Leif It’s her laugh that does me in. As soon as we leave the hospital, with its bright white lights and antis eptic smell, I know Layla and I should go our s eparate ways. She knows my daughter, for one, and my daughter likes her. She’s breached that innermost sanctuary of my life, where I haven’t let any woman enter since the one who gave birth to Isla. That’s my golden rule, isn’t it? Women and Isla don’t mix. Women don’t get close to the core of my life, to the things that really matter. Not only that, but Layla works for me. Maybe not technically right now, but how long will Harriet’s husband’s health hold? How long until I need to call on the Delmar Agency for a r eplacement nanny, knowing that Isla will want Layla back? Finally, Layla is exhausted. I can see it in the rounding of her shoulders, in the small sigh she makes every time she sits down. I see it in the way she leans against the car’s headrest as if she doesn’t have the energy to even ke ep her head upright. And who could blame her? She told me herself she has about seven million jobs, works a thousand hours a day, and took on the planning for Isla’s surprise birthday party to boot. What I should do is take Layla out for one drink to debrief on this trying day. Then I should take her home. But when I’ve resolved to do that, everything turns on its ear. We go to a jazz bar, tucked in the basement of a tall building with nothing but a fizzing neon sign and a big bouncer to mark the entrance. In the dark, sensuous room, Layla and I order drinks and sit at the bar, talking about Isla’s party, the cake, and the unexpected arrival of the new Van der Berg baby. Then Layla goes to the bathroom, and I decide the night should come to an end. I pay our tab and sip the final dregs of my drink, waiting for her to reappear so I can be a gallant gentleman. I’ll driver her across to New Jersey, make plans for the final clean-up tomorrow, and say goodnight. End of story. I’m Leif Sorensen: Mr. Responsible. But she doesn’t just slip into her seat beside me. She walks by me and smacks me on the arm, giving me an exasperated look. “You should have told me my makeup was running halfway down my face, Leif. I looked like a raccoon. I shrieked when I saw myself in the mirror just now. It took three drunk women I met in the bathroom all that time to touch up my makeup until I looked presentable.” She gestures at her face with both hands. With a huff and a shake of her head, she slides onto the barstool and gives me another sideways glare. I frown. “Your makeup?” “Don’t pretend you didn’t see what a mess I was. I can only imagine what people thought when they saw us walk in here together. You—handsome, dapper, in control. Me—a disheveled hot mess.” Handsome? Dapper? In control? Is that how she sees me, when on the inside I’m perpetually on the edge when I’m near her? “I never noticed your makeup.”
That comment makes her turn to face me fully, and I notice the dark circles under her eyes aren’t quite so dark. Her undereyes are still purply and shadowed, but not quite as badly as before. So that was smudged makeup? Hope flames in my heart, because the reason I counted on to take her home disintegrates. She’s not so exhausted, so maybe we can stay out for a second drink. “You can’t be serious,” she scoffs. “I had the worst raccoon eyes in the history of makeup, Leif. My undereyes were completely black.” “They’ve been dark all week. I just assumed you were as exhausted as you looked.” I blurt out the words, belatedly realizing I’ve just told a woman she’s looked terrible all week. Where is my usual smoothness? Where are the soft, seductive words I can usually call up to compliment a beautiful woman and coax her into my bed? Layla stares at me for a beat, blue eyes wide, as if she’s trying to read down to my soul. She’s going to get up and leave. Who wouldn’t? I just insulted her and told her she’s looked like shit. Mind scrambling for something to say to dig myself out of this hole, I clear my throat— And Layla doubles over with a laugh. Hard, racking shakes of her body make her grip the edge of the bar as she laughs, drawing the gaze of every man in the room. It’s not the type of laugh women affect to look cute and flirty. It’s real. It’s raspy and seductive and it makes everything inside me tighten. She’s unlike any other woman I’ve met. She’s not trying to preen and position herself on her stool to show her body off to its best advantage. She’s not wearing sky-high heels and a designer dress. Her hair hasn’t been professionally styled and blow-dried and whatever else women think they need to do. And she’s gorgeous. In smudged makeup and messy hair and old jeans, she looks deliciously undone. It makes me want to drag her onto my lap and mess her up even more. Despite myself, my lips curl and I find myself chuckling along with her. She wipes her eyes and clicks her tongue, throwing me another exasperated stare before waving the bartender over to order another round. So, we stay for a second. From there, we move to a booth in the corner. She sits next to me and tells me about her sister, pride shining in her eyes when she tells me about Emma’s early acc eptance to NYU’s Prehealth program. She tells me about her grandparents, and the way her eyes soften tells me they were the single source of happiness and warmth and support in her teenage years. “Your parents?” I ask. “Never knew my dad,” she says, lifting her drink to her lips. She takes a sip, then shrugs. “My mother left when I was sixteen.” Her voice is casual, but there’s something in the tightness around her eyes, the set of her shoulders, the way she won’t meet my gaze that tells me this memory hurts her. “She left?” I ask. Layla lets out a huff. “My mother has always been... flighty. She loves us, I think, but she’s selfish. Not maliciously so, but she just... doesn’t think about other people. When I was sixteen, she met a guy and decided she didn’t want to be a mother anymore. Left us with my grandparents and took off. It didn’t make sense for a long time, but it made me the person I am now, so I can’t blame her.” There’s strain in her voice, and I marvel at how much she’s borne on her slim shoulders. Layla is strong.
My throat is tight, and I can’t help but put my hand on her knee. My ex left, too. She didn’t wait sixteen years, though. She did it as soon as she was discharged from the hospital after giving birth. “I don’t understand how people can leave their kids behind,” I hear myself saying. “Isla is everything to me. She’s the coolest kid, too. How could you not love her?” Layla smiles at me, genuine warmth in her gaze. “She’s special. She reminds me of Emma when she was that age. Really precocious and too smart for her own good.” When I nod, Layla tilts her head. “Isla’s mother... She left?” I nod. “Said she didn’t want to be a mother. I haven’t seen her since Isla was less than a week old.” Layla blows out a breath. “Wow.” A kink in my heart unknots itself then, and all it took was Layla to sit there and understand. She gets it, because she’s been through something similar. Arguably something worse. She watched her own mother leave, had to care for her sister, her grandparents. We move closer to each other and order another round, then another. A pleasant buzz fills my body, and I don’t care whether it’s the alcohol or the company. All I care about is her thigh touching the length of mine and the way it feels to put my arm around her shoulders. A band starts playing on a small, circular stage in the corner, and we move closer so we can hear each other talk. I watch her lips move, remembering the way they tasted just a few hours ago. I inhale the floral notes of her shampoo and the unnameable scent that is Layla. Her body fits perfectly against mine, and when she turns her head to look up at me, I only have to move my head an inch to bring my lips to hers. Just one kiss, I tell myself as I slide my palm over her jaw and tilt her head to take her lips. Just one taste. But I should know that one taste will never be enough. An earthquake could bring the bar down around my ears, and I wouldn’t notice it. That’s how much I lose myself in Layla’s kiss. She puts her hand on my chest and I have no doubt she can feel the thundering of my heart beneath her palm. When she curls her hand into my shirt to tug me closer, my whole body lurches with desire. It’s the laugh that did it. Ever since she laughed like that, unselfconsciously doubled over at the bar, it was inevitable that we’d end up in each other’s arms. She can’t show me that side of her and expect me to turn away— something so real and intrinsically seductive that it called to me like a siren’s song. With a few deft flicks of my fingers, I tug her hair loose and let it fall down her back in a golden wave. I’ve wanted to bury my fingers in her hair since the day I saw her at the Eldridge twins’ birthday party all those months ago. The soft silk of her hair twines around my fingers as I pull her closer, crushing my lips to hers and wishing this moment would never end. “Want to see my pied-a-terre?” I ask, breathless as we pull apart, my lips moving over hers. “Is it so swanky and pretentious that I’ll hate it immediately?” Her eyes gleam in the low light, lips tugging at one corner. “Most definitely.” I kiss her again, wanting her taste embedded in my memory, wanting her soft lips open and yielding to me.
“Fine, then.” She gasps as my hands roam down her body, over her breasts and down to the sweet hollow of her waist. From there, it doesn’t take long to get home. Elton meets us outside and I put up the privacy screen between us before dragging Layla onto my lap. Where she belongs. “This isn’t safe,” she says between kisses. “If we get in an accident, we’ll both die.” “We’re moving at about ten miles an hour.” A little giggle while Layla’s fingers undo the top few buttons of my shirt. Her fingertips brush the skin of my chest, sending fire rushing down to my groin. My mind is so clouded by lust that I can’t think of all the reasons we shouldn’t do this. I can’t think about anything exc ept the soft, lithe female body in my arms and the overwhelming feeling of rightness at having her here. Then we’re stumbling through the lobby and I’m crowding her in the elevator. The second it takes to press the button to the top floor is too long away from her, and I hook my arm around her waist to bring her hard against my chest. This is right. So, so right. My body screams with pleasure at the feel of her in my arms, like everything that was wrong with my life has suddenly been made good. I’m dizzy with it. My blood pounds in my ears, in my hands, in my cock. When we reach my apartment, I take her purse and fling it across the room, scattering all her things across the kitchen. She laughs that laugh again. The one that drives me crazy. Husky and low and Layla. Throwing her over my shoulder, I stalk to the bedroom, scarcely seeing anything in the apartment around us. All that matters is getting her to the bed and relieving her of all these clothes. All that matters is thrusting inside her sweet heat and feeling her shudder around me. Making her mine, once and for all. Showing her that she belongs to me. I tear at her clothes, savage and unrelenting. I toss them over my shoulder while she claws at me until she’s wearing nothing but a bra and very lacy panties. Groaning, I force myself to slow down. In some distant echo of my reasoning mind, I realize this could be my only chance to have her. Today was intense, and we’ll both wake up tomorrow back in our right minds. But her bra—her bra is in the way. I unclasp it with one hand, tear it off, and toss it over my shoulder. She laughs again, and I lose my mind. My lips trail down her neck, her chest, down to the soft handful of her breast. I suckle the pink tip, feeling her soften in my arms—and I know I was an animal before. This is a woman who hasn’t been worshipped. I heard it in her voice when we sat at that booth, the tension and the guardedness and the strength she’s built up to withstand life’s assaults. She hasn’t been treated like she should, and I’ve just torn her clothes off like a man incensed. With every scrap of my self-control, I force myself to slow down. Enjoy. Revere. Layla deserves to be treated like a queen. Arranging the pillows behind her, I lay her down and take in her body, bare but for a bit of lace around her hips. She wraps her arms around my shoulders and pulls me down for a kiss, sighing against my lips when I let my hands roam. Her body trembles, then softens. I run
my palms over her breasts and feel her arch into my touch, then a soft moan travels through her body as she relaxes. Yes, she needs to be loved properly. By me. I move my lips to her jaw, to her ear, to the skin at the side of her neck. She curls her fingers in my hair when I kiss her there, so I spend a few more seconds kissing and touching and loving. This is right. Nothing could be more right than having this woman in my arms. I trail my tongue over her skin as she lets out another soft sigh. I move down her collarbone, her chest, laving attention on her perfect breasts. Her belly is soft and beautiful, and I press kisses in a line down the center of it, then move to her legs. Her feet, her knees, the soft, soft skin of her inner thigh. Her body was made for me. Every little mole, every old scar, every mark and smooth expanse. Mine, my heart screeches as I memorize every inch of her. She softens some more and I close my eyes, inhaling the scent of her skin and memorizing every inch of her body. I brush my lips over her panties and she... Does nothing. No arch of her back. No sigh. No soft moan. Frowning, I flick my gaze up—and freeze. Layla Reynolds is asle ep. Lashes fanned over her high cheekbones, soft mouth open, she has one arm curved above her head and the other resting on her stomach. I sit back on my haunches, staring at her prone body, feeling a strange mix of warm tenderness and bone-de ep embarrassment. This has never happened before. Women are usually trying to show off just how sensual and willing they are in bed. They don’t fall asle ep right before I eat them out. If anyone has a cure for an inflated ego, it’s Layla. Still, the tenderness inside me grows, and I can do nothing exc ept gently gather her in my arms and flick the covers on top of her. From there, I go brush my teeth and splash water in my face, looking down at the throbbing length of my cock. “Not tonight, buddy,” I tell it. Then I head back to the bed, wrap myself around her, and fall asle ep.