The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(44)

I’m six steps from my back door when my phone rings at the same time the back door of the Buick swings open.

The girls’ school.

Crap.

For a split second, I consider letting it go to voicemail.

But if they need something— “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Scott. It’s Rebecca.”

No It’s Rebecca St. John, receptionist from your girls’ school.

Not for me.

We talk at least twice a week, and not because I’m a model PTO parent. “Hi, Rebecca,” I say as I take in the scene unfolding before me in the alley.

Holy shit.

Levi was in the Buick. He’s stepping out of the back of the car and smiling at me with a warmth that completely takes my breath away.

Hi. I missed you. Are you real? How fast can you strip? I can’t wait to touch you. But it’s okay if we just talk and eat too. I like hanging out with you. You get me.

I swear it’s not one-sided, and I swear it’s not my imagination.

He wants to take my clothes off. And he’d do it right here in the alley and take me against the wall.

A brute of a dude with a shaved head who looks like he could hold his own with Piper’s favorite hockey player steps between us, cutting off my view of Levi’s dark, inviting eyes.

Bodyguard. Right. I don’t know this one. Giselle must have the day off?

“—could bring that in for her?”

I shake my head. I’m on the phone with my daughter’s school, and I’m standing here mentally getting myself laid in the alley. “I’m sorry, Rebecca, my connection cut out. What was that?” I fell under the spell of looking at Levi, and I missed what the school secretary said.

But I don’t miss it a second time.

“Piper forgot her hearing aid.”

No.

Noooooooo.

Is she serious?

My entire body sags in defeat, and I shift my gaze to the crumbling asphalt on the ground beside the building’s dumpster. “Does she know where she put it?”

“She says right where she’s supposed to before bed.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll find it and bring it ASAP. Thank you. Tell her to hang in there.”

Levi lifts a brow as I hang up.

His security dude is looking pointedly between me and the door.

Right.

Because come to the back so no one sees you only works if we go inside.

And if we don’t bang each other’s brains out here for the office occupants in the building behind us lucky enough to have an alley view.

We were going to bang, my neglected vagina wails. C’mon, Ingrid. Four minutes in the back of the Buick. Piper can wait.

I shake my head again. “Sorry. School. Piper forgot her hearing aid, so I—”

“Hearing aid?” Levi frowns as he steps next to me, hands in his pockets, close enough that I can feel that warm bubble of light he carries with him, but not close enough to touch.

“Yes, she—why did you think we all talked with our hands all the time?”

“Because he’s not very observant,” the bodyguard mutters.

He takes my keys from me, miraculously finds the first one on the first try—maybe he learned that in bodyguard training?—and briskly shoves both of us into the stockroom.

“Tripp was teaching James sign language when he was little.” Levi shrugs as his bodyguard closes us in the small room. “Please and thank you and more and a bunch of others. I guess I thought…”

“Not very observant,” his security guy repeats.

I hold out a hand to him while I fight the urge to throw myself at Levi the same way I’d been afraid I would’ve if I’d taken his backstage pass all those years ago. “Hi. I’m Ingrid. I’m a disaster.”

“Chuck. I’m not here.”

“Does Levi hire you himself, or does he have an excellent human resources manager who likes to surround him with people who’ll keep him humble?”

I get a grin, but no answer. Warm hands settle on my shoulders, talented thumbs dig into the perpetual tension knots at the base of my neck, and I suddenly agree.

Chuck’s not there.

It’s just me and Levi and his magic hands. “Oh my god, that feels good.”

“I know.” He kisses the back of my head, pulling me deeper into his cocoon of happiness and safety, smelling different today. Like spiced cider and the first frost of the year. “You need help?”

Tease, my vagina grumbles.

It’s right.

No nooky until Piper’s hearing aid is found. I know she’s freaking out in the school office. She hates not hearing.

I don’t blame her. The number of nights I’ve lain in bed wondering how I’d cope if I couldn’t hear the bells jingle on the door, or hear a truck coming down the street, or if I just couldn’t hear music.

I reluctantly pull away from Levi, but I snag his hand and tug, and he follows me to the staircase. “It’s usually the first thing she grabs in the morning once she’s gotten out of her sleep funk—that child does not wake up well—but Hudson went flying into her room and woke her up with Skippy, and Zoe spilled her orange juice, and things were a little more—you don’t want to hear about that. Sorry.”

“Why does she need a hearing aid?”