Honey, When It Ends: The Fairfields | Book Two Page 4

  “If it’s true, what I heard—that she was cheating on you for, like, an entire year before you found out...that wasn’t a lapse in judgment. That was a conscious decision.”

  Her voice grew soft again. I wasn’t sure when I moved closer, straining to hear; I was just aware, suddenly, of the fact our shoes were touching, somewhere under the snow.

  “A one-time thing,” she said, “sure, I could understand giving her another chance. But...Jesus, a year.” She shook her head and looked up at me. Snow rested on her lashes. When she blinked, it fell away, instantly replaced. “People like that, who keep doing something when they know it’s wrong? They don’t change. They don’t want to change. She’s going to break your heart all over again, Levi.”

  My heart struggled in the cold. The only thing keeping me alive, I was sure, was the fury that flared in my gut.

  But she didn’t look or sound like she was trying to hurt me, saying these things. In fact, it seemed like she was the one hurting. For me.

  When I put my hands on her face and kissed her, the feeling in every limb came back like needles—that sudden rush of heat after the chill, every nerve charged. I could taste raspberry, her lip gloss. The muted earth in the tobacco she’d held there, but didn’t smoke. Something...just so different, from the woman I’d known before her.

  But it was her hand, lacing itself into the iced hair at the base of my neck and pulling me closer, deepening the kiss, that felt newer than anything else. I couldn’t remember the last time Lindsay kissed me back like that. As though she needed me.

  Mara broke the kiss, but let me pull away first.

  “I hope I’m wrong about her,” she whispered. Her smile was small and faded. “And if I’m not, I hope you know enough to get out.”

  5

  Levi’s breath falls out of his mouth when I graze him through the fabric of his pants.

  “Mara,” he says, half-laughing again, but his voice seems to collapse on itself. He doesn’t know what else to say. There aren’t any excuses, this time. Unless he’s just not into me like that.

  Yeah, right.

  “You’re officially single again,” I whisper, pressing my lips to the spot between his collarbones. I work my way up his neck and revel in the pulse I feel, climbing higher the closer I get to his mouth. “I think we should celebrate.”

  “Yeah?” He laughs again. Or he tries to. He’s a goner.

  “I’ll make it easy for you. No expectations, no promises...just one night.”

  His hands slip to my waist. I feel my own breath hitch, the fire between my legs surging through the rest of me.

  “You know,” he jokes, while one hand leaves my hip to fumble with the keycard and lock, “your roommate and my brother thought they were in it for just one night, too. And look what happened.”

  Maybe I’m just that jaded, because at first, I think the “what” he’s referring to is the wedding wrapping up downstairs. “Yeah,” I agree, chuckling. “That would be pretty bad. One great night turning into ever-freaking-after.”

  Levi tilts his chin, almost smiling. But not quite. “I, uh...I was talking about the fact they ended up with a baby.”

  Shit. He means Juliet and Cohen’s daughter, conceived after a one-night stand. It just goes to show how bitter I’ve become.

  I shake it off and guide his hand to the lock. When it flickers to green, I open the door.

  “In that case,” I tell him, pulling him into the room by his tie, “let’s do something that definitely doesn’t make babies.”

  For a moment, he looks unsure. It’s not much better than the night we met. In fact, I’m positive he’s about to stop me, just like last time, when I start to undo his belt and zipper.

  Then he smiles.

  “Sounds good to me.” He watches, breath heavy, as I slip down his pants and boxers and kneel on the floor. Talk about ritzy: the carpet in this place feels like a pillow on my knees. I’d give a lot more head if every floor felt like the Acre’s.

  Actually: I’d give a lot more if every guy I saw was as hot as Levi Fairfield. Or at least boasted a package like his.

  I tease my lips over the tip of his erection and feel him twitch in my hand. When I look up, I expect him to have his eyes shut or his head tilted to the ceiling. Instead, he’s staring right at me.

  It sends a surge through me like I’ve never felt. Even when I slide him into my throat and set my pace, he doesn’t look away.

  “Shit,” he breathes, hands reaching for my head. He hesitates, until I use my free one to pull his closer and press his fingers into my hair. It’s partly because I like things a little rough, but mostly because, for whatever reason, I want him to guide me. It’s a strange feeling, wanting the guy to take the lead.

  It takes him a minute to dare and apply any pressure, but I encourage him by increasing the rhythm whenever he does. Soon I notice his hips rocking to meet me, the muscles in his stomach tightening.

  “Mara,” he whispers, and the sound of his husky, strained voice makes my heart beat twice as fast and ten times harder.

  He releases. At first, I concentrate only on the task at hand—taking him as deeply into my throat as I can until I know he’s finished. But then, as I feel his fingers relax in my hair, something weird happens.

  He doesn’t let go. His fingers slide down my face as he slips himself from my mouth and kneels in front of me.

  Levi’s kiss is like a breathless thank-you wrapped up in something so rough but sweet, I can’t help the sudden dizziness I feel, or the rush between my legs. The fact my heart has turned into a skipping record.

  “Your turn,” he whispers against my mouth, and guides me back onto the carpet with that typical Fairfield smirk everyone in this city has memorized.

  Of course, it’s a totally different experience between seeing it...and feeling it kiss its way up your thigh.

  Levi pushes my dress up with a gentle confidence, like he made it himself and knows exactly how to handle it. My underwear slips down the same way.

  “You’re beautiful,” he tells me, the words humid and tingling against my sex. I thank him and try to ignore the fact I’m blushing. It’s rare when someone can make me blush.

  It’s also rare—downright unprecedented, in fact—for someone to find all the right places immediately, tongue and fingers and lips all working the spots I need to be touched most. Even the girls I’ve hooked up with take a while to get it totally right, needing some direction. But not Levi.

  He draws my clitoris between his lips and flicks his tongue across and around it, teasing, before tracing a pattern and rhythm that makes me cry out, “God, yes.” When I feel his fingers start to enter me, I grind my hips down into the perfect carpet and tell him, “Yes, yes, please....”

  For a few seconds, he teases in one and two digits. Then, most likely realizing I’m wetter than Niagara Falls, he pushes in three.

  “Deeper?” he asks. It’s such a low, rumbling question, I feel my muscles contract, trying to pull him inside.

  I manage to nod. “All the way in, Levi. Please.”

  I swear, I feel him smile again.

  His fingers fill me. It’s smooth and quick, a swooping plunge that makes everything inside me ache with how perfectly he reads me. Before I can tell him to work my G-spot (or, as is the case with many guys, have to explain where the G-spot is), he’s started flexing his fingers, pulsing against it like a machine.

  “Oh, my God.” My back arches. Now I’m the one winding my fingers into my hair, like it can somehow ground me in the swirling high.

  The entire time, his mouth never stops. He licks me like my sex is his last meal on Death Row: eager, nervous, but somehow collected. Like he knew all along this is exactly where he’d end up. And he’s perfectly fine with that.

  Here it is, the crest of the peak—the place where most guys, for reasons I’ll never understand, hear that I’m close and decide to change course. It’s a tip I’ve had to impart too many times: you can go faster, you ca
n go harder—but for the love of God, don’t switch shit up. Finish with the one what brought you.

  “Levi,” I warn, and prepare myself for the change-up.

  But, sweet Jesus: the boy knows exactly what I want.

  His tongue lavishes my clit even more as soon as I tell him I’m close. He pumps his fingers inside me like I’m just an extension of his hand, like he knows my body quite literally inside and out.

  My hips buck from the carpet again. The trembling of my thighs can’t stop, even when I clamp them around his head.

  “Fuck,” I moan, nearly crying it, when the orgasm tears through me.

  He draws it out beautifully. The peak becomes a plateau; the descent down feels as good as the top, my brain flooded with fresh chemicals every time his mouth teases another convulsion out of me.

  When he finally comes up for air, I still haven’t lowered myself to the ground. It’s like my spine is frozen, the pleasure so intense, my body doesn’t know how to relax anymore.

  He kisses me again. The taste of myself on his mouth and the taste of him on mine combine to form an elixir I can’t believe I’ve never had.

  I shudder again when he pulls his fingers out of me. In the moonlight from the balcony, I can see them glisten. It’s the first time something that simple has turned me on.

  No, forget turned on. The sight of Levi’s fingers, coated in the dampness he beckoned from my body, leaves me glowing like a supernova.

  This is what he did to you, I think, and have to catch my breath all over again.

  Mara grabs my collar with both hands and pulls me onto her for a kiss. I’m worried I’ll crush her, but she just holds me there like some kind of security blanket.

  “You all right?” I ask, laughing when she shudders.

  “That was....” Her words melt into an exhale. “You’re really damn good at that.”

  “Right back at you.” We laugh again, foreheads touching.

  I help her into my bed and pour us each a drink from the minibar. She sips slowly while I strip down to my boxers, grab a T-shirt, and hang my tux on the door.

  “Shit—the jacket’s still on the roof.”

  “My shoes and purse are, too.”

  We look at each other and crack up again. This entire night feels surreal, from the second she appeared beside me out of the shadows, to the minute she stammered my name and started shaking like...well, like no woman I’ve ever seen. Which is pretty fitting, when I think about it: Mara is unlike any woman I’ve had before.

  Even this moment doesn’t feel quite real: watching her burrow deeper into my bed as she shivers with the remnants of her orgasm, knowing I did that to her, and remembering what she did to me.

  “Guess I should go get our stuff,” I say, when she’s nearly fallen asleep right where she is, drink in hand.

  She blinks and sits up. “Oh. There’s no rush on my stuff, if you want to wait until tomorrow.” The pause is quick, but jarring. “Unless...you want me to leave.”

  “No, you can stay. It’s late, it’s cold out—I’ve got the couch in the living area I can crash on, it’s fine.”

  “Why wouldn’t you sleep in the bed with me? Not to sound clingy or whatever, I’m just saying. It’s big enough.”

  The liquor sticks to my throat, caustic. “Okay. If you’re chill with me sleeping there, I....”

  She waits. I don’t know how to finish my sentence, so I lift the sheet and comforter, ease in, and dim the lights with the remote on the table.

  It feels too strange to wish her goodnight, so I turn on the television and flip channels. The entire time, I sense her staring at me.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  I glance at her. She’s still in her dress. I should offer her a spare shirt of mine, but the idea feels even stranger than the others. “Sure.”

  “Are you not over your ex-wife, yet?”

  My laugh shocks me. It’s not as bitter as I expected.

  “If you mean, do I want her back—definitely not.” My eyes trace the shape of her body under the covers. “Already made that mistake.”

  “It’d be a lot more believable if you weren’t acting so weird, right now.” Mara smiles and touches my hand. Her fingers graze the bones from my wrist to my knuckles. “I was going to say, it’s fine if you aren’t over her completely. I just wanted to know if it was something with me.”

  “It’s not you.” As I say this, though, I wonder if Mara is part of it. She’s a total departure from what I had the last nine years—but, then again, so is everything else in my life. For the first time in almost a decade, I go home to an empty house after work. I wake up by myself. I cook breakfast for one, if I remember to eat at all. Nothing’s the way it used to be.

  So you might as well embrace this, right? This is the first change that actually feels good. Even if it is just for one night.

  A fire engine howls its way down the street below. We follow the lights flashing through the curtains.

  “Think your brother will be pissed you skipped the reception?”

  “He probably didn’t even notice, he was so busy talking to everyone and dancing. You know Cohen. Life of the party.” My sigh is involuntary. “Used to be me, believe it or not. Before I got sucked into my business, I was a lot of fun to be around.”

  She scoots closer and folds herself into my chest. It should shock me, how forward she is for someone who promised nothing but a single night—but I’m relieved to feel her touch me again. Even forehead-to-chest, blocked by clothing. Much as I wanted solitude when the reception began, it’s the last thing I want now.

  “For what it’s worth,” she says, breath washing across my ribcage, “I think you’re fun.”

  I think of the fire escape again. The moment on the balcony when she screamed and laughed, pushing her face into me like she’s doing now. I have no idea why I chose to climb down, much less encouraged someone else to do it. Not because it was dangerous. Scary, yes, but pretty safe, compared to my days of scaling fences and sneaking into buildings.

  Still: it wasn’t like me. Not the me I am now, anyway.

  “Well...thank you, I guess.” I can’t help but smile, even though her words aren’t true. Maybe I just want them to be.

  6

  I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.

  Usually, I can make a quick escape like nobody’s business: get up, grab my shit, and say goodbye, maybe with a little encore of the night before, if I’m up to it.

  But when I open my eyes to find Levi’s hotel room, it’s so hard to leave. The bed is luxurious—not that I’d expect anything less from The Famous Acre Hotel—and the early light catches every opulent surface in the suite.

  Then I turn over, stretching, and look at Levi.

  He’s not a cute sleeper. It might be the liquor, but he snores, drools, and gets a twitch in his brow every so often that looks like he’s fighting somebody in his dream. There’s a sweetness to it all, though, that keeps me staring.

  When I slip out of bed and begin the requisite Hunt for My Stuff, I curse. Everything’s still on the roof.

  Go back to sleep.

  It’d be easy. If I just hold still and focus on my breathing, syncing it to his, I could be out in five minutes flat. We’d wake up around noon, grab a late checkout, and enjoy whatever hangover foods the restaurant downstairs can make us.

  It’s the part that comes after that would be hard. Saying goodbye is better with silence or a quick wink out the door—not over lattés and poached eggs.

  The same deep, soft carpet of these halls we ran down last night, laughing and pulling each other along, leaves my feet rug-burned now. It takes me a long time to remember where the roof access is.

  In daylight, the rooftop loses the shadows and mystery I loved about it last night. Instead of glittering lights and stars, I’m surrounded by dirty brick and dead-eyed windows. The warm air is nice, but smells like the patches of tar under my feet.

  I find my shoes, purse, and Levi’s jacket
near a vent. While I gather them up, I notice the ladder.

  That’s about the only thing up here that looks the same in light as it did in darkness: the fire escape. It’s just as terrifying to peer over the edge, right through its metal bars and grates, and see the street below. I still can’t believe I followed him.

  It feels like I’m forgetting something. I double-check my pocketbook: lighter, cigarettes, weed, makeup, and my dead cell phone.

  The garter.

  It’s still where Levi dropped it. The flask yawns open, empty and clattering, until I scoop it up and stuff it into my purse, trying not to miss the feeling of his mouth skittering down my thigh.

  I hang his jacket on his room’s door handle. Then I slip the garter into the pocket—a souvenir. Something to remind him there are plenty of fish out there, and he’s got what it takes to catch them. Even if it’s only for a night.

  On the street, I take one last look at the Acre. When I first moved here as a kid, classmates caught me up on all the rumors and legends about the Fairfield family: they had special hotel rooms for celebrities that cost five grand a night; they built secret tunnels underneath the entire city; every Fairfield baby was gifted a billion dollars at birth, just for existing.

  Looking back, it was all ridiculous. Kids enjoyed the exaggerations and mystery. We made up stories as though the Fairfields were our living, distant Barbie dolls and the Acre was our Malibu Dreamhouse, pink splendor traded for gold and marble.

  As I got older, though, I realized adults were just as weirdly obsessed with them. My mom would gossip with neighbors in the mornings, about how the Fairfields sustained their fortune by bootlegging throughout Prohibition, embezzling from partner companies, evading taxes, et cetera. They called Jeannie Fairfield “poor thing” whenever she appeared on the news for her latest charity gala or building dedication, sighing out rumors that her husband had eight or nine secret families.

  I knew none of those things were true, or at least verifiable. People like to talk. They don’t care about what’s true. They care about what’s entertaining.