He watches me a moment longer before a softness creeps into his hard exterior, breaking him down. He steps back into me, resting his hand at my waist. “Yeah,” he finally says. “It’s one thing seeing you with Levi. That started off slowly and I had time to prepare, but Roman. He went balls to the fucking wall and claimed you in a way that Levi and I just can’t seem to do.”
My brows furrow and I shake my head. “What are you talking about? It was just sex. There’s nothing more there.”
He shakes his head. “I ain’t talking about the sex, babe. The fact that you got through to him like that, made him see reason and calm down when his whole fucking world is caving in on him. He’s going to try and take you for himself, and you’ll be so fucking blinded by it that you’ll go willingly.”
I push up onto my tippy toes and rest my hand against his warm cheek, hating that my actions today have made him doubt the way I feel for him. “That will never happen,” I murmur, brushing my lips against his. “It’s not possible because a life without you by my side isn’t a life worth living.”
He pulls back to look directly into my eyes. “Promise?”
I nod as a smile tears across my face. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Marcus grips my chin and draws me back in to kiss me deeply, making butterflies swarm through my stomach. “And don’t you fucking forget it.”
20
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“FUCK,” I screech, throwing myself out of bed, wide-eyed and panting. My heart races as I peer around, trying to find the threat. My frantic glare lands on the big asshole sitting across the room, looking guilty as shit with his hands paused mid-air over his drum set.
“Shit, did I wake you?” Levi questions as the single light from his private bathroom sets a spotlight over him and his drum set.
“Did you wake me?” I shriek, the sarcasm thick in my tone. “Yes, you freaking woke me. What the hell are you doing? It’s …” I lean across his massive, super-king mattress and hit the home button on his phone, lighting it up to check the time. “It’s 3:00 am! What the ever-loving fuck, Levi?”
Levi cringes and his whole face scrunches, making him appear like a guilty little kid who just got caught with his fingers in the cookie jar. “Sorry, little one,” he says. “I was trying to be quiet.”
“Trying to be quiet,” I huff under my breath as I rub at my tired, sleep deprived eyes. “They’re drums. They don’t come equipped with a silent mode. You bang them, and they go BOOM! Every time.”
He tilts his head forward and looks up at me through his thick row of long lashes and gives me the most innocent, but guilty expression that has me immediately cursing myself for bitching him out. “Whoops,” he says, putting the drum sticks together and gently placing them down. “I’ll stop. I just couldn’t sleep and my hands were twitching to play. Honestly, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’ve played a few times through the night and you’ve just slept through it. I figured tonight would have been the same.”
“You play while I sleep and I just lay there?”
A wicked grin pulls at the corner of his warm lips, and as his eyes sparkle, I prepare myself for whatever’s about to come out of his mouth. “Damn straight I do,” he says, “that cute little heavy breathing thing you do works as the perfect beat for a count of eight.”
My eyes bug out of my head. “You’re lying.”
He shakes his head and my cheeks flame with embarrassment. “Wish I was.”
Levi moves to come back to bed and I shake my head. “No,” I say. “Stay and play. I’m awake now. It’s not like I’m going to get back to sleep anyway. I was having shitty dreams about being locked up in your father’s dungeon cells again.”
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, his eyes softening and filling with pain, hating the shit I’ve been through at his father’s hands. “Did you want me to come and hold you?”
My heart warms, loving how much he cares for me. It’s a complete contrast to the man I met when I first got here. I never would have thought this kind-hearted, caring man was buried deep inside of him, but I’m so glad that it was, because now he’s someone I could never imagine my life without. What’s with these DeAngelis men ruining me for other men? I’ll never be able to go back to the life I had before them. “Nah,” I tell him, a soft smile pulling at my lips. “I kinda just want to lay here and watch you play. You always look so at peace when it’s just you and your music.”
“Sure?”
I nod and he hesitates for a moment before finally scooping up his drumsticks and holding them down against the drum. He moves them slowly on the kit, dragging the tip across the top of it and creating the softest hum throughout the room. “Have I told you how fucking gorgeous you are when you’re sleeping?”
“Should I be creeped out about the serial killer watching me while I sleep?”
He brings the tip of the stick out and taps it gently against the drum. “Always,” he says, his eyes hooded as his heavy stare lingers on me.
He starts a slow beat and I push myself up against the headboard, leaning back against its soft cushioning. “Was something on your mind?” I ask him, hating that he’s having trouble sleeping.
He shakes his head. “It’s nothing important,” he says. “Just picturing the way Roman fucked you today. I didn’t like it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re the most precious thing to me,” he says over the sound of his drums, “and you should be treated as such.”
A grin pulls at my lips and he rolls his eyes before the words have even come out of my mouth. “I seem to recall more than a few times where you’ve fucked me just as hard. I probably still have bruises in the shape of your fingers littered across my skin. I might be precious to you, but that doesn’t mean I’m fragile, and you know it.”
“I know,” he grumbles.
“You’re not … jealous, are you? Seeing me with Roman …”
Levi scrunches up his face and shakes his head. “Nah, I’ve told you before that I’m cool with it. I just don’t like seeing him take advantage of you like that.”
“And if I told you that I encouraged it, and that while he was using me to forget the monsters inside his head, I was also using him right back.”
A grin cuts across his lips as he picks up the beat on his drums, his foot gently bouncing with the bass. “Then I’d say that I should have known better.”
I relax into the cushioned headboard and let the conversation fall silent between us, wanting nothing more than to zone out and listen to his sweet music, only watching the way his muscles flex and bulge with each hit of the drum has me paying far more attention than I intended. Everything about him draws me in—the body, the tattoos, the deep, growly tone, and that fucking smirk that makes everything clench deep inside of me. Levi DeAngelis is something special. He’s like a drug that I simply can’t get enough of.
I watch him a moment longer, my greedy eyes sailing over his strong body, and the longer I watch him, the hotter I get. My bottom lip catches between my teeth as he increases the tempo of his beat, and his eyes … goddamn it! His eyes are full of fire, watching the way that I watch him. It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how he does it. Have I always been attracted to drummers or is it just Levi?