The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(34)

“Why are you a terrible boyfriend?”

“I’m a total diva.”

“You did my dishes and let my son slime you with his sucking thumb, and yes, I noticed that. A diva wouldn’t tolerate four-year-olds and squirrels.”

“I like to be the center of the universe. And I have very exacting standards.”

“So you wouldn’t take me out in public if I had gum stuck to my pants?”

“Depends on what color gum. And flavor, if we’re being honest.”

She laughs again. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

“You don’t get the truth until you pinky promise to keep my secrets.”

I should be asking her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. That’s how my usual relationships start.

This is different.

I’m intrigued. I’m captivated. For the first time in ages, there’s a connection that isn’t forced, something that feels real instead of the next step your career needs, Levi.

This isn’t about doing the right person a favor just in case we need to call it in later. Upping my visibility before an album drops. Paying back an IOU from earlier in my career. Distracting people from dumb shit that’s nothing, but never comes off as nothing when the tabloids catch you after one too many drinks in a club or get the right angle on a photo to make it look like you’re feeling up a woman who was twelve feet away when the picture was taken.

When you’re known around the globe, you know you’re making certain sacrifices.

For me, it’s sacrificing trust.

Sacrificing normal.

Always looking for the angle.

I’m pretty sure the only angle Ingrid’s looking for is whichever one gets her to bed faster, and I don’t mean with me.

Which means I need to be on top of my game to make it worthwhile for her.

She needs to know how little in my life feels real sometimes, and how much I value it when I find it.

I wiggle my pinky between us. We’re so close, she has to look down, and when she does, she smiles, almost shyly. “I haven’t done this in decades.”

Her pinky hooks around mine, and I want to hold it there all night.

Instead, I lean in for another kiss.

She responds slowly at first, but then she melts into me, and the cold disappears, the night disappears, and the world itself disappears.

It’s just her and me floating among the stars in a nice to meet you kiss that’s rapidly becoming an I want to tear your clothes off kiss.

She’s had me transfixed from the moment I laid eyes on her, and this kiss?

Tonight?

It’s the first of many.

It has to be, because I don’t want to let go.

I’ll have to eventually. I can’t have a friends-with-benefits fling with a single mom forever. I’m always gone. Her kids are settled here, and so’s she.

But I can’t resist her, and I don’t want to.

Her fingers brush my cheek and drift down my neck. Heat rockets through my body, the electric current between us pulsing so hard, the shock that comes when we part will be unbearable. The rock star in my pants is ready for a show.

I need to go slow. Don’t scare her. Don’t push her too far.

But she’s kissing me back like she’s been underwater too long and I’m her first gasp of oxygen, one hand tightening around my shirt to hold me here, lips parted, tongue exploring, delicate, desperate noises coming from her throat.

Don’t ask how we end up on top of the picnic table, her on her back, legs wrapped around my hips, her fingers clutching my hair while I slide my hand under her shirt, taking in the soft skin leading to those gorgeous full breasts.

Pretty sure we just floated here.

All I know is, I feel more alive here, with Ingrid, than I’ve felt doing anything in a long time.

“I told you kids to knock it off,” a voice snarls, and a cold stream of water slaps me in the ear.

Ingrid gasps, then sputters, and fuck.

She’s taking it all right in the face.

I leap off the table and jump in front of the water. “Stop.”

“This ain’t for hanky-panky!” The man behind the hose keeps spraying me while Ingrid coughs and chokes.

I grab the hose and wrench it away from him. I can’t see him—I have water in my eyes—but I can see enough to know he’s shrinking back. “Do you own this building?”

“This rooftop is for pretty things and family things and—”

“Do. You. Own. This. Building?”

The hose is pointed at him now, but I’ve got it kinked so it doesn’t spray.

“It’s okay,” Ingrid says between coughs. “Mr. Bouchard, he’s with me.”

“Mrs. Scott?”

My shoulders twitch.

Ingrid wrenches out another cough. “We were having cheesecake.”

The older man looks at me.

I glare at him. “And we’re all going to forget this happened.” Not what I want to do—I want to turn the hose on him and see how he likes it—but it’s what I need to do.

Rumors went around five or six years ago that I was dating Cash’s sister, and there were paparazzi lining her neighborhood, stalking her, for weeks. Even with sitting on the fringes of public life for over a decade at that point, she got frazzled.