“Why?”

“Because I’m not sure you want me to kiss you.”

“Oh.” I nod. My hair tickles his nose. He scrunches it, and I laugh. “What if I told you that I do? Would you kiss me then?”

“I still don’t think so,” he says calmly. Seriously.

My smile fades. Oh, shit. Shit, I made a mess. “You don’t want to?” My voice is small, insecure. He shakes his head. “That’s not it.”

It must be. What else? “Right.” I’ve been in his arms for a while, but suddenly I feel self-conscious. He’s not okay with this. He used to be attracted to me, but not anymore. I’m overstepping. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go too far.”

“You don’t understand, Bee.” A small smile. Our foreheads touch, his skin warm against mine. I really, really want a kiss from this man. I want it bad enough to burn.

“You can’t go too far.”

“Then why . . . ?”

His eyes flutter closed. His lips move closer. “I’m terrified that you won’t go far enough.”

When Tim kissed her for the first time—after a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I later found out he slept through—eighteen-year-old Bee called her sister to say she’d had the loveliest of kisses. But eighteen-year-old Bee was a fool. Eighteen-year-old Bee had no idea. Eighteenyear-old Bee overrated that Tim wasn’t overly clumsy and brushed his teeth. And twenty-eight-year-old Bee would consider going back in time to slap her upside the head, but she’s busy having a real, true, actual, honest-to-God good kiss.

The best kiss.

It has to do with how slow it starts. With the way Levi and I breathe against each other for a moment, just breathe and taste the air between us.

It should feel ridiculous, but there’s something unique about how he looks at my mouth from lowered eyelashes. Wrapped around him like I am, I can feel his pounding heartbeat, the heat of his skin, and suddenly I’m not scared anymore. He wants this—he wants me. I know it in the liquid, messy warmth of my abdomen, in the red spreading over his cheekbones, in his breathing, even faster and louder than mine.

“Bee.”

The tension stretches so unbearably tight, we might as well be on different sides of the world. So I close the distance, and then it’s not slow anymore. It’s hard and fast and open-mouthed. Wet and pressing and half bites. It’s messy, the least smooth kiss of my life—but maybe it’s not a kiss at all. Just two people trying to be as close as possible. His hands are sliding up my ass. My nails are in his scalp. He grunts choppy, surprised praise into my throat—“Yeah.

Yeah.”—licks the dip of my collarbone, and I’m on fire, half a minute of this and I’m already aflame, pulsating with want and need. I have no brakes: I grind myself helplessly against him, my nipples hard against his chest, his hard abs the perfect slate for my core to rub on.

“You are so—” He groans deep, like he’s halfway to insane. I’m too busy desperately seeking friction to even try to keep up with my end of the kiss, but it’s okay. He’s got me. His large palm comes up, wraps around my neck, angles my head sharply, just so. His tongue is inside my mouth, pressing against mine, and . . .

Dirty. This is not a kiss—this is dirty. Obscene. He pushes me against the wall, and I push back, and back, and back, like there can be no air between us. His hand under my shirt is possessive, confident, so large that it completely spans my rib cage, and I arch up, swallowing a whimper in the back of my throat. My head is spinning, my body is melting, I can hear bells, and—

Not bells. A phone. Ringing. It slowly penetrates the thick haze of Levi mouthing my breasts, leaving a wet trail over my T-shirt—God oh God.

“Your phone,” I whisper, forcing myself to still my hips. It’s the loudest my voice will go. Then one of his hands slips inside the back of my panties, and he starts grinding me up and down on his abs, and I forget what I meant to say. It’s the exact spot, the exact rhythm I’d been trying to reach. He learned it, and he’s helping me keep it up, fingers digging into the flesh of my ass. A perfect thrust. He growls, and I whimper at the spear of pleasure. My eyes roll in the back of my head, and . . . Yes. Right against— Yes.

There.

“Levi,” I gasp. “Your phone—do you maybe want to—oh —pick up?” Or we can just continue until the ache disappears. Yes, that would be lovely.

And stopping would be unbearable. Is that his cock rubbing against my ass?

No. Impossible. No one’s that big, right?

The phone is still ringing. I’m all about ignoring it, but Levi— I realize that Levi is not ignoring it. Levi is making his way under my shorts, sucking on the spot under my ear, and not even hearing it.

“Levi.” He doesn’t quite snap out of it. He doesn’t pull back, doesn’t move his mouth from my skin, but he stops. His grip tightens around me. A child, reluctant to let go of a favorite toy. “Your phone. Do you want to . . .

?”

His eyes are glassy. His hands not fully steady as he lets go of me, gingerly, with difficulty. I watch him try to collect himself for long seconds before he picks up. “Ward.”

He is winded, chest moving up and down. He palms his erection like it hurts, all the while staring at me, me, only me. Then he looks away and his demeanor abruptly changes. “Say that again?” The speaker on the other end is female. I can’t make out the words, but I recognize the voice from before.

From the picture in his office. “Yeah, of course,” Levi says reassuringly. His voice is still husky, but soft. Caring. Intimate. He turns around and gives me his back, like I’m not here anymore. They used to date, a nagging voice provides. What you just did with Levi? He used to do it with her. And much more.

“I’ll be right there.”

Reality’s catching up fast. I just—I did that. I haven’t been this close to another human being in years, and now— with Levi. I liked it, too. I forgot myself and probably all decency, but maybe he didn’t? He’s leaving in the middle of it. Because of a phone call. From a friend. Whom he used to date.

Shit. Shit—

“Bee?” I look up. His eyes are ablaze. His jeans tented. Okay—he is that big. “I need to go.” His throat bobs before and after he says it. He doesn’t seem fully in control. Could I convince him to stay, if I tried?

Probably not. I won’t, anyway. “Of course.”

“I would . . .”

“It’s okay.”

“I will . . .”

“Yeah, you can . . .”

“Yes.”

I’ve no clue what he’s trying to say, and I seriously doubt he knows what I mean, since I have no idea myself. We’re talking over each other. Just like we were all over each other. Ba Dum Tss.

One last glance and he leaves. He’s halfway down the stairs when I notice the car keys on the table, on top of the diagram I drew. I grab them and run after him. “Hey, you forgot your keys!”

He stops on the landing and holds out his hand, so I go to him and drop them into his palm. I expect him to leave right after, but he surprises me by stepping closer. Then closer still.

For long moments he just looks at me, eyes full of beautiful, undecipherable green things. My throat constricts, my stomach twists, and I want to tell him that I’m sorry, that it’s okay, that I know he made a mistake, that we never need to talk about this, never again. But before I can say anything, he cups my cheek and leans down to kiss me once more.

This time it’s sweet, slow, savoring. Patient. This time it’s lingering and gentle—everything our other kiss wasn’t.

I want to try them all. All the kisses Levi Ward is capable of, I want to sample them like fine wine.

I touch my lips, feel his residual warmth, and don’t take my eyes off his back as he disappears.

17