“I’m not hungry. I think I’m just going to go to bed.”
“Are you sure?” Levi’s eyes bounce back and forth between mine.
“Yeah. That was,” I point in the direction of the dining room, “a lot to take in. A lot to process.”
His brow furrows, clearly concerned. “I’ll come check on you in a bit, then.”
I nod and walk past him. I feel his eyes burning into me as walk down the hall toward the back staircase. I walk up them numbly and down the hall to my room. I close the door behind me and lean back against it.
I don’t understand why my mom hates me so much, why she speaks to me the way she does. Is it because I take after my dad in every way? Is she jealous of my relationship with him? What did I ever do to deserve that type of treatment from the woman who gave birth to me? How could she be so cruel to cut off my communication with Levi?
I walk into the bathroom and turn my shower on. I shampoo my hair twice, thinking the second time is conditioner. By the time I remember to do my entire shower routine, I have silent tears streaming down my face, and I collapse onto the shower floor. I wrap my hands around my knees and let out all the sobs.
I don’t know how long I sit down there, but at some point, Levi has let himself into my room, stripped, and joined me in the shower. I feel his strong arms lift me onto his lap and wrap around me protectively. He holds me while I cry, until the water starts to turn cold, quite a feat in a luxury mansion. Eventually he stands and turns the water off. He grabs a towel and wraps it around me and then takes one himself.
He grabs my pajamas and sets them on the counter beside me. Then he leaves my room with just the towel wrapped around his waist. I should probably be concerned about him being caught, but I really just don’t care at this point.
When Levi comes back in, he’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and a faded Harvard t-shirt. He pulls the covers down and gets in my bed. I finish combing my hair and put it in a fishtail braid. He doesn’t say anything until I get in the bed and cuddle up beside him.
“Dad sent Jennifer to stay at a hotel in the city for a while,” he tells me with a kiss to the forehead. “He’s worried about you, so maybe find him in the morning and check in with him. I talked him out of calling your dad. I figured you would want to decide what you want to tell him.”
“Thank you. If he tells my dad about what I’ve been dealing with, I know Dad will insist on me going home.” I slide my leg between his. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“I don’t want that either.” He reaches over and turns off the lamp. “Let’s go to sleep.”
“Frank?” I knock on the door to his home office. It’s cracked open a little, so I peek in.
“Ivy,” he stands up from behind the desk wearing the same clothes that he had on last night. The room smells like scotch, and he’s got a heavy five o’clock shadow. I’ve never seen him look so disheveled. “Come all the way in.” He crosses to me and wraps me in a hug. “How are you this morning?”
“I’m alright.” I squeeze him back. “Last night was really nothing new, aside from her being so vicious in front of anyone else. Usually she saves the deep cuts for when it’s just her and I in the room.”
He winces. “I feel like I’ve failed you. I didn’t realize how bad it was. How bad she is.”
“It’s not your fault. I don’t talk about it or anything,” I shrug. “I haven’t even told my dad about it. I don’t want anyone to worry when I don’t take it to heart.”
Liar.
He gives me a look that says he doesn’t entirely believe me, but he lets it go.
“Levi said you sent her into the city?”
“Yeah. I’m taking the week and working from home. We’ll have family dinners this week, just the three of us.” He gives me a slight smile.
“That sounds nice,” I manage to smile back at him. “I better get going. I’m riding with Levi today.”
“Alright, have a good day.” He goes back to the mini bar in the corner of his office and pours a couple fingers of scotch.
I’m still frowning about it when I meet Levi in the garage. Until he grabs my wrist and pushes me up against the side of his G Wagon and kisses me senseless. One hand glides up my thigh and under my skirt, while the other wraps possessively around the back of my neck. His tongue parts my lips slides across my own. I moan into his mouth when I feel his body reacting to mine. We stand there kissing for so long the light in the garage goes off so there’s just the interior light from his car.
“What was that for?” I ask breathlessly.
“I had to get it out of my system before we get to school. It sucks to watch Con and Hoodrat making out all over the place and having to keep our relationship hidden. I know why we’re doing it, but it doesn’t change the fact that it sucks ass.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I love you so much, and I just want to scream it from the roof.”
“I know,” I kiss him, “I feel the same way.”
Sure enough, when we pull into his parking space Connor has Lilith up against his car. They aren’t actually kissing, but they’re pressed against each other smiling. I put on my happy mask and act like my mom didn’t tear me apart last night.
“Hey girl,” I grab Lilith’s hand and yank her away from Con who, of course, growls at me. I give him the middle finger and walk off arm in arm with her toward our lockers. “How was your weekend?”
“It was good, uneventful but good. Hung out with the guys on Saturday. I watched football with my dad and Con yesterday. How was Connecticut?”
“Good. So much pressure from my dad though. He wants me to train this summer in Georgia to qualify and train for Nationals.” We close our lockers at the same time, and I turn and lean my back against mine, watching the pack of FPA cheerleaders walk by. Half of them send nasty looks at Lilith, who could not care less. “What do you think of having a girls’ night tomorrow?”
“I love that idea!” She says as we push away from our lockers and start walking toward our first hour seminar class. “We’ll have to go out if we want to keep the guys away.”
“Yes, we could do some shopping and grab dinner.”
“That sounds great.”
“What sounds great?” A meaty arm lands around my shoulder. “How are my favorite ladies doing?” Mason asks.
He and Lilith have become friends with the guys’ overprotectiveness leading Levi to make sure Mason tails her if one of them can’t be there. I snake my arm between his backpack and back and tuck into his side. He’s like a walking teddy bear.
“Your favorite ladies?” I ask.
“Yep. Lil can knock Levi on his ass, and you’ve always had him on a leash.”
“It’s true, although I’ve yet to see Lilith take him down.” We stop in front of our classroom and each give him a quick hug before going in and taking our seats. I catch the glare Connor throws at Mason and roll my eyes at Levi.
“He can’t help it,” Levi says as I sit down in front of him. “Asshole is his default setting.”
Lilith and Levi chuckle together, continuing to poke the bear. They get along so well that if I didn’t have such a strong history with Levi, I’d probably be jealous. I know Lilith is crazy for Connor though, so I’m not worried. It should be interesting with them going as dates for Homecoming. I’m sure Levi won’t miss the opportunity to fuck with Connor’s possessive nature.
I only have classes with Lilith in the morning and the rest of the day I’m pretty much on my own. Mason is my Intro to Business class, and we partnered up for a project. We’re supposed to meet in the library during our class of the day to work on it. I’m almost to the double-door entrance when I’m tugged backward into an empty classroom.
“Levi,” I squeak as he closes and locks the door behind us, “we can’t in a classroom.”
“We can’t what?” he smirks.
“Hook up. Remember what happened to last people who did that here?” Margaux was caught giving a blowie to a teacher in his classro
om. He was fired, and she transferred to a school back in France for the rest of the year. Not that anyone is sad about that.
“Griff set up those cameras, and we took them down after we released the videos.” He creeps toward me with a devious glint in his eyes. “No one will ever find out.”
I shake my head and take a step back, fighting a grin.
“Gonna make me chase you?”
“I’m going to be late for Mason. We have a project for Intro to Business.” I dart away when he lunges for me.
“He won’t care,” he advances on me again, and I can’t stifle my giggles at his mischievous antics as I back myself into a corner. “Looks like you’re trapped.”
I reach out and pull him to me by the tie. “Now that you’ve cornered me, what are you going to do?”
He spins me so I’m facing the wall and knocks my feet into a wider stance. “Hands on the wall,” he whispers in my ear. His fingertips skim up my legs and over the curve of my hip. “Should I take my time? Tease you until you beg?” One finger glides over my panties, lightly caressing my folds.
I let my head fall back on his shoulder, content to let him do whatever deliciously wicked things he wants to me. I shudder as he trails a line of kisses up the side of my neck to behind my ear.
“Or should I move these panties to side and pound into my favorite pussy hard and fast?” He pulls my panties to the side and dips two fingers inside me. “Soaked for me already,” he hums against my neck. I hear him undo his belt, and then he’s sliding into me.
I arch my back, giving us the perfect angle with me standing. Luckily, I wore the high heels today otherwise there’s no way this would work with his height. He pulls almost all the way out, torturously slow before repeating the same movements. His fingers circle just as slowly around my clit until I’m a whimpering mess with my shaking legs barely holding my weight.
“Levi,” I moan.
“Yes, love?” I don’t need to see him to know he’s smirking.
“Harder.”
“As you wish,” he slams into me, increasing his pace tenfold.
I cry out as I start to come, my pussy clenching around his hard length. He balls my tie up and shoves it in my mouth to keep me quiet. He bites where my shoulder meets my neck as he comes, kneading my hip with one hand until he stops pulsing inside me.
We stand there holding each other up as our pulses slow. He pulls out with a sad little groan and grabs a box of tissues to clean us both up. I look down at my tie and know without a doubt I’ll never look at it the same way.
“That tie is going to drive me fucking crazy from now on,” he grins at me and tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I check the clock over his shoulder and see that we’ve been in here for twenty minutes. Class will be over soon. “I need to get to the library.” Poor Mason has probably been doing all the work.
16
LEVI
The past few weeks have been terrible, quite possibly the worst weeks I’ve ever watched people I love experience. The night of Homecoming, Con, his dad, and Hoodrat’s dad were attacked leaving a gala. Hoodrat’s dad ended up being fatally shot. She hasn’t been the same since it happened, which is understandable as he was her only family. Since we went to Chicago to release her dad’s ashes in Lake Michigan, she’s seemed to start turning a corner though. She’s quicker to smile, but she’s still not as feisty as she used to be.
Con, Griff, and I went out last night and got matching tattoos to surprise her with at our Christmas Eve dinner today. We got Familia Ante Omnia, which translates roughly to family before all, inked onto our biceps and had the same saying engraved on a ring we had designed for her to wear on her middle finger. I’m bummed that Ives can’t be there, but the three us have a special dynamic with her. It’s kind of fitting that we’re pampering her considering how dick-ish we were to her at the beginning of the year.
Dad and Jennifer are getting divorced, thank fuck. She hasn’t been back to the house since that explosive dinner. Dad has been talking to Parker, trying to get him to agree to let Ives stay here for the school year. I was nervous at first since our dads have some sort of beef with each other from way back, but Dad came in clutch, pulling out the win. Parker’s only stipulation was that we had to have supervision in the house twenty-four/seven when Dad’s in the city during the week. Lame but whatever, we can keep sneaking around.
I’ve slept in her bed or she in mine every night the past few weeks. With football season over and her swim season just starting, we’re still missing a lot of time together during the day. Cuddling up together at night just feels right. If you had told me a year and a half ago I’d be as into cuddling as I am into sex, I would have fallen over laughing.
“Hello,” I call out as I let myself into Griff’s pool house.
“Hi,” Griff walks out of his bedroom pulling a sweater over his head. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” I shrug. “Wish Ives was here. You?”
“Glad I’m missing the chaos over there,” he points to the main house which has almost every light blazing. “All my sisters and their families have descended. I’m a living playground for the kids as soon as I walk through the doors.” He says it like it’s an imposition, but his smile betrays his feelings of deep love for his big, crazy family.
“Hi,” Hoodrat says as she walks in the door. She’s got a red wool peacoat over a black dress, and her long, white blonde hair is all wavy. My chest fills with warm affection when she doesn’t hesitate to walk over and hug me. “Merry Christmas.”
“You, too.” I let go of her and laugh at the possessive scowl on Con’s face. You would think years of knowing me and months of being in a relationship with her would make him calm down. I reach out and pull him into a man hug, thumping him extra hard on the back and laughing when he punches me in the gut.
Griff and Hoodrat are in the kitchen getting ready to pull the food his chef prepared for us out the oven. I pull Con over to the windows in the living room.
“How is she doing?” I nod my head in her direction.
“Today and tomorrow are going to be hard. She spent some time with my dad earlier. I think that helped her feel better. She’ll get to meet Claire tomorrow, too. I’m just trying to keep her mind off her dad. It’s been hard as fuck to keep her from discovering the new tattoo though.”
I nod and close my mouth when she and Griff bring the food out and set it on the table. We sit down and eat, enjoying the time we have to be friends today. When we’ve finished dinner, we hand the box with her ring. She tears up and slides it on her finger, giving us all the bird to show it off. Exactly what we wanted, and it looks great on her finger. Then we each take off our shirts and show her our matching tattoos. Connor drags her back to a bedroom while Griff and I clean up.
We’re playing a game of air hockey when Lilith comes racing out of the bedroom with her phone in her hand. She looks at me wild eyed and tells me that Ivy texted that her dad is making her move. I don’t wait for anyone to say anything else, I’m out the door and running toward the trail between Griff’s family’s estate and ours. I’ll be able to run over there faster than moving cars out of the way here.
The snow isn’t too deep yet, and I’ve been walking or running this trail for so long I could do it blindfolded. I know where all the roots stick up and each dip and turn. Even if I didn’t though, I’d still be running like someone was chasing me. I jump the fence between our properties instead of going around to the gate. When I pull open our back door, I hear yelling from the foyer. It sounds like my dad, Parker, and another familiar male voice that I realize belongs to Isaac when I poke my head around the corner.
Isaac’s standing between our dads, his arms extended. For a second, I think about helping him out, but no, I’m going to find Ivy. She’s my number one. I backtrack through the kitchen to the back staircase and take the steps three at a time.
Her bedroom door is cracked open, an
d the lights are on.
“Ivy?” I call breathlessly.
“Here,” she sniffs from the closet. When I walk through the door, I see her dumping clothes into several suitcases. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and her cheeks are red and damp from crying.
“What’s going on?” I gulp as I look around at her closet.
“Dad found out,” she points back and forth between us, “about us. I have to move back home to Hartford with him and Isaac.”
“No.” I shake my head emphatically. “We’ll deny it, it’s not like there’s proof.”
“There is proof. Someone sent him a video.”
The words hit me like a sucker punch to kidney, my stomach drops to my feet. “What? From where?”
“I don’t know. Someone sent it to Mom, and she shared it with Dad.”
“You haven’t seen it?” My mind races to find a way out of this for us, some way for us to be able to stay together.
“No,” she turns and starts grabbing shoes. “There’s no way out of this. I know you’re reaching for some way, but it’s done.”
“How can say that? How can you be okay with this?” Her apparent acceptance of this cuts deep.
“Do I look okay?” She yells, spinning to glare at me. “I spent the car ride up here talking circles around Dad, trying to get him to understand.” She steps up to me, “There’s no hope for us right now.”
“So that’s just it, then?” My heart is pounding against my ribs, trying to escape its cage. “Just throwing in the towel? There’s no hope?”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath and looks me dead in the eyes before answering, “Yes.”
“Ivy,” Isaac walks in, eyes narrowing on me, “let’s go.”
“Five minutes.” She says without looking at him.
“Dad and Frank are about to beat each other up, we don’t have five minutes. I sure as fuck don’t trust this asshole to be alone in a room with you.”
“Fuck off,” I seethe, “at least let us say goodbye to each other.”
Relentless (Titans of Founder's Ridge Book 2) Page 13
