I tasted coffee and something darker. His stubble scraped my skin, his breath hot against my tongue, and the first rough sound he made into my mouth shot straight through me.
This was a bad idea. The worst.
I opened to him, anyway.
He kissed me back like a man who’d been starving and just found water in a desert. No hesitation. No apology. Just taking and giving all at once, like he’d been holding himself back from this since the minute he saw me in the lobby.
My back hit the wall. I didn’t remember moving. His body crowded mine, all hard muscle and heat, and my fingers dug into his shoulders through the worn cotton of his shirt.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” I gasped against his mouth.
“I know,” he said, lips brushing mine. “Say no.”
He was infuriating.
I dragged his lower lip between my teeth instead of answering. He groaned, low and rough, and his hands tightened on my hips, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh just above my waistband.
Everything inside me clenched.
He broke the kiss long enough to look at me—really look. My breathing ragged, my eyes probably broadcasting exactly how far gone I was.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“No,” I admitted. “But I’m not stopping.”
That was consent in the only language my body was speaking.
He swore under his breath. Then he was kissing me again, deeper, slower for a moment—like he was memorizing the shape of my mouth. One hand slid up my side, fingertips skimming my ribs, the edge of my bra. Even over fabric, the contact burned.
I pushed them higher, impatient, and he laughed against my lips—a hoarse, disbelieving sound—before obliging.
We stumbled toward the bed in a tangle of limbs and half-checked control. I caught sight of us in the mirror over the dresser—a dark-haired woman practically climbing a man who looked like he’d been carved out of every bad decision she’d ever made—and my heart jumped into my throat.
“Last chance to reconsider,” I muttered.
“Pretty sure that ship sailed when you invited me up,” he said.
We hit the mattress, me on my back, him braced above me, arms caging my head. For a second, he just hovered there, chest rising and falling, eyes searching my face.
I hated how much I liked the weight of him.
“Levi,” I warned.
He dipped his head and kissed my throat instead of answering, mouth hot against the spot that made my breath catch. His stubble rasped along my skin, and my hands slid up under his shirt, palms flattening against the hard plane of his back, greedy for more contact.
His skin was hot. Smooth over muscle that shifted and flexed under my touch.
Memories slammed into me—canvas walls, cot springs creaking, his heartbeat pounding against my chest. I shoved them away. This was now. This was different.
Except it wasn’t.
It was us. It had always been us.
I dragged his shirt up, breaking the kiss long enough to shove the fabric over his head. He helped, impatient, and then it was gone, tossed somewhere to the floor. His chest was more defined than I remembered, new scars mapping stories I didn’t know.
For a moment, my journalist brain surfaced, wanting to catalog. To ask. To investigate.
Later, I told it.
