Page 120 of Our Hearts Knew Better

The safety.

And I sigh into it, completely captured in his blues, knowing now why I haven’t spied that swirl of torment. He’s made a choice. He’s chosen again.

He’s chosen me.

“But now, I won’t lose you,” he says, and I practically sag against the shelves, the pain I should feel from their pressure on my back soothed by his fight for us. “Adam doesn’t deserve you, and honestly, neither do I, but I’m going to be the man you deserve. I let you go once, and I’m not doing it twice—”

“Then don’t,” I urge, another cut in, but the words are barely out before Levi’s mouth finds mine and our hands find each other in the same second. Mine grip his hair, remembering he liked that, as his glide under my jacket and grip into my back in a firm hold against him.

I tremble at the first taste of his tongue after so long. The feeling of his wanting. His eagerness sends tingling shocks through my body as we kiss like we’re making up for all the time we lost, the time that should’ve been ours, our hands a shared mind of their own, taking what we’ve waited years to have.

Our breaths are heavy, our bodies practically one with how flushed we are together, when our mouths and movements slow. Levi’s hand, now in a light grip on my neck, makes one more move with both framing my face as he pulls back.

I keep my eyes closed, holding to his wrists like my life depends on this. My heart definitely does. I don’t want to see in his eyes that he’s changing his mind.

“Summer, look at me.”

My fingers squeeze his wrists as I look at him through a fluttered blink, my eyes widening when they connect to the soft dance of his between mine, and I see the just as soft smile on his kiss-swollen lips.

“I’m here with you. I’m in this. You and me. I’mnotletting you go,” he assures me, always hearing what I’m not saying. And that spark, always for me, in his so sure gaze, pushes me forward, even more flush against him, if that’s possible, in a shove for more room to havethisback, to give myself over fully.

He catches me around the waist as I spring on my toes into another kiss, my grip back in his hair. His grip roams in a digging glide to my ass, cupping both cheeks to lift me more into his erection, straining through his shorts. His moan is like a jolt to my hips as I try to get some friction, rubbing myself against him.

We end up back against the shelves, one of Levi’s hands shooting out to cushion the crash, before that hand slips under my dress in a hot stroke to the back of my thigh. Lifting my leg high around his hip, he spreads me open to the friction I need.

I cry out like I’m desperate, because I am, when his mouth breaks away to my neck, my nails in his scalp to keep his kisses on my skin, that desperation added thuds of my creeping uncertainty in my heart…and of him having never—

“Levi.” I gasp out his name, and he responds with a groan as his mouth moves up to tease my ear. My brain’s in a stall but my body’s still going, too, tugging up on his shirt until he pulls back again and takes it off, discarded with a fling behind him. “I’m sure I want this”—my hands roam the hard planes of his abdomen—“I want you, but…are you sure—”

“Summer, you’re mine,” he rasps out, having my jacket down my shoulders and to the floor with a flick of his wrists. “You’ve always been mine and I’ve always been yours.” My dress is the next to go, my arms obeying his silent command and springingup in the air, all too eager, as he lifts the fabric over my head in one swoop. “Fucking yes, I’m sure,” he says through another groan, his gaze following a heady path over my bare boobs, down my stomach to my panties, as he holds to my waist now like his life depends on this.

Then he’s falling to his knees, that life depending hold sliding down my legs as he goes. He tugs at my wedges and I steady myself on a shelf edge as I obey another silent command, lifting my feet, right then left, as he takes off the shoes. I kick at the left one in a rush of impatience, and Levi watches it fly, then drags his heated eyes, with now a hint of amusement, up to me.

“Sorry,” I throw down at him with a curl to my lips, not sorry at all.

“Turn around,” he tells me, through the same building curl of his lips, and I release a sigh as I obey this command, too, again, all too eager for him, for this.

The curl now is in my fingers, around a shelf edge, as his hook into the waistband of my panties and pulls them in the slowest, tingliest track down to my ankles. I quiver from that and against his warm breath on my bare ass cheek.

I kick the panties away, too, and say through a burst laugh of frustration, “Are you enjoying taking your time?”

“Oh yeah,” he answers, the words air, soft and slow, and genuine, with an ache like he’s missed something. Like he’s missed this. Because he has. We both have.

My bated breath and tightened muscles half deflate with another sigh.

You can slow down.

“Do you need me to go faster?” he asks, with both a care to deliver and a tease for this torment, his fingers, too, light grazes up my thigh.

“No,” I push out, my back arching all its own, my ass even more in his face as I chase his touch, goosebumps like thousands of tickles all over me. “Just…keep your hands on me.”

He obeys me now, both hands grazing up my hips to my waist as he stands. I gasp as he tugs me against him, at the full feeling of his chest against my back, his hot flesh on my hot flesh.

I tilt my head as he moves my hair off my shoulder, a caress that closes my eyes, my body leaning more into him as his breath hits my neck.

He trails full-mouthed kisses, tasting a path up to my ear, ending with his lips in a returned curl at my lobe. “If I’m bad at this…”

My laugh is a heaved exhale. “You’re not. You’ve done your research, right?” I tease.

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