Page 26 of Perfect Storm (Toronto Thunder #1)

“I don’t need your protection, but the opposite is sure as fuck true. It’s why I’m here. That’s my job,” Levi said, sounding wounded and offended.

He didn’t even know it, but he did need Aidan’s protection, no matter how good his contract had been. No matter how aggressively the Thunder had pursued him during this summer, all it took was getting on the wrong person’s bad side, and suddenly, Levi would be traded before the deadline.

Lots of teams would salivate over getting a lock down tackle.

Right or left.

“Levi,” Aidan warned. He didn’t want to tell him about what he’d heard.

Maybe if Levi had over-performed expectations, Zane would’ve shut up and dealt with it. But Levi hadn’t. He’d done well—but basically exactly as expected, playing the way anyone would if they were being switched to a slightly different position.

“I don’t get why you’re being a dick about this,” Levi complained. “I’m not gonna just roll up tomorrow and tell Coach, sorry, that was just too tough for me. I’m a Banks. We don’t do that shit. Neither do Flynns. You should understand, better than anyone else.”

Aidan understood all too well. But he also understood that this year, which might’ve been hellish for him, yet another without Mo on the field with him, and now, not even in his inbox or over the phone, had been better than he’d ever imagined, because of the guy next to him.

And he wasn’t going to let that guy go without a fight.

“I do understand that, but you gotta trust me here,” Aidan argued.

“I do but, bro, I am literally on the field to protect you. That’s my whole job, my whole existence.”

Aidan made a face as he pulled into his parking spot in the garage. “I can see we can’t be reasonable about this.”

“I’m not the one being unreasonable,” Levi continued as they got out of the car, pulled their bags from the trunk. “You’re being ridiculous.”

Aidan wanted to yell at him that he wasn’t disposable. He couldn’t just use himself up and then be okay with being tossed away. Aidan wasn’t okay with that.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” Aidan muttered. Riley had said it to him plenty, but back then he’d deserved it. He wasn’t being overprotective of Levi. He was just plain fucking protecting this good thing he’d just gotten.

God, two months ago, he’d never have even imagined he’d be in the trenches, fighting for Levi Banks, but here he was, and he wasn’t going to stop, not anytime soon.

“Maybe sometime you’ll actually listen,” Levi retorted. They stepped into the elevator, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

Aidan’s temper flared. “Me not listening! I’m fucking telling you . . .you know what? Never fucking mind. Just ask yourself if Toronto feels like Seattle. The shit you pulled on the regular in Seattle isn’t going to fly here.”

Zane was good, but he was tough and liked having things just the way he wanted them.

Levi elbowed him as they stepped off the elevator onto their floor.

“Are you fucking joking? I wouldn’t have ever pulled this shit in Seattle.

” He dropped his bag on the floor just inside the living room.

Aidan wanted to complain that wasn’t the right place for his shit, but Levi was still going and didn’t seem like he was going to stop anytime soon.

“It wouldn’t have ever even occurred to me to say anything.

I’d just have showed up, every single fucking day, and done the job I was given. But here—but you—it’s different.”

Levi looked at him then, and something in his face reminded Aidan of that morning in his Michigan kitchen. A wanting he’d kept trying to find there and hadn’t ever seen since then.

“What do you mean?” Aidan asked, licking his suddenly very dry lips. He should go into the kitchen, find some water. He was probably dehydrated. But he was rooted to this spot on the floor. Staring at Levi like he was about to hear all about the shape of the missing puzzle piece.

But Levi just rolled his eyes. “You know what I fucking mean, bro.”

Aidan really didn’t. He wouldn’t have asked otherwise. He never asked questions he didn’t already know the answer to. And he really didn’t know the answer to this one.

Anger flared to life inside him. Hot and molten, lurching through him in waves, in a way that he never got pissed off anymore.

Because he never let it. He certainly never let it overtake him, not like this.

But it was doing it now, places inside him flaring to life, and his hand shook as he ran it through his hair.

He wanted to push Levi. He wanted Levi to tell him the fucking truth, for once.

He wanted him to stop flirting so meaninglessly and flirt with purpose. With him.

“You can’t be this dense,” Levi said again.

Oh, he wasn’t dense. But Levi hadn’t ever said. He’d just shown up here in Toronto with his easy smiles and teasing little asides and ridiculous short shorts and what? Expected Aidan to understand?

Well, Aidan didn’t fucking understand.

One second they were standing apart and the next Aidan’s temper, already boiling, snapped. He pushed Levi right up against the entryway wall, the way he’d been thinking about, the way he’d never expected to actually do, and Levi, built like a tank, just went.

Gazing at Aidan the whole time like Aidan should’ve been in on the joke the whole fucking time.

Newsflash, he hadn’t been.

If he had been . . .well, Aidan couldn’t say that he’d have ended up in Levi’s bed or vice versa much sooner, but who was he kidding? It would’ve happened.

One word from Levi, and he’d have been there, panting and eager.

“Bro,” Levi said, voice breathless now.

“God, you keep fucking saying that,” Aidan bit off. “I’m not your bro. I’m not related to you at all. I don’t want for you to be related to me. I want—”

He couldn’t finish.

He needed to finish.

“You should’ve said,” Aidan said finally. He swallowed hard. His hands were still pinning Levi’s shoulders to the wall, but Levi had never looked less bothered in his life. In fact he looked like, well, he looked like he was waiting for Aidan to close the last few inches between them and kiss him.

But Aidan wasn’t fucking doing that. Not before he understood what the hell was going on.

“I did say,” Levi said.

“No, you came here, and you didn’t say anything. Like no big deal that we . . .that we . . .” Aidan swallowed hard again. He couldn’t seem to get a breath, and his mouth was so dry. He should’ve detoured into the kitchen for water. But it was too late for that now.

It was too late for everything now.

“And here you’re getting mad at me for not saying it,” Levi teased softly, fondness radiating out from his expression.

“I can say it,” Aidan argued. But that was the biggest problem, wasn’t it? He wanted it so bad, but the words weren’t enough anymore. He had to just do it.

Levi raised an eyebrow. “Can you though?”

Aidan kind of hated him. But that didn’t change anything either. He still craved Levi so much it physically hurt to not just lean in and take exactly what he wanted.

“We kissed,” Aidan said, tongue too big for his mouth. “We kissed, in Michigan.”

“Yeah, we did,” Levi said, nodding.

But Aidan knew he wasn’t done. Levi had said he couldn’t do it, but he could. He could force the words out from between his uncooperative lips, even though the whole stupid exercise had started because Levi wouldn’t say it.

He could make Levi do it. He could. But he wouldn’t.

“And, we promised we’d . . .” God, his throat was so fucking dry. “We’d have sex. You’d have sex with me. Um. Yeah. We would. In a year.”

“It hasn’t been a year.” Levi’s tone was gentle but pointed.

“No, no of course not.” God, he hadn’t lasted even two months. Embarrassment curled through his stomach. Scorching. Dizzying.

Humiliation that he was this into it—into Levi—shouldn’t be this hot.

He curled his fingers into Levi’s shoulders. He was so big, so solid. Aidan could push him over and over, and he’d never budge.

“I didn’t say it because you didn’t seem like you wanted me to,” Levi said. “I thought maybe . . .maybe I pushed you too hard, in Michigan.”

Aidan laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. Nothing about this was funny. He was going out of his fucking mind. Would he have been this unhinged if he and Mo had actually ever gotten to this point? It felt impossible. Nothing could feel bigger.

“I thought I made it pretty clear you didn’t,” Aidan said, when it felt like he could speak again.

Levi still hadn’t pushed him away. Still looked like he wanted to do the opposite—pull him close.

So why didn’t he?

“I wanted . . .I wanted you to say something. I was afraid you would, and I still wanted it so fucking bad,” Aidan murmured finally. “I thought you didn’t—”

“Stupid,” Levi said, smiling now. That was all the warning Aidan got before Levi wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him flush against him, and a second later, they were kissing.

For a second, Aidan wasn’t sure who’d kissed who first, like that was actually a question that needed answering. But then Levi tilted his head, and he was God, a really great kisser, better than anyone Aidan had ever kissed, and the question evaporated like smoke.

Turned out it didn’t matter who’d moved first.

It only mattered that Levi wanted it, and there was no question that Aidan wanted it just as much. Maybe more.

Aidan heard a groan, and a second later, realized it was him.

Not so much a maybe, then.

But before Aidan could get too far into his own head about that realization, Levi tensed and a second later it was Aidan against the wall, Levi’s strength moving him so effortlessly he’d barely seen it coming even as it was happening.

He groaned louder then, Levi’s mouth slipping to his neck, to his jaw.

“God, so fucking hot,” Levi murmured into his skin.

And yes, some people thought so. He knew that was true. But Aidan had never looked in a mirror and seen what they saw. What did Levi see when he looked at him? When he touched him?