“And I wanted the same. I also wanted it to be on the top floor of a building so I could have a view. And I wanted it white because that was clean.”
Oh, yeah, she remembered that conversation. The day she’d found out that he too was looking after someone. Except his father didn’t have dementia; his father was just a drunk. She’d knocked on Levi’s door needing something or other, she couldn’t remember what, and he hadn’t answered. But the door had been unlocked, and so she’d just walked in because he’d told her that she could. And she’d found him in a nasty, dingy bedroom, cleaning up vomit from the floor beside the bed, an older man fast asleep and snoring in the bed.
Levi hadn’t been embarrassed about it, only matter-of-fact, but she’d seen the distress in his eyes, so she’d started telling him about her ideal apartment. They’d ended up having a big discussion about what each of them really wanted in a place to live and what made a home, a home.
White because he’d wanted it to be clean. Of course he did....
Struggling both with the memory and with what he was saying now, she shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, I get that, but—”
“So I bought it for us, Rachel. This apartment, this building is mine. I had it cleaned up while I was inside, and I have some other plans for it. But this apartment right here”—he gestured around the room—“this is ours.”
Shock was moving through her, making it difficult to think. “How did you . . . buy this building?”
“The same way I bought yours. With money I invested. Dad had an old life insurance policy that ended up paying out big when he died, and I had some money saved from working at Gideon’s.”
She took a breath, trying to get it all sorted out in her head. “Okay, but this isn’t ours. I mean, like I said. I live in—”
“I want you to move in with me.”
The words hung in the air, echoing in the empty space around them.
Rachel stared at him, conscious of how the shock was now spreading out inside her, freezing her in place. “Move in with you?” she repeated stupidly.
“Yeah. You can pack up your stuff, and I’ll help you bring it here. Of course, there are a few things we’re going to need, like furniture. A bed definitely.”
She blinked as what he was saying finally pierced the shock clouding her head. “You’re seriously asking me to live with you?”
Something glinted in his gaze. “I’m not asking.”
Instantly she was bristling; she couldn’t help it. “Jesus, Levi. I’m not—”
“I told you I wanted you in every way there was, and this is one of those ways.” He said the words as if there were no room for argument, as if it was already a done deal and she’d already agreed. “And you’re going to do it.”
The shock was beginning to recede now, anger pushing it back. She had to take a breath to keep the anger under control, because seriously, was he insane? Was he really just expecting her to drop everything and move in with him, just because it was what he wanted?
“I thought you meant sex,” she said flatly. “You didn’t say anything about moving in with you.”
He stared at her. “I never said I only wanted sex, Rachel.”
He didn’t. You assumed.
Fuck.
“No.” It was the only word she could think of to say. “I’m not moving in with you, Levi. I’m just not.”
He didn’t reply immediately, studying her. Then he dropped his arm from the window frame, stepped away from the window, and began to come toward her.
Rachel stilled. No, she would not be intimated. No, she would not be afraid of him. And as for that unexpected thrill of excitement, well . . . she was not going to be feeling that either.
The look on his face was cold. “Remember that night?” he asked softly, the edges of his voice icy with menace. “When you went looking for that dealer because you needed the money? Because you were too fucking proud and too fucking stubborn to come to me and ask for help?”
Her mouth dried, her hands curling into fists as she determinedly held her ground. Of course he’d bring that up. Of course.
“Yeah, you remember, don’t you?” he went on, coming closer, implacable. “I saved you, Rachel. I killed a man for you. And because I did, because you were there where you shouldn’t have been, every fucking dream of the future I had was destroyed. So now you’re coming to live with me, and you’re going to help me rebuild that future. Because you owe me. You fucking owe me.” He towered over her, so big and powerful and full of so much fury, a cold, relentless fury like an avalanche.
She didn’t want to back away, didn’t want to give him any ground at all, but his anger . . . She felt battered by it, nearly flattened by the hurricane force of it. And no wonder. He’d had to nurse this anger for so long all by himself, with no outlet.
You do owe him.
God help her. Maybe she did. And yet knowing that didn’t make any difference to her own anger. Or to the small, frightened thing inside her. The one who wanted to hide behind walls and doors, who didn’t want to be found.
Her nails dug into her palms, the slight pain helping her stay her ground and not retreat from him, even though every part of her wanted to. “So, what? I have to pack up my stuff and come live with you, just like that?”
There was no softening in his face, no lightening of the intensity in his eyes. He was a wall of solid, muscular rage, barely held in check. “Yes.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“I don’t give a fuck if you don’t want to.”
“You don’t care about my feelings at all?”
His beautiful, sensual mouth twisted. “No.” The word was blunt and heavy, like a hammer blow. “You lost the right to have your feelings cared about each and every year you didn’t give a shit about mine.”
Okay. That was clear. That was absolutely crystal. “So if I say no, you’re going to drag me kicking and screaming?”
“Yes.” No hesitation at all.
That small, frightened thing in her gut curled up tight. “Jesus, Levi. You sound like a fucking stalker.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw, the flames in his eyes flickering. “You know what’ll happen if I don’t get what I want. You and your business will go out on the street.”
God, he was so hard. As if he were encased in armor far thicker than hers had ever been.
She stared at him, trying to find any hint of softness. Any hint of the friend who’d once meant everything to her, the lightness that used to be part of him. But there was none.
Her friend was gone.
A deep well of sadness suddenly opened up inside her, and she realized, with a kind of despair, that there was a part of her that had been hoping she could fix what she’d done, heal the rift between them, and get back to being friends again.
Yet looking at him now, she knew that wasn’t going to happen. He’d changed so very much and was so very angry. Some wounds went too deep and what she’d done . . . It was fatal.
Nothing was going to make this better. Nothing.
The stone on her chest was crushing, and suddenly she was wildly, furiously angry with him. “Don’t put this all on me! If you hadn’t hit that guy, he wouldn’t have fallen and cracked his head open, and none of this would have happened in the first place!”
The flames in his eyes leapt high, and suddenly he’d closed what little distance there was between them, getting right in her face. “I didn’t mean to kill him! I was trying to save you!” His whole posture was rigid, the force of his anger like a battering ram. “You shouldn’t have even been there that night, so why the fuck were you? Why the fuck didn’t you come to me first?” And she saw it then, behind the fury, that deep wound that had never healed and probably never would. The wound she’d caused. “You should have come to me, Sunny.” His voice cracked terribly. “You should have fucking come to me!”
She felt dazed, as if a bomb had exploded between them and she’d been hit by the shrapnel, cutting her in a thousand
places and all of them bleeding.
All she could do was stand there staring at him, unable to take her gaze away from the raw pain in his eyes, a hurt she’d never dreamed of.
You knew. Deep down, you knew how badly you hurt him. That’s why he’s so very angry with you now.
There was a horrible, crashing silence.
Then abruptly Levi brushed past her and stalked out of the room.
Rachel blinked, her eyes dry and prickling. He was right; she should have gone to him all those years ago, but there had been reasons she hadn’t. Reasons she hadn’t wanted to tell him then and she wanted to tell him even less now.
But you still did this. And now you have to fix it.
But it couldn’t be fixed, could it? So what the hell was she supposed to do?
Without any real idea of what she was going to say to him, she followed Levi back into the hallway and down toward the back of the apartment, coming out into what was obviously a bedroom given the air bed in the middle of the space.
Beyond it was a set of double doors standing open.
Through them was another empty, airy room, with sun pouring through skylights in the roof. Levi was standing facing the wall, and, as she watched, all of a sudden he brought his fist back and slammed it hard into the brick.
She was moving almost before she was conscious of doing so, crossing the bedroom and heading through the double doors, approaching his tall figure.
“You fucking idiot,” she said, barely knowing what the hell was coming out of her mouth. “You really looking to break your goddamn hand?”
He turned sharply, the fury stark in his eyes.
She ignored him, answering an impulse so deeply ingrained it was no longer conscious, reaching for the hand he’d punched the wall with and taking it in her own, looking down at his knuckles. They were skinned and bleeding. “Dammit, Levi. I’m always having to bandage you up.”
His hand was heavy and hot in hers, long, blunt-tipped fingers motionless in her palm. There were letters inked onto the backs of his knuckles, the black outlines shaded with blood. P. A. T. I.
She stared at the letters, at his hand, suddenly realizing what she was doing: looking after him. Because she always had. Because way back then, she hadn’t known how else to repay him for the help he’d given her and her gran. So she’d ended up putting Band-Aids on the cuts and ice on the bruises he often ended up with when his dad was on one of his binges. She couldn’t cook to save her life, but she could boil an egg, and heat mac and cheese, so she did both for him, making sure he had something to eat in between his shift at Gideon’s and his night job stocking shelves at the 7-Eleven. And when she’d had some spare change, she’d bought him that awful candy he liked, Pixy Stix, to cheer him up.
It hadn’t been much, but it had been better than nothing.
Seemed that reflex was still there, a lingering memory of their friendship, the ghost of something that was long gone and yet, like water flowing down an old riverbed, somehow some of it remained.
Some instinct made her look up in that moment. Perhaps to see if he’d noticed her reaction to his wall-punch too and understood what it meant.
But there was only fire in his eyes.
And she knew it wasn’t friendship he was thinking about.
Chapter 7
She was holding his hand. The way she’d used to, when he’d cut it while working at the garage or cleaning up the broken bottles his dad constantly left behind. And the look on her face was the same now as it had been back then, full of the annoyance she laid over the top of everything to cover how deeply she cared. But he’d always been able to see the care and the worry she tried to hide.
He saw a glimmer of it now. And maybe if he hadn’t been so furious, both with her and himself, if he hadn’t slammed his fucking hand into a fucking wall, he might have remembered what he’d intended and stuck to his plan.
But he was and he had, and the fury and the pain was a toxic mix in his gut. One that would explode at the slightest provocation.
And that provocation was the touch of her skin.
It was like a lit match set to bone-dry grass, igniting him. Setting fire to his patience and burning right through his control.
Levi pulled his hand from hers, grabbed her hips, and shoved her hard up against the wall. Burying one hand in the silky black mass of her hair, he jerked her head back and covered her mouth with his.
He could feel her shock in the way she went rigid, but he didn’t care. He was too furious and too hungry, and both of those emotions were far easier to deal with than the pain that seemed to go all the way to his soul.
So he embraced them instead, pushing his tongue deep into the heat of her mouth, unleashing his anger and burying the pain. The taste of her was the sweetest thing he’d ever known, and he wanted more of it. So much more.
He kissed her deeper, harder, feeling the rigidity bleed out of her, her mouth beginning to move under his, kissing him back. It made everything burn hotter, become more desperate.
She’d lifted her hands to his hair, but he didn’t want her touching him. It was too much, made him feel weak, and he wasn’t going to be weak, not with her, not ever fucking again, so he released the hold he had on her hair, gripped her wrists and jerked them away.
He lifted her hands above her head, then crossed them at the wrist, pinning them against the wall. “You don’t get to touch me,” he hissed savagely in her ear. “You haven’t earned the fucking right.”
She was panting, her mouth full and red from the ferocity of his kiss, her cheeks stained with color. She stared at him, her dark chocolate eyes full of anger and what looked like grief. “It’s over, isn’t it?” Her voice sounded husky and thick. “Whatever we had between us is gone.”
His anger twisted and knotted inside him, desperate for an outlet. “Yeah, it’s gone. And you fucking killed it.” Holding her pinned, he reached out and jerked down the silvery material of her top.
All thoughts of waiting had gone. He didn’t want to anymore. He was tired of it. He didn’t know what to do with his anger, with the terrible, desperate need that was clawing a hole inside him, and this was the only thing that made sense.
If you hadn’t hit that guy . . . none of this would have happened in the first place!
Her voice echoing in his head, striking a nerve he hadn’t known was exposed. He’d killed a man. It had been an accident, but she was right. He should never have punched that fucker, made him fall and hit the pavement. Yet Levi had. Because the guy had touched her, was going to rape her, and Levi had gotten so angry.
Patience. Control. There’s a reason, remember?
But both of those things had somehow slipped out of his grasp, and now he was only conscious of his own need and the anger that demanded an outlet.
She flinched as her top came down, baring her breasts, but didn’t protest as he bent his head and pressed his mouth to her throat, tasting the salty-sweet flavor of her skin, inhaling the vanilla and musk scent of her.
Christ, she tasted so good. Like he’d imagined except better, more intense than any of his stupid damn fantasies.
He licked a line from her throat down over the curve of one breast, pausing to taste those tantalizing rose petals tattooed onto her skin, licking each one, before finding the hard peak of her nipple, taking it into his mouth, and sucking hard.
She gasped and shuddered in response, her body arching into him, her wrists pulling against his hold.
Jesus Christ, he hadn’t wanted her like this. He’d wanted to tease her, taunt her, have her suffer until she was on her knees begging him to fuck her.
Yet it had been too long. It had just been too fucking long, and now here she was, the woman he’d wanted for so many years, in his arms. Soft and warm and trembling, and he couldn’t seem to make himself stop.
He couldn’t help himself, licking that deep red nipple again, drawing another sound from her, before setting his teeth against her skin, biting her.
&nbs
p; She cried out, but he didn’t stop, pushing his other hand down between the two of them to the waistband of her leggings, pulling them down. Then he slid his fingers down into her panties, feeling slick heat and wetness against his fingertips.
She shivered, her hips jerking against his, and he didn’t wait, sinking two fingers deep into that sweet little pussy, her body clenching tight around them.
He’d always wondered what she’d feel like, and now he knew. Hot. Tight. Perfect. And that helpless moan she made . . . The sound went straight to his dick.
He bit her again, then licked her nipple, fucking her slowly with his fingers as her trembling hips moved in time with his hand. As if she was hungry, wanting more.
“Good girl,” he murmured, hardly knowing what he was saying, because the scent of her arousal was soaking the air around them, and he was so hard he couldn’t think. “That’s right, sweetheart. Ride my hand. Let me make you feel good.”
He eased his fingers apart inside her, stretching her gently, feeling her shudder, her gasp hoarse in his ear. He was supposed to be getting her to do something, but he couldn’t remember what it was. There was only the heat of her around his fingers, the musky scent of feminine desire and the salty-sweet taste of her skin.
Sunny. His Sunny. At last. At fucking last.
He tore his hands from her, reaching to jerk down his own zipper, getting out his painfully hard and aching dick. Then he got the wallet in the back pocket of his jeans out and extracted the condom he’d put in there only the day before, his movements clumsy.
Rachel didn’t say a word, her eyes tightly closed, her breathing fast and hard, shivering against the wall.
Discarding the wallet on the floor, Levi ripped open the condom packet with his teeth and sheathed himself. Then he reached to pin her wrists again and looked down into her flushed face.
This was the moment he’d been fantasizing about for what felt like forever. The moment he’d wanted since the day she’d opened the door to his knock, the day he’d found her gran downstairs unable to remember which apartment she lived in, and so he’d gone to every apartment in the building trying to find out which one it was. And then Rachel had opened the door, her dark eyes and long black hair so beautiful. So wary. She’d looked at him, and he’d felt something deep inside him wake up.
Wrong for Me Page 10