Wrong for Me Read online

The warmth of her cheek lingered against his fingertips, tempting him to rush straight to the part where he had her naked. But he’d planned this evening meticulously, and this time he’d remain firmly in charge.

  First they were going to have a dinner he’d ordered in specially, since prison hadn’t exactly improved his cooking skills. A fancy dinner on white china plates and with candles. A real fucking date. A date he’d never gotten the chance to ask her on.

  They were going to talk, and she was going to tell him exactly how she’d spent the last few years, find out what Gideon had meant when he’d told Levi that she’d had some “shit” go down. Maybe they’d compare war stories; he’d tell her how Mace, one of the gang leaders in prison, had nearly killed him. And how, months later, after he’d recovered, Levi had decided that his former self was a pussy who needed to be put down. So he’d paid one of the older inmates—one no one ever fucked with—to teach him how to fight. Then he’d gotten Mace alone in the same prison library where he’d been beaten, and had taught that motherfucker a lesson.

  Yeah, maybe she’d like that story.

  Is that what you’re doing now? Teaching her the same lesson?

  Levi ignored that thought, just like he ignored the uncomfortable feeling behind his breastbone. The one that had started up as she’d looked around at her things he’d put in the apartment, and then told her he’d essentially put them there just to hurt her.

  No, that painful feeling needed to get the fuck out of there. All he had room in his heart for was anger and lust. He didn’t need anything else. Regret and friendship, love . . . All that shit only took up space, weakened you.

  Only anger made you strong—as long as you controlled it. It was the perfect fuel to get you what you wanted.

  “Dinner?” Rachel sounded disbelieving.

  “Yeah, dinner.” He had to resist the urge to curl his fingers around the warmth left by her skin on his palm.

  “But I thought—”

  “I imagine you thought a lot of things. But you’re not the one who’s calling the shots tonight, Rachel. I am. So dinner it is.”

  Her mouth flattened, but she said nothing, and when he gestured through the doorway that led from the lounge area into the dining room and kitchen area, she turned and walked obediently through it.

  He followed, watching the sway of her hips in the sexy red dress she wore. Stupid, but he liked that she’d dressed up, that she’d made an effort even though he hadn’t asked her to.

  She looked good. Fucking hot. The fabric of the dress clung to the rounded shape of her ass, while leaving bare a good quantity of skin. Her shapely legs for a start and one graceful shoulder. The color brought out the red ink of her tattoos too, made her pale skin glow.

  Christ, black hair and red lips, his Snow White. A tattooed and tough Snow White.

  His dick hardened right on cue, obviously liking that idea very much. Too bad it was going to have to wait.

  Tonight he’d have what he wanted. Her begging for him. And not because he’d told her to or because he’d kick her business out, but because she couldn’t help herself. Because she wouldn’t be able to think of anyone—anything—else but him. But the orgasm he’d give her.

  Rachel stopped short just through the doorway, looking at the table he’d laid out especially.

  He’d bought it from the same place he’d gotten the bed and the coffee table, a store in Midtown that sold furniture made out of wood and other materials from some of Detroit’s abandoned factories. The pieces were all one of a kind, heavy and industrial, which he personally liked, but he’d thought Rachel might appreciate them too, especially where they’d come from. She was an artist and into recycling shit.

  Since when does it matter whether she would like them or not?

  It didn’t matter of course. But it was all part of the building-the-perfect-apartment plan. To show her what they could have had.

  “Like it?” he asked, coming up beside her.

  She glanced at him, her black brows drawn down. “What the hell is this, Levi?”

  “I told you. Dinner.”

  “Why?”

  “So we can catch up.” He put a hand in the small of her back, just letting it rest there, enjoying the warmth of her, feeling her muscles tense in response. “We’re living together now, and that means we’re going to eat together too.” He brushed his thumb over her in a caressing movement. “Can’t be all about sex all the time, Sunny.”

  She tensed even more. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why not? That’s what you were to me.”

  “But I’m not now.”

  “No, you’re not. Which is why I’m using it.”

  Her dark eyes blazed with sudden anger. “Another reminder of what happens when people fuck with you?”

  “You could call it that.”

  “Well, thanks for that, but I’m aware of what happens when people fuck with you, Levi. They get hurt. So you don’t need to use that name. You don’t need to . . . taint it like that.”

  A hot feeling curled through him, an emotion he hadn’t felt for a long, long time. Shame.

  Too far, man. Too far.

  Sunny . . . because she’d been like sunshine to him with her smart, snarky wit and those warm smiles, the ones she saved for him only. And suddenly behind that hot, ashamed feeling was something else, an ache. A yearning for what he’d lost. He wanted those smiles again. He missed them.

  You miss her.

  Shit, he couldn’t give in to that feeling. He couldn’t; not again. It only led to pain, to anguish.

  To a man dead on the pavement. A man you killed.

  Guilt coiled inside him like a massive snake, along with shock and confusion and a thousand other emotions he’d cut from his life while he’d been inside. They tightened around him, squeezing him.

  But he crushed them, along with the yearning and the ache, giving her only a feral smile and increasing the pressure on the small of her back, urging her toward one of the chairs around the dining table.

  She clearly didn’t want to go, but went with him anyway, waiting while he pulled the chair out for her.

  “So is this like a prison thing?” she murmured with a ghost of her usual sarcasm as she sat down. “Candlelight dinners and pulling out chairs?”

  The comment stirred something like amusement in him. He’d always liked her sharpness, even when she turned it on him.

  “How did you guess?” He pushed her chair in. “And we all went dancing in the exercise yard afterward.”

  She snorted. “I’m not dancing with you afterward.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not dancing we’ll be doing afterward.”

  Stepping away from her chair, he moved over to the counter that separated the dining area from the kitchen, skirting around it to get to the oven where the food was being kept hot.

  Italian meatballs and spaghetti, another of her favorites.

  He dished it out, carrying the plates over to the table, then going back for some crusty garlic bread and the wine he’d bought and opened half an hour earlier.

  She watched him, the look on her face guarded. “Very domestic,” she said as he poured her a glass of red and pushed it over the table to her. “You’ll make someone a lovely wife. Is this going to be what happens every night?”

  He sat down, pouring some wine for himself. Only one glass, since that was all he ever allowed himself in the way of alcohol. Becoming a drunk like his old man did not feature highly in his plans.

  “Sure,” he said easily. “Except you can cook next time.”

  “No thanks. I hate cooking.” Rachel picked up her glass and took a sip of wine.

  “You didn’t used to. You used to cook for me a lot.”

  Her expression tightened. “So is that what you want to talk about? Old news?”

  Levi leaned back in his chair. “Gideon mentioned some shit went down not long after I left.”

  She lifted a shoulder, putting her wineglass back down on the table.
“You know Royal. There’s always shit going down.”

  He almost smiled. It was the truth. “Gideon mentioned you specifically.”

  She picked up her fork and started eating, her attention on her food. “Did he? Well, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”

  Typical Rachel. Wouldn’t admit to anything. She was protecting herself, as usual. “What happened?”

  “Gran died. And I had difficulty paying for her funeral.”

  The blunt, flat way she said it made something catch in his throat. He had to force out the question. “You didn’t go to Gideon?”

  Rachel turned her fork in her spaghetti, slowly winding the pasta around the tines. “He was a little short on cash.” Her gaze remained on her plate. “Mainly because he’d spent a fortune on lawyers.”

  The catch in his throat got worse, accompanied by a yawning feeling in his gut. A feeling a lot like guilt.

  He’d known Gideon had spent money on his legal fees. Too much money. Which was why as soon as Levi had managed to get some returns on his investments, he’d paid his friend back, every last red cent of it.

  But naturally that hadn’t been till at least three years later.

  “What happened?” he asked, shifting slightly in his chair.

  Rachel lifted the fork and ate the spaghetti, chewing slowly, clearly in no hurry to answer him. “What do you think?” she said at last when she’d finished. “I used my savings.”

  Her savings? Jesus. Rachel had some money that her mother had left her when she’d died, and he’d made her put it into a savings account that wasn’t easy to access so she could keep it, use it to pay for art school once she was ready.

  It was supposed to be for her, not to pay for her grandmother’s funeral.

  Christ, so that’s why she was stuck in Royal in a tattoo studio. She hadn’t aimed higher because she hadn’t been able to afford to.

  It made him angry. “You used your fucking savings? That was supposed to be for art school.”

  “Gran deserved a decent funeral, okay? And that was more important than going to college.” A spark of temper glowed in her dark eyes. “Besides, I didn’t have any other option.”

  He didn’t know why the thought of her using that money angered him so much. It was just that her dreams had always been important to him too, and the thought that she hadn’t been able to do what she’d always wanted to, what she had the talent for, was wrong.

  Shouldn’t you be glad? There’s some punishment for her right there.

  Yeah, maybe he should have been glad. But he wasn’t. Some part of him had always believed that the reason she didn’t visit him was because she’d gone to art school and was too busy achieving her dreams the way they’d talked about.

  Obviously that hadn’t happened. She’d been trapped in Royal just as surely as he’d been trapped in that jail cell.

  “So what happened? You used it all on a funeral?” It came out as a demand, but he didn’t soften the hard edge to the words.

  Rachel put down her fork and reached for her wine again, taking another long sip. “Not all of it.”

  “Not enough left for college?”

  “No, not enough left for college.” She put her elbows on the table, swirling her wine in her glass, the candlelight flickering over the ink on the bare skin of her shoulder. “I used the rest and some other money Gran left me, after she died, plus a bit from Gideon for Sugar Ink.”

  Levi shifted in his seat again, again irritated for reasons he couldn’t figure out. She’d worked hard and created a job for herself doing something she loved, which was success however you measured it. Except . . . it wasn’t what she’d told him she wanted to do all those years ago. She could do better. She should do better.

  “Why didn’t you use all that money for college then?” he demanded, unable to keep the sharpness out of his voice. “I mean, that’s what you were always telling me you wanted to do.”

  She stared at him, her wineglass held between her fingers, the spark of anger glowing hotter. “Because earning money was kind of a priority for me. Anyway, why the hell should you care?”

  He didn’t care. Of course he didn’t. So why he was angry with her about it, he had no idea.

  “So you’ve spent all this time getting your business up and running,” he said after a moment. “What else?”

  “Nothing else.” She took another sip of wine, long dark lashes veiling her gaze. “Sugar Ink’s been my main focus. Anyway, if you wanted to compare histories, shouldn’t you be telling me your story?”

  “My story? Sure.” Leaning forward, he picked up his fork and attacked his food. Jesus Christ, it was good. After years of prison food, the meatballs were fucking ambrosia. “What part do you want to know about? My getting kicked in the head? Or where I took my revenge on the prick and broke his arm? Maybe you might want to know about when my dad died and I wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral. I could tell you about that if you like.”

  Her mouth tightened.

  You could stop rubbing her nose in it, you fucker.

  But why should he? Shouldn’t she know everything that happened to him? It was her handiwork, after all.

  “Your tattoos,” she said quietly after a moment. “Tell me about those.”

  He put his fork down and leaned back in his chair again, allowing himself another sip of his wine. “Like I told your asshole colleague, I paid a guy to do them for me. He stole some ink and used staples.”

  “Staples?” An expression of distaste crossed her features. “God . . .”

  “You use what you can inside.”

  “I guess so. Do they mean anything?”

  He held her gaze, made sure she could see everything in his. “I got one every week for the first year. One for every week that went by where I heard nothing from you.” She paled, but he didn’t stop. “I was going to get more but after that first year of nothing, I realized you weren’t going to contact me and that I didn’t have enough room on my arms for eight years’ worth of silence.”

  Her gaze flickered to his arms, then back to his face again. Then she lifted her glass and drained it. “Okay, so I think we’re caught up now.” She thumped the glass down on the table. “You want to fuck me or what?”

  * * *

  She didn’t want to hear any more. Didn’t want to sit here pretending they were two old friends reconnecting after years apart, or two people on their first date. All this fine white china and candles and food she liked, conversations about what they’d been doing after so long . . . It was a lie.

  Levi hated her. They were enemies.

  Which made what she’d come here for that much easier. He wanted to fuck her? Well, then, he could fuck her. She didn’t give a shit.

  He looked at her from across the table, the light flickering over his beautiful face, drawing golden reflections from that dilated black pupil and gilding the silver blue of his other eye. Softening the cynical twist to his perfectly shaped mouth.

  And in spite of herself, her heart clenched painfully. This was going to be the real punishment. To live with him, be with him in a terrible parody of their old relationship. Knowing he was never going to let her forget or forgive what she’d done.

  “In a hurry, Rachel?” His voice was low and deep, the roughness in it making her shiver deep inside.

  “Not particularly. Just this ‘catching up’ business is bullshit.” She wanted some more wine, anything to dull the ache in her chest, but when she reached for the bottle, he nudged it away, shaking his head minutely.

  Her anger coiled, twisting in on itself in frustration. “Asshole,” she said bitterly.

  He remained silent, watching her.

  God, she hated how he did that. As if he were waiting for her to say something or do something, watching her with that unnerving gaze.

  She pushed away her bowl of food, suddenly not even the slightest bit hungry. “Why did you come back here? Why didn’t you go somewhere else? If you hate me that much, you should have.�
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  Levi shifted in his chair, the sound of his big body moving making her even more physically aware of him. “I told you. I came back because I had fucking dreams. And you were part of them.”

  “So you have me and this dream apartment of yours. What else were you planning on doing?”

  The light in his eyes glittered strangely, his mouth curving in a smile that was the very definition of enigmatic. “You’ll see.”

  “Wonderful. So in the meantime I get to be your emotional punching bag?”

  “You don’t have to be here, Rachel. And you can leave whenever you want.”

  “But if I do, you’ll kick me out of your building.”

  He tilted his head, the ring in his eyebrow catching the light, the lines of his face hardening. “Yes.”

  Okay, so that was clear. This really was nothing more than a transaction. And if he wanted to play hardball, so could she.

  “In that case, I want something out of this,” she said, flat and hard. “I want something for me.”

  Levi didn’t move, and yet a distinct air of menace gathered in the air around him. Suddenly he looked every inch the big, rough, dangerous ex-con. “Something for you?” he echoed. “Were you the one in jail? I don’t fucking think so.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I think I got by now where you’ve been.” Her voice was sharp, but she didn’t care. What was the point in being careful with him if he wasn’t going to be careful with her? “You’re blaming me for everything that happened to you, and yet you’re not even taking responsibility for that guy you punched in the face. The guy who died.”

  Still, Levi didn’t move, the menacing atmosphere between them getting denser, the tension pulling tighter.

  But she was done with being afraid of him. She knew her truth. Maybe it was time he faced up to his. “Yeah, Levi. He died. And sure, some of that’s on me, but it’s on you too.”

  His hands were on the arms of his chair, his knuckles beneath the layer of ink gone bone white.

  Maybe this is a mistake?

  Maybe it was. Too fucking bad.

  “You want your pound of flesh?” she went on recklessly. “Fine, you can have it. But I want mine too. I want Sugar Ink’s building. I want you to sign ownership of it over to me.”