Hannah let out a short puff of laughter. “I do,” she said. “Not very often, but it happens. I may be a shifter, but shifters get afraid.”
All at once, Levi wished that they were sitting in a dark restaurant over dinner, sipping wine in a private booth. He imagined her in a long, red dress, a sexy slit running up her leg to reveal a tantalizing peek at her thigh.
Instead, they were in a car with the air conditioning blasting while sweat dried beneath his armpits and on his upper lip.
He leaned forward, intrigued. “What on earth do you have to be afraid of?”
Hannah let out a long sigh, turning the steering wheel as they rounded a long turn. “I’m fine with physical confrontation,” she said.
“Does that mean that you’re not the best with people? Relationships?”
Levi was hearing himself, thinking it was no wonder his own dating life hadn’t worked out. For a smart man, he said some really stupid shit.
But Hannah was still listening and responding, which was all he could ask for.
“I avoid them somewhat,” she said, sounding proud. “I’ve been let down more times than I can count, so it became a matter of survival just to take care of myself.”
Levi felt his heart skip a beat. There was nothing in the world that he could relate to more than that feeling.
“I can get that,” Levi said, leaning forward even more. “I have spent a lot of time working, not holding onto many friends, and especially my family. I lost contact with them a while ago once I started my company. I can’t say I don’t regret that.”
Levi paused for a moment while Hannah drove on. When she didn’t say anything but appeared to be listening, he turned to face the window, brooding as he watched the flashes of color that whipped by.
“When I was back there in that warehouse, I thought I was going to die. I felt the regret come ... I mean, maybe that’s normal. But I started thinking about never having found someone I could share my whole self with.”
It was then that Levi realized he must have struck a nerve. Hannah gripped the steering wheel tightly as he gazed at her and watched as the muscles in her hands, forearms, and back tensed. She was even clenching her jaw so hard that he thought she might chip a tooth.
“How much longer?” she asked sternly.
Levi cleared his throat, feeling a little small, then adjusted his body in the seat. “Not much longer,” he said. “Just keep going up here and turn left at the big red barn.”
Hannah nodded minutely and remained tense. “I also regretted not making amends with my family,” Levi said, trying to make up for his faux pas. “There are certain things that I will never connect to them with, but at least I could still be in their lives.”
Levi was talking himself into a hole because Hannah was no longer responding. Her facial expressions were hard and distorted, the opposite of the reaction he intended. He resolved to shut his mouth as they continued along the path to his home.
No fucking wonder he had no success with women. He blabbed too much, made assumptions, and always moved too quickly. He was a man who liked connection and stimulation, yet he had traded all that in for a successful career.
Wasn’t there a way to have both? Or was he doomed to be alone forever without ever being madly in love with someone?
They carried on in silence, the AC blasting into his face.
Levi began to float away into dreamland, musing about the women he had been with in the past. They were all very attractive and intelligent, but things would fizzle out once they got past the initial spark of excitement.
That was when he simply let things die. He was too insecure in who he was, and the pain of loss was far too great. They left before he got a chance to have his heart broken into a million pieces.
Yet, there was Hannah, a stranger. She was gorgeous and interesting, but weren’t the other women as well?
No. Something about her was different. Even as a man of science, he believed things like fate could decide things without his awareness or knowledge. And Hannah, even though he’d just met her, felt a lot like fate.
She took the turn at the red barn just like he had instructed her. She sped forward toward a big modern house with stark white paneling and navy-blue accents on the doors and windows. It had been the house of his dreams, something he had constructed in his mind for years.
But pulling into the driveway felt empty. Having Hannah there silent, unresponsive to his clumsy attempts at conversation, made Levi feel the loneliest he had ever been in his life.
She turned the keys and climbed out of the car. Like a bodyguard, she came around the side promptly, opening the door for him and ushering him to the front door. He caught a whiff of her, something woody and forestry that gave him the tingles, and then she trailed behind him as they walked.
The driveway was relatively long, and Levi wished that he was standing behind Hannah, watching her lovely bum sway back and forth as her muscles heaved up to the front door.
He shook his head as he removed his keys, trying to keep the dirty thoughts at bay.