by Joss Wood
“What the hell was that?” she demanded, the words husky.
“That was the unfinished business I was talking about,” Levi told her, his tone now brusque. “And, just so we are clear, part of our unfinished business is having you under me—or more likely, given my busted leg—on top of me.”
“Uh...uh...” Tanna felt her head whirl, the moisture in her mouth faded. God, she wanted that. Now, immediately.
Not making love with Levi all those years ago was, along with handing her keys to Addy, one of her biggest regrets.
Tanna released a long breath. “Wow, tell me what you really think, Levi.”
A small smile touched his lips. “I shoot from the hip, Tanna, and you should be prepared for that.”
He lifted his hand to rake back his dark brown hair, which contained those flashes of auburn she loved so much. Tanna was also happy to see the fine tremors in his fingers, showing her he wasn’t as controlled as he wanted her to think.
Levi cleared his throat and Tanna made herself look at him. “Ten years ago, I treated you like glass and you ran. This time around, I’m going to tell you what I want from you. I’m going to be as up-front as possible.”
She could live with that. “Okay.”
“As much as I’d love to pick you up and carry you to the nearest horizontal surface, that’s not going to happen today.” Humor flashed in his eyes and Tanna caught her breath as his brief smile upped his sexy factor a thousand percent.
“But in a week or two, hopefully a helluva lot sooner, I am going to ask you if you want to sleep with me and I sure as hell hope you say yes.” He looked past her to the front door and his expression turned hard and remote. “A decade ago I gave you my heart. That’s not on offer anymore. But my body sure as hell is.” Levi adjusted his crutches under his arms. “And, no, before you ask, this is a completely separate issue from you helping me out, the debt I said you need to repay.”
A million thoughts buzzed through her but one dominated: if they never made love, Tanna knew she would regret it. She would always wonder how he’d taste, feel, move.
Whether he’d fill her as wonderfully as she’d imagined or whether he’d be a letdown. If she didn’t make love with him, just once, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.
He wouldn’t pressure her, coerce her or nag her. No, that wasn’t Levi’s style. In his direct way, he’d just stated his position and thrown his offer on the table. It was hers to pick up.
Or not.
It would be easy to say yes, to allow her hot blood and the taste of him on her lips to influence her decision. Sure, she wanted this but now that her blood had cooled and she was thinking more clearly, she was a little scared and a lot uncertain.
Was she ready for this? Did she really want to reopen the door to the only man who’d ever touched her heart?
Shouldn’t she think about this a little more?
Tanna jammed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket and hunched her shoulders in what she hoped was a casual shrug.
It wasn’t a yes to sex; neither was it a no. Her nonresponse left her some wiggle room.
“I won’t give you my heart again either, Levi.” She knew that for sure. Her heart was permanently off-limits.
Levi’s cold smile held no amusement. “Tanna, you never did.”
* * *
In the white-and-sunshine-yellow guest bedroom upstairs, Tanna unpacked her clothes and placed them in the closet, her toiletries and makeup in the minimalistic but pretty en suite bathroom. All the while she wondered if she’d completely lost her marbles.
Levi wasn’t an idiot. He knew her nonanswer wasn’t a solid no and there was a strong possibility that she’d sleep with him. Not tonight obviously, or tomorrow, but sometime in the near future.
She might as well start wrapping her head around the concept.
At some point, she’d see whether his long body was as muscled as she imagined. She’d know how he tasted, how he liked to move. Judging by the kiss they’d shared, Tanna had no doubt Levi was a skilled lover, and at the very least, she expected an orgasm. Maybe, if she was very lucky, two.
It had been a while since she’d felt comfortable enough with a guy to allow him in her bed.
Levi might be terse and abrupt, but she trusted him with her body. She had no intention of handing over her heart...because she wasn’t the heart-handing-over type and also because he didn’t want it.
She’d had her chance and she was fully aware she’d never get another.
Their time had passed and sex, and their insane attraction, was all that was left.
Their history couldn’t be changed but when she and Levi did make love, her curiosity would finally be satisfied, and she wouldn’t have to live with any more what if? thoughts.
Tanna looked out of the guest bedroom window onto a small lake that was part of the Lockwood Country Club’s golf course. As she always did when she felt out of sorts and needed a strong dose of what was, not what she wanted to be, she called Padma.
Her godmother specialized in step-into-the-light talks. Although it was nearing midnight in London, Padma answered on the second ring, sounding alert and focused. “Baby girl.”
Her mom called her baby girl and Padma’s greeting created a link between her and her mom. “Hey, fairy godmother.”
Tanna heard the flick of a lighter, Padma’s long inhale. How she wished Padma’d give up smoking, but despite her nagging, and Tanna had done plenty, Padma had yet to give up her pack-a-day habit.
Tanna opened her mouth to pester but Padma beat her to it. “Don’t start, darling. Rather, tell me why you are calling in the dead of night.”
How did she explain the unexplainable? Tanna decided it was better just to give it to her straight. “I’ve got myself into a bit of a pickle.”
Padma had been married five times and always had a man, or three, hanging off her every word. She was a master at digging herself out of deep holes. “Ooh, sounds promising. What did you do?”
Tanna smiled. Padma was the type of person who appreciated drunken mistakes, dancing on bars, protest action and fast cars. She couldn’t abide mediocrity or, as she called it, “sheep behavior.”
“I’m not at the Beacon Hill house with Carrick.”
“Please tell me that you have found a hot man to have an affair with,” Padma replied, sounding delighted. Then she hesitated, remembering Tanna wasn’t the fall-into-bed-on-a-whim type. “Darling, if that’s not the case, then feel free to lie. Because, as you know, I’ve been telling you for months and months that you need a good rogering.”
Honestly, who was Roger and how did his name come to be associated with sex? Only the English...
“Well, I didn’t move in because I was offered sex. That came a few hours after I barged back into his life.”
It only took Padma a moment to connect the dots. “Oh, for the love of baby Jesus! You went to see Levi, didn’t you?”
It was a rhetorical question since Padma knew there was only one man who could make Tanna feel so out of control.
“I presume you threw yourself at his feet and demanded forgiveness?” Padma’s question was scathing.
“I wasn’t subservient! I asked him for forgiveness, he told me I owed him, that I needed to help him and that he wanted to sleep with me.” Tanna wrinkled her nose. Those were the highlights, weren’t they? So much had happened today.
“Oh, my God, you are too much.”
Okay, that wasn’t a compliment. Not waiting for Padma, Tanna quickly explained the situation. When she was done, Tanna heard Padma light up another cigarette and waited for her pronouncement. “Sounds like a bad idea, darling girl.”
The hell of it was that she was right.
Tanna transferred her phone to her other ear, lifted her foot up onto the seat and hooked her elbow around her knee.
“I saw
him, and I knew I needed to be here, needed to do this,” Tanna admitted. “It was the same feeling I had ten years ago. Back then, my gut instinct told me to run, to leave Boston. This time it’s telling me to stay here with Levi. But only for the next six weeks, that’s all,” she quickly added. Because there was no way she’d considered returning to Boston, living here, with or without Levi.
In London she wasn’t Tanna Murphy, a trust fund baby, heir to one of the oldest businesses in the city. In London she was just Murphy, another EMT trying to save lives, earning a paycheck and paying off her debt to the universe for letting her live.
For sparing her when Addy died.
“You told me, when I arrived in London, sobbing and scared, that my intuition was the most powerful part of me. It was my soul talking. You have even suggested it can be our connection to feminine wisdom, to people who have passed before us,” Tanna gabbled. “I can’t just dismiss what I am feeling.”
“Yeah, yeah, sounds like me,” Padma admitted, irritated. “In my defense, I probably had four too many G&Ts at that stage.”
Tanna grinned. Padma would move heaven and earth for her but hated it when she got sentimental and mushy. And Padma loathed it when Tanna became overly emotional or verbose.
“So, you are going to stay with him?” Padma asked.
“Yeah.”
“Did you call me to ask my permission?” Padma demanded. “Last I heard, you were an adult and made your own decisions. Decide what you want to do and then do it, Tanna. Stop overanalyzing it to death.”
And that was why she’d called. Right there...that. Padma always said something to clarify Tanna’s thinking and the words were exactly what she’d been waiting for.
So, to break it down...what did she want?
She wanted to give Levi a hand—she did owe him for leaving so abruptly and the chaos she’d caused—and she wanted to sleep with him. She’d satisfy her curiosity about sex with him and then she’d move on, back to London, back to her real life.
There! Sorted. Tanna closed her eyes and wished she could hug her godmother. And her best friend. “Thanks, Pad. Love you.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
Tanna heard the emotion under the irritation and decided to ramp up her godmother’s annoyance. “I love you to the moon and back. I miss you so—”
Click, call disconnected.
Tanna grinned and tossed her phone onto the huge double bed. Linking her arms around her bent knees, she remembered Padma asking her why she’d run out on her wedding, Levi, her family and her hometown. All she could tell Padma at the time was that she knew she needed to leave, that staying was impossible.
She couldn’t tell her that living the pampered and protected life Levi and her brothers had mapped out for her was impossible, knowing Addy was dead.
Had she stayed and married Levi, she probably wouldn’t have been miserable. She would’ve been a young wife with a husband who adored her, living a lovely life as one only could when one had access to enormous wealth, both his and hers. They would’ve been fine for a year, two, maybe three or four. But, at some point, she would’ve started to question her actions, to look back on her choices and wonder if marrying Levi was the best choice she could have made.
She’d made the right choice to run. She had.
Despite the fact that she been confused and guilt-ridden, and so sad, leaving Boston had been the biggest gift she’d given herself. In running, she’d discovered who she was, or could be. She’d left Princess Tanna behind and become a different person, had many different experiences—both good and bad—and looked at the world through her own lens and not one tinted by her family’s or her partner’s views and expectations. She’d experienced the highs and lows of life, stood on her own two feet, made her own way. Ignoring her massive trust fund, she lived on her salary, counting pennies when her bank account didn’t stretch as far as she needed it to.
She’d compromised on where and how she lived, made friends and lost others, but through it all, she’d made choices for herself without taking a man’s opinion into consideration. Some of those decisions had been smart, some not...but they were all part of her steep learning curve.
If she had married Levi, her Boston-based learning curve would’ve been gentler, softer, not as dramatic. And possibly not as much fun. It would’ve also been drawn by Levi, by her brothers. And, had she stayed in this city, she wouldn’t be half as confident, and she’d be far less assertive.
Levi, then and now, was strong-willed, and she now realized he needed a strong woman, someone mentally tough, someone who could stand up to him, argue her point. He needed an equal partner, someone who challenged him. Young Tanna had not been that person and, if she’d stayed, would not have grown into the type of woman Levi, deep down, wanted. Needed.
Despite having hurt Levi, despite leaving a mess behind her, not getting married had been the correct thing to do. Oh, maybe she could’ve handled the breakup better, maybe she should’ve stuck around and cleaned up her own mess, but she hadn’t and that was on her. She’d apologize for how she did it but not for the action itself.
So, what was she expecting from Boston this time around? To face her past so she could heal. Good sex, at some point, would be a bonus. To pay off her debt to Levi by helping him out.
But nothing else had changed.
She was only going to stay in Boston as long as it took her to put her past into perspective and deal with the PTSD symptoms. She could not go back to London still fighting her demons. She needed to get them, once and for all, under control.
Because HART—Hazardous Area Response Team—was a vital service and she and her colleagues took on the worst cases and the trickiest situations. But she couldn’t return to the unit if she wasn’t a hundred percent psychologically healthy. She owed that to herself and to her colleagues but mostly to her patients. She’d had the best care possible when she was injured and she believed that her patients deserved the best of her. So she needed to stay in Boston, confront her past, see her therapist. Help Levi out and clear her debt. Then she’d go back to London and her demanding, important job.
That was her plan and she was sticking to it.
After washing her face and refreshing her lipstick, Tanna headed back downstairs, and as her foot hit the bottom stair, she heard feminine voices in the kitchen. If she wasn’t mistaken, and she didn’t think she was, Levi’s sisters were in the room, ready to ambush her.
Tanna bit her lip, debating whether to face his family or run upstairs and hide. Uncertain as to what she should do, she froze in place, her mind whirling. She hadn’t spent much time with the twins when she and Levi were together. His sisters had been away at college and only came home for their brother’s engagement party. Jules and Darby, and their friend DJ, were outwardly friendly but Tanna wasn’t a fool. She’d immediately realized she would have to work hard to prove to them she was worthy of their brother.
The problem was that by the time she met them she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to prove anything to them. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to face them now. Tanna, hoping no one had heard her clattering down the stairs, turned around to run back up to her room when she heard a throat clearing.
“Chicken.”
God, she was so busted. By Callie Brogan of all people.
“I thought you had more gumption than that, Tanna.”
She’d thought wrong. Her back to Callie, Tanna pulled a face and gathered her courage to face Levi’s mom.
Tanna scrunched her eyes closed, took a deep breath and felt every muscle in her body contract. She regretted running out on Levi, she really did, but she also felt bad for never contacting Callie again.
Levi had brought his mom to the hospital, maybe two or three weeks after Tanna’s accident, and ten minutes after meeting her, Tanna fell in love. Callie, blonde and blue-eyed and so tiny Tanna couldn’t believ
e she’d produced the big and burly Levi, took her hand, kissed her cheek and looked around her hospital room.
“How much longer are you going to be in here, darling?”
At that point they hadn’t been sure, so Tanna had shrugged, fighting back tears. “They said a least a few months.”
“Then we have to make it look less like a jail cell,” Callie had declared.
She’d returned that evening with potted plants and soft linen, cut flowers in a crystal vase and the picture of her parents that sat on Tanna’s bedside table. Magazines and her tablet were in easy reach, as were sparkling water and notebooks.
Due to work constraints, Levi and Tanna’s brothers could only visit her in the evening, but Callie made friends with the nursing staff and often visited Tanna out of the official hours. During those long months in the hospital, Tanna and Callie became exceptionally close and getting Callie as a mom-in-law, as a mom—something she hadn’t had for the longest time—had been an enormous tick in the reasons-to-marry-Levi column.
Tanna, knowing she couldn’t stay on the stairs and that running away was impossible, turned slowly and, with heavy feet, made her way down to where Callie stood waiting, looking not a day older than she had a decade before. She wore a pair of dove-gray slacks, a black cashmere jersey and diamond studs the size of pigeon eggs in her ears. On her finger rested a pink diamond and platinum ring fully able to outshine the sun. Her blond hair hit her chin in a classic bob and bold red lipstick covered her mouth, and Tanna remembered this was the woman who’d once been the most popular hostess on Boston’s A-List social scene.
Expecting to see censure in Callie’s eyes and a frown on her face, Tanna was shocked when Callie held out her hands with a warm and welcoming smile.
“My darling girl.” She pulled Tanna into her arms. “I’ve missed you so.”
Tanna felt tears burning as she returned Callie’s hug, unable to believe she was getting such a wonderful welcome from the woman who, she was sure, had wanted to eviscerate her for jilting her son.
“Why are you being nice to me?” Tanna asked as Callie pulled back. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but jeez, I never expected such a warm welcome.”