Pink, page 15
She shrugged, her smile as much of a tease as her outfit. Everything about this woman was a goddamn tease to his senses. “Wasn’t easy—even had to get my assistant in on it because I’m not supposed to be outside of the hotel without security nearby.”
That statement had Lev glancing over her shoulder to the front windows of the bar that overlooked the busy, but dark city street just beyond the sidewalk. It wasn’t like he expected to see men in black suits with comms in their ears standing there, but … well, she certainly made it sound that way.
“Nobody followed me,” she promised, clearly noticing his stare. “No security, no paparazzi … hopefully no fans, but sometimes that happens so if it does, just let me say hi, do my thing, and don’t answer anybody’s questions because they will try to get literally anything they can out of you. Fair warning.”
Lev’s attention went back to her in an instant. “Oh, no worries on that. I wouldn’t mind if you did need to bring somebody, by the way. It’s probably a normal thing for you, right?”
“Regular … not something I’d call normal.”
“Point taken. Wanna sit down?”
Her brilliant, gorgeous smile was back just like that. “Yeah, let’s sit. Nice place. Not my usual style, but … it serves the purpose for keeping me out of sight, right?”
Lev’s laughter came out dark and husky as he reclaimed his stool, and she took the one on his right. “Sorry, would you have preferred a club?”
She peered his way, and her dark lashes fanned wide with black mascara distracted him from the bartender’s approach with the whiskey sour he’d ordered for Gigi. “I preferred to catch up with you, Lev. I didn’t care where we did it.”
Right.
He would keep that in mind.
“And you remembered, too.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
Gigi winked and pointed at the glass the bartender set on top of a white, monogrammed napkin in front of her. “Whiskey sour. My drink of choice.”
A pointed look from Lev sent the bartender spinning around to head for someone else down the bar when the man opened his mouth like he was going to say something to the woman next to him. Gigi’s light laugh might have embarrassed him for being so possessive over her time and presence but fuck it … he wasn’t going to apologize for it.
“I think he knows who you are,” Lev said, palming the beer on the bar that he’d been nursing long before Gigi arrived. “And I didn’t forget anything about you, Gigi. Not a single damn thing.”
Chancing a look at the woman on his right, Lev found her nibbling on her bottom lip while her striking green eyes lowered to appreciate the tailored fit of his white button-down and how he’d rolled the sleeves up his forearms.
Painted a dusty rose color, her plush mouth threw him back in time without any warning. He could still remember the way her lips felt against his skin. How she kissed him hungrily. All the sounds that mouth of hers could make for him.
Not a date, he told himself. This isn’t a date, Lev.
But she sure looked like it.
“Although to be fair to the bartender,” Lev added in a murmur, “he wasn’t the only man in this place that couldn’t stop staring at you. I think every single man in here—”
“But I was only looking at you, right?”
“At, or for?”
Gigi wet her lips, and drummed her black-painted, stiletto fingernails to the glass in front of her. “Could it be both?”
“I thought you wanted to catch up?”
Unashamed and brazen, her sexy smile turned on him when she replied, “I do … maybe more than I should. Part of me thinks we never really finished what we started, Lev.”
“I didn’t know we started anything.”
“We wouldn’t be sitting in this bar if we hadn’t.”
Well …
Lev barked out a hard laugh. A shitty attempt to hide the fact that her words and their frank truth slammed into his chest like a wrecking ball. “All right, let’s catch up.” He spun sideways on the stool, facing her entirely with the beer firm in his palm. He tipped the bottle up for a sip, fully enjoying the way she watched his throat bob with every swallow. Setting it back to the bar but not turning back in his seat, he said, “Tell me all about Gigi Rey, sweetheart.”
Gigi rolled her twinkling eyes and waved a hand high. “Her? She’s nobody.”
“Never heard a worse lie.”
That had them both laughing. Hard and without care about who was watching. And fuck him … he forgot how beautiful she was when she let go like that.
So, yeah.
Maybe they did need to catch up.
FIFTEEN
THEIR CONVERSATION and drinks at the bar quickly moved to the single dartboard that sat alone and unused twenty feet behind an equally lonely-looking pool table. She didn’t mind the change in scenery as less people watched them, and the bartender had finally quit trying to jump in on their chat.
“Why Gigi Rey anyway?” Lev asked.
Trying to balance the dart in her hand the same way Lev had done when it was his turn to take shots at the board ten feet away on the wall, Gigi shrugged. “I was told it looked better on a cover than Gigi Rey Parker.”
She took her shot.
And failed terribly.
The damn dart didn’t even hit the multicolored board but rather, the wall underneath it. She flinched at the sight of the silver dart sticking out of the wall almost haplessly, nearly ready to tumble to the floor but managing to somehow hang on.
In a way, it felt like a shitty euphemism for her current life. She was just like that dart being thrown by hands that had no idea what to do with her and sometimes she stuck in and held on, and other times she crashed and burned.
“That was … bad,” Lev said behind her, chuckling.
She might have felt some kind of way for his teasing about her horrible dart skills, but he wasn’t wrong. Also, she had forgotten just how much the sound of his voice was like a drug to her senses. Made of all bass, his deep tenor could easily make the rest of the quiet bar disappear around them when he talked.
She liked that just fine.
“So, they just picked your name?” he asked.
Gigi rested her hands to her waist, still annoyed at how bad she was at this game while she surveyed the dart that was nowhere near where it needed to be. “Like most everything else, yeah. I mean, I’m at a level now where I can push back. It helps too that the agency knows my renewal is coming up, so they’re more likely to please me than piss me off. But mostly, I signed away any right to refuse what my agency chooses for me to do or look like. Even this hair, you know?”
To make a point, she flipped a hand through the loose waves of her dark blonde hair with the faded pink tips.
“What about it? It’s cute, babe. Very … you.”
She preened.
Compliments in her business were a dime a dozen. Being on magazine covers and in front of millions daily either by way of social media or whatever the case may be, Gigi had become a little numb to people praising her beauty and surface style. Because that’s all it ever was … the things on the outside.
Lev’s compliments didn’t feel the same. She wanted more just like the first time they met. He always left her wanting more in one way or another.
“Thanks,” she said, “but this hair cost me a fifty-thousand-dollar fine for violating a body modification clause in my contract and nearly cost me my upcoming walk for Fashion Week.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?” His entire frame turned her way, and his intense blue stare locked onto hers with a fire she hadn’t expected. He looked so irritated that she almost couldn’t even admire how gorgeous he was in his pressed, black slacks that hugged a narrow waist and muscular hips. Sweet Jesus, the man hadn’t changed a bit. He was still sex poured into the form of a man. “They tell you what you can or can’t do to your body—even your hair?”
“I mean, yeah?” She hadn’t meant for that to come out like a question, and yet it still did. “It’s basically how this works. They tell me who to be, where to go, and what to do when I get there.”
“Like the restaurant?”
Gigi let out a slow breath and a dry laugh. “Yeah, like that shit. I guess Jensen had been chasing my agency for the last six months to have a moment with me. That’s what the agency tried to call it when I went crazy over a conference call. I was then told it’s not unusual, Gigi, models do this all the time. Not me.”
“That guy is—”
“Dangerous, I know.” She folded her arms over her chest, adding, “I heard it from you. You didn’t say why.”
“I shouldn’t have to. He just is; leave it at that. Some things are better left unsaid. But really, normal?” he asked, giving her a look.
“Does it sound strange to you?”
“Entirely fucking weird, yes. Sorry to say it, but it does. A little.”
“It’s the business. I’m used to it.”
“I see you kept the hair, though.”
Gigi flashed her teeth in a wicked smile. “Yeah, well … it was that or they cut three inches off the bottom to get rid of the pink. I can’t work a high bob, or a pixie cut, and nobody was shaving this head, right?”
“Why’d you do it in the first place?”
That wasn’t an easy answer. Or maybe it was, and she just didn’t want to say it.
“Well …”
Lev reached for the beer he’d sat on a nearby table and tipped it up for a drink while he waited for her to continue. She liked that he didn’t push her; everything, even their conversations, was always on her terms and time. It was so unlike every man she had ever dated in the last five and a half years, although there hadn’t been that many. And she wasn’t even dating Lev.
It just … was a glaring difference she couldn’t ignore.
“I wanted some kind of control,” she finally admitted, grabbing her own glass as well and then downing what remained in the bottom just because it felt appropriate. “Something to say fuck you without saying it. I wish I could explain to you how pissed off my manager and agent was the day I posted the pink hair. Not because I did it, but because it was my most-liked post all year with the highest positive engagement. There was no way they could do anything to me beyond the fine because they couldn’t spin it to the public, right?”
Lev laughed huskily, the pride clear when he replied, “So that passive-aggressive fuck you worked, then.”
“Basically. To an extent. And now all my private appointments have to pass from my assistant through the agency and management to make sure I don’t pull another Gigi. Or that’s what they’re calling it.”
Lev made a noise under his breath that didn’t come off as happy. “Sounds …”
She passed him a look.
Lev made a noise under his breath and shook his head.
“Say it,” she told him. “I already know.”
“You know what, let’s just get back to darts instead.”
She nodded. “That’s fair.”
Stepping up beside her for his next turn, Lev didn’t even wait for Gigi to head forward and pull her dart from the wall. According to him, no one really used the dartboard in the bar anyway, so they were just fooling around. There weren’t even enough darts to have a proper game, he explained. She didn’t know anything about darts, to begin with.
Except that she liked watching Lev play it. Gigi was a sucker for a man with nice arms, and he certainly had those. She didn’t mind taking a step back, so she could enjoy the way his arms looked flexing in the rolled-up sleeves of his white button-down … or admire his back when he considered his shot. She was such a sucker for a good back on man.
She hadn’t even asked if he had someone in his life—like maybe a girlfriend, or a wife. A part of her didn’t care to know but another part just knew he wasn’t that kind of guy. He wouldn’t be here flirting with her and looking at her the way he did if he had someone waiting for him at home. It didn’t seem like Lev’s style.
“Got a nice view back there?” he asked.
Gigi grinned, entirely unashamed when he peeked over his shoulder. That cocked brow and his knowing smirk were enough to make a heat bloom in her belly. A warm shot of lust traveled lower and lower until she was shifting in her ankle boots to relieve the new ache that started between her thighs.
It didn’t help.
At all.
“I mean, it’ll do,” Gigi replied, tampering the neediness trying to fight its way out of her mouth.
That had Lev gawking at her. “It’ll do?”
She couldn’t help but throw her head back and laugh.
Lev’s loud sigh echoed before he told her, “Save your pride, then, woman. I won’t fault you for it. Laugh it up.”
She sure did.
That was the great thing about this man—he knew how to take a joke. That hadn’t changed, and they could still make each other laugh without barely any effort at all.
He was kind of perfect.
And that’s terrifying, her heart whispered.
Gigi ignored it.
Lev adjusted his stance one more time before lifting his arm and taking his shot. Of course, his dart hit the target that he intended for it to. He tossed her a smug wink before heading for the board to grab his dart—and hers still stuck in the stupid wall.
“And hey, about what I said,” Gigi told him, smiling a little brighter when he was in front of her again.
“You said a lot of things.”
“Yeah, but I mean about the modeling. All the control. That nonsense.”
“What about it?” Lev asked, lifting a single brow.
“Don’t let it bother you; I sure don’t.” Before he could open his mouth and say something else, she was quick to add, “Back when I first started and my career blew up, I didn’t have a choice. They were making me, you know? Except they didn’t realize that they were also putting me in a position where I could fight for myself, too. I’m doing that more often. I’m looking out for me now.”
“What you’re saying is … you got smarter than them.”
She tipped her head to the right and lifted her shoulder at the same time. “A girl has to do what she has to do, right?”
Lev wagged a finger at her. “That’s right.” Lifting the darts higher, he added, “You could just let me show you how to properly throw one of these instead of pretending like you know how.”
“Why, so I can stroke your already humongous ego a bit more than it already has been tonight?”
Darts still in hand, Lev flattened the items and his palm to his chest in mock indignation. “How has my ego been stroked, Gigi? Very little of anything on me has been stroked by you. At least, not tonight.”
Shots fired.
She heard the warning.
And yet, her cheeks still flushed pink when she stuttered out, “You are the worst. The absolute worst.”
“Yep.” He popped the P like he was having the most fun of his life, but if she was an honest woman, and she was, this was the greatest time she had in a long while, too. “But seriously, come here … let me show you. It’ll make a difference.”
That was how Gigi found herself entirely distracted and not at all paying any attention to Lev’s attempt at teaching her the proper way to throw a dart. Why? Because the man figured the best way to teach her was to mold his hard, warm chest and strong thighs against the back of her body while his hands touched her.
Oh, not like that.
No.
It all seemed innocent.
She was sure it looked that way to the other patrons in the bar, too. The shivers racing through her body every time his fingers grazed her throat when he showed her how to hold her arm or the proper way to toss the dart forward, however, told an entirely different story. All Gigi needed to do was squirm just a little and her ass was even tighter to Lev’s groin. His dark hiss in her ear said he knew exactly what she was doing.
And what he had done.
His cologne washed over her senses, and every breath she had to take was measured when she was this close to him. Every touch was a tease. Every word he said became an echo in an ever-growing chamber between the two of them.
“Go ahead,” he said in her ear, “try to throw it.”
“I wasn’t even paying attention.”
She felt his lips press against the sensitive skin behind her ear, and the vibration of his chuckles only added to the sinful sensations that danced over her nerve endings. Every single one of her nerves, really.
“Who’s the worst now?” Lev asked.
Gigi didn’t bother to throw the dart.
Instead, she turned in his arms because he didn’t seem to want to let her go just yet. She was fine with that because she didn’t want him to let go of her yet, either. Face to face, she couldn’t look away from the hard lines that made up his handsome face.
“You know what, I’m only a little bit sad you shaved.”
Lev grinned slyly. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I was hoping you might have kept it just long enough for me to get your face between my thighs and—”
A dark, harsh noise burst from Lev’s lips. The sound was sexy enough to have Gigi shifting in her heels and swallowing the lump that formed in her throat.
“Don’t provoke me,” he warned, “when we’re in public because we know what happens in hallways, right?”
“The situation is a little … trickier now, I guess. And yet, I bet you could still get your hands up my skirt right now. Do you want to know what I’m wearing under these fishnets, Lev?”
“Gigi.”
Her name coming out of his mouth was a prayer. And a warning. One she didn’t heed.
Lev’s hands skimmed around to her back, his fingertips teasing the patch of exposed skin before drifting lower on the leather of her skirt.
“Nothing,” she told him.
He grabbed her ass; his palms flexing against her rear almost painfully. Except it didn’t hurt at all, and she was two seconds away from telling him to do it again.
“I’m warning you, Gi—”
“I’m wearing nothing under these fishnets.”
There was barely a breath between the moment those words left her lips and the second his mouth slammed against hers. The force of his kiss was enough to send her stumbling back a step, but thank God for this man because he was right there to catch her. Her stiletto nails dragged down between his shoulder blades as his tongue darted between her parted lips to find hers. She answered him back equally, memories and lust flooding her mind and clashing together in the same way their lips and tongues and teeth did in their kiss.
That statement had Lev glancing over her shoulder to the front windows of the bar that overlooked the busy, but dark city street just beyond the sidewalk. It wasn’t like he expected to see men in black suits with comms in their ears standing there, but … well, she certainly made it sound that way.
“Nobody followed me,” she promised, clearly noticing his stare. “No security, no paparazzi … hopefully no fans, but sometimes that happens so if it does, just let me say hi, do my thing, and don’t answer anybody’s questions because they will try to get literally anything they can out of you. Fair warning.”
Lev’s attention went back to her in an instant. “Oh, no worries on that. I wouldn’t mind if you did need to bring somebody, by the way. It’s probably a normal thing for you, right?”
“Regular … not something I’d call normal.”
“Point taken. Wanna sit down?”
Her brilliant, gorgeous smile was back just like that. “Yeah, let’s sit. Nice place. Not my usual style, but … it serves the purpose for keeping me out of sight, right?”
Lev’s laughter came out dark and husky as he reclaimed his stool, and she took the one on his right. “Sorry, would you have preferred a club?”
She peered his way, and her dark lashes fanned wide with black mascara distracted him from the bartender’s approach with the whiskey sour he’d ordered for Gigi. “I preferred to catch up with you, Lev. I didn’t care where we did it.”
Right.
He would keep that in mind.
“And you remembered, too.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
Gigi winked and pointed at the glass the bartender set on top of a white, monogrammed napkin in front of her. “Whiskey sour. My drink of choice.”
A pointed look from Lev sent the bartender spinning around to head for someone else down the bar when the man opened his mouth like he was going to say something to the woman next to him. Gigi’s light laugh might have embarrassed him for being so possessive over her time and presence but fuck it … he wasn’t going to apologize for it.
“I think he knows who you are,” Lev said, palming the beer on the bar that he’d been nursing long before Gigi arrived. “And I didn’t forget anything about you, Gigi. Not a single damn thing.”
Chancing a look at the woman on his right, Lev found her nibbling on her bottom lip while her striking green eyes lowered to appreciate the tailored fit of his white button-down and how he’d rolled the sleeves up his forearms.
Painted a dusty rose color, her plush mouth threw him back in time without any warning. He could still remember the way her lips felt against his skin. How she kissed him hungrily. All the sounds that mouth of hers could make for him.
Not a date, he told himself. This isn’t a date, Lev.
But she sure looked like it.
“Although to be fair to the bartender,” Lev added in a murmur, “he wasn’t the only man in this place that couldn’t stop staring at you. I think every single man in here—”
“But I was only looking at you, right?”
“At, or for?”
Gigi wet her lips, and drummed her black-painted, stiletto fingernails to the glass in front of her. “Could it be both?”
“I thought you wanted to catch up?”
Unashamed and brazen, her sexy smile turned on him when she replied, “I do … maybe more than I should. Part of me thinks we never really finished what we started, Lev.”
“I didn’t know we started anything.”
“We wouldn’t be sitting in this bar if we hadn’t.”
Well …
Lev barked out a hard laugh. A shitty attempt to hide the fact that her words and their frank truth slammed into his chest like a wrecking ball. “All right, let’s catch up.” He spun sideways on the stool, facing her entirely with the beer firm in his palm. He tipped the bottle up for a sip, fully enjoying the way she watched his throat bob with every swallow. Setting it back to the bar but not turning back in his seat, he said, “Tell me all about Gigi Rey, sweetheart.”
Gigi rolled her twinkling eyes and waved a hand high. “Her? She’s nobody.”
“Never heard a worse lie.”
That had them both laughing. Hard and without care about who was watching. And fuck him … he forgot how beautiful she was when she let go like that.
So, yeah.
Maybe they did need to catch up.
FIFTEEN
THEIR CONVERSATION and drinks at the bar quickly moved to the single dartboard that sat alone and unused twenty feet behind an equally lonely-looking pool table. She didn’t mind the change in scenery as less people watched them, and the bartender had finally quit trying to jump in on their chat.
“Why Gigi Rey anyway?” Lev asked.
Trying to balance the dart in her hand the same way Lev had done when it was his turn to take shots at the board ten feet away on the wall, Gigi shrugged. “I was told it looked better on a cover than Gigi Rey Parker.”
She took her shot.
And failed terribly.
The damn dart didn’t even hit the multicolored board but rather, the wall underneath it. She flinched at the sight of the silver dart sticking out of the wall almost haplessly, nearly ready to tumble to the floor but managing to somehow hang on.
In a way, it felt like a shitty euphemism for her current life. She was just like that dart being thrown by hands that had no idea what to do with her and sometimes she stuck in and held on, and other times she crashed and burned.
“That was … bad,” Lev said behind her, chuckling.
She might have felt some kind of way for his teasing about her horrible dart skills, but he wasn’t wrong. Also, she had forgotten just how much the sound of his voice was like a drug to her senses. Made of all bass, his deep tenor could easily make the rest of the quiet bar disappear around them when he talked.
She liked that just fine.
“So, they just picked your name?” he asked.
Gigi rested her hands to her waist, still annoyed at how bad she was at this game while she surveyed the dart that was nowhere near where it needed to be. “Like most everything else, yeah. I mean, I’m at a level now where I can push back. It helps too that the agency knows my renewal is coming up, so they’re more likely to please me than piss me off. But mostly, I signed away any right to refuse what my agency chooses for me to do or look like. Even this hair, you know?”
To make a point, she flipped a hand through the loose waves of her dark blonde hair with the faded pink tips.
“What about it? It’s cute, babe. Very … you.”
She preened.
Compliments in her business were a dime a dozen. Being on magazine covers and in front of millions daily either by way of social media or whatever the case may be, Gigi had become a little numb to people praising her beauty and surface style. Because that’s all it ever was … the things on the outside.
Lev’s compliments didn’t feel the same. She wanted more just like the first time they met. He always left her wanting more in one way or another.
“Thanks,” she said, “but this hair cost me a fifty-thousand-dollar fine for violating a body modification clause in my contract and nearly cost me my upcoming walk for Fashion Week.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?” His entire frame turned her way, and his intense blue stare locked onto hers with a fire she hadn’t expected. He looked so irritated that she almost couldn’t even admire how gorgeous he was in his pressed, black slacks that hugged a narrow waist and muscular hips. Sweet Jesus, the man hadn’t changed a bit. He was still sex poured into the form of a man. “They tell you what you can or can’t do to your body—even your hair?”
“I mean, yeah?” She hadn’t meant for that to come out like a question, and yet it still did. “It’s basically how this works. They tell me who to be, where to go, and what to do when I get there.”
“Like the restaurant?”
Gigi let out a slow breath and a dry laugh. “Yeah, like that shit. I guess Jensen had been chasing my agency for the last six months to have a moment with me. That’s what the agency tried to call it when I went crazy over a conference call. I was then told it’s not unusual, Gigi, models do this all the time. Not me.”
“That guy is—”
“Dangerous, I know.” She folded her arms over her chest, adding, “I heard it from you. You didn’t say why.”
“I shouldn’t have to. He just is; leave it at that. Some things are better left unsaid. But really, normal?” he asked, giving her a look.
“Does it sound strange to you?”
“Entirely fucking weird, yes. Sorry to say it, but it does. A little.”
“It’s the business. I’m used to it.”
“I see you kept the hair, though.”
Gigi flashed her teeth in a wicked smile. “Yeah, well … it was that or they cut three inches off the bottom to get rid of the pink. I can’t work a high bob, or a pixie cut, and nobody was shaving this head, right?”
“Why’d you do it in the first place?”
That wasn’t an easy answer. Or maybe it was, and she just didn’t want to say it.
“Well …”
Lev reached for the beer he’d sat on a nearby table and tipped it up for a drink while he waited for her to continue. She liked that he didn’t push her; everything, even their conversations, was always on her terms and time. It was so unlike every man she had ever dated in the last five and a half years, although there hadn’t been that many. And she wasn’t even dating Lev.
It just … was a glaring difference she couldn’t ignore.
“I wanted some kind of control,” she finally admitted, grabbing her own glass as well and then downing what remained in the bottom just because it felt appropriate. “Something to say fuck you without saying it. I wish I could explain to you how pissed off my manager and agent was the day I posted the pink hair. Not because I did it, but because it was my most-liked post all year with the highest positive engagement. There was no way they could do anything to me beyond the fine because they couldn’t spin it to the public, right?”
Lev laughed huskily, the pride clear when he replied, “So that passive-aggressive fuck you worked, then.”
“Basically. To an extent. And now all my private appointments have to pass from my assistant through the agency and management to make sure I don’t pull another Gigi. Or that’s what they’re calling it.”
Lev made a noise under his breath that didn’t come off as happy. “Sounds …”
She passed him a look.
Lev made a noise under his breath and shook his head.
“Say it,” she told him. “I already know.”
“You know what, let’s just get back to darts instead.”
She nodded. “That’s fair.”
Stepping up beside her for his next turn, Lev didn’t even wait for Gigi to head forward and pull her dart from the wall. According to him, no one really used the dartboard in the bar anyway, so they were just fooling around. There weren’t even enough darts to have a proper game, he explained. She didn’t know anything about darts, to begin with.
Except that she liked watching Lev play it. Gigi was a sucker for a man with nice arms, and he certainly had those. She didn’t mind taking a step back, so she could enjoy the way his arms looked flexing in the rolled-up sleeves of his white button-down … or admire his back when he considered his shot. She was such a sucker for a good back on man.
She hadn’t even asked if he had someone in his life—like maybe a girlfriend, or a wife. A part of her didn’t care to know but another part just knew he wasn’t that kind of guy. He wouldn’t be here flirting with her and looking at her the way he did if he had someone waiting for him at home. It didn’t seem like Lev’s style.
“Got a nice view back there?” he asked.
Gigi grinned, entirely unashamed when he peeked over his shoulder. That cocked brow and his knowing smirk were enough to make a heat bloom in her belly. A warm shot of lust traveled lower and lower until she was shifting in her ankle boots to relieve the new ache that started between her thighs.
It didn’t help.
At all.
“I mean, it’ll do,” Gigi replied, tampering the neediness trying to fight its way out of her mouth.
That had Lev gawking at her. “It’ll do?”
She couldn’t help but throw her head back and laugh.
Lev’s loud sigh echoed before he told her, “Save your pride, then, woman. I won’t fault you for it. Laugh it up.”
She sure did.
That was the great thing about this man—he knew how to take a joke. That hadn’t changed, and they could still make each other laugh without barely any effort at all.
He was kind of perfect.
And that’s terrifying, her heart whispered.
Gigi ignored it.
Lev adjusted his stance one more time before lifting his arm and taking his shot. Of course, his dart hit the target that he intended for it to. He tossed her a smug wink before heading for the board to grab his dart—and hers still stuck in the stupid wall.
“And hey, about what I said,” Gigi told him, smiling a little brighter when he was in front of her again.
“You said a lot of things.”
“Yeah, but I mean about the modeling. All the control. That nonsense.”
“What about it?” Lev asked, lifting a single brow.
“Don’t let it bother you; I sure don’t.” Before he could open his mouth and say something else, she was quick to add, “Back when I first started and my career blew up, I didn’t have a choice. They were making me, you know? Except they didn’t realize that they were also putting me in a position where I could fight for myself, too. I’m doing that more often. I’m looking out for me now.”
“What you’re saying is … you got smarter than them.”
She tipped her head to the right and lifted her shoulder at the same time. “A girl has to do what she has to do, right?”
Lev wagged a finger at her. “That’s right.” Lifting the darts higher, he added, “You could just let me show you how to properly throw one of these instead of pretending like you know how.”
“Why, so I can stroke your already humongous ego a bit more than it already has been tonight?”
Darts still in hand, Lev flattened the items and his palm to his chest in mock indignation. “How has my ego been stroked, Gigi? Very little of anything on me has been stroked by you. At least, not tonight.”
Shots fired.
She heard the warning.
And yet, her cheeks still flushed pink when she stuttered out, “You are the worst. The absolute worst.”
“Yep.” He popped the P like he was having the most fun of his life, but if she was an honest woman, and she was, this was the greatest time she had in a long while, too. “But seriously, come here … let me show you. It’ll make a difference.”
That was how Gigi found herself entirely distracted and not at all paying any attention to Lev’s attempt at teaching her the proper way to throw a dart. Why? Because the man figured the best way to teach her was to mold his hard, warm chest and strong thighs against the back of her body while his hands touched her.
Oh, not like that.
No.
It all seemed innocent.
She was sure it looked that way to the other patrons in the bar, too. The shivers racing through her body every time his fingers grazed her throat when he showed her how to hold her arm or the proper way to toss the dart forward, however, told an entirely different story. All Gigi needed to do was squirm just a little and her ass was even tighter to Lev’s groin. His dark hiss in her ear said he knew exactly what she was doing.
And what he had done.
His cologne washed over her senses, and every breath she had to take was measured when she was this close to him. Every touch was a tease. Every word he said became an echo in an ever-growing chamber between the two of them.
“Go ahead,” he said in her ear, “try to throw it.”
“I wasn’t even paying attention.”
She felt his lips press against the sensitive skin behind her ear, and the vibration of his chuckles only added to the sinful sensations that danced over her nerve endings. Every single one of her nerves, really.
“Who’s the worst now?” Lev asked.
Gigi didn’t bother to throw the dart.
Instead, she turned in his arms because he didn’t seem to want to let her go just yet. She was fine with that because she didn’t want him to let go of her yet, either. Face to face, she couldn’t look away from the hard lines that made up his handsome face.
“You know what, I’m only a little bit sad you shaved.”
Lev grinned slyly. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I was hoping you might have kept it just long enough for me to get your face between my thighs and—”
A dark, harsh noise burst from Lev’s lips. The sound was sexy enough to have Gigi shifting in her heels and swallowing the lump that formed in her throat.
“Don’t provoke me,” he warned, “when we’re in public because we know what happens in hallways, right?”
“The situation is a little … trickier now, I guess. And yet, I bet you could still get your hands up my skirt right now. Do you want to know what I’m wearing under these fishnets, Lev?”
“Gigi.”
Her name coming out of his mouth was a prayer. And a warning. One she didn’t heed.
Lev’s hands skimmed around to her back, his fingertips teasing the patch of exposed skin before drifting lower on the leather of her skirt.
“Nothing,” she told him.
He grabbed her ass; his palms flexing against her rear almost painfully. Except it didn’t hurt at all, and she was two seconds away from telling him to do it again.
“I’m warning you, Gi—”
“I’m wearing nothing under these fishnets.”
There was barely a breath between the moment those words left her lips and the second his mouth slammed against hers. The force of his kiss was enough to send her stumbling back a step, but thank God for this man because he was right there to catch her. Her stiletto nails dragged down between his shoulder blades as his tongue darted between her parted lips to find hers. She answered him back equally, memories and lust flooding her mind and clashing together in the same way their lips and tongues and teeth did in their kiss.
