My head swam, and my chest was so tight I could barely breathe against the crushing anxiety. I felt like I was in some sort of alternate universe where I wasn’t even in my body. Like I was just a mere spectator of my actual self, standing off to the side watching my own life like a movie.
A movie that was more car crash and tragedy than anything else.
I barely remembered leaving June Gatto’s office.
The drive back to the hotel had felt both long and fast, the realization of time too hard to comprehend over the shock of what I’d just witnessed.
And I really had no idea how long we’d been back inside our hotel room.
It could have been minutes. Hell, it could have been hours for all I knew.
The world spun erratically around me, and I gripped the couch cushion with my fingertips in a pathetic attempt to steady myself.
Levi paced around the room like a caged animal desperate to be released from his confined hell.
His eyes were empty, his lips stuck in a perpetual firm line, and his jaw was so hard I feared it might shatter if it grew any tenser.
He strode over toward the small dining table and abruptly swiped his hands across it, knocking everything off the surface and onto the floor.
“Fuck!” he shouted. I grimaced when the booming vibration of his yell rolled through my ears.
He had so many emotions undulating throughout his body, he didn’t know what to do with himself.
I couldn’t blame him.
He deserved to be angry. He deserved to throw shit and scream and shout.
He deserved to feel whatever it was he was feeling.
Considering, as of late, I’d had more than my fair share of breakdowns, I completely understood, and I felt nothing but sadness that he had to go through this.
The realization that June Gatto was in fact June Fox was almost too much to wrap my mind around.
His mother, the woman who had left him when he was a child, had written a movie that revealed his innermost pain.
Because she’d written that screenplay, he’d had to relive everything that had happened with Grace. I couldn’t understand how anyone would have thought that was anything but cruel. How a mother could’ve thought that was the right thing to do for her son.
A strangled sob left his lungs, and he sat down on one of the dining chairs and put his head in his hands. His body vibrated and his shoulders shook, and my heart felt like it was breaking into a million tiny pieces at the agonized sight of him.
How much tragedy and pain did one person deserve in a lifetime?
I felt like Levi had reached his quota over six years ago, but apparently, life was hell-bent on making him experience the maximum amount one human being could possibly handle.
And, God, I hated seeing him like this. Normally so strong, so fucking strong, and right now, I had never seen him more vulnerable.
Tears pricked behind my eyes, and I stood up from the couch and moved toward him.
I couldn’t let him deal with this alone.
I needed to be there for him.
I wanted to be there for him.
He’d been so good to me over the past few months. He’d let me grieve and feel and just mourn Camilla’s death without any judgment. He’d let me lash out and pick fights and lose my fucking mind, and all he’d given back in return was patience and love.
I’d needed him so badly, and he’d never hesitated to drop everything to be there.
He’d left Montana for me.
He’d taken a leave of absence from the police force for me.
And he’d never once made me feel like I was a burden.
No, if anything, he made me feel like he hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else. Even during the hard times, the sad times, the fucking terrible, insane times where I was quite seriously losing my shit.
Levi had done all of that for me.
And now, he deserved the same from me.
I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at me, emotion dampening his cheeks and reddening his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Ivy,” he whispered. “It’s just too much to process right now. All of it. I just…I just can’t…” He paused, and I shook my head.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” I whispered back. “God, Levi, I’m so sorry you had to deal with that today. Deal with her.”
His mother’s name felt like it weighed one hundred pounds, and I didn’t even have the strength to push it past my lips.
“I’m sorry you had to see it. You already have enough fucking bullshit on your plate without adding my baggage into the mix.”
“Pretty sure my baggage has been your baggage for the past couple of months. So…” I said softly and offered an apologetic smile.
His blue eyes lifted ever so slightly at the corners, and I urged his arms open so I could sit down on his lap, my thighs straddling his.
I pressed both of my hands to his cheeks and swiped away a few rogue tears with my thumbs. “I’m sorry you had such a shitty mother. You deserved better than that.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
I nodded. “You still do.”
“I never want to see her again, Ivy,” he whispered. “If I don’t have to see or speak to that woman for the rest of my life, it would still be too soon. She isn’t my mom. She is a complete stranger, just some woman I happen to share the same genes with.”
“You don’t have to see her again,” I said softly. “It’s your choice to keep toxic people out of your life. I know I sure as hell won’t be accepting any acting jobs when her name is written across the screenplay, and I’ll make sure everyone on my team knows not to give out any of your information if she happens to call around asking for you.”
“Well, thank fuck for that.” He chuckled softly despite his mood, but then his eyes turned serious and searched mine.
In that moment, I felt like he was staring into my soul. But it was in the very best way, like his blue gaze had the power to fill me up with love.
“I never want to be without you,” I whispered. “I want us. I need us.”
“I do too, baby,” he said and slid his hands up and down my arms. “Can we decide right here and now that whatever we do in terms of the future, we do it together?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my nose against his. “And I really hope our future plans include living together. I’ve gotten used to you always being here. I don’t think I could do the whole long-distance thing when it comes to you. It would be too hard to have to go days or weeks without seeing you.”
“Of course they do.” He smiled. “One day, you’ll be my wife, and it would make zero fucking sense for us to be living anywhere else but together, baby.”
My heart started pounding erratically in my chest at his words.
“Your wife?” I asked and he nodded.
“My wife.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. “Mine.” His kiss turned deeper, and when my lips parted, he slipped his tongue inside my mouth to dance with mine.
I kissed him back with everything I had, and he slid his hands into my hair.
“I love you,” he whispered against my lips. “I love you more than I knew it was even possible to love someone. And every day, that love keeps growing. You’re my heart, Ivy. My whole fucking heart.”
Tears pricked my eyes at his words. But it wasn’t out of sadness. It was relief. It was joy. It was love. It was everything good. “I love you too.”
He kissed me again, but this time, I felt his arousal grow harder between my thighs, and I moaned against his lips.
“I need you,” he said. “I need to be inside of you, baby.”
“Yes,” I whimpered. He stood up with me in his arms, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.
He walked us toward the bed and softly laid me on the mattress. His impatient fingers made quick work of my pants and underwear before doing the same with his clothes. And then he moved his body on top of mine and slowly, oh so slowly, slid himself inside of me. Bare. Skin to skin. Pure fucking bliss.
Goose bumps and pleasure rolled up my spine, and a soft moan escaped my lips when he filled me.
Nose to nose, his blue gaze locked with mine, we just stared at one another while Levi gently rocked his hips, moving himself in and out at a soft, slow, intimate pace.
“Let me make love to you, baby,” he said, and when I searched his eyes, I found his heart. “I want to spend the rest of the night inside of you.”
I didn’t have to think twice.
“Yes.”
I needed this.
We needed this.
And it wasn’t out of avoidance or to distract ourselves from the chaos that seemed to follow us around. It was out of pure need for one another. Out of deep, life-changing love for one another.
Tonight, I needed to be connected to him. I needed to feel him and love him and just be with him.
No distractions. Just us. Two people who simply loved one another more than anything else in the world.