“Scooch,” I told Max. Then I sat down next to him, handed him his juice box and pulled him in for a hug. Kissing the top of his head, I whispered. “And you’re the most handsomest man in the whole wide world.” He let me hold him close for another few seconds and then pulled away to dive into his pizza.
It was our tradition and I loved it, but lately he’d been pulling away quicker and rolling his eyes more. This growing up stuff was killing me.
Levi started the movie, grabbed a plate of pizza from the kitchen and took a seat on the smaller loveseat next to us. “Where’s your mom?” he asked as the beginning credits rolled. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
“Working,” I told him.
“She’s still at Misty’s?”
I couldn’t tell if his tone was genuine surprise or total judgment, but I pretended not to notice either. “She loves it there. I don’t get it either, believe me. But she’s been there for so long, I don’t think she can imagine doing anything else.”
“Huh…”
“The late nights are starting to catch up to her though. The job is hard on her in general. I’d love to see her do something else, but I don’t think she’ll ever give it up.” Not that she could if she wanted to. She was already fifty and it wasn’t like the job market in Clark City was booming.
But what did that mean for her future? How would she take care of herself if she ever lost her job at Misty’s?
How would she ever retire? I was pretty confident Misty’s didn’t offer a 401K.
Although, to be fair, I didn’t know that for sure.
I would have to live here forever, I realized. She was helping me now, taking care of me in her own way, I supposed. But it wouldn’t be long before she needed me to help her, take care of her.
A cold, stifling feeling washed over me, like an underground crypt that had only just been opened after centuries of being sealed. I was never leaving this trailer. I was born here, and I was going to die here.
And probably drag Max down with me.
I glanced at Levi’s profile and doubted my life choices all over again. He had leaned forward, elbows on his bent knees, uneaten pizza dangling from one hand as he explained the answers to Max’s one million questions about the movie.
By the time we finished eating, Max was completely engrossed in the story. He’d stretched out on the couch with his feet on my legs and his head as close to the TV as the couch would allow him. I found myself yawning, but it was obvious this movie was life-changing for my son.
When A New Hope ended, Max begged long enough and hard enough that I caved for the Empire Strikes Back. How could I not? Especially when Levi joined in.
“He’s going to be obsessed,” I murmured to Levi around the time Yoda was riding on Luke’s back through a tangled forest. “I’m blaming you.”
Levi looked up at me from underneath his thick lashes and said, “He’s supposed to be obsessed with it. All boys are.”
“You liked it as a kid?”
“Are you kidding me? Logan and I would have lightsaber fights around the farm every single day. When I was a little older than Max, my dad even let us turn the haystacks into a death star. We nearly had the entire trilogy memorized.”
“Let me guess, you played Luke Skywalker?”
He snorted a laugh. “Yeah, right. Logan always made me be Darth Vader. He needed a nemesis. I had the, ‘Luke, I am your father!’ line down perfectly.”
I could easily imagine an eleven-year-old version of Levi bellowing out the famous line as he chased his older brother all over his family farm. The two of them would have been terrors together.
“Were you and Logan always close?” I asked him quietly, suddenly mourning the loss of a sibling for my son. He would never have a brother or sister to run around with. I’d shut that door a long time ago and while I thought I’d made peace with it, listening to Levi reminisce cracked fissures in my surety.
“Always,” Levi confirmed. “I can’t imagine a better brother. Yeah, we fought sometimes and there are some things he did that I find hard to forgive him for. But his heart was always in the right place. And he was always there for me.”
“What do you find hard to forgive him for?” The Logan I remembered didn’t do things that caused permanent damage. He was always thoughtful. He always went out of his way to make things right. It was how I knew he would have been an excellent dad for Max. He and I didn’t need a relationship for me to know he would have shown up for our son. Every single day. Just like he’d been there for Levi.
“Dying, for one,” Levi grumbled. “He shouldn’t have left us.”
Hot tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I felt the truth of Levi’s words cut to my heart. Yes, they were true for Max, but I also felt them for Levi.
“You were another reason I had a hard time forgiving him,” he said.
I looked up to find his glittering green gaze already on me. My breath stuck in my throat and I couldn’t find words to ask him what he meant.
Me, because he was my first? Did Levi know?
Or me, because I was friends with him in a way I’d never been friends with Levi?
Before I could recover, Levi jumped up and asked where the bathroom was. Thankfully, Max answered and I didn’t have to try to formulate words or sentences or stop panicking.
I still couldn’t speak when he walked back into the room, but I’d at least been able to reposition my body so it seemed I was watching the movie.
And not him.
Twenty minutes later, Max’s snoring drowned out the sound of the TV. He’d fallen asleep staring at it and his head was at a funny angle, his glasses cockeyed on his adorable face. Smiling, I jiggled his leg and tried to wake him up.
“Max,” I said softly. “The movie’s not over, babe.”
He mumbled incoherently and rolled to his side. At least his snoring improved.
Levi chuckled softly and said, “I think he’s out.”
“It was a big night for him,” I laughed. “I’ve heard discovering Star Wars for the first time is no joke.”
“You sound unimpressed.” I felt his eyes on me, but I was too busy to look at him. I had a sleeping child to take care of obviously.
“Oh, no,” I answered, distracted. “I was so impressed. So very impressed.” I grunted as I tried to lift Max off the couch by picking him up from underneath his armpits. His arms flopped to the side and I nearly collapsed on top of him. “Max, why are you so big?” I asked no one.
Levi moved behind me, “I can carry him.”
“Oh, no—”
“Seriously, I insist,” he said. “I can take him to his bed, you just point me in the right direction.
“Uh…” Sure enough, Levi scooped him up like he weighed nothing, and I was left scrambling out of the way, so I didn’t get hit by one of Max’s flying feet.
“Which way?” Levi asked.
“Down the hallway,” I said, scurrying to my feet so I could show him. I pushed Max’s door open and hoped for the best. I couldn’t remember what it looked like this morning. Had it been clean? Had it ever been clean? “He’s in here.”
I turned the bedside lamp on and pulled down Max’s covers so Levi could lay him on the bed. My heart punched my breastbone in response to the sight. I don’t think I’d ever seen another person put my son to bed. If my mom did it, I was not home. Mixed emotions flooded my body like a pot boiling over.
Levi leaned over him to make sure he set Max down gently. He grabbed his glasses, folded them carefully and set them on the nightstand. And it was there that I lost whatever remnant of my heart had been holding out against Levi Cole.
How could someone so tall and muscly and stuffed with testosterone, be so completely soft and sweet? How could the same obnoxious boy I knew from my childhood be this kind, considerate man in front of me now. How could I ever reconcile the Levi Cole I thought I knew with the man I was getting to know?
“I’ll let you do your thing,” he whisp
ered on his way out the door and my knees nearly buckled from the weight of emotion pressing down on my shoulders.
I waited for Levi to step into the hallway before I walked over to Max, tugging the covers to his shoulders and kissing the top of his head.
I sat there for a full minute, just brushing his hair back from his forehead and trying to make sense of my life. “I love you a million, Maximillian,” I whispered next to his cheek. His full name wasn’t Maximillian, but I’d been whispering that same phrase to him since I’d brought him home from the hospital.
“I love you too, Mommy,” he mumbled with his eyes closed and his hair already rumpled from sleep.
Tiptoeing out of the room, I crumpled against the wall. My breathing wasn’t steady, and my heart was trying to convince me it had just finished a full marathon. Even my hands were shaking.
“Get a grip, Ruby,” I whispered to myself.
The last seven years of my life had been so devoid of these feelings. Ajax was the only relationship I’d allowed myself to indulge in, but even that was… mild compared to this.
I had butterflies in the beginning with Ajax, but nothing like these, nothing like what Levi made me feel. I’d been smiley and happy and excited to see Ajax early on, but again, Levi had taken whatever amateur feelings I’d experienced with that sham of a relationship and squashed them.
That or my feelings had been taking steroids over the last two months.
Walking into the living room, I found him sitting on the long couch. He’d sat down in the very middle of it, making it seem small and inadequate for his size. His knee bounced rapidly, revealing nerves I didn’t think he was capable of feeling.
Our gazes clashed from across the small space and his lit on fire, burning so hot and so bright I felt them on me like a physical thing. I wasn’t even dressed in anything spectacular. Just some leggings and a large hoodie I’d had since high school. My hair was up on top of my head, knotted in a wild messy bun. I did have makeup on, but it was minimal. Yet, he looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, like I was special and precious and worthy.
The rest of my resolve dissolved. I couldn’t deny the hot surge of lust rocketing through me. I couldn’t deny that I wanted Levi fiercely. I couldn’t even pretend that I didn’t know what was going to happen next.
I did.
I was going to kiss Levi Cole. And I was going to enjoy every single second of it.
18
Mood Killer
Before Levi could ask me what I was doing, I crossed the room and climbed on his lap, my legs straddling his tapered hips. His look of surprise mingled with white, hot lust. I shivered from just that, from the way his eyes flashed, and his mouth parted and the way his hands automatically gripped the backs of my thighs.
“Ruby, what are you—”
I cut his question off with a kiss, afraid that if he made me explain myself I’d chicken out. Taking his face in my hands, I pressed my lips to his and ran my tongue over his bottom lip. A shiver ran through him, making his whole body vibrate beneath me.
He responded immediately, not hesitating even for a second. His mouth opened, and our tongues tangled together, a desperate push and pull of lips and teeth and tongue. I held his face in my hands, relishing the feel of his stubbled jaw against my palms and fingertips. My stomach pressed against his hard chest as I tried to get as close to his body as possible. My legs cradled his hips, feeling the parts of me that were so female rub against his oh-so maleness.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss or a sweet moment. We went from zero to sixty the second our bodies touched. His splayed hands gripped my hips, tugging me tighter against his body. I moaned into his mouth at the feel of his overwhelming hardness. His entire body was made from cut stone, it had to be. I had never felt muscles like these, never experienced such relentless power in one human being.
My hands moved to his shoulders, so I could prevent my body from toppling over. God, he made me dizzy with his passionate kisses and greedy pleasure. But not just dizzy… it was worse than that. It was a full-body kind of vertigo. He completely upended me.
He took everything I thought I knew about him and this town and this life I’d carved out for myself and turned it upside down.
What was I going to do with him?
His mouth moved over my jaw, kissing, sucking… teasing. He found the sensitive spot just below my ear and paid careful attention while I writhed on top of him and tried to keep from trembling.
Our mouths crashed together a second later and I gasped for breath as his kisses made me delirious with want. “Levi,” I groaned against his mouth.
One of his hands slipped beneath my sweatshirt, finding bare skin. I shivered against the feel of his hot hand against my stomach. And then again as he moved it slowly upward, over my ribs, to just beneath my breast.
My thighs moved further apart, and I settled myself more firmly on him. His other hand gripped my ass firmly, digging his fingers in until it was almost painful, but deliciously so.
“I want you,” he told me plainly, his voice a low rumble of need.
I kissed him again, my teeth grazing his bottom lip. “I want you, too,” I told him in a rasping voice I hardly recognized.
He made a sound of approval in the back of his throat and shoved my bra aside, so he could palm my naked breast, his thumb flicking over my pert nipple. I gasped at the sensation and jolted upright.
His chuckle was wicked and taunting. He did it again, and when he pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, I thought I would die right then and there from too much sensation.
I made a sound that didn’t even make sense, begging him for more or to stop or I had no idea what. God, it had never been like this before. Never. Never so intense and electrified and consuming. Never had I been so desperate for a man, so utterly greedy to feel and taste and experience every single inch of him. And we were still completely clothed.
Abruptly, I questioned if this was a good idea. Could I even survive Levi Cole? Or would he be the end of me?
Oh, he would most certainly be my end.
But was it worth it?
With the brief separation of our bodies, his hand left my breast and I mourned the loss until his finger brushed between my legs, finding the most sensitive area of my body in an expert move that had me dropping my forehead on his. He pressed his fingers against my core, moving them in the best way.
“Levi,” I gasped, desperate for more.
“Ruby,” he teased, reminding me of high school for some reason. The push and pull. The give and take. The constant rivalry between us.
He pulled his hand back and gripped my thighs again, tugging me tightly against him. His arousal was unmistakable, and I moved against him accordingly. His mouth found mine again and I moaned into him, wild and wanton and all the things I had never been before. Oh, my god, Levi Cole was perfect in every way.
Suddenly, I was in the air, away from his body. The next second my back was on the couch and he was stretched out on top of me. His thigh pressed between my legs, giving me a jolting sensation of pleasure. But it wasn’t enough.
Thankfully, leggings were the perfect pants. I wrapped my thighs around his waist and yanked him against me. We both gasped at the sensation, his low rumbling laugh chasing after me.
“Knew you wanted me,” he murmured between kisses along my jaw.
“You’re so full of yourself,” I murmured weakly as he lifted my sweatshirt up and over my body, tugging it free in one swift move.
I lay there topless, trying to decide if I was mortified or turned on.
Okay, I was still turned on. That feeling wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. But I was also embarrassed. The stretch marks on my stomach weren’t my favorite part of my body and all the lights were on. I’d always made Ajax keep the lights off. Besides, we’d usually been drunk.
Levi and I were totally sober. Which meant I couldn’t excuse away this behavior or pretend he didn’t know what I look
ed like without clothes on.
His sharp intake of breath forced my eyes open. His eyes were glued to my chest, drinking in the sight of my breasts, one still supported in my bra, the other not so much since he’d liberated it.
I tried to cover my chest with my arm, but he grabbed it by the wrist and stretched it above me, holding me in place.
“Used to imagine this moment, Ruby,” he murmured. He dipped his head, his breath falling over my nipple, making me squirm. “God, so many hours were dedicated to imagining what it would be like to have you underneath me, like this.” His mouth closed around the one exposed nipple and he sucked tightly. I made that whimpering sound again. “You’re so much better than anything I could have dreamed. So much more perfect.” His head lifted and he hit me with that intense, promising gaze. “And I didn’t think that was possible.” He sucked my nipple into his mouth again and then did wicked things with his tongue until I thought I was going to explode from just the press of his body and his mouth on my breast.
“Don’t stop,” I begged, a curling heat building through me.
He leveraged his body on his elbow and snaked his hand over my stomach and into the waistband of my leggings. My back arched as his fingers did magical things in neglected places. When his finger plunged inside of me at the same time his mouth closed around my nipple again, I exploded into tiny, fragmented pieces.
Lights burst behind my closed eyelids and my entire body fell to pieces, tightening and then tightening some more until I was nothing but coiled muscle and powerful sensation. I stretched my body, prolonging the pleasure, gasping for breath and enjoying the now lazy movements of Levi’s hand.
“Oh, my god,” I gasped as my body started to piece itself back together.
“That was easy,” Levi rasped around a smile. He kissed my jawline and nipped at my ear. “And so fucking hot.”
I caught his dirty mouth with mine and shut him up with more delicious kisses. “I don’t want to stop,” I whispered, feeling more like a woman than I had in seven years… maybe my whole life.
Trailer Park Heart Page 22
