know, there are several other things I’d much rather tend to tonight. If you’re game, that is.” I hear the mischief in his voice as he leans up and presses me down onto my back.
“Oh yeah? Like what ‘other’ things?”
Before he can answer, he takes my lips in a kiss that’s meant to incite, to inflame, to incinerate. He doesn’t need words to tell me what he’s thinking. He does just fine without them.
When we come up for air, I decide it’s time to turn the tables, to give him a little dose of his own mind-bending, body-quaking medicine.
I move my palms up to his chest and push until Levi pulls away. When he does, I wiggle out from under him, urge him onto his back and straddle his narrow hips.
“I’ve been cheated tonight,” I inform him, moving my lower body over his and feeling powerful when he comes to life beneath me.
“Cheated? And how’s that?” He grips my thighs and holds me still to circle his hips under mine. I catch my breath, quickly realizing that if I don’t hurry, he’ll have me so mindless with need for him, I won’t ever get to feel all the incredible details of this amazing man.
“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to feel you, to feel what this body is like, to give it life in my head so I can see it.”
“Oh, I think I have some idea,” he admits wryly.
I smile and I imagine that he is, too. Probably with one side of his mouth.
I start at Levi’s throat, one hand on either side, letting my fingertips trail down the column, over his straight collarbones to his chest. “I love this chest,” I whisper, moving over his rounded pecs, teasing the small, flat nipples there. “One arm and this chest were the first things I felt about you. The night you caught me, I knew it would feel like this. I knew it would feel just like this.”
I memorize every rope of muscle, every stretch of sinew in the broad expanse, touching with lips, palms, fingers, even my cheek as I make my way down the stair steps of his flat abdomen.
“God, I wish I could see,” I mutter, picturing his strong arms, broad chest, ripped stomach, and trim waist perched in god-like fashion above his narrow hips.
I feel the muscles in Levi’s stomach clench as I draw nearer to the juncture of his thighs. My own belly twists into a knot of want when I stop at the thick pillar of his erection. He’s already hard. For me.
I wind my fingers around it, even though they can’t meet on the other side. I hear his hiss of approval when I grip him firmly and stroke slowly downward. With my other hand, I cup his heavy balls, feeling them tighten in my palm.
I work my way back up his shaft, and a tiny groan escapes me when my thumb touches the bead of moisture on the tip of him. I lean forward to swirl my tongue over it, lapping up the single droplet.
“Jesus, Evie. Hurry up and get your feel or this is going to be a lot quicker and rougher than you think.”
I grin, giving the head a quick little suck before I journey down his muscular thighs and then start back up again. “Tell me, do you have any tattoos?”
“I do,” he says gruffly, his body rigid with control as I touch and scrape and lick my way back up.
“Tell me about them.”
“Evie?”
“Levi?” I nip one of his nipples with my teeth, moving my belly back and forth over his hardness.
“No offense, but if I don’t get inside you in the next few seconds, you’re gonna be missing a limb when I blow it off.”
I laugh, a light, heady release that comes from the bottom of my heart. A heart that has felt bruised and battered for so long now. It dies on my lips, however, when Levi lifts his head and takes a nipple into his mouth.
He gives it a hard suck, much like I did him, as he reaches for the heat between my legs. “Was that a laugh?” he asks, kissing his way to the other side, his fingers toying with me in a way that makes my hips rock against his hand.
“N-no.”
“No? Then what was it?” he asks, rolling me over to lick and nibble his way down my stomach.
“I…I didn’t…I don’t…” I can’t think straight when his tongue finds my center. I reach behind me and curl my fingers into the sheet, twisting when he teases me with the hard point of his tongue. “Levi, please.”
I feel his own husky laugh as a vibration that ripples its way through me. “That’s a little more like it,” he murmurs in satisfaction. “Let’s see how many more times I can make you scream my name.”
It didn’t take long for him to get to number two.
I stopped counting after five.
CHAPTER 18
LEVI
IF I didn’t have real business to tend to, nothing would’ve been able to drag me out of bed and away from Evie this morning. Just thinking about the way I left her after she said goodbye—with the most talented lips I’ve had the pleasure of meeting—is enough to keep me smiling all the way to Canal Street. In fact, if I think t
oo much about turning her onto her belly and pressing her cheek into the mattress, about pulling that sweet little ass up off the bed and sinking balls deep into that wet body, my zipper starts feeling a helluva lot too tight. Not a good shape to be in when you’re working with the hardened people in the shipping business.
No pun intended.
I grin to myself, whistling as I make my way to the office of the Port Authority. I’m nearing the door when my phone rings. Without giving it much thought, I dig it out of my pocket, slide my thumb across the screen, and answer.
“Michaelson.”
“So you’ve taken her to New Orleans.”
Julianne.
I can hear the venom in her voice. For the last few years, when I’ve had to come to NOLA, I’ve either picked her up or we’ve met here. I wouldn’t have called it “our place,” but I can tell by her tone that she obviously did.
“I didn’t realize that was against the law.”
“You know, I didn’t take you for a fool, Levi, but apparently I misjudged you.”
I breathe out through my nose, irritated at the intrusion on my happy, sexy thoughts. “What do you want, Julianne? I’m busy.”
“Oh, I have no doubt you are, but I thought you’d want to make time for this.” She pauses for effect, and I grit my teeth, trying to remain patient. “I know what you did, Levi. I know allll about it. And if you don’t break it off with Little Miss Innocent, she’ll know all about it, too.”
I stop walking, looking left and right to make sure no one can hear me, and I speak very carefully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? That’s how you’re going to play this? Have you forgotten that our fathers are good friends? Men talk. Especially powerful men when they need to cover things up.”
Surprise and guilt and red-hot fury mix in my blood, a dangerous cocktail. “Whatever you think you know you’ll keep to yourself if you’re smart. Evie has done nothing to you. Stay the hell away from her.”
“I will if you will.”
“Julianne, I’m warning you.” My free hand clenches and unclenches, clenches and unclenches. If this woman were close, I’d be tempted to lay hands on her.
And not in a good way.
“No, I’m warning you.”
“I knew you were a catty bitch, but I had no idea you were jealous and pathetic, too.”
It seems counterintuitive to antagonize her when she really might have something on me, but Julianne’s pride is one of her only weaknesses.
Her pride and me.
“If you think that’s helping your case, you couldn’t be more wrong.” Her voice is low, quiet, and I know her well enough to know that her temper is pricked. I didn’t want temper, though. I wanted pride, so she’d back down to save face. But she’s obviously past that point.
“Why are you doing this?” I keep my tone as reasonable as possible, but a sense of foreboding settles over me like a cloud.
“She’s a nice person. Or so it would seem. Too nice for you. You’re better suited to someone like me. You know it as well as I do. We were meant to be together. A match made in rich, powerful, beautiful heaven.”
“I’m gonna humor you for a second and ask you this: Why would you want a man who doesn’t want you? Are there so few options left for you that you’d resort to extortion to keep someone?”
“You know as well as I do that you want me. You’ll always want me. You can be yourself with me. You can tell me all your secrets, show me your nasty side, get as rough as you want, and I’ll never leave you. We fit. In the bedroom and out of it. There is no other man who would make a better match for me. And I’m perfect for you, and you damn well know it. I’ve been patient with your…escapades, but it’s getting old. I’m just telling you it’s time to stop screwing around.”
I thought Julianne knew we had no future. I thought I’d made that crystal clear.
Obviously I was wrong.
It seems she thought she was just waiting out some sort of phase, like I’d eventually come to my senses. Like I’d eventually want more with her.
But that’s not the case.
That has never been the case.
I was just blind for not seeing it sooner.
Cold fingers of unease grip me. Julianne is not an enemy to take lightly. She’s the daughter of a powerful man who has powerful friends. She’s savvy enough and resourceful enough to have parlayed that into a certain kind of influence. Over the years, she’s become a fairly formidable force in the political and business world, at least on the East Coast.
And now she’s threatening to use that influence against me.
If it were just me, I wouldn’t give a shit. I have no doubt I could survive whatever she thinks she could do to me. I’m a self-made man. I built my business from the ground up, and I could do it again if need be. And I may even deserve what she’d dish out.
But Evie doesn’t.
She doesn’t deserve to be in Julianne’s crosshairs, and Evie is the one who stands to hurt the most if these threats are real.
Again, if it were just me, I’d call her bluff. Might even welcome a shit storm to clear the air.
But it’s not just me.
This is about Evie and destroying her. Because that’s what would happen.
This means I have two choices: stop seeing Evie or tell her everything.
Let her believe a lie or tell her the truth and let her decide our fate.
Leave her for her own good or stay and risk losing her forever.
The problem is, I don’t want to hurt her and I don’t want to lose her, so where does that leave me? When those are my only two choices, what else can I do?
Impossible situation! I think, fisting my fingers so hard my joints creak.
“How do I know you’re not just making this shit up?”
In one smug word, she shows me just enough of her hand to know she’s not bluffing. “Rachel.”
The bottom drops out of my stomach.
She knows.
Now she has my full, undivided attention. She’s giving me two unacceptable options, but I’m going to find a third one. I just need to buy myself a little time in which to do it. And the only way to buy time is to let her think I’m playing ball.
I let my rage seep out into my tone. “You can’t just call me up and make demands. You’re batshit crazy if you think I’d do anything for you after this.” I pause for effect and add in carefully measured words, “But Evie deserves better. This is something I should’ve done already. For her.”
“You’d better make it quick then. Tick-tock, Levi. Tick-tock.”
“I brought her down here and I’ll take her home. I’ll call you when I get back. Then we’ll see.”
“No, we will not ‘see’. And I’m not waiting. She’s a grown woman, not a child. You don’t need to walk her home. She can make arrangements for herself.”
“She’s blind, for godssake. I am not leaving her down here, twisting in the wind. Christ! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Fine,” she offers petulantly. “You have until tonight. It’s only a five-hour trip. Get her home. Break it off. Or I’ll do it for you.”
I pace back and forth over the asphalt, dragging my fingers through my hair, hating her for forcing my hand this way. Hating myself for letting it get to this point.
“And you’re okay with me hating you for the rest of your life?”
She has the audacity to laugh. “You won’t hate me for long. I’ll come to your hotel. Soothe you in all the ways you like. You can even take out some of your aggression on me. I can take it. You know that. And so can my ass. You’ll feel better about it tomorrow, and you’ll wonder why you ever bothered with someone like Evian de Champlain.”
Even as she speaks, spinning a tale that’s utter delusion on her part, I know in my gut that I will never wonder why I bothered with Evie. She’s been the best thing to happen to me in as long as I can remember.
The thought of losing her�
��
My gut winds into a ball. “Look, I’ve got business. I’ll call you—”
She cuts me off, “I’ll be at your hotel in Shreveport at midnight. Be there, Levi. Don’t disappoint me. You won’t like what happens if you do.”
Before I can argue or put her off, the line goes dead.
I let out a string of blistering curses and swing my arm, tempted to throw my phone as far as I can, like I used to throw baseballs in college.
Julianne has tried to manipulate me before, but it’s never worked. And it’s never been over something as serious as this. It’s usually because she wants something from me and she tries to get it any way she can.
She’s tried to use my father, her father, and once even a pregnancy scare to coerce me into taking our relationship to the next level. I always made it clear it wasn’t happening. I really thought it was just part of her game, that she knew there was no future for us.
Clearly, I was wrong.
Up to now, she’s always been pretty harmless. She never let things get out of hand before, I guess out of fear that she’d piss me off and lose me forever. But this time…this time she’s gone too far. She will never get away with this.
I won’t let her.
After a few more minutes of pacing, along with imagining several different ways in which my vengeance might play out, I get my anger under control. I need to see to my business here and then take a drive, take a few minutes to think of the best way forward.
Because Julianne’s put a time limit on her little escapade, I can’t see any way that I won’t end up cutting this trip short. I just can’t risk it. I won’t risk Evie that way. She deserves to be the first person I consider in this.
But when I get back…
Oh Christ! When I get back…
Evie.
I’ll have to tell her.
I owe her that much. And she needs to hear it from me. No one else. That’s the way it has to be.
At that thought, my anger deflates like a balloon with a pinprick in it. In its place, a pocket of discomfort, something I’d almost call fear, begins to swell. When I get back, I’m going to have to tell her. What if she hates me? What if she can’t forgive me? What if she walks away and doesn’t look back?