Levi's Blue: A Sexy Southern Romance (11 page)

“I’ve told you—”

“You know what I mean,” he says with an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “Come on. Come with me.”

“We…we hardly know each other,” I argue weakly.  It’s true. 
Technically. 
But to me that doesn’t seem to matter. I feel like I’ve known him longer. Like my heart has known him for years, has
wanted him
for years. My parents feel more like strangers to me than Levi does.

I’m just…I’m not ready for this to be over. Not yet.

Not by a long shot.

“What better way to
get
to know each other?  I can take you to a place that you’ve always wanted to go. I can be your eyes.  And you can be my…everything else.”

My shoulders slump as I think about the logistics.  This is when it gets real.  “All I’ll be is a burden. You have no idea what an undertaking this is. You don’t know what you’re signing up for.”

“I
do. 
You’re not helpless, Evie. I know fully grown,
sighted
women who don’t do half the things you do.  Come on.  Let me do this for you.  Let me do this
with
you.”

I take a step back, physically and figuratively.  I bring two fingers to the ache that’s begun to throb between my eyes.  “It’s a bad idea, Levi.”

“It’s not. It’s a great idea, and I want you to say yes.”

I shake my head.  He’s definitely determined. I’ll give him that.  “You just…you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes. I do.  I’m asking you to take a very short, once-in-a-lifetime trip with me. I’m asking you to let me show you something you’ve always wanted to experience. But more than that, I’m asking you to give this a little more time because I’m not ready to let you go.”

I’m not ready to let you go.

His words thrill me more than I care to admit.  They’re like an echo of my heart, bouncing back at me.

“Levi, I…”  I trail off, all my disputes becoming less and less important in the face of letting go now or letting go later. In the face of getting more time.

If I were smart, I’d end this now. Before I get too involved. Before I get hurt.  Before I fall.

But I don’t want to be smart. I want to be happy. I want to have fun and live life. I want to be brave enough to do this. I might not get another chance.

“Look, I’ll get us a suite so you can have your own space. That way I’ll still be close enough to help if you need it.  I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t make myself readily available to you. You know, make sure you eat breakfast, make sure you don’t wear one black shoe and one blue, wash your back if you need me to.”

I can almost feel the brightness of his grin. I imagine it to be lazy and lopsided. Sexy as all hell.

“Washing my back will be harder in a hotel?”

“Absolutely. Hotel showers can be tricky.”

“I had no idea!”

“I’m a font of lesser-known facts.  Ask me anything.”

“What’s the square root of pie?”

“I said ‘lesser-known facts’, not impossible math.”

I can’t help smiling at that.  “And just when did you plan on leaving for this once-in-a-lifetime trip?”

“Friday morning. No later than six AM, but if you’ll come with me, we could leave Thursday and take our time on the drive down. Scenic route and all that jazz.”

I point to my face, my eyes specifically. “Scenery is sort of lost on me, remember?”

“I just meant that I wouldn’t have to drop you off at the hotel and go straight to the docks.  We could get acclimated first.”

My misgivings return.  “See? You’ll have to rearrange things for me, take extra thought for the simplest stuff.”

Levi cups my face in his big, warm palms, his thumbs tracking out over my cheekbones in a soothing arc.  “I pay you extra thought regardless.  I’ve thought of little else since I met you.  It’s the damnedest thing. So trust me. This will be a breeze.”

“Trust you,” I mutter.

“Yes. Is that such an impossible request?”

I raise one brow, hoping he can see it. It is an answer in and of itself.

“Fine, then come with me on a quick trip to the coast so I can earn it. I can’t earn your trust if I’m not around you.”

I say nothing to that, but before the silence can stretch on and I can think of more reasons to say no, Levi pushes my resistance an inch past its breaking point.

He leans in, his hard body fitting itself to the softer contours of my own, and he presses his lips to the corner of mine. “Please,” he whispers.

He’s so close, and so warm, and he feels so good. Smells so good. And I want him so, so much. Everything in me yearns to take the plunge, to risk it all for this man and the promise of what could be happening between us.

And just like that, my defenses crumble.  That quickly, that easily, I’m putty in his hands.

“Okay,” I say, equally quietly.

He jerks back. “Say that again, only louder. Not all of us have super hearing.”

I smile. “I said ‘okay’.”

Levi places a smacking kiss on my mouth and then wraps his arms around me to lift me off my feet. I cling to his broad shoulders.

“I didn’t realize hearing me say ‘okay’ was tantamount to winning the lottery,” I tease of his reaction.

“Maybe, to me,
it is
.  And who says ‘tantamount’?”

“Nobody.  Ever. Anywhere.  I just always wanted to.”

“Well, I’ll see how many ‘always wanted to’ things I can help you cross off your list.  Did I hear you say you’d always wanted to have hot wax dribbled on your thighs? Because I know a guy who makes these candles…”

My mouth drops open, and I
hear
Levi’s rumbling laugh as much as
feel it,
vibrating from his chest into mine. 

“This is gonna be fun,” he says, lowering me until my feet touch the floor.  Before he releases me, he leans in to mutter into my ear, “Also, you probably didn’t know this, but your shirt is practically transparent.” 

With that, Levi slaps me—hard—on the ass and walks out the door, whistling something that sounds a little bit like “Paradise City,” no doubt an homage to the band on my shirt.

I’m glad he’s not around to see my cheeks burst into flame.  Or the world’s biggest smile wreath my face.

CHAPTER 10

LEVI

WHEN I get back to my hotel, the concierge stops me on my way through the lobby.

“We have a fairly large delivery for you, Mr. Michaelson.”

It takes me a minute to figure out what I was expecting that might warrant this kind of attention. Then it dawns on me.

“Can you have someone bring it up to my room?”

The short, balding guy nods graciously. “Of course.  I’ll send someone up straight away.”

“Thank you.”

He nods again, waiting until I walk away before he starts off toward his place to the left of the front desk.

I head for the elevator.

I’m thinking to myself that this day just keeps getting better and better until a slim, French-manicured hand slips in to stop the elevator doors from closing.  I frown when I look up to see Julianne wiggle her way into the car with me.  She’s in a skintight black dress that barely brushes her knees and heels that bring her nearly eye level with me.

“Going
down
?” she asks, one auburn brow twitching up in invitation.

“Definitely not,” I growl in agitation.  Not on
her
anyway.

“Pity,” she sulks, her full, red-stained lips drawing into a pout.

“What do you want, Julianne?”

She clucks her tongue at me.  “Why the bad mood?  Not getting enough of something…
specific
in your diet?”

“My diet is fine.  What do you want?” I repeat testily.

“I came to apologize.  I didn’t mean to run you off. I…I just wasn’t expecting to see you with someone else, and I really didn’t handle it very well.”

“No, you certainly didn’t,” I agree, pressing the button for the top floor.

“Give me another chance. We’ve been friends a long time. I don’t want something like this to come between us.”

I narrow my eyes on her.  She
sounds
sincere, but I’ve known Julianne long enough to know she can be quite deceptive and cunning when she wants to be. That’s part of her appeal.

Or at least it
was.

I used to sort of admire her tenacity, her determination to get what she wanted and not let anything stand in her way.  She also had this way of looking at things. Very pragmatic, level-headed, not overly emotional like most women.  It made her a bit of a mystery to me before, but now…now I’m just not biting. These days, I find that I’m much more interested in overly-honest blondes with sharp tongues, sharper wits, and quick smiles.

“I’m not used to feeling jealous,” she confesses candidly, staring at the mirrored door rather than meeting my eye. 

I don’t doubt that’s a thousand percent true.  As far as I know, Julianne has never lost. She’s always gotten what she wanted.  Eventually.

One way or another.

And I’m sure she thought she’d get the same outcome with me if she hung in there long enough.  Maybe she’s finally figured out she was wrong.

“Our relationship has never been exclusive,” I remind her tersely.

“No, but the possibility of ‘us’ was always out there. There wasn’t an ‘end’ in sight. Not until now.  Not until I saw the way you look at her.  Like you’re seeing the ocean for the first time.”  Julianne shifts her eyes over to mine. She looks into them intently for a few seconds. What she’s hoping to find, I have no idea.  “Is this serious?” 

My kneejerk response is to say yes.  Because as unstable and unlike me as it sounds, I
want
it to be.  But I don’t tell Julianne that. Hell, I barely even want to admit it to myself. It’s ludicrous.

Even though it doesn’t
feel
ludicrous.

I settle on a mild, bored, “I hardly know her, Julianne.”

She pushes away from the elevator wall and steps toward me, not stopping until her front is plastered to mine.  I inhale, recognizing the scent she’s wearing. It’s French and exotic. It’s my favorite, and she knows it. But even as I smell it, I find myself preferring the clean, simple scent of orange blossoms instead.

“If it’s not serious, then you wouldn’t mind some afternoon delight, huh, slugger?”

She lays her palms against my chest and moves them slowly down my stomach.  Her bent knee brushes gently along the inside of my thigh, toward my crotch.

“Sorry. Can’t. I’m expecting a delivery.”

She draws a line across my lips with the tip of her tongue before suggesting, “They can leave it at the front desk.”

“It’s too big.  That’s what I was discussing with the concierge.”

Pressing her breasts against my chest, she leans in further to purr at the shell of my ear, “It’s not too big
for me.
”

Her right hand slips down over the front of my jeans, finding its way to my dick.  I feel her squeeze tentatively. And then squeeze again.  I hold perfectly still, just waiting for the moment she realizes that she’s not making me hard.

At all.

Julianne jerks away from me like she’s been burned, her smooth brow wrinkling in confusion.  This, too, is probably a first for her. I’d say most men get hard at ten paces just
looking
at her.

But not me.

Not this time.

Not anymore.

Feeling how unaffected I am by her touch does what my words could not.

“So it’s like that,” she says quietly. She’s wounded.  And it’s more than just her pride. 

I’ve known for a while now that she wanted more. A lot more.  I guess it was wrong of me to let her think there was the potential for something serious between us when there was
never
a chance of that happening.  I guess I always thought that, deep down, she knew. 

The look on her face promises me
she did not.

Guilt sets in.

I never meant to hurt her.

“Look, I…I was an asshole for letting it go on this long.  You knew I didn’t want anything serious, and
I
knew that
you
did.  I should’ve stopped this before now.  I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“Don’t,” she says, holding up her hand and turning her face away. “Just…don’t.”

“We’ve been friends a long time, Jules,” I remind her, calling her the name I used in better days.  “We don’t have to be enemies just because we aren’t sleeping together.”

“No, we don’t
have to
.” 

A “but” is left hanging at the end, telling me all I need to know about how this is going to go down.

Not well.

Possibly even ugly.

This is Julianne declaring war.  And I really
do
hate that it’s going to end this way.

The door opens on the top floor, but I don’t get out immediately.  “I really am sorry.”  I inject as much sincerity as I can into my voice.

“Yeah, me, too,” she says, bitterness already flooding hers.

I move past her to step out.  When I look back, her lips are pinched tight and she’s looking down at the buttons. She reaches out to stab the one that will send her back to the lobby, and when she raises her eyes to mine, I see nothing but the red-hot flash of hatred.

I hold her gaze until the door shuts and I’m left in the hall alone. 

I stand, considering what I just did to one of my oldest friends, when the ding of another car sounds right.  A bellhop emerges with a large, paper-wrapped square.

I smile.

“Mr. Michaelson?”

“That’s me.”

“Where would you like me to put this, sir?”

“This way.”

I turn to walk down the hall toward my room, thoughts of Julianne already forgotten in my enthusiasm to see the painting again.

Minutes later, I’m alone in my hotel room, gazing at the most beautiful portrait I’ve ever seen.  I had to have it, and now I know why. 

There’s something so deeply personal about this piece.  I knew it the moment I saw it after meeting Evie. There’s a pain caught in this version of her face, an agony that cuts all the way through me.  She painted her classically beautiful features with muted browns and grays and blacks. All dull, lifeless colors, but it’s the eyes—those incredible deep brown eyes that I’d recognize anywhere—that show it best. I can almost feel her anguish when I look at them.

But that’s not why I had to have this picture.

Surrounding that face, like a halo of brilliance, are the intensely bright, vibrant colors Evie’s known for.  It’s as though, even during her pain, she couldn’t exclude the hope and determination that are such an integral part of her personality. Even in her darkest times, she was already seeing better days ahead. 

This painting is resilience. It’s courage.  It’s bold and chaotic and savagely beautiful.

It’s Evie.

That
is why I had to have it.

Even now, just looking at it fills me with an odd sense of contentment, something I’ve never really experienced.  I’ve spent my entire life either fighting my father and his obsessive need to control everyone and everything, or trying to build something of my own, far apart from all that my family’s name represents.  Since puberty, since I was old enough to understand what went on around me, I never felt content. 

Until now.

Until Evie. 

As audacious as her colorful paintings are, as vivacious as her witty personality is, she brings a peace, a tranquility to my soul that I’ve never had.  Just being around her makes me feel…

Jesus H. Christ!
I think as I drag a hand through my hair and turn away from the portrait.

What the hell is happening to me?

I’m standing in my hotel room, all by myself, staring at a painting, waxing eloquent like some sort of demented poet from the 1800s.  This is not like me. This is not like me at all.

I head for the bathroom to splash water onto my face, but within seconds of grabbing the towel to dry my skin, my mind is straying back to Evie and how the only thing I want out of today is to see her again.  To hear her laugh, to watch her smile, to see the world through her eyes. 

I know I hurt Julianne, and I truly didn’t want that, but I still made the right choice. Julianne never made me feel this way.
No woman
has.  I know as sure as I’m standing here, back in the living area, staring at this damn painting again, that I can’t go back.

No.  After Evie, there will be no going back.