Читать книгу Mistresses: Just One Night: Never Stay Past Midnight / A Dangerous Solace / One Secret Night - Lucy Ellis, Lucy Ellis - Страница 12

LEVI froze a quarter inch from her mouth as something icy cold and distinctly unpleasant slid through his veins.

Not possible. He’d heard wrong.

“What?” He looked up, finding one anxious gray eye fixed on him, the other squinched shut.

“I’m seeing someone. Sort of.” Elise let out a tremulous breath, slipping from his hold. “I shouldn’t do this. I can’t do this.”

Because of another man.

Because of the kind of person she was.

He got it. Had understood from the start and known it had to be a fluke to find a woman like her outside a relationship. Figured it was only a matter of time— So what the hell was tightening his tendons and pulling his fingers into fists? Jealousy?

It couldn’t be. He didn’t get jealous. Ever. And besides, it wasn’t as though he had any claim over her. They’d had one night. And an afternoon at the park. Less than a handful of hours combined. She wasn’t his … only somehow that handful of hours must have been enough to screw with his head, because even as he closed his eyes to blot that pretty face from his sight, the images of lithe-bodied, little Elise in his bed were brighter than ever.

Hell, he could still feel her wrapped around him. See the smoke in her eyes thicken as he pushed her closer. Hear his name, all breathy and hot on her lips when she came.

His name.

What the hell was wrong with him?

She wasn’t his.

He didn’t want her.

No, that wasn’t true. He wanted her. Bad.

What he didn’t want was the complication of what being with her meant. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea about what he had to offer.

But more than any of that … he didn’t want some other guy doing the things to her that Levi couldn’t stop thinking about doing himself.

“Seeing someone, since when?” Any effort to modulate his tone into something casual failed miserably as the words ground out through his clenched teeth.

It had only been a week from that first night, so maybe whoever this chump about to get dumped was hadn’t had a chance to make much of a move.

Damn.

It didn’t matter. Right. Keep telling yourself that.

Elise blinked up at him, those pearly white teeth sinking into her lush bottom lip as if she’d figured out just how very much it was mattering to him at that very second.

“When?” Less gravel and broken glass in that one.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered, backing across the room.

Tomorrow?

Elise, Elise, Elise. Not a nice thing to do. And definitely not enough to make him back off. His conscience didn’t swing that way.

The corner of his mouth twitched as relief pumped hot and fast through his veins, roaring past his ears, and pushing his feet to move.

“How’s that work? Exactly?”

“Ally, my sister, set me up on a blind date.” She was watching his every move as he closed in—watching his mouth, his eyes, his chest and, oh, so briefly, lower. “She won’t cancel it for me.”

Which meant she’d tried to get out of it.

Yeah, that date wasn’t happening.

Levi nodded his understanding, doing his best to keep the possessive satisfaction beating its chest under wraps. This guy hadn’t even laid eyes on Elise, let alone a finger or anything worse.

And more than that, his little Elise was the kind of sweet thing who didn’t want to cheat on a guy she hadn’t even met.

They were face-to-face, but it wasn’t close enough. Stepping into her space, he crowded her against the back side of the couch, leaning closer still until she’d pushed herself on to the ledge.

A better man might have let her be, given her the space she’d asked for without words. But then a better man probably wouldn’t have backed her up there in the first place. A better man wouldn’t have wanted to get her off balance and caged in so she had no choice but to reach out and hold onto him.

She could have a better man after he left town.

Reaching for one hand and then the other, he rubbed his thumbs against the pale skin of her wrists, felt the racing of her pulse beneath, and then brought her palms to his chest. “What’s she doing setting you up?”

Her gaze was fixed on the spot where her hands rested against him, her breath coming in shallow pants. “It’s her version of an intervention because of what happened with you. She thinks I’m … lonely … desperate … something. Doesn’t believe me when I tell her I don’t have time for a relationship right now. She feels … sort of responsible for me. It’s not right, but, whatever. So she called a guy she knows, a ‘nice guy’ looking for something serious, to save me from myself.”

Bowing closer, he let his words wash over her temple. “Do you need saving?”

Her breath caught, but not her hands. Slipping over the back of the couch, she landed on the seat cushions with a startled gasp. Only too quickly, she saw her opening and was on the move. Levi followed her over, hitting the cushions as Elise slithered to the floor—her slinky, back-crawling escape making him want to catch her all the more.

Just not quite yet.

Eyes wide, she shook her head. “I don’t know what I need.”

Not a problem. “I do.”

It was written all over her face—in the spots of color high on her cheekbones, the smoke swirling in her eyes, the rise and fall of her chest … and the tight knots of her nipples pressing through her yoga tank. And if that wasn’t enough, there was that electric current spiking through the air between them. “And I think maybe you do too.”

Oh, God. He was grinning. Not some jovial nonthreatening expression of benevolence and friendship either. Not even close. This was predatory. Relentless. A warning of seductive intent that teased her senses toward a heightened state of awareness.

It made her hot. Scared and excited all at once.

It made her want to get reckless in a way that wasn’t part of her makeup.

“Levi,” she pleaded, arms and legs working in a sort of crablike scuttle to put distance between them. “This can’t be a good idea.”

He prowled after her in slow, shoulder rolling pursuit. Stalking on hands and knees across the hardwood … that seductive gleam in his eyes … the promise of pleasure stretching in the air between them drawing her toward him even as her hands and feet pushed her away.

“It’s not.”

No apology. No justification. No reassurance.

“Then why?”

“Because deep down, Elise, I’m not a nice guy.” Eyes dark as storm-tossed seas held with hers. “And I want you too much to do the right thing.”

A shudder tore through her, halting her retreat as need spilled warm and thick through her belly. “Oh, God, that’s good.”

To be wanted enough that the right thing didn’t matter.

And then she realized: that was how she wanted him.

Waiting, she trembled as Levi closed in—crawling over her until his head was even with hers, his arms braced at either side of her ribs, and one knee was positioned between her legs while the other rested beside her hip.

His mouth curved into a wicked taunt. “Quitter.”

“I don’t think I want to run from this. From you.”

That dark gaze raked over her body beneath his, a breath away from contact. “Don’t want a nice guy after all, then?”

She shook her head. Nice guys were overrated. It hurt so much worse when they let you down, because you never saw it coming.

With one arm still braced at her side, Levi wrapped the other around her back. Taking her weight, he closed the distance between them with the hard press of his lips against her own.

Safe in the strength of his hold, she threw her arms around his neck. The demand of his mouth increased, and she opened beneath him. Clung to him as his tongue swept past her lips in a deep, delicious invasion that was all confidence and claim. Nothing tentative, nothing questioning.

Fingers bunched into the fabric of his shirt, she took the hot thrust of his tongue with a moan, tasted the wet caress of his hunger, and met it with her own.

No one had ever kissed her the way Levi did.

It was all consuming. Possessive. Intense.

And worth anything her conscience had to pay to have it.

Nudging his knee between her legs, he leaned forward, bringing them into closer contact.

Breath ripping from her lungs, she cried out as the thick slab of his muscled thigh flexed against her sex. Satisfaction rumbled from deep in his chest as he palmed the globe of her bottom, angling her hips to meet him again and setting a rhythm of advance and retreat with the rocking of their bodies and wet tangle of their tongues.

Stoking the flame of her desire until it blazed beyond containment.

“Levi,” she gasped, the needy ache between her legs spiraling tight through her core as she clutched at his shirt. “Take this off. Please.”

Levi shifted onto his knees, pulling her up with him so she straddled his lap. Then grabbing a fistful of shirt from his shoulder, he tugged it over his head and tossed it aside.

Her mouth opened to say … something, beg for more maybe, only the words were beyond her.

He was so incredibly, beautifully built. Broad shoulders. Bronzed skin. And that decadent trail of crisp hair arrowing beneath the fly of his jeans. Hands splaying over the defined contours of his chest, she brushed the tips of her fingers against the tight discs of his masculine nipples, marveling at her own body’s clenching response to the grazing touch.

Peering up into his face, she whispered, “What you do to me …”

“Elise. What I want to do to you.” Catching her jaw in his palm, he held her gaze. “You sure you understand what you’re getting into here?”

The corner of her mouth turned up at his reluctant concession. He didn’t want to be a nice guy, but apparently he couldn’t help it. “I’m sure.”

He nodded, then, leaning back, he dug his phone out of his pocket and held it in front of her. “Call your sister.”

Elise blinked up at him, her body a riot of need. “What—now?”

“Now. I’m not above talking you into another mistake, but I’m sure as hell not going to make a cheater out of you while I do it. Dial.”

Elise swallowed, thumbing in her sister’s number. At the first ring she moved to take the phone from him, but Levi pulled it away, catching her wrists in one hand as she grabbed after it.

“Levi, give me that phone.” He had no idea what kind of a mess he could make for her. “I’m serious.”

Eyes locked with hers, he held her at bay. “So am I.”

Then …

“Hi, Ally, this is Levi, Elise’s boyfriend …”

Her mouth fell open as the floor dropped out from under her—taking whatever understanding she’d thought she had with it.

“Cancel her date. She’s not available.”

Levi powered the phone off and then pushed it away, that dark gaze raking down her body to where she straddled his lap and then back up to her mouth hanging in slack-jawed shock.

He didn’t mean it. Obviously he didn’t mean it.

And she might have confirmed that with him too, if he hadn’t pulled her hard against him and taken her lips with a kiss so charged with want, it shorted out all reason and rationale.