Chapter XVII #2
Like if the tabloids somehow find out how this started between us.
Or if she hurts me.
Or if I hurt her.
Or if we let this become real and then it flames out, and I make a fool of myself before my career even really begins.
Like if I screw this up and lose the opportunity to work with Colt on his next film.
Fucking Colt. It crashes through me, the knowledge that this is the moment I should tell her what he said.
I should get everything out in the open while we’re alone and she’s sharing about how rare it is for her to confide in people.
After she opened up about her mom and Roy, I want her to know she can trust me—that I’m looking out for her.
But right now she’s smiling. She’s got the role of her dreams, and we’re pressed together beneath the trees on our day off. Do I really want to ruin the moment for her? We’re in a bubble I don’t want to pop.
“I get the feeling you’re the one stuck in your head this time,” Ana says, interrupting my mental game of tug-of-war.
“Busted,” I reply.
“Want to talk about it?”
Now would be the time.
“No.”
“Want to kiss about it?”
I meet her eyes and, God, they’re clear, like her feelings aren’t the tangled mess mine are. We’ve been on this trail for twenty-five minutes, walking leisurely without seeing another soul. We could kiss about it if we want to. How good this could be, I think again.
She looks around before pulling us off the path and behind a maple.
Then she turns to face me and inches up on her toes to bring her lips closer to mine.
I slide an arm around her and tug her to me, our bodies flush, and drop my mouth to hers.
I inhale coffee and coconut and the smell of nature on her skin.
Her hands tug at the hair on the nape of my neck, and I smile into the kiss.
She’s figured out how much I love it when she does that.
I groan and slip my hand under her tank, spreading my fingers across her back. She shivers when I do.
Her tongue glides along my lips and then into my mouth.
What starts tender becomes urgent and demanding, both of us grasping at whatever skin we can find, licking and biting, and grinding with the contact.
I grab her by the hips and walk her backward until she’s up against a tree, notching my thigh between her legs. She sighs at the pressure.
“Sometimes . . .” she says, tilting her chin up to meet my gaze. Her eyes are soft but hungry—a mix of tenderness and need that has me hot from head to toe, bright and prickling like static under my skin. “Sometimes talking helps clear my head. But other times doing helps even more.”
I answer her with another kiss, letting my hands roam her body.
She wraps her arms around my neck. I grip her legs and lift them around my waist, the steadying press of my thigh still braced against her center.
Almost immediately, Ana starts rolling her hips to rub herself against me.
The moan she lets out, the moan she tries to muffle in my neck, takes root in my ear and shoots straight to my cock.
“Here’s what we’re going to do, then,” I say.
“I’m going to keep kissing you, and you’re going to do whatever you need to make yourself feel good.
I’m going to focus on you.” I slide her body up and down my leg, prompting another moan.
“And you’re going to focus on you. And you’re going to come just like this, where anyone could see you, because the idea of someone catching you—of seeing you out of control—turns you on as much as it scares you. Tell me I’m right.”
“Less talking,” she replies, but I don’t miss her nod. I want her to keep collecting small pieces of evidence, like tiles for a mosaic, until she can see the picture clearly: She doesn’t have to be anything but herself to be liked or valued. To be loved.
I capture her mouth with mine, and we settle into a deep kiss.
She hums, and I feel it in the back of my throat as if it were my own.
She rolls her hips into me, using her arms around my neck for leverage to grind against my leg.
I encourage the movement with my hands on her hips, my fingertips pressing into the gloriously soft flesh where they meet her ass.
Helping her move up and down just enough to have her whimpering into my mouth as her pleasure escalates.
The feel of her, warm and wet against me, even through her leggings, is enough to make my next words come out choked.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” I whisper into her lips between drawn-out, wet kisses. “Use me. I can’t wait to feel you come like this.”
“Levi,” she says on an exhale before collapsing into my chest. Her forehead falls to my sternum, and her arms hang lazily around my neck. Deep breaths in and out, and I keep my leg pressed against her as she tremors.
We stay like that, spent and silent, until we hear the distinct crunch of leaves under approaching footsteps.
“Shit.” Ana scrambles down my body. I move to block her from view as she adjusts her leggings and sweeps back her hair.
“You look prettier than I’ve ever seen you,” I say, leaning against the tree.
“Barely put together after risking arrest for public indecency?” Her cheeks are flushed, her lips are plump and slick from my mouth, and there’s something looser, freer, about her than I’d have guessed was possible.
“Nope,” I reply. “Satisfied.”
“Did it help?” We resume walking the trail hand-in-hand, like she didn’t just soak my thigh. Like I didn’t love making her climax in public.
“Help what?”
“Get you out of your head.”
“This head is now completely empty in favor of the other.” I laugh. “But honestly? Yeah. It did.”
Because the what-ifs from before haven’t disappeared, but I have no doubt that she’s right here with me. And maybe that means we can keep each other safe.