How to Seduce a Band Geek (21 page)

He glances back at his house for a second. His hand tightens around his keys, and I see him take a large breath. Without saying anything, he grabs the extra helmet by the scooter and walks over to me. He sets it on my head, no smile, no words… just eye contact and gentle hands as he does the clip up. His fingers slide from the helmet strap down my shoulder and land in my palm. I don’t need any more encouragement as he pulls me to the bike, settles me on back, and we take off to who knows where.

Chapter 21

Ninety percent of conversation is body language.

I’m totally okay with that.

The movie theater is empty tonight. Maybe a few couples here and there, but not enough people to jam pack the place like Friday nights. Levi squeezes my hand and brings a finger to his lips, and I nod as he punches in a code to the employees only area. As soon as the little
ding
goes off, Levi cracks the door open, and after a quick scan, he pulls me inside after him.

He leads me down a narrow hallway, white tile and black walls. It’s quiet except for the sound of popping corn in the distance. Levi makes a sudden turn, taking me down another hallway filled with crates of soda syrup and popcorn buckets. He presses an elevator button I never would’ve seen without him pointing it out.

I don’t dare ask him what’s going on. I don’t dare speak at all, but he does do his little half smile at me, which makes me grin and pig snort. I’m so awesome.

The elevator doors open, and he jumps inside, tugging me close. I land right up against his chest, which I didn’t notice till now was covered with his Cineplex uniform. Was he working through school? Is that why he wasn’t there?

He reaches over me to press a button that says P on it, smashing it until the doors close. We’re still not talking, but he’s rubbing my arm, kissing the top of my head, tucking into my shoulder, all these things that make me not care at all that we’re silent.

The doors creak open after the elevator does that stomach jolt, and Levi pulls me into the dark room. There are projection machines everywhere, and I can hear the movies going on as we pass each one. It’s creepy and scary, but also pretty cool. I just wish I knew what’s going through his head.

We get to the end of a hallway, and he lets go of my hand. He slams his back against the wall and slides to the floor. “It’s always quiet here,” he says. Even though I can hear the movies and some guy snoring in the distance, I know what he means. I take a careful step forward, and he reaches a hand out and pats the space next to him.

I swear, the second my butt hits the tile, he loses it. His eyes turn to mine, and they drip with something worse than tears. They’re tears he doesn’t want to cry. Tears he can’t manage to let escape. But sobs rip in his throat, and he’s buried in my neck before I can even respond to that pain I just saw.

“Sierra, I can’t…I can’t do this alone anymore.”

My heart beats hard against my chest, trying to reach out to his. “Do what alone?”

He lifts his head, blue eyes on me again. “I can’t keep being the one who always takes care of everyone.” His hand moves to my neck, and he brings me close.

“I need someone to take care of me.”

***

There’s sweat building in the crease of my elbows from holding onto Levi for so long. We haven’t said much. I’m not exactly sure what to say.

“Sierra?” He leans up, separating our embrace. A cool waft of air rushes over me with his distance. “I’m sorry.”

I force my voice not to shake. “For what?”

He gulps. “For pushing you away that night. For not telling you everything. For saying I didn’t want it to mean anything. Because, well, I do want it to mean something. If I kiss you, I want it to be the start of everything for us. I shouldn’t have asked so selfishly like that.”

“It’s oka—”

“Don’t say it’s okay.” He half smiles. “I want you to tell me again.”

“Huh?”

“Tell me what you said to me that night when I told you it couldn’t mean anything.”

Like I remember word for word. I bite the side of my lip and cut off our eye contact so I can think.

“Um…I said everything you do means something.”

“After that.”

I pick at the Velcro on his cargo pants. What did I say? What did he say? I don’t even really remember the details. Just that I wanted him to open up, and he said no. Well, he didn’t say no, he just didn’t say anything.

“I could use a hint,” I tell him.

He chuckles. “I told you I didn’t want to bother you with my problems.”

“And I said…” I pause as it comes back. “I said I wanted you to tell me why you feel like you can’t take care of me.”

Full blown smile now, and I smile back, not being able to help it. His smiles must be contagious.

“Can I tell you now? Even though it’s a week late?”

I nod, glad I didn’t shriek out the “Yes!” I wanted to, since we’re sort of whispering so no one can hear us here in the projection room.

“My mom lost her job. You know that already, so I’ve been trying to keep up with everything. I sold my car, my drums… I’ve been working late hours, extra hours, hours I didn’t even know existed. The reason I’ve been driving past your house at four in the morning is it’s on my way home from the soup kitchen. If I go in and help them prepare for the morning rush, they let me take home a bag of bagels. It’s not much, but anything helps, right?”

He tries to laugh at it, and I echo him, but I’m not finding it funny.

“Our bills are getting later, and I’m running out of time and energy. I just want to take care of them.” His light attitude disappears. “We lost the house, our car, our sense of stability. We’ve already lost my dad. I don’t know how much more we can lose.”

Now that he’s saying it, I don’t know how to help. I wish I could. I mean, I go through money problems with my family. My parents work all the time, and Zoe’s helping out even, but it’s not like this. At all. I’ve never had to carry the adult responsibilities. I’ve never worried about moving, or losing my phone, or even going to a soup kitchen so I can have something to eat. I can’t believe he has to deal with it all.

It’s not much, but I run my finger over the inside of his wrist, drawing patterns and hopefully telling him without words that I’m here. Even if I can’t take his problems away, at least there’s this.

His eyes drop to my hand. He watches me, and I watch him watching me.

“I want to take care of you,” he whispers. “I want to take care of you so bad. But I can’t even take care of the people I’m already looking after.” He adjusts on the floor, so he’s facing me and we’re not shoulder to shoulder anymore. “When Adam called me during that party, I kept thinking how I should have been there from the start. I would’ve seen what it was the second you pulled up to that house. You would’ve never had to go through that.”

“It’s okay.”

“Please stop saying it’s okay. It’s not. I wanted to be there. I want to protect you. But I have obligations that make it near impossible to have a relationship. And you deserve someone who will be there for you in the blink of an eye.”

“Levi,” I say, pulling his hand into my lap and cradling it between my palms. “You
were
there. Do you not remember? Because I do. I remember everything you’ve done. You were there when I couldn’t form two words during my debate speech. You were there when I was tripped at school. You held my hair back when I puked in your bushes. You stayed with me when I was afraid to fall asleep. And you were there at that party. You not only helped get me out, you got one of my friends too. Seriously, how can you think you’re not already taking care of me? Everything you do with me makes me feel protected and safe.”

His brows pull together, eyes watering again, and he wiggles his hand from my hold to sweep my hair away and settle on the back of my neck.

“I’ve got so much to deal with. You deserve more.” His thumb brushes my jaw, and his eyes stay on mine. “So much more.”

I start to shake my head, but he holds me steady. I refuse to let this conversation go south again. He needs to know how I feel, even if it comes out shaky and breathy and totally desperate.

“But I want you.” I gulp so my cheeks don’t balloon. “Let me have a moment to take care of you.”

I can see he knows what I mean by the way his eyebrows rise and his mouth parts slightly. I could go for the kiss right now, but I want him to say it’s okay. I want him to let it mean something.

His hand falls from my neck, but he doesn’t stop touching me. His fingers trail up my thigh, brushing over the hem of my shorts and making goosebumps pop all over my skin.

“I think you’re really beautiful, too.”

Um…“Too?”

He nods, dropping his gaze for only the second or third time during our conversation.

“When you were on the Ambien, you told me you thought I was beautiful.”

“I did?” Holy embarrassing.

“Please tell me you meant it. Because I can’t stop thinking about it.”

How could I ever not mean that? But I’m not sure if I can say it out loud now that I’m totally awake. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth when I gulp. He
is
beautiful. Beyond beautiful. I just wish he could read minds so I don’t have to say it.

His gaze goes back to mine and that’s what unglues my tongue.

“Of course I meant it.”

He sort of smiles and kisses my forehead. When he pulls back, he says, “Damn it, I wish… I just want so bad to… if my life was different right now, or maybe, shit… I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

His eyes look sad again. And I want to reach into them, deep down into his soul and take away all of that pain. All his worries, all his stress. He’s been carrying so much weight, taking everything on himself and not giving anyone else any to hold.

I run a hand through his hair. It’s soft and smells like his cologne. The blond strands slide through my fingers, then fall flat against his head again. I stroke his scalp, pet him as his eyes fall closed and his head rests on my chest. He softly moans into me, creating vibrations up my neck and down to my stomach. My arms wrap around his head, holding him to me, and I kiss his hair before playing with it again.

His head dips, and I pull back thinking he wants out of my embrace, but he grasps my elbow, and his lips drag across the skin on my arm. My breathing goes ragged, making his head go up and down against my chest with every intake of breath. His nose grazes the crook of my elbow, and he turns so it trails up my arm. He lightly kisses my shoulder before lifting his face to be level with my own. I feel like I’m panting at him, but I don’t care. All I see are his blue eyes, searching mine and asking so many questions I’m not sure how to answer.

He reaches up, making me drop one of my arms to his thigh. He slides a finger across the side of my glasses, a light smile on his face. There are no words as he follows the frames to my ear, then his hand wraps around the back of my head.

It’s all so slow, his movement toward my lips. Slow enough for me to ask if it will mean something. But I don’t.

His lashes look like they sweep the top of his cheeks as his gaze drops to my mouth. Without even meaning to, I let my tongue slip out and moisten my lips.

I
should
ask him if this is something now. It feels like it is, but he still hasn’t said it. And my voice won’t work. His forehead hits my forehead, his nose pushes past my nose and touches my cheekbone, then there’s two, three, four… I don’t know, the longest seconds in the world. And then his lips press with mine, shooting me with every single thing he’s feeling.

As slow as he took it coming in, the kiss is completely opposite. There’s nothing slow about it. He’s rough, pulling my hair and sucking my lips, alternating between the top and bottom ones, as if he’s never experienced kissing before, and he wants to make the most of every movement, every touch, every taste. It takes me a minute to match his intensity, because honestly, he shocked the hell out of me by being so aggressive.

My fingers dig into his thigh as I respond to the breath he breathes into me, the strokes of his tongue, the pulls he gives my bottom lip. He growls into my mouth when I toss my glasses off so I can get closer. His hand grips my hair while the other pulls me onto his lap.

I forget for a second he may be using me, and we won’t last after this kiss. I forget it because I don’t care. I want him to use me. To help him through his problems, or maybe lift them from him even if it’s only for a little bit.

His hand dips into my back pocket, and he grips my butt so hard it earns a gasp from me, and I thrust my hips into his. He never seemed like the kind of guy who’d be rough. He’s always so gentle in every touch he’s given me up until this point. Maybe now that our inhibitions have fallen away, he’s giving into all those urges I didn’t think he felt. But by the way we’re moving against each other, and the way his mouth locks on mine, and his hand massages my ass, I know for sure he’s feeling the same things I am.

I gasp again when his fingers move out of my pocket and up the back of my shirt. They leave sizzling trails up my spine, and he digs into my skin, scratching slightly as he pulls me closer, closer,
closer
. I feel myself sinking into him. He groans into my mouth as I breathe in his face, loving where his hand is on my back. His teeth grab my bottom lip and pull, and a euphoric drug shoots in my brain, making me go limp in his strong arms, giving him permission to do whatever he wants to do to me.

With the small movement of me completely melting into him, his fingers lose their tight hold. He breathes fast into my mouth, trying desperately to catch his breath. He drags his hand down my back, giving me chills as he takes it from my shirt. I open my eyes to the blurry world, the only thing in focus is his up close face which is beaded with a little sweat. He gulps and tucks loose strands of hair behind my ear. He gives me a tiny smile, stroking my forehead with one finger, then going down my cheek and my chin. I lean forward, and he delivers a gentle kiss on my tingling lips. It’s just enough for me to melt into him again.