Zoe peered out of Levi’s apartment windows for the fifth time since they’d arrived there. She wasn’t sure what she expected to see. Maybe Chelsea standing down on the street in the rain, just waiting for Zoe to go to sleep, to drop her guard.
She shivered, feeling overly exposed by the floor-to-ceiling view. Gripping Levi’s bathrobe closed around her, she backed away.
There was a knock on the door and she jumped, but when she checked the peephole in the metal door, she sighed in relief. It was just Freddy, or more specifically, Levi holding Freddy up so all she could see was him.
She unlatched the door and slid it open. Poking her head out, she eyed Levi up and down. “Secret password?”
He chuckled “Sex in pan?”
“Mmmm, please.” Smiling she stepped aside.
Freddy raced inside before Levi, still geared up from their walk. He ran a few laps of the apartment as Levi slipped off his shoes.
After Zoe’s battle with Chelsea, everyone kind of dispersed for the night. Piper and Addison went home for their beauty sleep for the big day. But Zoe wasn’t all that eager to return to her small apartment. Even though Chelsea had been arrested, Zoe was still worried the police wouldn’t have enough to hold her for long.
Levi had driven Zoe home after the cops questioned them both outside the dive bar, but he’d refused to let her be alone that night. In the end, she didn’t put up much of a fight and packed a few overnight things for her and Freddy.
It was more than just a safe place to rest her head that she was eager for. However, just in case her stress remained unrelieved, she’d brought Big Boy along in her purse.
“Thanks for taking Freddy out while I showered,” she said. “I think the hot water helped my sore muscles.” She rolled a shoulder, getting a sharp reminder of where Chelsea dug her elbow in.
“Come here.” Levi drew her toward the leather couch.
Once she was sitting, he positioned himself behind her. She moaned as he began to massage and knead her aching back, wincing as he found each new knot.
“She really did a number on you, didn’t she?” he asked.
“She was definitely going for the kill.”
A noise in the kitchen startled her. A moment later, Freddy skittered out, a guilty tail curled under him.
Levi reached for the stereo remote and switched on the local radio station. Like he’d been shot with a tranquilizer, Freddy jumped up on the low armchair across from them, worming his way beneath Levi’s leather jacket for a nap.
“You have nothing to worry about tonight now that Chelsea’s behind bars,” Levi said. “Besides, you seemed to be able to handle yourself pretty well.”
Zoe gave a huff like a weak laugh, but even that hurt. “Because if I hadn’t, I think I’d be in a coma right about now,” she told him. “It took a lot out of me.”
She could feel him lean in close, his body warming her back. “I’m sure I could rouse a little energy in you.” The words tickled her ear and she could already feel that energy tingling.
“I thought you, you know, didn’t want to do that,” she said.
He took up his kneading again, but after a moment, he said, “You think it’s weird that I turned you down for casual sex.”
She shrugged, thinking it wasn’t weird so much as a blow to her pride.
When she didn’t answer, he said, “I’m just not a no-strings kind of guy. I think sex is more important than that. What two people have should mean something, and sex is an expression of that.”
Hand it to a songwriter to be good with expressing himself verbally. She closed her eyes as his hands loosened the tension in her neck.
“Don’t get me wrong, though,” he added quickly. “I think it’s super sexy that you’re comfortable with your sexuality.”
Her eyes fluttered open. Stiffening, she looked over her shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“Well, look at you.” He waved his hands over her like that was enough explanation right there. “You practically exude sex. Every man’s jaw drops when you walk by, and you know it. And then of course there’s your sex-toy business.”
“Hold on a second.” Zoe gaped. “Oh, my God. You think I’m a slut!”
He held up his hands in surrender before a fight even began. “I didn’t say slut. I definitely didn’t say that. I’d say … enlightened.”
“You do. You think I’m easy.” Her voice was rising, but she was smiling at the incredulity of it all. The irony.
He laughed. “Nothing about you is easy.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure whether to be offended or not.” She slid away from him on the couch to face him, not sure how to begin explaining that the truth was the complete opposite. “I’m anything but.”
“I’m not trying to insult you. I’m just trying to explain my own personal views on sex and that they might be different to yours,” he said hastily, reaching out across the distance between them. “But you’re a sexpert, are you not? One would assume you’d have to have sex to claim that title.”
His expression was so apologetic as he tried to clarify, but she certainly didn’t blame him. That was what most people assumed. Hell, her friends probably suspected the same thing. And maybe part of her wanted people to believe that. To believe that she was some kind of sex goddess, confident and comfortable with her sexuality. Which she was, but she just hadn’t been comfortable using it with just anyone.
“Oh, I’m a sexpert, all right,” she told him. “I know tricks that would make your toes curl…” she leaned in, suckling on his lower lip before giving it a nip, “in theory.”
He was reaching inside her robe, but his hand froze. “In theory?”
She cleared her throat, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. Was it hot in there, or was it just her? “Practice is an entirely different matter.”
“What do you mean?” he pressed.
“I’m all talk,” she said simply. Unable to meet his probing gaze, she stood up to move around the living room. The words threatened to choke her, but she swallowed and blurted them out. “I haven’t had sex in six years. And even before then, well, I was with Sean, the same guy, for four years.”
“Hold on. Hold on.” Levi jumped to his feet, coming close like he must have heard wrong. “You haven’t had sex in six years? B-But you’re a sexpert,” he stammered. “You have a certificate and everything.”
He ran a hand through his hair, staring at her with wide eyes as though for the first time, seeing the girl who was too heartbroken to open herself up to anyone, to connect with people emotionally or physically.
Suddenly, she was someone who maybe bordered on the sexually innocent, not the “enlightened” woman she pretended to be. It made her more uncomfortable than when people assumed she was promiscuous.
“I-I just assumed,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have but—”
She waved away his visible guilt. “I’ll let it go, since I’d assumed the same thing about you.”
He continued to stare at her in disbelief. “But why has it been so long?”
She fidgeted beneath his shocked gaze and moved away again to the other side of the sitting area. “Because for a long time, I told myself that I didn’t need a man. And maybe because I think sex is special too. I wasn’t just going to give it away to someone I didn’t need in my life.”
“But that night in my apartment, you wanted to give it away to me.” He moved to be near her.
“I suppose it’s because I need you in my life.” She reached out a tentative hand and laid it on his chest. “It was like my body knew before I even wanted to admit it to myself.”
He took her hand and kissed each finger distractedly while he thought it over. Or maybe it was because her honest statement had hit something deep inside of him, because he closed his eyes and inhaled, as though breathing in her words.
“Six years,” he finally said. “Well, I certainly don’t want to deny you any longer.” Even in the dim apartment, Zoe could see his eyes darken, his pupils drink her in.
She leaned into him, running a hand over his jeans. “Good. Because I don’t think there’s enough batteries in this apartment to take care of me if you don’t screw me tonight.”
She pressed her lips against his, sucking on them with the same hunger she felt at the dive bar. Her hands ran over him, finally free to explore, like she’d been given a green light. When they reached his fly, she stroked her finger up and down the front of his pants. His response was clear enough by the growing bulge, but when she reached down for his belt, he inhaled sharply.
Grabbing her hands, he gently held them away. “I’m not going to screw you tonight.”
She groaned and flopped back on the couch. Muscles clenched between her legs, and desire ached low in her belly. After the physical yearning had been building for six years, the disappointment was suddenly too much. Her eyes began to prickle with frustrated tears.
“I can’t handle it,” she said. “You can’t tease me like this.”
Levi chuckled, the sound deep and rumbling. She could hear the desire behind it. So then why…?
Reaching down, he pulled Zoe to her feet. Taking her by the hand he led her toward the spiral staircase to his loft bed.
If he wasn’t going to screw her, how could he just expect her to sleep now?
At the base of the stars, she yanked her hand out of his grasp and backed away, shaking her head. When she heard the soft ting of the drum set behind her, she stopped. Staring up at him in disbelief, she felt ready to scream.
Levi patiently took her face in his hands and ran a thumb over her cheek, calloused from so many years of guitar playing. The touch was so soft and gentle compared to her desperate, greedy groping that she felt ashamed, embarrassed.
Forget that sexpert certificate on her wall. She felt like a fraud. Hell, after six years, maybe she’d forgotten how. Isn’t that the saying? Those who can’t do, teach.
“Why are you torturing me?” she asked.
“I’m not trying to torture you. But I’m not going to screw you,” he said firmly. “I’m going to make love to you.”
Dipping his face to hers, he kissed her slow and tender, his lips as gentle as silk running over hers. His fingers caressed her face then moved to her neck, following the collar of his bathrobe down her chest. Sweeping the collar aside, he exposed her to slide his warm palm over her.
Her skin seemed to tighten beneath his touch as his fingers trailed between her breasts. When he reached the tie around her slim waist, he unfastened it before pushing it back. It slid off her shoulders and landed in a heap at her feet.
Levi pulled back, soaking up every swell, every curve of her long, lean body. He bit his lower lip, his breathing changing rhythm at the sight of her.
After six years of loving her own body, Zoe had long since let go of any self-consciousness. She let him gaze at her, watching his appreciative expression, his eyes growing heavy with desire until he couldn’t resist any more and reached out to touch her.
Hands explored her perky breasts, lingering around her nipples until they hardened and her breathing quickened. Those hands slid down her flat stomach and around the contours of her back. Those hands that knew what buttons to press, what strings to strum, what keys to stroke. And stroke her he did.
His mouth followed where his hands had touched, his stubble tickling her body, raising goose bumps. As he lowered himself to his knees in front of her, desire had Levi moaning with that sweet voice that made her melt each time he sang, that made her knees weak. He crooned his soft groans against her stomach and down her thighs, strumming those deft fingers between her legs like she was a guitar.
Her knees began to shake, threatening to give out beneath her. She reached out to hold herself up, her fingers landing on piano keys.
Their tinkling filled the room, matching the high pitch of her tense body as her toes curled. Her hand came down again to make a different sound, as though trying to find their harmony.
Levi suddenly pulled away. Her breath hitched. But then he took her hand and dragged her to the music room carpet only to begin the real performance. He’d only been warming her up before, tuning her. Now, his mouth and fingers moved in unison, playing her like an instrument until her moans and sighs crescendoed to her climax.
And in that moment, she felt like she might explode. Wave after wave of pleasure washed over her, and instead of bursting inside, she felt that bottle of emotions, which had been filling for so long, empty completely.
It left her body relaxed and yet strangely full even as those bottled emotions began to leak in the form of tears. She blinked them away. They weren’t unhappy tears, but blissful, relieved. Tears of joy.
No vibrator could do that. Only Levi could leave her feeling so full, and yet so empty and free at the same time.
As he kissed his way back up her shaking body, he saw the tears running down her smiling face. He kissed them before kissing her lips. She could taste the salt mixed with the taste of her on his lips.
Pushing him onto his back, she straddled him.
“My turn.”
With the same level of reverence, she removed each piece of his clothing, revealing a rock-hard rock star beneath. She ran her hands over him exploring it all, the tight abs, the toned chest, those little dips above his waistband, taunting her like arrows pointing to what she really wanted.
This time, when she reached for his belt, he didn’t stop her. Instead, he laced his fingers behind his head and relaxed beneath her touch, her kisses.
As she unzipped his pants and tugged them down, she gasped.
“You weren’t kidding.” She grinned happily. “The Big Boy’s got nothing on you.”
He chuckled as she eagerly dragged his pants off the rest of the way. She tossed them aside, and they swished against the cymbal on the drum set.
She knelt between his legs. Her foot thumped against the kick drum like a drumroll building anticipation.
Grasping his instrument lying stiff and hard against his stomach, she decided to play with it a while, teasing, massaging until he squirmed and moaned. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he ran his hands through her hair and pushed her head down gently while raising his hips. Deciding he’d had enough, she put her mouth on him.
His beautiful voice sang out with every stroke, every flick of her tongue as though she were tuning him now. She may not have had much practice, but it was clear that all those years of honing her sexpertise hadn’t gone to waste, because it wasn’t long before he was pushing her away.
“Not yet,” he said. “Not like that.”
Reaching for his pants, he pulled out his wallet. Like he’d read the guy handbook, he had his emergency condom tucked into one of the credit card slots.
She took it from him, ripping it apart. With steady fingers, she rolled it on like the expert she was before she crawled on top of him. Levi grabbed her hips, guiding her down.
Zoe closed her eyes, feeling each sensation as though for the first time—all the things her body had forgotten, and that her heart had forgotten, everything she’d denied herself for so long and had refused to let in.
She couldn’t deny herself any longer. Not just the sex, but most important, the love. She wanted all of it. All of Levi. Even if it meant opening herself up to pain, to hurt, to rejection.
Levi’s touch spoke of tenderness, his kisses were filled with understanding, acceptance, his eyes with love. With every roll of her hips and squeeze of her thighs against him, she tried to return those feelings, to harmonize with him in a soulful duet, until it burst out, a chorus inside of her.
Her body thrust against his like a striker against a bass drum, deep and rhythmic. With his thumb, he began to strum her again until her moans became breathless.
Together, they increased in tempo, banging and strumming faster and faster, their bodies making beautiful music together. And as their song climaxed and they sang out together, Zoe knew she’d finally found her jam.
And they were going to be a hit.