The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(58)

“Is Hudson comatose?”

I snort with laughter, but it could easily be a sob. Legit question. “I have a baby monitor, and once I set the alarm again, if he tries to sneak out, we’ll know it. Go on. Shoo. To the loft, I mean. Don’t leave. If I’m hallucinating you, I will be very pissed off.”

He presses a kiss to my forehead, and even though it’s a simple, friendly gesture, I feel it in my clit. “Don’t change.”

“My personality, or my clothes?”

“Yes.”

Hello, warm tinglies in my chest. “Are you this nice to everyone?”

“Kind-nice? Yes. Pretzel-nice? No. That’s only for my favorite people.”

“Did you stop and give your mom one first?”

His eyes widen, and the tips of his ears go pink. “I—yeah.”

“You did.”

“Just making sure she remembers who her favorite is.”

I grab him by the cheeks and press a kiss to those perfect lips. “That is the sweetest thing ever.”

“I missed your lips.”

He’s staring at them like they’re the best erotic art he’s ever seen. Like he’s not at all turned off by the way my hands smell like cleaners, or the way my hair’s in knots, or even the way my boobs are sagging under my T-shirt.

That surge, that connection, the spark—it wasn’t in my imagination while he was gone.

He thinks I’m attractive.

No.

He thinks I’m sexy.

Have I shown him that I think he’s sexy too?

Not because he’s Levi Wilson, pop god. Not because he brings me pretzels. Not because he’s always in well-tailored clothes with perfect haircuts.

But because he smiles at me in a way that makes me feel like I’m everything that’s missing in his life. Because he asks how my kids are doing and doesn’t seem to mind when they act like themselves. Because he offers to find me a babysitter on top of offering to cook me dinner, like he gets that dinner is never just dinner.

Because he does crazy things like flies home early and comes here, to see me, after stopping in to see his mom.

He’s such a great guy.

“I have a confession,” I whisper.

His eyes are sapphire at midnight as they lift back to meet mine, his hand sliding down my ass. “Has someone been a bad girl?”

“I can’t stop fantasizing about taking your clothes off.”

“And where do these fantasies happen?”

“Everywhere.”

Oh, god, his smile. His hands. His I want to spread you out on the kitchen table and eat you bedroom eyes. My panties are officially soaked.

He’s pulling me tighter to him, and that bulge against my belly is making me even wetter. “So I know I understand you right…are you fantasizing everywhere about me, or are you fantasizing that I’m making you come everywhere?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

His hard length twitches against me.

I arch into him. “But I want to make you come too.”

“Fuck, Ingrid.”

“Yes. You definitely need to fuck Ingrid. But first…” I flick open the top button on his silky smooth shirt. “You.”

His chest rises unsteadily as I free the next button. “Is this my reward for pretzels?”

“You don’t have to bring me presents for me to want to strip you. You are the present.”

I press a kiss to his chest, the dark hair tickling my face, the hard muscle beneath warm against my lips, his breath making his sternum rise up to meet my mouth, and I work my way down.

I haven’t done this in ages either.

It’s possible I don’t remember how.

But he flew home early to see me. He’s kept me entertained with text messages for the past week. He made me see stars in my hallway, then didn’t ask for anything in return when I was having another family crisis.

The man deserves a reward.

His fingers curl into my disaster of a ponytail as I press a kiss to his belly button and reach for the snap on his jeans. “Ingrid—you don’t have to—”

“Shush and let a woman see if she still remembers how.”

“You—”

I drop to my knees and cut him a look. “Levi Wilson, I will use the mom voice. So unless you’re telling me no-no, and not just being a gentleman…”

“No more gentleman. Cross my—fuck, that feels good.” His head drops back as my knuckles graze him through his boxers while I pull down his zipper.

He’s in emoji boxers. Oh my god.

He’s perfect. Silly and serious and sexy and everything.

I rub his hard-on through the cotton. “I like the way you say fuck.”

“I like the way you do everything.”

Just a few little words, and he makes me feel more.

And does he get this hard for every woman he passes on the street?

Somehow, I don’t think so. If he did, he wouldn’t keep coming back.

You are out of your ever-loving mind, a level-headed, logical, Portia-like voice whispers in my ear.

It’s not wrong.

But peeling Levi’s cargo pants down his hips, taking his boxers with them, and seeing his proud cock spring free?

That’s not wrong either.