Wrong for Me Page 11

  He felt it now, even with the chasm between them. Even with all the barbed wire of their history. That thing inside him wanted her. It always had.

  “Look at me,” he ordered thickly. “Fucking look at me.”

  But her expression tightened in something like panic, and she gave a sharp shake of her head, turning her face away.

  No. He wasn’t having that; he just wasn’t. So he took her chin in his hand, forcing her to turn back, then he leaned in close, their noses almost touching. “I want to see you, Sunny.” His voice was a ragged whisper. “Look at me.”

  Slowly, her eyes opened, emotion dark in them, grief and anger and desire twisting like black currents in the depths of the ocean.

  He tightened his grip on her wrists. “Tell me you want me.”

  A tremble went through her, and suddenly the emotion in her gaze drained away, and she seemed . . . oddly disconnected somehow. As if she weren’t there.

  The thought made him savage, fierce. “Give me the fucking words, Rachel.”

  Her lashes fell, thick and dark, veiling her gaze. “I want you, Levi.” Her voice was hoarse, and, again, there was something . . . not quite right about it.

  This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

  The thought sat there in his head, and he couldn’t get rid of it. A sudden strand of doubt curled like hot wire through the ice of his anger and through the savagery, making him desperate to close the distance he could sense opening up between them. Close it in any way he could.

  His hand was shaking with leashed desire as he urged her chin up, tipping her head back, gentle this time. She still didn’t look at him, so he leaned in again, turning his face against her silky hair, inhaling the scent of it. “Please, Sunny,” he murmured, barely conscious of how he was pleading. “Please. I need you to mean it.”

  She said nothing. But then he felt her pull against his restraining grip and, when he let one of her hands go, she brought it down. But not to push him away. Instead she pushed her fingers into his hair, then slid them around to the back of his head, coming to rest at his nape. Holding on.

  “I want you, Levi,” she whispered, and he heard it at last, the sound of certainty in her voice.

  He was beyond being able to think then. He was beyond everything. All that mattered was being inside her. Now.

  He reached for her leg, hauling it up around his waist, then he positioned himself, a feral sound escaping him as the wet heat of her pussy came into contact with the head of his cock. And then there was no more waiting as he thrust into her, deep and hard, slamming her up against the brick wall at her back.

  She cried out, her pussy so fucking tight, squeezing him like a fist, like the way her fingers gripped the back of his neck. And there was a roaring in his head, his blood pounding in his ears. Pleasure uncurled like the lash of a whip, the heat of her almost blinding him.

  Holy Christ.

  He stood there for a moment, unable to move, buried deep inside her, the feel of her body around him a revelation. Tight, wet, and so fucking hot. So much better than he’d ever dreamed.

  And then his body wanted to move and he let it, flexing his hips, thrusting harder, deeper, pleasure rushing in like the tide.

  Her head had fallen back against the wall as she held tight to the back of his neck, her eyes closing again, but this time he didn’t care. In fact he was glad, because he didn’t want her looking at him. Didn’t want her seeing how this was ripping him apart.

  So he watched her instead as he thrust again. And again. Looking as she writhed against the wall, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her breathing harsh and ragged. Watching as he turned her inside out.

  He wanted to do that all day, watch all the ways he could take her apart, but the pleasure inside him was too demanding, the pressure insane. She was heat and sweetness, and some part of him hated her for what she’d done to him. For how she’d hurt him.

  Hated her for how much he wanted her.

  But this was his reward; this was his payment, so making sure her leg was wrapped up and around his hip, he let it go and reached for her jaw, gripping her hard while he covered her mouth, kissing her with all the anger and the savagery that burned in his blood.

  Then he fucked her hard against the wall, slamming them both against it, taking her scream of release into his mouth as she came around his cock, muffling the sound of his own climax as it hit, far too soon and like a bolt of fucking lightning direct from the sky.

  * * *

  “Don’t tell Gideon.” Rachel pulled open the top drawer of her dresser and took out a whole pile of underwear. “I don’t want him to know.”

  “Why not?” Zoe asked from behind her.

  Dumping the underwear in the first bag she’d managed to pull out of the hall closet, Rachel reached for the next drawer. “Isn’t it obvious? I don’t want him getting all big brother on my butt about it.”

  “He won’t,” Zoe said, though they both knew what a complete lie that was. Gideon was the alpha of their particular pack, and any threat to one of them brought out the wolf in him.

  God, Rachel so did not need Gideon in wolf mode making the situation with Levi even worse than it already was, no matter what Zoe thought.

  The younger woman believed the sun shone out of Gideon’s butt—no doubt a very muscular butt—so of course her default position was that people should tell him when they were in trouble.

  But Rachel wasn’t in trouble. She was a big girl, and she’d made her own decision. Sure, the choice Levi had given her was a crap one, but she’d made it anyway. She’d move in with him.

  Levi had wanted that to happen as soon as possible, so here she was, in her shitty, rundown apartment, packing up her stuff like a good girl, exactly as he’d asked. While he . . . did whatever the hell it was he’d been doing for the past couple of days.

  She’d purposefully not thought about what had happened between them in that apartment two days earlier, shoving feelings and the memories far to the back of her mind, purposely ignoring the ache between her thighs.

  She wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.

  She wasn’t ready to deal with Zoe yet either, but her friend had turned up wanting a full rundown on what had happened with Levi in the office at Gideon’s welcome home party, and was annoyed she hadn’t gotten it earlier. Not that Rachel wanted to tell Zoe anything. What was happening with Levi was too private, too painful. And Zoe wouldn’t understand. Gideon wouldn’t either.

  Luckily the other woman had been distracted by the boxes strewn around the apartment. Boxes containing all of Rachel’s stuff.

  “That’s exactly what he’d do, Zoe. And you know it.” Rachel picked up another armful of clothes, not caring about what she was packing. She wasn’t going to sit there for hours choosing what to bring, not when she didn’t want to go anyway.

  Zoe sighed. “Okay, okay. You have a point. But come on, moving in with Levi is a big deal. And Gideon will find out eventually anyway.”

  That all depended on how long Levi was planning for them to live together. Clearly he had some scheme that he hadn’t shared fully with her. Still, she wasn’t going to tell the rest of them until she knew for certain what was going on.

  She should really have pushed the issue, asked for details, but part of her wanted distance, and so she’d let it lie.

  Shoving the last drawer closed, Rachel got to her feet, then moved over to her closet, flinging open the door and pulling out more clothes, discarding the hangers on the floor. “I just want to wait,” she said, dumping all the clothes in the bag that was sitting on her bed. “Until Levi and I have got things sorted out.”

  Zoe was sitting on the bed, frowning slightly. “Why are you moving in with him anyway?”

  “For the same reasons most people move in together.” Rachel turned away, back to the closet, not wanting to have this discussion right now, but unable to think of a polite way to end it. Zoe was a good friend, and Rachel hated being snarky to her. It was kind
of like kicking a puppy.

  “What? You guys are a couple now?” Zoe sounded shocked. “Since when did that happen?”

  A couple. Yeah, not so much.

  Actually, Zoe, he’s blackmailing me into moving in with him because he’s trying to recreate the life together that we never had. And I’m letting him because otherwise he’s going to kick Sugar Ink out of its building.

  Nope, she couldn’t say that out loud. Rachel didn’t want to worry Zoe, nor did she want Zoe to report back to Gideon. Gideon would take exception to the truth with Levi, and everything would blow up in their collective faces.

  Like they all needed that to happen right now. Fuck knew, she didn’t.

  She took another armful of clothes. “Yeah, I guess you could say we are.” Because what else could she say? “Roomies” just sounded ridiculous and wasn’t true in any case. “And it happened a couple of days ago.”

  “What?” Zoe squawked. “Rachel! What the hell?”

  Rachel turned and came over to the bed, depositing the clothes in the bag, pressing them all down before zipping it up. Then, bracing herself, she looked at the other woman.

  Her friend’s amber eyes were wide with surprise and the usual undercurrent of worry. Typical Zoe.

  “Okay, so it’s fast,” Rachel said. “But he’s been inside for eight years, and we decided, hey, why wait any longer?”

  “Uh, fast is one word for it.” Zoe pushed her glasses up her nose. “I thought you guys were just friends?”

  Yeah, well, so had Rachel. “People change. You know.”

  Zoe frowned again. “Hope you don’t mind my saying, Rach, but for a girl in a new relationship you don’t seem all that happy about it.”

  “And what would you know about being in a new relationship?” The words were sharp, coming out before she could stop herself. And as soon as they did, Rachel felt terrible. Because Zoe wasn’t the cause of her bad temper, and she shouldn’t be taking it out on her.

  Zoe looked away. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough.”

  Rachel cursed herself silently. “I’m sorry, Zoe,” she said. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

  The other woman glanced down at her hands, small and delicate and curled in her lap. “You’re not wrong. I don’t know anything about new relationships. I don’t know anything about relationships at all.”

  Rachel sighed. “But you care. I get that.”

  Zoe looked at her. “I just don’t want anything to happen, Rach. What we have here, with Gideon and Zee and Levi, it’s good. It’s a family. And now Levi’s back, and after what happened with Zee and his dad . . . I don’t want anything to happen that might, you know, break us all apart.”

  Something tightened in Rachel’s chest. She didn’t know Zoe’s background—only what the other woman had told her, and that wasn’t much. Zoe had been a foster kid who’d ended up at the same Chicago home Gideon was in. He’d looked after her until he’d aged out, coming back to visit regularly to see how she was doing.

  Zoe had told Rachel that she’d begged Gideon to take her with him when he left, but he wouldn’t because she was too young. And then finally, when she was twelve, he’d given in and taken her to Detroit.

  Privately Rachel thought something must have happened in that particular foster family to make Gideon uproot Zoe before she was old enough to age out herself. But she’d never asked Zoe outright about it. She’d always gotten the sense that there were definitely some things that Zoe didn’t want to talk about.

  Which was fine. Rachel had plenty she didn’t want to talk about herself.

  But what Rachel did know was that Zoe’s past hadn’t been kind, so no wonder she was worried about what was happening with Levi. The little family they’d created with Gideon was probably the closest thing to stability Zoe had ever had.

  “I know you don’t,” Rachel said quietly. “And it won’t, okay? It’s just this stuff with Levi and I . . . It’s complicated.”

  Zoe grimaced. “Everything always is, isn’t it?”

  “Tell me about it.”

  The younger woman slipped off the bed. “So you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. But if you ever want to . . .” She trailed off, sticking her hands into her back pockets and hunching her shoulders. “I’m here okay? I just don’t want you to be unhappy. And I don’t want that for Levi either.”

  Zoe’s expression was so serious. It made Rachel’s throat suddenly feel tight. There weren’t many people in her life who’d stuck around, but Zoe was one of them. And the fact that she had made Zoe worth her weight in gold.

  Leaving off fussing with the bag for a moment, Rachel came around the side of the bed and gave her friend a quick hug. “Thanks, Zoe. I appreciate it. And I’ll talk to you about it, I promise. I just have to figure it out myself first, if that makes sense.”

  Zoe gave her a grin. “Yeah, it does.”

  At that moment there was loud knock on the front door of the apartment.

  Rachel frowned. What the hell? She wasn’t expecting anyone. “I better get that,” she muttered, turning and going out into the tiny, dark hallway, making her way down to the front door.

  She peered through the peephole first, since only an idiot wouldn’t in this neighborhood. A couple of men in some kind of uniform stood outside.

  Okay then. Probably weren’t going to immediately knife her.

  She pulled open the door, her tough-girl armor in place. The two men were tall and burly-looking, their shirts bearing the name of a moving company.

  “Yeah? What do you want?” she asked belligerently.

  “You Rachel Hamilton?” The guy was holding a phone and looking down at it.

  “Who wants to know?”

  He gave her a long-suffering look. “We’re here to move your stuff.”

  For a second she could only blink at him. “What?”

  “Mr. Rush ordered the apartment cleaned out and everything moved to this address.” The guy held out the phone, and, sure enough, on the screen was the address of Levi’s building.

  That bastard. When he’d told her he wanted her to move in, she hadn’t assumed she would give up her entire apartment. She’d assumed it would be a limited-time-only thing.

  Clearly that wasn’t what Levi intended.

  Shock began to alchemize inside her, becoming hot, becoming anger.

  The only contact she’d had with him for the past two days had been a text that morning telling her they’d talk more tonight about the details of their living arrangements. But he certainly hadn’t mentioned wanting her to clean out her entire home.

  That she hated the place made not the slightest bit of difference. It had once been her gran’s apartment, and Rachel had lived here since she was five years old. She wasn’t giving it up just on Levi’s say-so.

  God, she was doing what he wanted, wasn’t she? Why did he keep asking for more?

  She held up a finger to the two men. “Wait a minute.”

  Then she slammed the door and turned around, reaching into her back pocket for her own phone.

  “What’s happening?” Zoe had come into the hallway, one eyebrow raised. “Trouble?”

  Rachel gave Zoe what she hoped wasn’t a transparently fake smile. “No, everything’s fine. Just some details I need to work out with Levi.”

  Zoe’s gaze flickered to the front door, then back to Rachel again. “Were those moving men I saw? Wow, this thing’s for real, isn’t it?”

  It was. Too real.

  Rachel gave Zoe another forced grin, then hit the button to call Levi. He answered on the first ring, which must have meant he was waiting for her to call.

  “I have moving guys here,” she said shortly. “They said you sent them.”

  “Hi to you too. And yeah, I did.” The sound of his rich, rough voice, the first time she’d heard it in two days, made her want to shiver. Which only increased her annoyance.

  “We haven’t discussed this, Levi.” Giving Zoe a meaningful look, she went through into the tiny livi
ng area of the apartment, because she didn’t want to have this discussion with her friend right there. “When you said you wanted me to move in, I didn’t know you meant move my entire goddamn life.”

  “Well, you should have,” he said flatly. “Isn’t that what most people do when they move in together?”

  “I thought it was just going to be for . . . I don’t know, a limited time. I didn’t know you wanted me to give up my entire apartment!”

  “It’ll be for however long I want it to be.” He said the words as if they were irrefutable facts, with no room for argument. “Look, there’s no point paying rent when you’re living with me. Besides, that place is a shithole. You’ve always hated it.”

  Rachel gripped the phone tightly, trying to get a hold on the tangle of rage and frustration inside her. “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is?”

  “What am I going to do when this is over? Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

  “We’ll find you a new place. A better one.”

  That he didn’t insist that it wouldn’t be over only added more fuel to the fire of her temper, and for reasons she couldn’t have articulated. “I don’t want a better one, Levi. This is my home. This is where I lived with Gran, and you can’t expect me to leave it just like that.”

  “Sure I can.” There was an undercurrent of temper in his voice now, just like there was in her own. “I had to leave my home just like that. Why shouldn’t you?”

  It felt as if a hand had squeezed around her throat, making it difficult to swallow. “So this is revenge? I thought you wanted me to give you the future you never had.”

  “Call it both.”

  She took a ragged breath. “This is a punishment, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” No hesitation, none at all. “What did you think this was going to be, Rachel? Did you think it was real? That you and I could rekindle our beautiful friendship?”