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A line dented his brow. “I’d never have left you on your own.” Crossing to her, he palmed the side of her neck, staring hard into her eyes. “I told you before, I’ll always be here when you need me. You might not believe that so easily now, but you will in time.”
His thumb swept over her chin and grazed her lower lip—such a simple thing, but her flesh felt so sensitized she inhaled sharply and then swallowed hard.
His pupils dilated. His grip on her neck tightened. His thumb traced the corner of her mouth.
Sexual tension sparked in the air. Hot. Dazing. Completely unexpected.
“You shouldn’t have worn shorts,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
He pounced, slanting his mouth over hers. No hesitance, no tentativeness. He dived right in, plunging his tongue deep; shocking her with a bruising, unrestrained kiss that obliterated her control.
She clung to him, excitement building inside her as his hands greedily roamed over her—shaping, palming, squeezing. One hand delved into her shorts and panties to cup her ass, and the hard dig of his fingertips wrenched a moan out of her.
Something hit the floor. Her bottle. The sound penetrated her haze and made her good sense snap awake, but it was overruled by the burn of his mouth, the possessiveness in his touch, and the hotly sexual need that flamed through her system.
God, she needed this, needed him, needed—
Pain lanced through her injured shoulder, and she hissed through her teeth.
Levi jerked back, breathing hard. “Shit, you all right?”
Panting, she gave a jerky nod. “Fine.” But she’d messed up. Big time.
That kiss had been thrilling. Scorching. Intoxicating. Everything she’d imagined it would be.
The bitch of it was … the kiss also wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been so tightly wound due to all that was going on. That stolen moment hadn’t been about her. No, his system had needed to channel his anger into something; had needed to give the emotion an out.
She was the out.
Well at least they’d stopped before things went too far. One-night stands were fun and all, but this was Levi. Her anchor. A man she’d wanted for too long. There was nothing smart about letting a guy you badly wanted quite simply use you for a night—even if there would have been nothing disrespectful about it on his part. And so she needed to backtrack now and pretend the kiss never happened.
His cock hard and throbbing like a motherfucker, Levi watched as her dazed eyes shuttered and her body straightened. She shifted away from him, putting a respectable distance between them. He had no clue what was going on in her head, but it was clearly making her pull back. His demon narrowed its eyes at her withdrawal, not liking it.
“I’ll go upstairs.” She coughed to clear her throat. “Yeah, I’ll go.” She snatched her bottle from the floor and headed for the door.
“Running again?”
She slowly spun on her heel. “Excuse me?”
“You learned we were anchors. You fled. I kissed you. You decided to flee again. Seems this is a thing with you.” Yes, he was deliberately goading her. He wanted that mask of indifference gone. He wanted to smash through the wall she’d thrown up between them.
He expected her to bristle and go on the defensive. He wasn’t expecting the tired sigh she let out.
“You don’t really want me,” she said.
He winged up a brow. “I don’t?”
“No. You’re angry and restless and looking to give those emotions an outlet,” she told him, all reasonable.
“You know what I want better than I do, do you?”
Her eyes flared. “I know I’m not your type.”
“I have a type?” That was new to him.
“Apparently. And I’m not it.”
Levi tilted his head. She’d said it with so much authority, so much certainty. All right, now he was just confused. “Who told you that?”
“Nobody, but …”
“But, what?” he pushed, his scalp prickling with unease.
Sighing again, she thrust a hand through her hair. “Let’s not do this. We’ll just forget—”
“Finish what you were going to say, Piper.”
She weakly flapped her arms. “Does it really matter?”
“If something is related to you, yeah, it absolutely matters to me. Why do you have it in your head that you’re not my type? Who put that thought there?”
She shrugged. “You did.”
He felt his brows dart together. “What?”
“You said those very words.”
Did he fuck.
“When Celeste talked to you about my crush on you—a crush she found highly amusing—you told her I wasn’t your type. Yeah, I overheard that conversation.”
He exhaled heavily as realization settled over him. Shit.
“I also heard what you didn’t say—like ‘Celeste, you’re being a bitch.’ But would I have expected you to defend me? No. You had no reason to, and she was your girlfriend. But don’t try to now make out like I’m ‘fleeing’ when all I’m really doing is stopping us both from doing something you’d later regret.”
