Party Foul - Abby Knox Page 0,55
me.”
The intensity of him slowed her clamoring, steadied the heart that clanged against her ribs.
He drew his lips back to bare his teeth. He looked feral as his voice seethed.
“Tell me you don’t want this to be real. Tell me. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to be my girl for real. Come and stay with me. Because it’s not just the fucking for me. It never has been. Fuck the money. I’ve only wanted to be near you.”
She let a smile creep across her face, trying to lighten the mood. “Yeah, that was pretty clear. You finger-banged me in an alley the first night we met.” She wouldn’t give in to this emotional outpouring. It wasn’t the right moment.
“I wasn’t meaning the sex. It was never just the sex. You’re mine. I said it when we fucked in the back of my car and it wasn’t just the heat of the moment. I’m yours. This thing between us is real. Don’t you feel it?”
Sucking her lips into her mouth and biting down, she didn’t answer. The restraint and the blind ache between her legs revealed itself in stinging tears in the corners of her eyes.
She wanted this. She did. She could just give in. She could say yes. Yes, I feel everything you’re feeling, and I’m ready to do this. She could not deny she had thought about forgetting the whole fake boyfriend arrangement.
If they went legit, they’d have to tell her parents every detail of his past. They’d have to become part of a campaign strategy to do damage control. And once the press got hold of the fact that he was a convicted felon, all hell would break loose.
But alternative would be more unbearable than the political fallout. She didn’t want to spend another day without him.
“Shit, I wasn’t supposed to catch feelings,” she said, her eyes leaking, tears falling down her temples and wetting the brand-new sofa pillow.
“Is it because I did time?”
“No! I just didn’t want things to get complicated. I didn’t want you to get hurt by all the people in this crazy life I lead, who watch every move I make. I knew I was going to fall for you so hard, but I told myself you didn’t like my lifestyle, we were just using each other.”
Levi’s face intensified. “I don’t do that. And I wouldn’t do that to you, angel.”
More tears spilled out. The strain in his voice. He needed her to admit her feelings. He needed to know. She needed to tell him.
“Yes, Levi,” she said. “Yes, I want to do this. I want to be yours and yours only. I want to call you my for-real boyfriend, and I want everyone to know.”
Levi blew out a ragged breath, his chest heaving and settling. “I’m gonna take such good care of you. I’m gonna make you so happy.”
She smiled and laughed as he licked and kissed away the tears on her temples, one, then the other. “I don’t know, you make a pretty good fake boyfriend. Not sure how you’re gonna top it.”
He ravished her parted lips, darting his tongue inside and tasting her deeply. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“Okay, but can I get the dicking now?”
She thought she was ready. His swift adjustments had her one leg hooked around his shoulder as he drove deep inside, lifting her body off the sofa.
“Goddamn,” she gasped. “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.”
She had to curse. If she didn’t curse, she would blurt out even more truth. The truth that she was madly in love with him.
But there would be time. There was always time to let all of that come out naturally.
She was just happy she finally felt free enough to let it happen.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Levi
* * *
“Babe. I gotta come clean about something.”
He felt lifted as he spilled the whole truth to Fiona. The story about how Girardi had his guys force him into the car, made him an offer of an entirely new business, and this walk-up loft as a place to live.
The only detail he left out was how Girardi had spoken her name, had used her as the carrot to make the deal even sweeter. Girardi had known that would get to him.
“But now I realize, after thinking about it—”
“And after talking to Father O’Brien.” Levi granted her that. Fiona shyly smiled up at him with the comforter wrapped around her, her hair mussed from the pillow, looking like a naughty Christmas angel.
“Sorry for interrupting. Go on,”