Dance With Me (With Me in Seattle #12)(27)

“So good,” I agree, and feel him tense with the effort to keep his own orgasm at bay. “Give in.”

“Too fast.”

I cradle his face in my hands. “Give in,” I repeat and watch as he does just that, letting his orgasm take over.

It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.





Levi

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

I’m playing with her hair as she lies on my chest, both of us struggling to catch our breath.

“That’s not funny.” She frowns up at me and then turns away, climbing out of the bed and padding into the en suite. I hurry into the other bathroom on this floor, clean up, and when I return to the bedroom, Starla is pulling on her clothes.

“It’s just an expression,” I remind her, uneasy with the stiff lines of her shoulders and back. “You know that, right?”

“Right.” She sighs and turns to look at me. “But after Rick, jokes about dying just aren’t funny, Levi.”

“Who’s Rick?”

She stares at me for a long moment. “Do you live under a rock?”

“Keeping up with pop culture really isn’t my strong suit.” I tug on my jeans but don’t bother fastening them or pulling on my shirt. “So, who’s Rick?”

“He was my fiancé,” she says as calmly as if she were telling me the temperature outside. “And he died.”

“Start from the beginning.”

“Let’s go downstairs,” she suggests, already walking ahead of me out of the room and down the stairs. “Rick was a race car driver. I met him at an event, and we were inseparable after that day.”

Being jealous of a dead man isn’t something I’m proud of, but here we are.

“He was successful and loved the thrill of racing. It scared the hell out of me. I wouldn’t get in one of those death traps if my life depended on it. And Rick always assured me he was safe. Careful. I believed him.”

She fills a kettle full of water and sets it on the stove to boil. I sit in a stool at the island, watching her move about the kitchen, pulling out cheese, crackers, and fruit.

“He asked me to marry him before my Belladonna tour, and things were good. We were on the same page about life goals.”

“And what were those?” I ask, pulling her out of her reverie.

She blinks at me twice and then answers. “No kids, focus on career, retire early.”

“Okay, and then?” I don’t ask her if those are still her goals. We’ll get to that later.

“I was on tour, and he was with me in Dallas for a show. He had a race the next day, and I told him not to come to the show in Dallas, that he should be in Florida where the race was, getting rest and practice. But Rick had a thing about missing any of my shows. He thought it was bad luck.”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head as she places the snacks on a cutting board.

“He flew out to Florida after the show, but it was a late-night flight, and by the time he got there, got settled at the hotel, and headed to the race track, he hadn’t had much rest to speak of. I was so damn irritated with him.”

The last sentence is a whisper as she pushes the board to the middle of the island. When the whistle blows on the water, she pulls the kettle off the flame and reaches for two mugs and some teabags.

“Tea?” she asks.

“Sure.”

I don’t give a fuck about tea, or cheese and crackers for that matter, but I’m not about to stop her. She’s on a roll.

“So, he called me, and he was kind of whiny about how tired he was. I was frustrated with him because I’d told him to go the day before. In fact, I think my exact words were, get the fuck to Florida. You’ve seen the show.

“I think that hurt his feelings, or he was just stubborn and more determined to stay after that.”

She shrugs a shoulder and pops a piece of Swiss into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

“Either way, I didn’t coddle him during that call. I told him he was tired because he was a stubborn ass, and I didn’t feel sorry for him. I told him to suck it up and deal with it, and good luck.”

She stares at the cracker in her hands, then looks up at me.

“I didn’t say I love you. I didn’t say anything nice during that call, actually.”

I remember the crash now, but I wait patiently and let her finish telling me herself.

“The next thing I know, I’m getting a call from Bobby, Rick’s manager, who was with him, telling me that Rick screwed up in the race and was in a massive accident.” She looks me square in the eyes, and the turmoil churning within her is almost my undoing. “The car exploded, and he didn’t survive. I saw the crash on TV before they cut to commercial. I was praying that he somehow made it out alive, but he didn’t.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“Yeah.” She sets the cracker aside and dunks her teabag in the hot water. “It was pretty horrible. And I had a bad case of survivor’s guilt because I was so mean to him that morning. And for a million other reasons.”

“You didn’t know.”

“No, but I feel guilty all the same. I told him to suck it up and just deal, and it probably cost him his life.”