Page 80 of The Woman Left Behind

“We need to shower,” she muttered when she had her breath back. She hadn’t had a choice about going to sleep after the first time, but now she was acutely aware of how sticky she was. The realities of bareback sex were pretty great, but not neat.

He groaned, but didn’t disagree. They showered together, slept, and he woke her again with her legs draped over his broad shoulders and his mouth on her, doing other things to her with his fingers that made her choke and cry out and come so hard her body bowed under his ministrations.

She’d thought: just one time, and she’d be done with him.

She was wrong.

Waking up with him was oddly more intimate than what they’d done together during the night. They had slept tangled together, with her more on top of him than not, and even when she’d rouse and think she should probably move to her own side of the bed, she hadn’t. He made an excellent pillow and cover, all in one, giving off so much heat she didn’t need covers despite the air-conditioning. She liked the feel of that big muscled body next to her, the roughness of his chest and legs, the calluses on his hands when he stroked her. There was nothing smooth or soft about Levi, but she had her own smoothness and softness, she didn’t need more from him.

It was startling to realize how well they fit together, how evenly they matched.

Having him there while they prepared breakfast together was both strange and familiar, as if this might be the first time but it was also how things were supposed to be. The dichotomy kept her quiet; she didn’t want to think about their situation or wonder about the future, she wanted to rest for a while and let things happen.

He let her mull; in that, he didn’t push. In every other way, he was all over her. Even eating breakfast—he pulled her astride his lap, onto his erection, and held her there while they fed each other, rocking her just enough to keep him hard, keep him inside her. It was a whole new way of eating pancakes.

Though she wanted to keep that emotional distance, she couldn’t stay on guard through the day that followed, or the night, or the next day. Levi showed no signs of wanting to go home. He texted the guys, he went for long runs—she joined him for one, though her feet got sore before the run ended and she had to stop—but he didn’t go home. There were moments when she forgot, when the sheer joy of being with him burst through her dam of resentment. One was when she touched the PBJ tattoo on his bare shoulder and said, “Old girlfriend?”

He snorted, glancing at her over his shoulder with a wry gleam in his eyes. “Peanut butter and jelly. I was drunk.”

Surprised, she had to laugh. “You’re lying!”

“God’s truth. I was drunk, and I was evidently hungry. I haven’t been drunk since. I don’t want to wake up withham sandwichtattooed somewhere on my body.”

His sense of humor unsettled her, though she’d seen flashes of it when he interacted with the other guys, but seldom with her. He would never be Mr. Fun and Games; his was the temperament of a hard-core soldier, normally wary, intense, dedicated. That he felt he could relax with her was—

She pushed the thought away. Being different with her indicated intimacy and connection beyond that of sex. She could handle sex with him. She couldn’t handle anything else, not yet.

He was obviously giving her time to think, to come to terms with what had happened, and for some reason that annoyed her. She wanted toforget, not keep gnawing at details, not think about what-ifs and maybes. She’d quit the team, and even though the decision had been what was best for her, forgiving herself for quitting would take a while, despite knowing deep inside that for her she’d hit a wall and leaving the team had been her only course.

She was brooding about it, on the second day, when he showed an acuteness of understanding that alarmed her. Baseball was on TV and he was watching it, an opened beer by his hand because somehow beer for him had come to share space in her refrigerator, when he said calmly, “Quitting is hard for you.”

She flashed him an angry glance, and didn’t take the bait. Probing at a sore tooth didn’t make it feel better, and the subject was a very sore tooth for her.

“You’re the prototypical middle child,” he pointed out.

“Donotanalyze me! I figured it out for myself years ago.” She was squarely in the middle, nothing special about her at all. She was neither the oldest nor the youngest in anything; she had an older sister, and a younger one. She had an older brother, and a younger one. Every family slot with any built-in specialness had been taken by someone else. She had forged her place by sheer determination, never giving up, in constant competition with her brothers but not competing in any way with her sisters because she had the buffer of age between them. Ashley was several years older and they’d never been in the same age group until they were adults. Caleigh was several years younger, and ditto, though she was just now becoming adult enough for it to matter.

“I’m not analyzing, I don’t have to. I’m just saying I get how tough it was for you.”

Did he? Could he grasp how bone-deep wrenching it had been for her to come to that place where she knew shehadto quit, that she couldn’t keep on?

“It wasn’t so I could have you.” She glared at him, though he hadn’t suggested anything like that.

“I know.”

“It broke me.” The words were wrenched out of her. “The desert broke me.”

“You don’t look broke. You look pissed.”

Her scowl intensified, which she guessed verified his assessment. “I didn’t want to be on the teams,” she snapped. “I liked what I was doing, but I was assigned to the teams and once I was there, damned if I’d let you make me quit.”

“Yeah, I wanted you to quit, from the minute I saw you. You know why.” His face was impassive but his eyes glittered with heat, going over her from head to toe and making her feel as if he’d be on top of her if she made the slightest move.

She took the chance and gestured anyway, a wide wave that took in everything: her, the bedroom, for heaven’s sake even the TV and the beer, because of the cozy intimacy.

“I didn’t undermine you.”

“I know,” she grumbled. “I’d have hated you if you had. I wish you had.”

---