My heart doesn’t pound, it buzzes. It’s a chainsaw, roaring and snarling, all teeth and no mercy as it plunges further into me.
“What is it?” he asks after a long, long moment.
I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. Nothing at all.
I can’t say it. It should have been simple, and I’ve made it impossible, that one small sentence, I have a job interview in South Dakota. I should have told him nearly a week ago and now I still haven’t told him at all and here I am, lower than the lowest form of life I can think of.
“I…”
I’m a worm. A moss. Lichen.
“I just wanted to see you alone,” I finally whisper. It’s true, but not the truth.
He leans forward, over the bar. It’s strangely easy for me to forget how tall Levi is, how wide his shoulders are, how much muscle he has on his frame, but right now I remember every inch and every ounce, and I think he wants me to.
“Is that all you wanted?” he asks.
Tell.
Him.
I don’t.
“That’s not enough?” I ask, suddenly coy, my heart still buzzing, in freefall.
His eyes bore into mine, colorless in the dark. There’s something in them I’ve never seen before, a part of him I don’t know revealed, something like lust and something like need, but it’s not either of those things.
“Come closer,” he says, and now his voice is nearly a growl and I step forward, my hips against the bar sink.
Levi reaches out, slides his fingers through my hair, pulls me forward until our lips meet in a rough kiss.
Instantly, I open my mouth. His tongue finds mine, pushes its way into my mouth, his hand knotting in my hair. I’m on tiptoe and I go to put one hand on his face, but he catches my wrist in his other hand, brings it down to the bar top.
When he pulls away, I catch his bottom lip between my teeth. I bite harder than I mean to, but Levi just groans, my hair still wrapped in his hand.
“If you’re not careful I’ll give you exactly what you’re asking for,” he says, his voice low, raspy, his breathing hard.
It’s half threat, half promise.
“I haven’t asked you for anything yet,” I say.
His hand shifts, lets go of my hair, slides along my jaw until his thumb is on my lower lip.
“You’re right,” he says. “You haven’t asked me for anything. You told me.”
I suck his thumb into my mouth. I can’t help myself. I look him straight in the eyes and move my tongue along the rough, salty pad, let him feel my teeth against the knuckle.
I want him and I need him and I’m not telling him the truth. It makes me reckless, careless. I’m more than reckless, more than careless. I have the wild, unshakeable urge to light everything up and burn everything down, tell everyone about Levi and me in the worst way possible. I want to make it so that Silas can’t look me in the eye for months.
“You’re telling me right now, June,” he says, his eyes on my lips like he can’t tear himself away. “That you want me to come back there, bend you over the bar, and take you like an animal.”
I shiver all the way to my toes.
“You’re telling me that the scratches you left on my back weren’t enough for you,” he goes on, closer, quieter. “You’re telling me that I make your knees shake and your toes curl and if I make you wait one more minute, you might leap out of your own skin.”
Levi pulls his thumb from my mouth roughly. Before I can even react, he’s vaulted onto the bar and then off again and he’s in front of me, unruffled, all fire and moonlight.
I’ve always thought that Levi was beautiful, for as long as I can remember.
But tonight, right now, I realize something that’s never occurred to me before.
Levi’s dangerous.Chapter Twenty-EightLeviJune stands behind the bar in the dark brewery wide-eyed and defiant and so beautiful I can’t breathe. She’s always beautiful but right now there’s a special kind of ache brought on by the fire and the moonlight, the way it lights her deep blue eyes.
She hasn’t told me about the interview yet. She isn’t going to. She’s happy to let me find out when she disappears without another word, only her brother to tell me what’s happened.
“Am I right?” I ask, my voice scraping the bottom of its register as I take a step forward, then another step. “About what you want and why I’m here?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
I bend down and kiss her, my fingers working their way through her hair as I press myself into her, open her mouth under mine, feel her teeth against my lips.
I kiss her harder, push her backward. I have the wild urge to let her draw blood so that at least she’ll hurt me in a way that I can see, a wound I can tend to properly.