His hand finds my leg again, his fingers resuming their pattern around the starburst of purple.
“But for people like me who have floppy joints, thatawareness isn’t fine-tuned. So I miscalculate and run into stuff.” Glancing up, I’m caught by the earnestness in his expression, the way his pupils are blown. “The kicker, though, is that I’m more likely to bruise when I do bump into things. You know what I told you about my connective tissue? The collagen in my vessels also doesn’t—”
“—doesn’t keep the blood well contained,” he says, completing the thought for me. The way he says this, putting the pieces together on his own without a hint of pity, builds a stinging pressure behind my eyes. He already knows more than anyone else in my life, but he seems eager for all of it. My fear loses ground to the desire to be known.
I look back down at the purple bloom and decide to risk sharing more. “Yeah. It’s pretty innocuous with the bruises and hyperflexible joints, but—and I try not to think about this a lot—the vascular part can be life-threatening. I’m scheduled to see a cardiologist every three years to make sure I don’t end up with a giant aneurysm like my grandfather. His artery stretched and stretched until you could see the blood pulsing in his abdomen through his shirt.”
I’m lost in the memory for a moment, standing beside my grandpa’s hospital bed while he charmed every nurse within a fifteen-foot radius. It makes me smile. If only I inherited his charisma along with his crap blood vessels.
Levi’s warm exhale of breath pulls me back to the present, to the sight of him leaning forward, studying the bruise that’s taking too much of our attention. He bends further and dots a series of soft kisses around the perimeter.Goose bumps spring up at each spot where the heat of his mouth lingers. I can’t stop myself from threading my fingers through his hair, from touching him with some measure of affection. Affection that is, admittedly, more guarded than what he’s showing me.
“Is it weird if I say I like this bruise?” Glancing up to meet my gaze, his eyes crinkle at the corners. Maybe from tenderness, maybe from sheepishness. It’s so endearing, I can hardly breathe. “I don’t mean that I like that you’re hurt, because obviously I don’t. I wish you weren’t. But I like that this part of you, this thing you hide that’s invisible to the world but a constant in your life... I like that I get to see it. I like that you’re letting me.”
“I like it too,” I hear myself saying.
I likeyoutoo, I don’t say.
XV
Levi
The first night in this apartment, I whined to the empty walls about having to trade my brand-new, king-size mattress in LA for this double. Now, with Ana tucked in next to me, her ass pressing against the outside of my thigh, I send up a silent prayer of gratitude for the tight fit.
“Getting comfy over there?” I adjust the blanket under my arms.
“Would you believe me if I said this bed is better than all the five-star hotels I’ve ever stayed in? What kind of memory-foam, pillow-top magicisthis? You’ve gotta ask the management company.” She rolls to face me. Relaxed. That’s how she looks in this moment. Content, with hair piled into a mess on top of her head and a makeup-free face, the sweetest freckles I didn’t know she had scattered across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks.
I can’t help but press my lips to the constellation of them, a quick peck at one spot and then the next.
“Levi,” she says between breaths. I keep going. “Levi!”She laughs before grabbing my face with her hands and melting her lips onto mine.
On instinct, I wrap an arm around her, pressing my palm to the small of her back and guiding her closer. She throws a leg over my hip, the slippery fabric of my basketball shorts on her gliding over the slippery fabric of my basketball shorts on me. The improbability of this moment—of Ana Barlow in my bed, wearing my clothes, kissing me like she wants something—I’m overwhelmed by it.
How in the world did I get so lucky?
“What’s that about getting lucky?” Ana pulls her lips from mine to press her mouth to my bare shoulder. I’ve let an inside thought slip out of my mouth—again. Before I can beat myself up about it, she’s dragging her tongue along my collarbone, and I feel it like a finger tracing my length. Every bit of blood in my body rushes south. Warm, tingling anticipation.
“I said Ifeellucky. Being here with you.” I bring her mouth back to mine and let my tongue find hers. She responds with a sigh and a roll of her hips I’m not sure is intentional. We kiss leisurely, with her hands in my hair and her fingernails pressing against my scalp. I groan in response.
She has my bottom lip between her teeth as she pulls away slowly, eventually releasing it with a wet pop. “Are you saying youdon’twant to get lucky?”
Her green eyes are locked on mine, and they’re darkerwithout sunlight to bring out the usual flecks of gold. Or maybe it’s that her pupils are wide and hungry. She tilts her head with a smirk, those swollen lips of hers pulled to one side.
“I want whatever you want,” I tell her. Yes, there are many things I want with her, especially after today. But what I want most of all is for her to know she’s in charge. That I’m not another asshole who’s here for an Ana Barlow–shaped notch in his bedpost. That I’m not like Colt, who’s willing to prioritize himself at someone else’s expense.
“Well, I want to lose this shirt.” She shifts to her knees, and with a quick sweep of her arm, she pulls the tank over her head and flings it onto the floor.
Want, want, want, beats my heart in response. “You are absolutely unreal. Do you know that?” I don’t hide the way I’m taking her in as I sit up and reach for her, and she doesn’t try to hide from me, though I can feel a flush on her neck when my fingers make contact with her collarbone.
I catalog her.
The freckles extend to her chest, to the space above the cups of her bra, which barely contain the swell of her breasts. Her stomach is soft, kissable. A faded bruise lingers on the inside of one arm. The curled-up waistband of my shorts—those damn shorts—prevents me from following the curve of her waist to her hips.
She’s watching me take her in. My heart is flying against my ribs.
With an adept flick, she releases the clasp of her bra and tosses it to the floor. “How about now? Even better?”
I move my hands toward her waist, and she collapses on top of me, bracing herself on her arms to hold her lips a hair’s breadth from mine. Her hard nipples brush against my chest. “The best.” I crash my mouth into hers for a moment before flipping us so I’m on top.