18. Sienna
Chapter 18
Sienna
O nly a week has passed since the hockey game, but in Breaker’s it might as well be three months.
Time moves more slowly here. There’s no rush to get to the next thing.
And working for Levi makes the days go by even more excruciatingly slow. What started out as us bickering over every little thing has morphed into something else lately.
Whatever game this is, he’s not playing fair.
After the incident with Theo and his bike… something shifted in him.
On Tuesday, he wore a button-down shirt that got some oil on it when he was helping Gramps replace an engine.
He came into the office and, without saying a word, he undid his shirt, a button at a time. The whole time I watched from the corner of my eye.
I could feel my skin heating up as he slipped it off, revealing washboard abs that would make a professional athlete envious.
He made a show of looking for a fresh t-shirt, rummaging through boxes until he found something suitable.
I couldn’t think of the numbers on the stupid spreadsheet in front of me. All I could think about was what he would feel like pressed up against my body.
On Wednesday, he had to leave the shop out of nowhere, something to do with Josie. But before he left, he bent low and whispered into my ear, “I trust you’re going to be good, Sienna.”
I don’t want to admit that I replayed the way those words sounded over and over in my head as I brought myself to the edge later that night, alone in the apartment while Julian was out with his study group.
Yesterday, after the shop closed for the night, it was just Levi and me.
I did all my checks like he asked me to. Making sure the crew put up all the tools. Things were unplugged before getting to work on finishing Theo’s bike.
“Can you come in here a minute?” he called out.
I stepped inside, very aware that we were alone in the shop. “Yeah?”
He sighed heavily, taking off the glasses he only wore when he was on the computer.
“This scheduling software you had me get… it won’t let me breakdown a build by tasks. Wasn’t that the whole point?”
I shook my head and stepped up to him. He pushed aside to give me some room.
I clicked around the screen and showed him exactly what he was looking for. An easy fix.
“Oh,” he said, relieved. “So I’m just an idiot. Got it.”
I laughed at his self-deprecation. And he gave me the faintest of smiles.
“Any other problems I can solve?” I asked, leaning against his desk and facing him.
“Climate change? World peace, maybe?”
“You’re a real smartass, you know that?” He said, still grinning as he pulled his chair back in closer to his desk.
As he did so, his leg brushed mine. The contact instantly made me swallow.
Levi’s already made it clear, we can’t be anything, and my time here is limited. So I told myself I imagined all the moments over the past week where I caught him staring at me a second too long.
Or how he seemed to be extra nice to me all of a sudden. Like he was done making my life hell while I worked with him.
Now I’m crouched next to Theo’s bike, trying to finish it up before the weekend.
“What are you still doing here?” Levi’s voice booms through the space.
I look up at him.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
He sighs and drops his backpack on the table before coming up to where I am, next to the bike.
He drops down on one knee.
I grunt, pushing a piece into place.
“You should go home.”
I let out a breath before dropping the tool on the floor in search of a better one.
“You’re always trying to get rid of me.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. You’ve been here since before the sun came up.”
I rummage through different wrenches looking for the one that will fit.
“And I’ll be here until it comes up again if that’s what it takes.”
“Sienna.”
“No, Levi. You’ve already made it abundantly clear that this is my personal project. So I’m not leaving until it’s done.”
He fists his hands into his sides.
“You need rest.”
“And you need to let me be.”
He’s silent, and for a second, I wonder if he walked off. Instead, I feel him get closer. He wraps his hand around the one I’m holding the tool in.
“What are you–”
“It’s not a suggestion.”
He lifts me to my feet, guides my hand to the toolbox, and helps me drop the wrench. But even when I do, he doesn’t let go of my wrist.
I feel my heart beating violently in my chest at his closeness. For all the times he’s actively avoided being near me, right now, it’s like he’s fighting himself by holding onto me.
“Levi,” I whisper.
His hand travels up my arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
My breath hitches as he reaches my shoulder and bundles my hair into his hand, moving it all over to the other shoulder.
He presses his lips to the bare skin of my neck, and I press my body into him.
I’m desperate to feel him. Desperate to touch him. I raise both arms overhead to pull his neck down and hold him there in place.
Am I dreaming this right now? Is this really happening?
He groans.
“You, Sienna. You are my fucking undoing… I can’t think.” He kisses my neck. “I can’t work.” A kiss on my shoulder. “I need you.”
I sigh, my head thrown back against his chest as his lips move over my skin.
“I need you, too.”
He dips his hand past the waistband of my jeans, and I already know exactly what he’ll find.
He hisses.
“Fuck,” he groans, his fingers finding my soaked pussy. He drags it over my most sensitive spot, and it makes me bite back a moan.
“How am I supposed to get any work done when you’re here like heaven and hell’s most fascinating distraction?” He keeps working me, and I can’t help but melt against his touch, each stroke bringing me closer and closer to the edge.
If anyone were to walk in right now, there’d be no denying what is happening between us.
“Maybe…” I gasp as he inserts a finger and sinks it deep inside me. I shutter. “Maybe, if you weren’t so hard headed… we could find a way to make it work. Gah!” I gasp, holding onto him for dear life as he winds my body up tighter.
“Make what work?” he whispers against my skin, then nips my neck, and the sensation mixed with the feeling of his fingers on me makes my control snap.
An orgasm crashes into me, and I’m left grasping onto him so I don’t melt onto this floor.
He keeps kissing my neck until I can think straight again.
“You… and me.”
When my breathing is back to normal, Levi slips his hand out from under my panties. The evidence of my arousal coating his fingers. He turns me around so that I’m facing him.
Using the finger he had inside me, he brushes it along my lower lip slowly.
And when he bends down to kiss it off, I know I’m just putty in his hands. He claims my lips like they were always meant to be his.
Only his. And for a moment, I do feel like I am.
Only his.
Then he pulls back, leaving me breathless. He stares at me with a longing that’s deeper than just lust.
“Why’d you stop?”
He holds my face, with a hand on either side, his dark brows pulled together. “A taste is all I’ll ever be able to have of you, Sienna. This… this is all we get.”
There’s so much sadness in the way he says that. He just gave me the most intense pleasure of my life with just his hand, and he thinks this is it?
“Fuck that,” I say, grabbing his face and pulling him back to me.
He doesn’t fight it. Instead, he bends and lifts me onto the table behind me, sending tools clamoring onto the floor. He kisses me deeply, passionately.
I feel our souls searching for each other in it. His hands roam my body freely. And I pull him by the belt loop so that he’s flush against me.
“Why shouldn’t we be able to have what we want, Levi?” I kiss him some more. “It’s our lives. We get to choose.”
His hand comes up to my cheek, cupping it as his lips move softer over mine, then he pulls back, looking into my eyes.
“I wish it were that easy. But you and I both know those aren’t the cards we’ve been dealt, Angel.”
I feel his words settle deep into me. I know it’s not easy. I know that choosing each other would mean walking through hell, especially for him.
People would talk.
Who knows what my father would think of him?
I don’t lose anything by choosing Levi. But by choosing me, Levi could lose everything.
That’s what he means. And finally, I get it. It’s not in the cards for us to be together, not with so much on the line for him to lose.
I nod and lean forward, resting my head on his chest.
“Yeah… I know.”
The sound of gravel crunching nearby sends Levi pushing himself away from me. And just like that, our moment is gone.
Only a memory now, that we have to bury.
I slide off the table as he adjusts himself and quickly runs his hands through his hair.
When the headlights of the vehicle turn off, I recognize Theo’s jeep.
He opens the door and jumps out, meeting his dad at the entrance. And I turn my attention to the bike I promised I’d have done by the end of the week.
“Theo,” Levi’s voice resonates through the nearly empty garage. “What’s going on?”
Theo walks into the garage, and I wave at him from the bike. He nods his acknowledgment before answering his dad.
“It’s mom,” he says, reaching behind his neck uncomfortably, eyes puffy like he’s been crying.
“She’s been arrested.”