Page 53 of Getting Wrapped Up

“It’s newly appealing,” he said. “But I told Joe I’d spend a year here and clean up my act. Now that I’ve been here, seen the town, met some of the people, I could see myself staying for good.”

She snorted and then laughed out loud. “In the town that shuts down by ten p.m., that has no food delivery, that has one neon sign and that’s the open sign at the bar? The town that you’ve been in for less than forty-eight hours? The place that’s biggest excitement is the chili cook-off during the fall festival?”

“There’s a chili cook-off?” Levi asked.

“There has to be, don’t you think?” she returned. Of course, she didn’t know it for sure, but there was no way therewasn’ta chili cook-off in this town.

Levi sighed. “I like it here. I feel…peaceful. Like good things could happen. Like I could contribute to something here.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked. She wasn’t trying to be mean, but really? “You own casinos, Levi.”

“Well, I could…” He trailed off.

“And I may not want to live here forever, but if you put up a casino in this sweet little town, Iwillcome back and kick your ass,” she said.

He looked at her, his jaw tight, a determined look in his eyes. “You don’t think you’d ever come back for any other reason?”

Her heart hurt at that question. She’d love to come back. She’d love to see every season here. She’d love to seehimin every season.

“To visit,” she said softly. “Maybe.”

He seemed to be thinking about that. He didn’t look happy. But the next thing she knew, he’d risen from the floor and reached for her hand.

She put her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet. He swung her up into his arms and started for the stairs.

“What are you doing?” she asked. But she knew. And she loved it. Even as she knew she should fight it. More time in his arms, more pleasure at his hands, more of his body would be hard enough to walk away from. But he’d shown her today that sex meant laughing and talking, sharing and exploring the other person physically and emotionally.

She’d never had sex that was as good as sex with Levi Spencer. But she’d also never had someone want to know her, every part of her, like he did.

“I’m making the most of the time we have,” he said.

She also knew that he was also going to use all of the intimacy and the pleasure and the trust and the vulnerability between them to try to convince her to stay.

It wasn’t going to work. Probably. But it was going to make leaving Sapphire Falls the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life.

Chapter Nine

Levi awoke alone.

And he wasn’t a bit surprised.

He’d expected it. Which was why he’d kept himself, and Kate, up until almost two a.m. making love, talking, laughing and making love again.

He sighed and turned onto his back.

She’d left.

She wasn’t scheduled to leave until the twenty-sixth. She was supposed to be here for the Christmas formal. She was supposed to be here forChristmas. It was only the twenty-second.

That meant she was going to spend Christmas alone in California.

And that pissed him off.

He was in love with her. He knew it was impossible, that it didn’t make sense, that he might be crazy. But he loved her. He wanted her, in every way, all the time, and the idea that she’d left, chosen to be alone on Christmas after everything they’d done and said, made him mad.

And convinced him that she was falling for him too.

She’d run because she was scared.

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