“He warmed up to you pretty easily.”
“Most people usually do.”
“Women?” she asked, with a teasing smile.
“Well…” He shrugged innocently. “That happens.”
Lyra resisted the urge to ask him the question that had plagued her since the first time she saw him again. She didn’t want to, because that would imply that she cared, and she didn’t. So she nodded. “Good for you.” Then she needed desperately to change the topic.
“Lyra,” he said softly.
And this was why she needed to change the topic. Now they were getting in their feelings. Opening up to him about her personal life, or hearing about his, was not something that she wanted to do.
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
“It’s cool,” she cut him off.
“No. Even if you hadn’t been pregnant with my son, I had no right to leave you like that. We were in love and—I was so irresponsible, and I hate myself for it. I can’t begin to imagine how you must have felt, left all alone, going through it all. I want you to know how terribly sorry I am and I’ll spend my life making it up to you if I have to.”
“I just want to know the real reason. When you left, I didn’t know what to think. I thought you fell in love with someone else, I thought I wasn’t good enough for you, I thought Orson drove you away. Then when I found out I was pregnant, I thought maybe you had gotten another woman pregnant and needed to be there for that baby instead. I was so confused and lonely and hateful and…broken. I always wanted to know why.”
“You know why. It’s none of those petty reasons and you meant the world to me.” He paused, and said carefully, “Youmeanthe world to me. But I was forced to choose between you or the dragons. If I’d chosen you, I would have become an outcast. No home, no sense of belonging, nothing.”
“But we had each other. None of that would have mattered.”
“Would you have done it for me? Left Orson if he gave you only two options?”
“Yes!” she said in a breath.
The response caught both of them by surprise, because until he asked she had never thought of it. But now that he’d asked, she didn’t have to think about it.
“Well,” Levi said, breathing deeply, “I was young and foolish. And they made me believe that you—we—were just a…I don’t know…a quick flame. Something that would burn out in a few weeks. Not something I thought was solid enough to stand the test of time.”
“And? Were they right?”
Levi looked up from his hands and into her eyes. She couldn’t read his expression this time, but she felt so much heat in his gaze that it burned through her. Her heart must have skipped a beat or two—it hurt when it returned. She felt the heat rising to her cheek and her body twitch from only his gaze. He held her in an unbreakable spell—what’s more, she didn’t want it to stop. She didn’t want to be free.
He closed the gap between them and placed his hand on her thighs through the slit in her dress. His hands were warm and gentle, seeking permission before they inched higher. If she had seen this coming she would have worn nothing at all. The hair on her body stood on end and her breathing became loud and ragged. It was crazy that after all these years he still had this effect on her.
“What are you doing?” she moaned.
He stopped. Then she gave him a death glare that communicated the opposite of what she had just said, so he continued. By the time his hands had gone high enough to reach her groin, she was already wet and felt herself twitching in anticipation.
Every moment with Levi had been electric, each time she accidentally touched him as he trained Adam, or just casually talking to him. The spark was still there, the desire for what they had enjoyed all those years ago, and Lyra still wanted to feel it.
She found herself thinking of what it was like, to be with someone who had matched her tenacity, her drive. Levi was an endowed, skilled, and passionate man. He knew how to take her right up to the gates, and send her right through it, and knowing he had that power over her body made Lyra quake with desire.
He touched her through her panties and she heard a silent moan in the air, unaware it came from her own parted lips. She spread her knees further apart as his hands caressed her.
“It’s been ages,” he thought aloud.
Lyra didn’t know if he meant that it’d been ages since he’d last been with her, or ages since he’d last been withanywoman. But she was too horny to care about that now. And quite frankly, she did not want to know the answer.
He slowly pulled down her panties and she raised her hips to let him. She was probably going to regret this, but right then she wanted nothing more.
“Yes, please,” she moaned.
Levi tiptoed back up her thighs with his fingers, then rubbed them over her warm pussy lips. Lyra moaned as the sensations ran through her. Her head fell backwards as pleasure ravaged her like a hungry lion.