Chapter XV
XV
Levi
The first night in this apartment, I whined to the empty walls about having to trade my brand-new, king-size mattress in LA for this double. Now, with Ana tucked in next to me, her ass pressing against the outside of my thigh, I send up a silent prayer of gratitude for the tight fit.
“Getting comfy over there?” I adjust the blanket under my arms.
“Would you believe me if I said this bed is better than all the five-star hotels I’ve ever stayed in?
What kind of memory-foam, pillow-top magic is this?
You’ve gotta ask the management company.
” She rolls to face me. Relaxed. That’s how she looks in this moment.
Content, with hair piled into a mess on top of her head and a makeup-free face, the sweetest freckles I didn’t know she had scattered across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks.
I can’t help but press my lips to the constellation of them, a quick peck at one spot and then the next.
“Levi,” she says between breaths. I keep going. “Levi!” She laughs before grabbing my face with her hands and melting her lips onto mine.
On instinct, I wrap an arm around her, pressing my palm to the small of her back and guiding her closer.
She throws a leg over my hip, the slippery fabric of my basketball shorts on her gliding over the slippery fabric of my basketball shorts on me.
The improbability of this moment—of Ana Barlow in my bed, wearing my clothes, kissing me like she wants something—I’m overwhelmed by it.
How in the world did I get so lucky?
“What’s that about getting lucky?” Ana pulls her lips from mine to press her mouth to my bare shoulder.
I’ve let an inside thought slip out of my mouth—again.
Before I can beat myself up about it, she’s dragging her tongue along my collarbone, and I feel it like a finger tracing my length.
Every bit of blood in my body rushes south. Warm, tingling anticipation.
“I said I feel lucky. Being here with you.” I bring her mouth back to mine and let my tongue find hers. She responds with a sigh and a roll of her hips I’m not sure is intentional. We kiss leisurely, with her hands in my hair and her fingernails pressing against my scalp. I groan in response.
She has my bottom lip between her teeth as she pulls away slowly, eventually releasing it with a wet pop. “Are you saying you don’t want to get lucky?”
Her green eyes are locked on mine, and they’re darker without sunlight to bring out the usual flecks of gold. Or maybe it’s that her pupils are wide and hungry. She tilts her head with a smirk, those swollen lips of hers pulled to one side.
“I want whatever you want,” I tell her. Yes, there are many things I want with her, especially after today.
But what I want most of all is for her to know she’s in charge.
That I’m not another asshole who’s here for an Ana Barlow–shaped notch in his bedpost. That I’m not like Colt, who’s willing to prioritize himself at someone else’s expense.
“Well, I want to lose this shirt.” She shifts to her knees, and with a quick sweep of her arm, she pulls the tank over her head and flings it onto the floor.
Want, want, want, beats my heart in response. “You are absolutely unreal. Do you know that?” I don’t hide the way I’m taking her in as I sit up and reach for her, and she doesn’t try to hide from me, though I can feel a flush on her neck when my fingers make contact with her collarbone.
I catalog her.
The freckles extend to her chest, to the space above the cups of her bra, which barely contain the swell of her breasts.
Her stomach is soft, kissable. A faded bruise lingers on the inside of one arm.
The curled-up waistband of my shorts—those damn shorts—prevents me from following the curve of her waist to her hips.
She’s watching me take her in. My heart is flying against my ribs.
With an adept flick, she releases the clasp of her bra and tosses it to the floor. “How about now? Even better?”
I move my hands toward her waist, and she collapses on top of me, bracing herself on her arms to hold her lips a hair’s breadth from mine. Her hard nipples brush against my chest. “The best.” I crash my mouth into hers for a moment before flipping us so I’m on top.
“Now that smooth move—the scoop and flip you just did? That’s gotta be from stunt school.” A smile curls her lips.
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s something I improvised because I couldn’t wait another second to get my mouth on you.
” I suck on her neck before slowly bringing my lips to her chest. She arches toward me with a moan.
My tongue finds her nipple, pink and peaked, and I close my mouth around it, flicking slowly.
“I’m going to take my time with you,” I tell her between passes of my tongue.
I bring my hand to her opposite breast. I pinch the nipple between my fingers, and she squirms under my touch.
“Is this where you want me?” She nods, like it’s all she can do.
Her breast is full, and I palm it, pressing my fingertips into her flesh before dragging them down her side.
I stop at the waistband of the shorts, which have slipped to expose an inch of black lace.
“Or here?” I run a finger beneath the top seam of her underwear, her warm, bare skin dragging under mine.
“Take them off.” It comes out of her mouth breathy, begging as much as demanding. I feel it behind my ribs, in the dryness of my mouth, in my cock. She shimmies her hips and hooks a thumb under the elastic to assist.
“Ana.” I press a hand over hers to stop her. “I said I’m taking my time. Let me.”
I sit back on my heels and dig my fingers under both waistbands. Without removing my eyes from hers, I peel away her shorts and underwear and then stand to take off my own.
“How’s this? Better?” I echo her words from earlier, and she replies with a laugh and an eye roll before grabbing my arms and pulling me back down on top of her. My cock twitches with the press of her bare stomach against me.
“The best.”
I sink my mouth onto hers for a moment before kissing her sternum, then bringing my lips back to her nipple. I can’t help my smile at the sound of her sharp intake of breath when I give it a gentle bite.
“Where do you want me to touch you?” I place my fingers at her jaw, and then trail them down her body, pausing in spots where I notice her breath hitches: her throat, her breast, her stomach.
“Levi, please.” She cants her hips toward me.
“Please, what?” I lift my head to meet her gaze.
“You know what.”
“Sweetheart, I need to hear you say it.” I draw my hand down her abdomen until the heavy weight of it lies just above her pubic bone. She moans at the pressure.
“Touch me. I want to feel your fingers inside of me,” she whispers.
Whatever conviction I had to take this slow evaporates. My hand slips down to cup her, to part her with my thumb, to dip inside of her—wet and warm—with one finger and then another. I bring my mouth to hers and feel her stuttering breaths on my lips between kisses.
“God, that feels good,” she says, and I slide the pad of my finger, slick with her, to her clit.
I trace circles that echo the rhythm of our mouths, and the way she whimpers when I slip back inside her—I could run a marathon with nothing but her noises for fuel.
Soft, pleading noises, until she says my name.
“Levi. I swear, you’re going to make me come.”
A laugh tries to escape my mouth, but she stifles it with another kiss, gripping the hair at the nape of my neck. “That’s the plan, sweetheart. What do you need?” I stroke her, increasing the speed of my fingers to mirror the rate of her breaths.
“Just . . . like that. Yes. Oh my God, keep doing that.”
I glide wetness from inside her up to where she’s most sensitive, circling, pressing, stroking until I feel her legs begin to tremble beneath me.
“That’s it,” I say, pressed to her mouth. “You’re so good. You’re going to let me see you come, aren’t you? You’re going to be so beautiful when you fall apart.”
She moans against my lips as the release overtakes her, eyes fluttering shut and tiny spasms squeezing my hand at her center.
“Good girl, I’ve got you.” I wrap both arms around her and pull us to our sides, nose-to-nose, heaving breaths echoing between us. I press my palm against her lower back to steady us.
“Levi?” Her eyes pop open and search mine. Vulnerable, sated, beautiful. Something else there too, but I can’t put my finger on it.
“Yeah?” I bring a hand to her face and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I swear to God, if you don’t have a condom in this place, I’ll never forgive you.
” She reaches down, running her fingers along my shaft before giving a firm tug, and then another.
Her expression changes with my groan, with the way my eyelids go heavy.
One eyebrow lifts in question, her lower lip pulls between her teeth.
“Lucky for both of us, I do.” Somehow I find the strength to hoist myself off the bed. “Don’t move.”