by Erin Wright
She looked up at him with a grimacing smile on her face. “Uh, yes?” she said in an all-too-innocent voice.
Chapter 28
Tennessee
Dammit.
She’d been hoping that the whole “A guy can feel it when he pops your cherry” thing was just an urban legend. Like the one about the lady who put too much hairspray in her hair and under the heat of the summer sun, her head caught on fire. Everyone knew someone’s cousin’s brother-in-law’s great-aunt who had it happen to them, which was code for, “It wasn’t a real thing.”
But based on the look on Levi’s face at this very moment, Tenny was pretty damn sure that being able to feel a girl’s hymen via dick insertion was not, in fact, an old wives’ tale.
“It’s okay,” she said, when he didn’t seem like he was going to start moving again anytime soon. “Really. It didn’t hurt.” Too much. She kept that thought to herself. “Please, I was really starting to get into it.” Before he’d slid inside, she’d been on another planet, gloriously and happily over the moon with pleasure, and sure, popping her cherry hadn’t been the most fun she’d had all week, but the pain had already faded. She was ready and willing to get back to it.
She lifted her hips in the age-old move that silently begged for him to continue, but he shut his eyes and groaned instead. “But, you are…you were a…a…a virgin.” He said it like he’d say that she had some sort of awful communicable disease. “How?!”
“I never had sex?” she said dryly, and then wiggled her hips again. Was there a jumpstart somewhere in here? A button she could push to make him go again? Talking about sex wasn’t nearly as much fun as having it.
“You and Moose…for years…and you didn’t…” He was sputtering and if she wasn’t so damn horny, she’d probably laugh.
Seeing as she was as horny as a randy teenager, though, laughing seemed out of the realm of possibilities at that moment.
“No, we didn’t,” she finally said, deciding that answering his questions was the only way she’d be able to get back to the fun stuff sometime this century. “We decided when we were teenagers that we wouldn’t have sex until our wedding night, and honestly, I’m gonna say that it was a pledge that was a little too easy to keep. Moose became this brother to me that I never had, and after a while, the idea of sleeping with him was just…yuck. No thank you.
“So no, we never had sex. We messed around a lot, but…” She shrugged and pulled him down towards her. “It’s too late now to make me a virgin again, right? So, let’s at least finish the fun.” She began kissing her way up his chest, stopping at one of his flat nipples and flicking her tongue against it.
He growled, his self control breaking into a million little pieces in front of her eyes as he slammed back into her. She saw stars – glorious, beautiful, amazing stars, bursting overhead and flaming out into the darkness, lighting up her whole body.
If she’d known…if she’d had any idea that sex was this amazing, she never would’ve agreed to stay a virgin until her wedding night. Never.
The tingles ran up and down her arms as Levi howled his pleasure and Tenny shook and the world exploded and her voice joined Levi’s as her back arched and the world swirled and dipped around them.
Yeah, her teenage self had no idea what she’d been agreeing to.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when she felt him pull away, rolling over onto his side, away from her. She groaned and reached out her hand. “Don’t…” she whispered, not ready to let him go. He flinched from her touch and she realized that he wasn’t just rolling off her so she could breathe properly again.
He was pulling away from her. Emotionally, mentally, physically, he was withdrawing.
“Levi, where are you going?” she whispered. “You can’t…what we just did…you can’t leave me.” She propped herself up on one elbow, the semi-darkness of the room not hiding his gorgeous body from her. She ran her fingers up his side and then back down over his glorious abs. He pulled in a hiss of air at her touch.
“Tennessee,” he said formally, snagging her hand and keeping her from exploring further. “We shouldn’t have…shouldn’t have done that.” He waved his hand in the air to encompass the whole room. “I’m not good enough for you. You can’t—”
She put her finger over his mouth, shushing him with her light touch. “I already told you – I don’t care about your background. You think I shouldn’t be with the man I love because his biological father couldn’t keep it in his pants?”
Levi sucked in a sharp breath at that and even in the faded light, she could see the wide-eyed look he was giving her at her words.
“Yes, love,” she repeated, a grin spreading across her face. A joyful, happy grin because she was finally telling him the truth. “I’ve been in love with you my whole life, Levi Scranton; ever since I really knew what love was. Watching you with Georgia; being forced to date Moose…years of torture. Years. I never thought I’d actually get to be with you.
“And then you started fixating on my parent’s wealth and I thought maybe, somehow, I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did. Then, you showed up at my house with those yellow roses in hand, and my heart burst into a million little pieces of happiness. Having you with me because of me, not because your parents are guilting you into it or because you have to do it to inherit a tractor dealership – do you know how amazing that is?”
“I love Moose,” Levi rumbled, apropos of absolutely nothing. Tennessee stared at him in the dark, trying to figure out where he was going with this and coming up with nothing at all. “Like a brother, which is ironic considering…well, you know.” He waved his hand in the air dismissively and then dropped it back down on top of her side. He began playing with a curl of her hair, watching it wrap around his thick, long, calloused fingers. She waited patiently for him to continue. For him to struggle this much with spitting it out, she knew it had to be something important. Something huge.
“But him choosing Georgia over you…dumbest thing he ever did. Not that I’m mad about it – it gave me the chance to date you – but damn, he’s an idiot. Georgia is fine – I loved her for a long time – but…she ain’t you, Tenny. If I’d thought in high school, for just one moment, that I’d have a chance with you? I would’ve dropped her in a heartbeat and climbed Mt. Everest barefoot to make it happen. I just didn’t think…I never dreamed…”
Tenny shook her head. “I was in love with you back in high school, Levi. I’ve been in love with you almost all my life, I think. But I wasn’t strong enough back then to tell my parents no. I wasn’t strong enough to forge my own path and tell them where they could stick their bullshit schemes for me. So it’s damn good that you didn’t know the truth in high school, because it never would’ve worked out. You would’ve grown to hate me for being spineless.”
He shook his head in bewilderment. “Over the past couple of months, you went from being willing to say yes to Moose if he’d proposed, to moving out of your parent’s house and dating me. I think you had more bravery in you than you knew.”
She bent down and pressed a kiss to his strong jaw. “No, I didn’t,” she whispered in his ear. “You…you make me strong. You give me courage. Now,” she said, pulling back and looking down at him seriously, “I need your help.”
Chapter 29
Levi
Tennessee turned off the flashlight and Levi stumbled in the darkness, letting out a string of curse words under his breath as he tried to figure out for the millionth time why it was that he’d allowed her to talk him into this. When she’d asked him, all big eyes and soft voice and her tits pressing up against his side, he’d agreed, of course. Saying no to her in that moment would’ve required the kind of self restraint Levi simply didn’t possess.
As he tripped over a stone in the darkness and fell to one knee, he began to question that fact. If he didn’t learn how to start telling Tennessee no when she batted her eyelashes at him, he was gonna end up in some deep shit.
> As if he wasn’t in exactly that right now.
“C’mon,” she whispered, helping pull him back up to his feet. “Virginia is already at the window.”
They both peered up at the window where Tenny’s teenage sister was waving wildly at them, as if she was worried they wouldn’t see her, half hanging out of the second-story window of Tennessee’s family home.
Well, mansion.
Levi pushed that thought away. He could be intimidated by her family’s wealth another time. Right now was not the time.
As they neared the open window, Virginia ducked out of sight and then reappeared with a trash bag in her hands, ready to do her part. Once they got underneath the window, she let the bag go, nothing but the croaking of bullfrogs and discordant song of the crickets to hear in the still summer night.
Whoomp.
Levi caught the black garbage sack, filled with lumps of clothing and shoes and belts.
Whoomp.
The second bag landed in Tennessee’s arms. Levi and Tenny took off for the truck, parked a block over, the garbage sacks slung over their shoulders like a midnight version of Santa Claus running down the street. Levi shortened his stride when he realized that Tenny’s shorter legs were making it hard for her to keep up. Not everyone’s legs rivaled a giant.
They slung the bags into the bed of his truck and then hurried back to the Rowland house. Levi tried not to groan out loud at the fact that if he were caught, he could kiss finding a local job goodbye. It was bad enough that he was trying to date Robert Rowland’s daughter; sneaking around and helping her steal her own clothes back from her parents was a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.
When they got back to the Rowland mansion, Virginia was there, ready and waiting with another garbage sack to drop. As it came hurtling down towards him, he had to wonder, exactly how much clothing Tennessee owned. These were large sacks, and Ginny had already dropped three out of the window. Were they close to being done yet?
Tennessee caught hers with a smothered grunt and they took off for the truck again, their hurrying footsteps the only sound in the still summer night. Levi was happy that both Tennessee and Virginia were taking his warning to heart, and not saying a word as they worked. That and requiring Tenny to wear all black and cover her blonde hair with a black stocking cap were his requirements for actually going along with this scheme of hers.
Honestly, if they got caught, Tenny wouldn’t be in trouble at all – her parents would never turn their own daughter over to the police for theft – but Levi’s ass would be grass. He’d probably be locked away for life if the Rowlands had anything to say about it.
And yet, he couldn’t tell her no, not with those big eyes looking up at him, and her small but perfect tits pressed against his side.
This was definitely going to become a problem. A problem he’d solve in the future; just not right now.
As the pile in the bed of the truck grew larger and larger with every trip, Levi began to reassess Tennessee’s spending habits. She’d told him that she’d been a big proponent of “retail therapy” as she called it, but this…
How was it possible for one human being to own this much clothing? And how did she make a decision every morning on what to wear? It seemed like she could spend the entire day dressing and undressing, all day long, all month long, all year long, and still have plenty of clothes leftover that she hadn’t even touched.
“Last one,” Ginny whispered, breaking her silence for the first time since the caper had started. “All jewelry – be carefu—”
The smaller bag slipped through Tenny’s hands and landed with a clatter on the cobblestone pathway, metal and jewels spilling everywhere, glittering under the light of the moon.
“Shit!” all three exclaimed under their breaths at exactly the same moment, and then Ginny disappeared into the house, pulling her window closed behind her as Levi and Tennessee scrambled to find the jewelry in the dark. A light flipped on in the house and Levi heard some mumbled words drift through the summer air towards them. He didn’t know what was being said, but he did recognize the voice: Mr. Rowland was awake.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Levi muttered, snagging a few last glittering pieces and shoving them into his pockets. “Tenny, we gotta go!”
She nodded and scrambled to her feet, hurrying through the grass and down to Mansion Way, retracing the path they’d taken a couple dozen times already that night.
But this time, her gait was awkward as she tried to hug the jewelry to her chest, and she also seemed completely freaked out – incapable of making decisions like she should be in the heat of the moment.
Levi bit back his groan. He shouldn’t have brought Tenny with him. He’d tried to convince her to just let him go alone, but she’d refused. She was sick of being a mooch, she’d told him. Her throwing his words back in his face had made him flinch, and then capitulate. How little he’d known about Tennessee during that camping trip. How much she’d grown since then.
But still, she wasn’t a master thief and never would be.
They scrambled into his truck as Levi heard the front door of the mansion slam open and shouts ring out into the still night air. He started the truck and threw it into reverse, hoping that the blinding headlights shining out in the darkness would keep Mr. Rowland from being able to see his license plate, or much about his truck. He tore backwards down Mansion Way, his arm slung across the bench seat as he craned his neck around, concentrating on not taking out a parked car or telephone pole.
“You bastard!” he heard the man faintly call, the voice fading away. “I’ll…”
And then his voice was gone altogether.
Levi backed up into a driveway, and then pulled out, heading forwards this time as they went back down the hill and into the streets of Sawyer proper.
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” Tennessee chanted, and then began laughing hysterically. “I cannot believe we just did that!”
They began laughing together, the stress and relief rolling off Levi in waves as he made his way to his house.
“I can’t either!” he said, looking over at Tenny with a huge grin. “My mastermind thief of a girlfriend, who used to be a beauty queen!”
Tenny shot him a huge smile. “One of the questions they always like to ask is if you win, what would you do. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have won anything if I’d answered, ‘Rob my parents!’”
“Probably not,” Levi agreed dryly.
They pulled up in front of his house and quickly began unloading the bags of clothing and shoes and jewelry under the cover of darkness, the elation of having made a quick getaway fading away into the night sky. Even though Tennessee had treated it like a joke that she’d robbed her parents, the truth of the matter was, she had done that, and before he came along and ruined her, she never would’ve dreamed of doing something like this.
He was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Instead of talking her out of pulling tonight’s stunt, he’d helped her make it happen. Trip after trip into the house, his shoulders began to slump as the reality of what they just did washed over him.
He was an idiot. He never should’ve helped her. What if they’d been caught?
He wasn’t good enough for her, and he never would be. Someday, she’d finally figure that out for herself, and then where would he be?
“Thank you for your help,” she said quietly, sensing his mood. They stood back, both looking at the mountain of garbage sacks stacked up in the spare bedroom of Levi’s house. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
The words stabbed at him. Even she realized that he was enabling these poor life choices.
When was he going to learn how to tell Tennessee Rowland no?
Chapter 30
Tennessee
Where had he gone? He’d withdrawn in on himself; had disappeared despite being right next to her.
“Levi?” she asked, putting her hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”
“I shouldn’t have helped
you with this,” he growled, his dark eyes flashing with pain. “Before, you never would’ve dreamed of doing something like this, and now look at what you’re doing. You can take a rat out of the gutter, but you can’t take the gutter out of the rat.”
Tenny sucked in a breath at that. “Levi, you aren’t a gutter rat,” she said, stroking her hand up his muscled arm softly. He had a sheen of sweat on every inch of his skin, and she had the hardest time concentrating on what he was saying. Licking and kissing her way up his arm seemed like a hell of a lot more fun. “I’ve been a doormat all of my life,” she reminded him. “I’m finally standing on my own two feet. This is a good thing, I promise.”
“It’s one thing to stand on your own two feet,” he said, his eyes dark and hooded. “It’s another to steal a bunch of clothes.”
“My clothes,” Tenny pointed out bluntly. “What, do you think my father was dipping into my closet on the weekends and playing dress-up? I would’ve just asked my parents for the clothes, but then they would’ve used them as a bargaining chip, forcing me to agree to their terms before giving me my own stuff. You kept me from having to play their game.”
“I guess,” Levi said, clearly unconvinced.
Tenny rolled her eyes and decided to change the topic. “You remember Sugar and Jaxson’s wedding is tomorrow, right?” Jaxson Anderson was the new fire chief in town, and just months after moving to Sawyer, he’d fallen in love with Sugar, who worked down at the Muffin Man bakery. Tenny and Sugar had never been especially close even though they’d graduated from high school the same year – cliques exist even in the smallest of schools, and they had always run in different circles.
Despite that, they’d gotten along in that, “Hi, how are you? Good,” sort of way, and Tennessee – a romantic sap to the bitter end – was thrilled that Sugar had found love, especially after her first disastrous marriage to Richard Schmidt. Sugar deserved all of the happiness she could get after putting up with that drunk asshole for six years.
