Page 81 of Perfect Storm
“Are you following this?” he half asked, half demanded.
“Uh.” Levi really hoped that Aidan was not going to ask for a rundown of the plot, because his understanding consisted ofAidan’s hair; Tom Cruise stabbed someone; Aidan’s thigh; motorcycle chase; Aidan’s mouth against his last night; some incomprehensible bad-guy speech.
“Are you?” Aidan repeated.
There was no point in pretending. “No,” Levi admitted. “I think Tom Cruise is . . .um . . .trying to stop that guy from destroying a space station.” He gestured towards the screen.
Aidan frowned. “That’s Tom Cruise’s partner. He’s trying topreventthem from destroying the space station.”
Okay. Well. He’d made a good effort, at least. Somewhere Landry and Logan were poking fun at his total lack of game. Lyla would pat him on the cheek and tell him he’d do better next time. None of them would be wrong.
“Maybe you should explain it to me,” Levi said, finding it hard to not be at least alittlesulky. Aidan was driving him out of his mind—the majority of his brain was in Aidan’s pants right now—to the point he couldn’t even figure out who the bad guy was in this terrible Tom Cruise movie. But Aidan knew. It was kind of a blow to the ego.
Maybe it hadn’t been as good for Aidan last night as it had been for Levi.
And if that was true, then Levi needed to remedy thatimmediately.He could do better; hewoulddo better.
He’d blow Aidan’s mind into tiny little smithereens, Tom Cruise–style.
“Wait,” Aidan said.
“What?”
“Do you really thinkI’mpaying attention?”
It was a perfectly legitimate question. After all,Aidanhad put the fucking movie on.
“Youjustexplained the plot to me.”
Aidan laughed and then poked him in the side. “You idiot,” he said, making it sound like the sweetest pet name in the world, “I only know that ’cause I’ve seen this before.”
Levi opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again. Hoping he understood what Aidan was getting at, but totally unlike him, not sure how to ask if he was getting this right.
Before he could, Aidan was suddenly moving, and it washimswinging a leg over Levi’s thighs and settling down lightly into his lap, hands on the back of the couch, framing Levi’s head.
He didn’t dip his face down to meet Levi’s. There was still a whisper of apprehension written there, like he was actually unsure that Levi would like this.
Aidan was clearly being his normal neurotic self because Levilovedthis.
“Hey,” Levi said warmly, settling a hand on Aidan’s hip. Making sure Aidan knew, from every bit of his body language and his expression, just how into this he was.
Aidan still looked like he was half a second from squirming away. “Hey.”
He was beautiful all the time, but he’d never been more gorgeous than he was like this, dusk shadowing his face, blue eyes torn between desire and restraint, biting his lower lip like it might physically stop him from closing the rest of the distance between them.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Levi asked.
He figured that was fair even though the last thing he wanted to do was have a conversation. He just wanted todo.
AKA strip Aidan naked and make him moan.
“Talk about—” Aidan broke off, shaking his head. “No. No. I . . .” He tucked his face away in his shoulder, so Levi could only see a sliver. “I want this.” A shuddering breath went out of him, making him tremble. “I want this so much.”
Levi could ask why he’d pretended like he didn’t. Why he’d tried to unload the dishwasher. Why he’d sat so far away on the couch. Why he’d put on the stupidest Tom Cruise movie in existence.
But Levi didn’t. He’d known before tonight that Aidan’s head could be a bramble of complex, tangled-together emotions, but after Aidan had shared more of his past, it was obvious how much he fought even things that were good for him.
Instead, he reached up and tangled his other hand in Aidan’s hair. It was soft and curly around the edges, burnished gold in this light. Levi had only thought about touching it hundreds of times since he’d gotten to Toronto, and it felt even better than in his fantasies.
