Baseball team.
I shoot a glance to my right, forget what I’m looking for, and then find my gaze subconsciously drifting back to the woman who’s wiping her hands on the back of her skirt. She follows my gaze, and a humorless laugh slips from her lips. “Oh, does he owe you money too? Good luck with that.”
He. Money. Luck.
Beversdorf.
Right.
I’m supposed to be tracking down Beversdorf.
Who’s gone.
Dammit.
I grab a napkin from a nearby table, but a drink napkin isn’t going to cut it on this mess dripping from the woman’s hair. “Can I…help?”
She blinks once, glances past me, and grimaces. “Can you teleport me to a bathroom?”
There’s a woman in a red dress with fire in her eyes headed our way, wobbling unevenly on spike heels around the tables and chairs in her way.
Uh-oh.
I’ve been here before. At best, it’s a misunderstanding. At worst, it’s hair flying and drinks being flung to the dancers on the floor below.
“Foe?” I take my new friend’s elbow, and a zing! shoots through my palm that makes me want to both stretch my fingers and hold on tighter. I’m touching linen, not skin, but I’m still getting an electric shock.
She shoots me a curious look, but also leans into me as I do my best to get us both to the side stairs that I’m pretty sure Beversdorf just disappeared down.
Her lips tip up while she leads me quicker. “On a scale of fairy godmother to screeching dragon, we probably need earplugs and a bucket of water.”
“You touch her egg or something?”
“I wouldn’t touch her egg unless it was with a cattle prod, but she doesn’t believe me.”
I choke on a laugh I didn’t know I had in me, and my knees get a tingle that I haven’t felt in years.
Pretty sure it’s not just the tight jeans talking either.
One of the bodyguards eyes us, then reluctantly moves to let us pass. “Ma’am. Mr. Wilson.”
“You might get Mr. Beversdorf’s friend a glass of water,” she tells him. “She’ll appreciate it tomorrow.”
“You know Al Beversdorf and his crew?” I ask while I follow her down the stairs.
“Unfortunately,” she tosses over her shoulder.
Intriguing.
Not as intriguing as the way she keeps holding her head steady, shoulders back, like she’s not wearing a strawberry daiquiri while she swings her hips down the stairs in a way I couldn’t emulate in these jeans even if I was the hip-swinging type, but now this woman has piqued my curiosity.
Have fun, idiot, Levi’s voice whispers.
Or maybe that’s my own voice. “You come here often?”
Shit. Shit. Could I be more lame?
But she smiles up at me, and even with the frozen drink sliding onto her shoulders and through her curly hair, she’s gorgeous. And not in the least offended. “Only when I feel like wearing my drink. You?”
“Can I buy you another one? For your mouth this time?”
What. The fuck. Is wrong with me?
Other than the fact that I’m now staring at her mouth. That gorgeous smile. The smoky laugh that trickles through all the other noise in the club.
It’s called attraction, old man. Do something about it.
“Can we get this one off me first?” she asks.
“Yes. Of course. I just—sorry. Been a while. I—I’m going to stop talking now.”
We reach the bottom of the stairs, and a bouncer nods to us. “Evening, Mr. Wilson.”
Mr. Wilson.
It’s my name, even if he also thinks I’m my brother.
And what would Levi do if he were me right now?
I lean into the redhead to be heard over the music. “Want me to find the bathroom? To clean up? Dry off where you’re wet? Happens to all of us. I—”
I need to shut up. Again.
That is not what Levi would say.
But he would smile and wink. So I try that.
Yeah.
I can be Levi for a few minutes.
Smooth. Suave. Charming. Flirtatious.
She ducks her head and laughs. Looks up at me. Laughs again. And then she holds out a hand as we duck beneath the stairs. “I’m Lila. What’s your name?”
My name.
My name.
Fuck.
My mouth opens, and the words just come out. “Levi. Levi Wilson.”
2
Lila Valentine, aka a woman who’s all wet and sticky and weirdly so very fine with that
Oh.
My.
God.
Levi Wilson.
Cute was the first word that came to mind when I ran into him upstairs. Funny quickly followed. Charmingly gallant and adorkably real. And semi-familiar in an I think I’ve seen your face before kind of way, which isn’t unusual, since my life lends itself to occasionally meeting with high-powered executives and celebrities.
Not that they’re my favorite social companions. In my off-hours, I prefer hanging out with librarians, book club friends, and hockey players.
Long story.
And my point is, I pegged him as more of the librarian-out-of-water type than the pop-music-god type.
But I peer closer, realize how many people have called him Mr. Wilson in the last two minutes, and holy. Shit.
Levi Wilson is flirting with me. This is insane. It’s nuts. It’s crazytown.
My friend Parker is going to shit seven thousand bricks when I tell her. She loves him. In the way normal people love celebrities, I mean. Not in a stalker kind of way.
I don’t think, anyway. Pretty sure she’d decline to have his babies.
I can’t stop shaking Levi’s hand. And he’s not letting go either. He’s just watching me with this surprised expression on his face like maybe he’s stoned, or maybe like my running mascara is dripping down and making pornographic designs on my face, or maybe like he’s never seen anything quite as beautiful as me.
With a strawberry daiquiri melting on my head and making my hair a total disaster.
I need to lay off the romance novels.
Or possibly I need to never leave home again and stick with only romance novels.
But Levi Wilson is flirting with me. While he’s wearing that hat that makes him look a little dorky, but in the good way. And the sunglasses that say I know it’s already dark in this club, but I need to protect you from my bedroom eyes so that you don’t die of over-orgasming just from looking at my beautiful face.
Which isn’t nearly as gag-worthy as it should be, because I honestly do think he could smolder me into a climax.
I don’t care if he is stoned. Or if possibly I am from a contact high, though I didn’t smell any weed in here, so maybe he just has super powerful pheromones?
Or maybe it’s been too long since I’ve let myself enjoy the company of a man outside the pages of a book, and I should quit questioning this and enjoy the high of having all of the attention of a hot guy in a club who could’ve literally stepped out of the pages of a romance novel.
Considering what I actually came here for was a total bust, I can absolutely get behind hanging out with Levi Wilson.
He’s not just a hot pop star. He also spends time in children’s hospitals and takes pictures with puppies at shelters to help get them adopted.