The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(46)
I gasp as the first wave hits, hard and thorough, my toes curling, my thighs squeezing to hold on to this exquisite, heavenly, thorough, bone-melting pleasure.
“Oh, please don’t stop.” I don’t recognize my own voice, and his is both foreign and familiar.
“So fucking gorgeous, Ingrid. I want to taste you.”
I picture his head buried between my thighs, and my body spasms harder. “Levi.”
He dips his head to my neck and nips at my straining tendons, and rational thought abandons me.
It’s all feeling, instinct, desperation to hold on to this moment, because god knows every moment of pleasure is so very, very fleeting.
My orgasm is already fading, my body slumping, my head falling back against the wall and knocking into a family photo.
He brushes a kiss to my neck, and a fluttery aftershock leaves my clit smiling.
Technically impossible, but I swear she’s purring.
“Oh my god,” I pant.
“You’re a fucking goddess.” He kisses my earlobe, and there’s another pleased flutter down below.
His hard-on is still persistently making its presence known at my hip.
I need to do something about that.
As soon as my eyes uncross.
“You—”
My phone buzzes, and I groan.
He chuckles, his stubble brushing my cheek. “You’re a very popular woman.”
“It can wait.” I trail my fingers down his back. “You—”
The damn phone double-buzzes.
Levi reaches into my skirt pocket and pulls it out. “Preschool?”
I let loose with a string of curse words I learned in the Army, and then the guilt settles in.
My daughter can’t hear, my son is probably missing something as well, and I’m standing in the hallway trying to get laid.
Levi drops a kiss to my nose. “I’ll get Chuck. More hands. We’ll find it.”
I drop my head to the wall again, this time completely dislodging the photo from the wall. I catch it with my back.
He grins, reaches behind me, and rescues my family photo that fell off the wall. “Never dull, is it?”
“I’m missing my afterglow,” I mutter as I swipe my phone.
I shouldn’t complain.
He doesn’t have an afterglow at all.
But he’s not leaving.
“Mrs. Scott? This is Adelaide. Hudson brought a squirrel to school this morning…”
Yep.
This is my life.
Sixteen
Levi
I hang around at Ingrid’s place while she heads to the preschool to pick up Skippy, then to the grade school to deliver Piper’s hearing aid, which Chuck found in a nest in the squirrel’s cage. My security agent heads downstairs to wait for the repair crew coming to give Ingrid a quote on fixing the water damage to the bookstore ceiling and to her bathroom floor, in case they arrive before she’s back, while I’m allowed to do exactly nothing where I might be seen.
Ingrid’s family deserves privacy. Therefore, I can’t be associated with her.
End of story.
But I snoop in her kitchen while she’s gone.
Fantasize about the things I’d like to do with the canned whipped cream in her fridge, and wonder if it’s hidden in back because she sometimes takes a hit straight off it when her kids aren’t looking. Resist the urge to jack off in her bathroom to relieve the pressure. Whip up a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and wrap them in baggies, since all signs point to her kids being lunch-takers, and the peanut butter and jelly were both still on the counter in her small kitchen, along with half a loaf of wheat bread.
Sing to myself. To my phone, really—never know when something good will pop out of my mouth, so anytime I’m singing nonsense, I record it.
Fold the blankets strewn across her couch.
Debate how weird it would be to sniff her sheets and decide that’s exactly when she’d walk back in the door.
Fix Skippy a fresh bowl of water.
Check out the escape window and rickety fire escape balcony before I remember I shouldn’t be near windows.
All seems calm outside, though, and Ingrid’s building backs up to another building without many windows on this side. At least, not in the first three floors. The next several floors are clearly apartments too.
She rushes back inside as I’m in the middle of serenading a scraggly houseplant. And yeah, I spin like I’m caught.
Her eyes are wide like she’s frazzled, but her lips part, and then tip up in a smile. “Were you—”
“Shh. Wynona’s sleeping.” I pet the plant.
“Wynona?”
“All plants need names.”
Her lips purse, and her eyes dance. “How many plants do you have?”
“Three. Elvis, Mr. Freckles, and Shithead, but I call him Poopsie when my niece and nephew ask.”
“Shithead?”
“He’s in the corner of my room. Scared the hell out of me the first morning I woke up and forgot it was there.”
“Who takes care of them when you’re gone?”
My ears get hot. “Housekeeper. You could say I’m more of a plant guardian than a plant daddy.”
“You know I’m calling you Plant Daddy for the rest of my life now, right?”