Flame - Erin Noelle Page 0,44
shove him a tad, rolling my eyes when he pretends I hurt his arm. “Oh please, Hulk, I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to.” Bending my neck down, I kiss the spot anyway before adding, “And the sex is much better than great.”
Levi repositions himself lengthwise with the bus, legs opening in a V, then pats the spot between his thighs. “Come here, Sunshine. Let me give you a massage. I think I owe you a dozen or so.”
Scrunching my nose up, I shake my head back and forth. “Can I take a rain check? It feels like the surface of the sun up here, and we’re both really gross and sweaty. We need a shower.”
“Get your ass over here,” he insists, laughing lightheartedly. “I won’t rub your sweat, but I like talking to you up here. It’s feels like we’re in our own little world. Higher than everyone else.”
“That’s ‘cause we are,” I mumble, purposely loud enough for him to hear as I scoot over to be closer.
As soon as I’m in arm’s reach, he grasps me and hauls me onto his lap, slapping my butt twice on the way down. “God, you’re so sassy sometimes. Are all of your sisters like this?”
“No, you just lucked out,” I retort with a smirk.
Lowering his mouth to mine, his breath caresses my lips as he mumbles, “That I fucking did, Sunshine.”
After a few teasing kisses, he pulls back and smiles contently. His blue eyes are a calm sea on a bright, summer day. It might be the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him outside of bed. “Tell me about Dakota,” he rasps.
“Wh-what do you mean?” I stammer.
“Who are you? Where are you from? What do you want to do with your life?” He traces abstract designs on my forearm with his finger while he talks, an action I never knew could cause tingles in every part of my body. “Most girls I meet are dying to tell me their life story. They don’t shut the fuck up. But not you. I know very little. Why is that?”
I shrug, not having a good answer. “The same reason I don’t know much about you, I guess.”
“What do you want to know? Ask me anything and I’ll answer it,” he challenges.
Wow. I wasn’t expecting this. “Do I only get one question?”
Smiling like he knew I was going to ask that, he shakes his head. “Nope, but for every question you ask, I get one too. Like our own version of Twenty Questions.”
“Okay, let me think.” I pause while deciding if I should get straight to the juicy stuff or ask some basics first. I choose basics. “What was your childhood like?”
The movement of his hand hitches for a split-second, but recovers quickly. “I was born and raised in SoCal. My dad, Darren Levi, is one of the best plastic surgeons in the country, and most of Hollywood has him on speed-dial. He was always working so much when I was a kid it was like he didn’t really live with us. I don’t know much about him as a person. My mom, on the other hand, I know more about than I care to.” He makes no attempt to hide the disgust in his voice when he talks about her, which kills me a little bit inside.
“She was with my dad for the money and the social status,” he continues. “They met when she was getting some work done as an aspiring actress, and somehow she managed to trap him in a marriage and then got knocked up with a kid, tying herself to him for at least eighteen years. Once I was born, she really didn’t have time to take care of a baby; it interfered with her social calendar and fucking the pool boy. So she hired a nanny until I was old enough to ship off to boarding school.”
“When did you start riding dirt bikes then?” I interject.
He lightly slaps my arm. “Uh-uh. My turn for a question.”
Grinning, I nod to give him the go ahead, fully expecting a similar question about my family or upbringing.
“Where do you see yourself in ten years?” he asks, switching his ministrations to my other arm.
Say what? Ten years?
“Dude, that’s a hard one!” I exclaim. “I barely know where I’ll be next month, much less a decade from now.”
“Come on,” he urges. “Just try to answer it the best you can. Career? Married? Kids? Still in Colorado?”
I give it a quick thought then blurt