“I promise you, Levi, I would never lead you astray.” Unless that crooked path leads to my bedroom. As obnoxious as he’s been to live with, I wouldn’t object to having him bark out a few orders in thebedroom.
He takes off, and my gaze lingers over that void he leaves in his wake. My blood boils over the fact his brother and his wife of all people stuck a stake in his heart and now have a bona fide baby stake to flaunt in front of him for the next umpteen years. Imagine being an uncle to your own wife’schild.
I’m so livid I’m seeing red. You’d thinkIwas the one who was cheated on so horribly. I head into my room and pull out my Sunday best. I have been cheated on, stepped on, taken out with yesterday’s trash, and I know what it feels like. It feels like shit. If my best friend can’t be here to comfort her favorite brother in his time of need, I will happily step up to the Masterson family plate—not that I’m keenly aware of the fact Raven has a favorite brother. But after doing the scoundrel brother math, I’m pretty darn sure I’m right. Raven has always been there for me, wiped away all my tears, moved heaven and earth to make things better. I will, for damn sure, do the sameforher.
I hold a red dress up to myself in the mirror, the one that hugs my curves, tells every male within eyeshot what goes where and why, and I give a slow maniacalsmile.
Yes, I’ll take care of Levi Masterson while Raven is away. And I know just how to do it. Those assholes cradling that sweet innocent baby won’t know whathitthem.
Levi won’teither.
The driveto Hollow Brook General is a relatively quick one, but with Levi behind the wheel and his panache for taking every alternative route possible it’s taken almost forty minutes. We finally park and get out of his fancy ride, and I head over and smooth the wrinkles from his dress shirt with my hands. Holy hell, this boy’s body is made one hundred percent of steel—or titanium. Oh hell, I happened to catch a glimpse of him shirtless last week—this boy is platinum through andthrough.
“Everything okay down there?” His warm voice strums over me, and I come to from the impromptu massage I’ve accidentally offered up hischest.
“Oh, um, yes.” My finger vibrates with delight long after I’ve returned my hands to my sides. It’s not my fault I couldn’t contain the need to attack him. He showered and trimmed down that scruff on his cheeks just enough to make my panties spontaneously combust. With that dark hair and those siren eyes, it’s a rather lethal combo, and if I’m being entirely honest, why, yes, I did have a good time last night in my bedroom. So what if I was riding that rodeo solo? I haven’t been with a man in so long I’ve forgotten what a ride for two feels like. I’m essentially a born-again virgin, and, well, the way Levi was grunting and moaning while watching a baseball game last night—he might be responsible for getting me a little hot and bothered. I may have had a serious transference issue between him and my hand, but in my defense, the sound of his roaring cheers set me over the sexual edge, and God knows there was no coming back fromthatone.
We head in, and I practically have to yank him into thegiftshop.
“There’s no way we’re going up empty-handed. Nothing says grudge like showing up without a teddy bear. What did they have, anyway? Do you happen to know?” Just as I’m about to text Raven and get the chromosomal deets, he nods to a giant pinkpanda.
“It’s a girl!” I head over and hug the cute little thing. “Don’t worry. You’re still an uncle, not an aunt.” I give a playful smile as I pick up a small bouquet of pink roses and a Mylar balloon on a stick that readsThank heaven for little girls!“Toomuch?”
His eyes bug out as if suggesting the drive over was too much, and before he can open those full lips—and my God, Levi Masterson does have perfectly full, adorable as all hell lips. My tongue does a revolution around my own damn lips just thinkingofthem.
“Never you mind,” I say sternly as I head to the cashier and whip out mywallet.
“No way, no how.” He outguns me with the Visa, and sixty-three dollars later, the elevator deposits us on the third floor amidst the ketchup-like scents and hearty moans of women in labor. A harrowing scream emits toourleft.
I lean against him. I meant to rib him, but my uterus recoiled so hard it nearly knocked me over. “And that, my friend, is why I will never do the tush-push with an entire human being on the wrong end of my hoohaw.” My face heats ten shades of hellfire. Did I really just sayhoohawto Raven’s older, handsome, skin over steel big bro? I glance up and give a sheepish smile. For the most part, Levi has been frozen into submission ever since we got out of the car, and my heart breaksforhim.
“Come here.” I gently lead him to the corner as the woman in the room to our left insults man and God and every person she’s ever known in one long rambling cry of desperation in an effort to escape herpersonalhell.
I hook my finger under that scruff beneath his chin and force those baby blues to zone in on me. Levi’s chest thumps with a quiet laugh and his eyes smile all their own as they do just that, and my stomach squeezes tight just having this beautiful man’sattention.
I clear my throat. “I know we haven’t known one another for very long. I know that you probably think I’m a lunatic—and trust me, you’re not that far off base.” Perhaps this moment, the most vulnerable time in this man’s life, isn’t the best time to discuss your precarious psychiatric standing, not that there is an official diagnosis, but I’ve long suspected I’ve been a sandwich shy of a picnic for a while—and I mean that in a good way. “But I want you to know that I love your sister.” Something deep down in my bones shivers when I say those words to him, and for a moment I wonder if I had imagined that I said Raven’s name at all. “And because I care so deeply about her, I care deeply about you by default. Plus, you’re letting me sleep in your home, eat your old food”—we share a small laugh—“and you’ve let me see you shirtless on more than oneoccasion.”
His head backs up a notch as if I’ve just blownhimover.
Note to self: confession might be good for the soul, but it’s probably most beneficial when done in a dark room with a partition and a crucifixbetweenyou.
“Harlow.” His voice is hoarse and just below awhisper.
“JustLow.”
“Low.” That dimpled grin of his lasts less than second. “Thank you. I can’t tell you what it means to me to have your support.” His thumb brushes over my cheek and sets off a riot of pleasure-filled tremors through me. Those blue lasers of his dig into me, and I can feel the heat of his stare gliding over my face all at once, leaving me painfully exposed. “You didn’t have todothis.”
“Oh, but I did.” I blink back tears that came uninvited. “Raven has done an entire list of the most outlandishly kind things for me.” I hook my arm through his and lead him down to the nurses’ station. “Like these shoes for example?” I kick a Louboutin clad foot in the air. “You practically need to cough up blood money to go home with a pair, and I merely complimented Raven on hers just once, and, poof, the next day there was a box in my closet with a shiny red bow. She said it was a belated birthday gift she forgot togiveme.”
He trembles out a warm laugh, and my shoulder bounces along with his chest. It feels nice like this with Levi by my side. Hell, it feels nice with a warm body in general, but let’s face it, Levi isn’t exactly hard ontheeyes.
One of the nurses greets us, her hand still dipped in a box of chocolates sitting on the counter. “Which lucky patient are we here to see today?” She looks chipper and gleefully glad to be here, not at all like a woman who stares down at the working end of baby makers for a living. There are many career paths I have entertained in life—and ironicallysecretary at a window factorywas not one of them, but neither was lady-business supervisor either. I’d have to boil my hands in oil if their sole purpose for eight hours straight was excavating small children from the inside of bloodiedvaginas.
Levi leans in. “MeredithMasterson.”
My stomach tenses when I hear her full name—especially the part that’s still legally giftedfromhim.
“Straight down the hall. Last room on theright.”
