Before - Bethan-Kris Page 0,21

I know. And you’re working so—”

She had started to push up from the stool. Lev’s heart about jumped from his chest at the very idea she might leave because, for whatever reason, he had a feeling he wasn’t going to see her again. He couldn’t have that even though every part of him screamed that he was being stupid by thinking whatever interest he had in this woman could go beyond the four walls of a bedroom. His mouth worked before his brain could stop it.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked.

She hesitated, glancing between the bottles on the wall behind him and then at his mouth. Did she want to kiss him? Hell, he’d love another taste of her. Another bite. A nibble. A single fucking lick. He’d tasted the salt from her skin for days after. Heard her moans in his dreams. The image of her spread wide for him on a bed was the only thing letting him beat one out in the shower every morning.

Fucking her had been a dream. Yeah, he would definitely do it again.

If she wanted ...

“I’m not even twenty-one,” she admitted. “Just turned twenty a couple of months ago. Probably shouldn’t be drinking. Don’t you ask for ID?”

“Usually.”

The bar was trying to stay above board for a bit. Just long enough that the attention died down and the reporters stopped coming around to ask if the place was mob-connected. Lev knew the rules and what he should do.

It also seemed like this woman—still a stranger to him, really—could make him break every rule with nothing more than a smile and a flick of those green eyes.

Goddammit.

He kind of liked it.

“Pick your poison, Gigi. Whatever you want in the bar—it’s on the house. All yours.”

Her grin grew wider.

Sexier.

“Anything I want?” she asked.

He nodded.

She winked. “Let’s start with a whiskey sour. Then I think I’ll move onto you.”

Well ...

He was just fine with that.

Six

“SORRY,” LEV said at Gigi’s left, noticing the hole in the wall of the basement-level stairwell inside the Harlem apartment building. “It’s new—just showed up one morning last week. The building isn’t that great, but it does what I need it to, and it’s safe for the most part. Just old and falling the fuck apart.”

She heard how the tone of his voice changed; it was the same way he spoke back at the bar after last call when Gigi mentioned if they were going home together, it would have to be to his place. Her roommate was back at hers, after all, and Cassie was too nosy for her liking on the rare occasion that Gigi even mentioned a guy, let alone brought one home.

They passed one apartment on the right before coming to a stop at the second apartment on the left side. His place, apparently, if the keys he pulled out of the back pocket of his jeans could be trusted.

“Hey,” she said, leaning her back against the peeling yellow wallpaper on the hallway wall. He didn’t look at her, instead focusing his effort on sticking the key into the deadbolt on the door. She couldn’t have that so she poked him in the shoulder just because. “Hey.”

Those ice-blue eyes of his—cold only in color because his gaze always felt so warm when it landed on her—turned her way. The grin that curled his lips up at the edges was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. The heat growing deep in her belly was made worse when that intense stare of his dropped down the length of her bare legs to the strappy black heels that crisscrossed up over her ankles before tying into bows at the back of her mid-calf. He was such a leg man.

Then, his gaze snapped back up to hers without warning when he asked, “Did you just poke me?”

“I said hey first.”

Without warning, Lev pushed away from the door, leaving the keys hanging from the lock, and stepped up to Gigi. In a blink, his legs pushed between hers while his hands landed on either side of her head against the wall. Her mini skirt inched higher on her hips when his body flattened against hers. That gorgeous mouth of his hovered above hers, making her edgy and needy all at the same fucking time. The fresh, crisp scent of his cologne—with notes of the sea and smoke—pulled into her lungs with every breath she dragged in.

The sudden rush of lust that flooded her veins was only aided by the way he