Chapter 10
Phoenix
I was normally someone who was cool under pressure, but the longer Levi was out, the more I began to panic.
“Levi, I need you to wake up now,” I murmured against his head as I pulled him even closer to my chest. After finally getting into the bathroom after Levi had ignored my requests for him to open the door, I’d found him lying on his side on the floor, his body lifeless, but his eyes open.
He’d been cold.
Frighteningly so.
I’d remembered Father O’s words about needing to get Levi warm when the same thing had happened at the soup kitchen, so I’d immediately picked Levi up and carried him into my room and put him under the bedcovers.
I’d gone a step further and crawled in with him in the hopes I could snap him out of his trance, because it was freaking me the fuck out.
At the soup kitchen, he’d snapped out of the event within minutes.
This time around, it had been almost a half an hour since I’d picked him up off that floor and he had yet to respond to me in any kind of way.
I glanced over at Henry to make sure he was still asleep. I’d been worried he’d woken up when I’d broken the bathroom door down, but he hadn’t.
I lifted my hand to clasp the side of Levi’s face as I held him against me.
His skin felt warmer and I wondered if I should try to get him some juice like Father O had that day.
But before I could move, I felt him stir against me.
His arm had ended up slung across my waist when I’d pulled him against me, but he hadn’t actually been holding onto me.
Now, I felt his fingers press against my side.
“Thank fuck,” I whispered to myself. “Levi, can you hear me?”
“Phoenix?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” I murmured as I began rubbing my hand up and down his back.
“Henry?” Levi suddenly blurted out and tried to move off me.
“He’s fine,” I said. “Still asleep.”
Levi shifted enough so he could look at the mattress on the floor. He held there a moment before he relaxed in my arms again. I couldn’t help but think how right it felt to have him there.
And how wrong.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said as I leaned down to press a kiss against his head. “You scared the hell out of me,” I admitted.
“I thought I could stop it this time.”
“How often does it happen?” I asked.
“Not often,” he responded. “It was bad for a while after Ricky got out of prison, but since he died…”
“What happened to him?” I asked, though I already knew.
“Not sure. Cops think it was some kind of turf war or something…said he probably pissed off a rival dealer. They said he was killed execution style and his body was found near an underpass that was popular with both dealers and users. They think whoever killed him was sending a message.”
It didn’t surprise me that the cops had thought that, since that had been exactly what Ronan had wanted them to think when he’d had Maverick “Mav” James terminate Ricky.
“Your brother dealt drugs?” I asked.
Levi nodded. “Before he went to prison for killing his girlfriend, he was mainly just doing drugs. He started dealing when he got out.”
I felt Levi shift and I released him when he sat up. I sat up as well and then leaned back against the headboard when Levi made no effort to get out of bed. “I…I want to tell you something because I don’t want you to hear it from someone else,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice as even as I could.
It took Levi an inordinate amount of time to finally say, “I was in prison too.” I could tell he had to force himself to look up at me.
“For drugs.” He chewed on his lip for a moment and then said, “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I don’t do drugs…
never have. Ricky would make me go pick his drugs up for him sometimes.
When the cops arrested his dealer, I’d just bought drugs for Ricky so I was arrested too.
I…I was sentenced to five years but got out a year ago after serving just over three. ”
If I hadn’t spent the past ten days interacting with the young man, I wouldn’t have believed him.
But I had no doubt he was telling me the truth.
No, it didn’t make him completely innocent, because as much as I wished it wasn’t true, he had participated in the murders of Fred and Corinne Nichols.
But his motives for going after Seth again all these years later were rapidly diminishing.
I wanted to believe he wasn’t a threat to Seth, but the reality was, he was struggling financially.
Not just struggling, but desperate. He was killing himself trying to make enough money to pay his expenses as well as Henry’s and the child’s mother’s, but there were only so many hours in the day.
And there was still the question of his connection to T.
Yeah, the brother in prison was the link, but it didn’t explain what T and Levi were doing together.
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Levi and T could be planning something together with Seth being the likely target.
“The police didn’t believe you about the drugs being for Ricky?” I asked.
“I didn’t tell them.”
When he didn’t expand on the statement, I leaned forward and put my hand on his back. “Why not?”
He sucked in a deep breath and I automatically placed my hand against his neck. Luckily, his skin was still warm. But his pulse was beating rapidly.
Levi shook his head and then looked at me. “Let’s just say prison was the safer bet.”
Despair coiled deep in my belly, because between that one statement and Levi’s reactions whenever he talked about his brother, I knew that Levi’s father had been the lesser of two evils in his life.
“My dad’s left for work by now. Would you mind taking me and Henry home?”
I could tell Levi was on the edge and I didn’t want to risk another episode, so I reached up to stroke his cheek. “Why don’t you spend the day here?” I asked. “We can get some sleep and then maybe take Henry down to the beach this afternoon.”
Levi dropped his eyes to the bedding and began picking at the edge of the duvet cover. “You don’t know how badly I want to say yes to that,” he admitted.
“What’s stopping you?”
“You.”
I pulled back from him a bit as his father’s ugly words rang in my ear. I was surprised to see Levi cast me a sad look.
“I really wish I was your Samantha,” he whispered.
If his voice hadn’t been so heavy with despair, I would have laughed at the odd statement. I leaned forward again and settled my hand on his cheek once more. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but trust me when I say that I’m liking you as Levi just fine.”
I’d meant the comment to lighten the mood and hopefully wipe the sadness from his pretty green eyes, but the more I held his gaze, the more things quickly changed.
I told myself to release my hold on him, but the second I relaxed my hand, Levi’s fingers closed around my wrist and he pressed his cheek into my hand.
“Did you mean what you said?” he asked hoarsely.
“About what?” I managed to get out, even though it felt like I’d swallowed a beach ball. My heart was pounding painfully in my chest as my dick pressed against the confines of my pants.
Levi hesitated before saying, “About sex…kissing. That it should be freely given, not taken. ”
I nodded even as my breath hitched because I knew there was only one reason he would be asking me that. I didn’t move even an inch as Levi leaned in until our mouths were just inches apart.
“Please,” I heard him whisper beneath his breath. But I knew he wasn’t pleading with me to kiss him…no, he was begging me for something so much more important.
He needed me to keep my word.
Kissing Levi was a supremely bad idea. I kept telling myself that over and over as I slid my hand around the back of his neck and urged him forward that last little bit, but the second my lips touched his, I forgot everything else but the sensation of his mouth beneath mine.
In truth, it was barely a kiss because Levi pulled back almost immediately and I instantly released him.
But I’d felt more with that brief contact than I had in any of the meaningless sexual encounters I’d had in the past several years.
Because the sensation wasn’t just lingering on my mouth.
No, it was firing throughout my entire body, flooding it with heat and a clawing need unlike anything I’d ever known.
I’d expected Levi to sit back, putting distance between us.
But to my surprise, he leaned in and kissed me again.
Still brief, but just as intense. He again pulled back, but only for a moment and then his lips were back on mine.
With every brush of his mouth, he increased the pressure and I finally realized what was happening as his kisses grew more desperate, but he didn’t take the next step.
He’s never kissed anyone before.
It was almost too unlikely to believe, but as his struggle to get more out of each contact grew, the truth became clearer.
I was his first kiss.
My stunted brain finally managed to catch up and on Levi’s next pass over my mouth, I parted my lips and licked over the seam where his lips were tightly pressed together.
Levi gasped and jerked back. His eyes flew to mine in surprise.
I still had ahold of his neck, but I did nothing to urge him forward again.
Instead, I let my eyes drop to his mouth as his tongue came out to run over his lips… tasting me .
Blood rushed to my cock at the move, but I managed to keep from grabbing him and pushing him back on the bed.
No way I was going to fuck up this opportunity.
Levi touched his mouth with his fingers for a moment and then suddenly he was leaning forward again, clasping both sides of my face with his hands.
His mouth brushed mine again and this time when I licked his lower lip, he stilled instead of pulling back.
I groaned when his tongue mimicked the move I’d just done to him.
Over and over he licked at my lips until I was dizzy with lust. I opened my mouth hoping he’d get the hint and take me up on my invitation.
He did.
Emphatically.
My skin burned where his hands held me. My tongue greeted his as he pushed into my mouth.
The second his tongue touched mine, a switch inside of him seemed to flip because he began kissing me with fervor.
The rest of his body quickly caught up and after struggling to untangle himself from the blanket, he was pushing himself onto my lap even as he continued to hold my face so he could control the kiss.
I happily let him take charge and kept just a light hold on him as I wrapped my arms around his waist.
When we were finally forced to come up for air, Levi whispered, “I didn’t know.” That was all he said before his mouth was back on mine. As he began rubbing his body against mine, I let my hands drift down to grab his ass and instinctively began grinding my erection against him.
The effect was the same as if I’d dumped a bucket of ice water on him.
“No! Stop! Please!”
He wasn’t yelling the words, but his quiet plea was no less impactful. I instantly released him and pulled back to give him space. He scrambled off my lap, but didn’t leave the bed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“No, I’m sorry,” I returned. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I…I…” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to…to…”
“It’s okay, Levi. Just catch your breath, okay?” I ached to reach for him again just so I could help him calm down, but I knew my touch would end up doing the opposite.
He took several deep breaths. His gaze momentarily drifted to the baby who was still asleep since we’d managed to keep our make-out session relatively quiet. When his gaze returned to me he said, “I’m sorry, I felt your…your…”
“Erection,” I supplied.
He blushed and nodded. “I didn’t mean to tease you.”
His words had me contemplating my own response.
From his kissing alone, I would have guessed him to be a virgin.
But I’d seen him with T in the alley…it wasn’t the first time he’d sucked a man’s cock.
And his reaction after I’d almost kissed him in the kitchen the previous week was proof that he didn’t view sex in a positive light, which didn’t surprise me in the least since I knew what often happened to smaller, weaker men in prison.
I pushed past the pain of knowing it was extremely likely that Levi had been sexually assaulted in the past and focused on the here and now. “You didn’t tease me,” I said. “You turned me the hell on, but you do that every time you look at me so…”
I let my words hang as he studied me.
“You’re not mad?” he asked. “That I…that I don’t want to go all the way?”
“Truth?” I said.
He nodded.
“What we just did is going to fuel a lot of fantasies tonight and for the foreseeable future so no, I’m not mad.” I desperately wanted to reach out and touch him again, but I held back because he looked ready to bolt. “It’s a rare gift to be given something so precious,” I added.
“But I didn’t give you anything,” he said and I nearly laughed when his eyes fell to the bulge in my pants before he jerked them back up to my face.
I finally gave in and shifted forward so I could run my thumb over his mouth.
I was glad when he didn’t pull away. “Yeah, you did, Levi,” I murmured.
“You gave me your trust.” I brushed my mouth over his in the briefest of kisses and then released him.
“ Will you trust me just a bit longer and let me hold you while we sleep?”
It took him a long time to decide and it felt like I held my breath for every second of it.
Levi cast a look at Henry before he finally shifted until he was once again lying across my chest, though this time his body was filled with tension.
I settled one hand on the arm he had draped over my waist and used my other hand to play with his hair.
The move seemed to relax him because I felt his body sink farther down on mine.
My own eyes began to drift closed as exhaustion began to overtake me, but just a few whispered words from Levi as he lost himself to sleep had me once again wide awake.
“You’re going to be the death of me, Phoenix Jones.”