She gave a strangled sound as she pushed just over the edge into a small orgasm-and as if the sound were a signal, he suddenly slid a finger inside her and caught against the sensitive place there as he stroked her with his thumb, knocking her hard into a deeper climax that caught her utterly off guard as it slammed into her brain.
A wordless noise tore from her throat. She cursed him roundly, thoroughly, as he pushed her ever further into it until she had no breath left to do anything but gasp and arch in his arms.
She was still shaking with the aftershocks as he stepped away, leaving her leaning dazed on her arms against the hood, trying to shake the lingering haze from her brain. Levi caught her legs where they crossed over his and loosened them, tugged her ankle boots off, and dragged at the cuffs of her jeans.
She stooped down for her purse as he stepped back, digging to the bottom for a small foil packet that she pulled off a strip-she'd kept condoms there since before she'd broken up with her ex; he'd always managed to 'forget' them, no matter how many she bought. Then she raised her butt from the hood of the car, letting him drag her pants off. He peeled her socks off with them, and as he stepped back toward her, she shimmied out of her boy shorts so that all that she wore was her bra, the cups shoved low to expose her breasts.
"Now, this hardly seems fair," she said as he stepped between her knees again, displaying a little more bravado than she felt. "You get all of me, and all I get of you is your pretty face and that." She motioned toward his erection, concealed now behind the elastic and cotton of his underwear. "Take the shirt off."
He hesitated for a second, as if he was considering her order. Then he grabbed the bottom hem of the t-shirt and dragged it off, exposing an impressive sheet of muscle-and something more, angry marks, faint but unmistakable, the tracery of old scars. He skimmed off his motorcycle pants and underwear, too, revealing even more marks across his thighs.
For a moment, Harper was shocked out of the mood. "What happened to you?"
"I told you, babycakes," he said. "There are some very, very bad men in the world. And some of them want things out of people like me, while others hate us for what we are."
Harper leaned forward, tracing the lines down one side of his ribs. "I'm sorry, Levi."
"And that's why I didn't take off the shirt before," he said. "I don't need pity sex."