to Levi.
And he loved her. He’d always loved her.
That had her mind and heart in an even more conflicting battle.
Common sense said stay as far away as possible, fight the physical attraction she had for him even more. Leading him on and hurting him when she couldn’t return the feelings would be wrong. But she had no idea what to do with his revelation. Why had he never told her? Why tell her now? They couldn’t be together now any more than they could have been before.
But two things were obvious—her heart wanted her friend back and her body wanted her friend.
He swung the axe and his biceps and forearm muscles tensed and contracted and her mouth watered. The block of wood broke apart, falling away from the log, and Levi reached for a new one. His ass was sexy as hell and his big, thick hamstrings were strong and sturdy as he bent to retrieve the broken pieces.
No one she’d met since Dawson had attracted her like this. Not Eoghan, not any man she’d met in LA. So why was the one man she really shouldn’t want leaving her overcome with a desire to have him?
He lifted his gaze and it met hers through the frosty windowpane. The burning intensity could have defrosted the entire forest around them. He stood staring at her for a long moment, his chest rising and falling with his exertion, and Leslie held her own breath, lost in a moment of indecision.
Levi turned away and she released the air she’d been holding as she watched him pick up an armful of wood and head into the shed.
As he closed the door behind him, he cast a final...inviting look in her direction.
Damn it... They needed to talk, clear the air, get things straight. Otherwise, being in this cabin together would be impossible. She couldn’t ignore how they were both feeling and hope it would go away. Maybe if they talked about it, they could diffuse the situation before things got even more out of hand.
She reached for her jacket and checked quickly on Selena napping in their bunk room before slipping out the back door and heading across the path to the shed. The snow crunching beneath her boots did nothing to drown out the pounding of her heart in her ears and the cold wind couldn’t cool the heat coursing through her body.
She hesitated at the shed door, then opened it and went inside before she could talk herself out of it. “Hey... I think we need to talk.”
Levi didn’t turn around, just continued stacking the wood in a pile near the wall. “Leslie, either do what you came in here to do or get out. I’ve got work to do.”
Her mouth dropped, but her body was on autopilot and in less than a second, she was turning him around to face her. Standing on tiptoes, she gripped his cheeks between her hands and kissed him. Hard. Desperate. With purpose. It wasn’t an act of unplanned impulsivity. It was done with a clear head, if not a clear heart.
Frustration and confusion were all there in the kiss. On both ends. But he didn’t pull away and neither did she.
He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist as she deepened the kiss, searching for...what? The reason she was doing this, maybe? Testing him to see if he’d put on the brakes again?
He pulled back abruptly as though reading her very thoughts. “If you were expecting me to show restraint again, I’m sorry, but that won’t be happening this time,” he said, his voice deep and gruff with an unconcealed desire.
For her.
She swallowed hard, her mind reeling as she met his gaze full on.
What should she do?
Listen to her body that was screaming for him or continue to follow her common sense as it rattled off the million reasons why this was such a bad idea?
“I know what I want and I’m exhausted from fighting it, so this time it’s all on you,” he said.
Shit. She was going for it.
Her entire life was in chaos right now anyway, how much worse could it get?
She crushed his mouth with hers again and reached for the edge of his sweaty T-shirt. She raised it up over his abs and chest and he allowed her to remove one arm at a time, still holding her beneath her ass and only briefly breaking contact with her mouth to yank the shirt over his head for her.