Levi shifted and let out a sigh as he slumped into the chair.
This wasn’t about me. Not right now. I would process my complicated feelings later.
“Levi,” I said and stepped forward to place a hand on his arched shoulders.
With his head down and his strong shoulders wrapped in the soft material of his tee, he looked like a marble statue of a defeated demigod.
I couldn’t apologize enough, so I slowly stepped forward until our knees brushed. His breath stuttered, but a moment later, his legs widened. He grabbed my wrists and tugged me forward until no space was left between us. His forehead pressed against my chest, and he let me cradle his head. I could comfort. I could only give and not take.
“I think about it every damn day,” he said, letting himself exhale deeply, the warm air seeping through my sweater.
“How could you not?” I brushed the hair from his temple torun my fingers through.
“I don’t know what the right thing is in this situation.” His arms were looped behind my back, resting on my bottom. “I feel like I’m failing her. But it was her choice. I couldn’t dissuade her. She was so stubborn about this. If she didn’t care about justice, then anything I could do would be for my benefit. It would go directly against her wishes, and I just can’t.”
I inhaled and exhaled deeply. His words settled into me. If the person didn’t want justice, then any action would be done for selfish reasons. That resonated with me, and I tucked it away to process later. There would be no article about Lily Carmichael written by me. This family’s history was their own.
“You’re not failing her. You’re respecting her wishes. You just have to own that choice and make peace with it. It’s the fighting yourself that’s causing you trouble.”
He nodded against my sternum.
“You’re a good son,” I said.
His body tensed as he nuzzled deeper and pulled me tighter. “Thank you.” His mumbled words rumbled through me.
This was not how I thought this day would go, yet even now, knowing what I did, a part of me was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to finish the piece. That I would have to shift gears and find another trail to chase. A new plan. The entire prospect of starting all over again made me feel weary. I wanted to go to sleep for a week to make up for the frantic high I’d been existing on. As it quickly drained out of me, it left behind a void that felt dangerous.
Minutes passed, and Levi hadn’t released the tight hold on me. Actually, his thighs squeezed me closer. His forehead had started rubbing back and forth slowly. The awareness of that pebbled my nipples, and I stilled to see where this was going to make sure I wasn’t misreading the situation. His nose brushed against my breast, and a tremble of desire raised the hairs on my arm. I didn’t come here for this. I hadn’t meant to tease him after our last meeting, but I had gotten carried away in the work.
I wasn’t sure when the air shifted so drastically, but a heavy tension filled it now. I was all too aware of how his scent relaxed my shoulders, how his hands had moved at some point to grip my hips. His thumb moved in small circles, sending a tingling electricity to my core. There was so much want, so heavy and tangible in the little bit of space between us.
My hands gently pushed on his shoulders until he released me enough to look up at me.
“Are you okay?” I winced, biting my tongue to keep from apologizing again.
I didn’t want to cheapen it with overuse.
“Yeah.” His features were clearer and more relaxed now. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that. I’m embarrassed,” he said.
How marvelous that he could identify his feelings so easily in the moment. It would probably take me a week to work through the past ten minutes. This poor man. All the things that I couldn’t understand before slid into place. Every time he went to town and they spoke about his mother, all his insecurities anddoubts were thrown back in his face. Every time he stepped foot in the Little Cabin, he would see those final moments with her, begging her to change her mind. The anger at a man he didn’t know who started his life and stopped caring there. It was why he had been hiding in the safety of his home, and I had dragged him out into the cold kicking and screaming.
“I would have never?—”
“I know,” he said. “If I had just been honest from the beginning, we would have avoided all this.”
“It’s a lot to unload on an almost stranger. Here’s some food. Also, here’s all my trauma.”
He chuckled softly. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Not everybody has a full-on episode and shares their current chaos upon first meeting,” I said, pulling a face to show my own awkwardness.
“Only the special ones.” He smiled up at me. It was criminal how handsome he was.
I bent and dropped a kiss on his temple without thinking. More tension melted from him. It was nice to be able to make somebody relax instead of clench with worry at my arrival. I kissed his other temple to keep things balanced, lingering a moment longer. His thumbs had worked under the fabric of my sweater and now brushed against the skin of my stomach, causing heat to settle heavy and low in me.
“You know,” he said slowly. “When you first showed up, I thought you were here for an entirely different reason.”
“And what reason was that?” I asked boldly, breathily.
