Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

taking most of the warmth in the room with him. She shivered, aware something had changed between them. Sharing her world with him, allowing him into her head, had only made the connection between them deeper. She was happy on her own, yet, slowly, Lev was inserting himself deeper and deeper into her life—into her emotions.
    She didn’t let people in because she couldn’t risk her fragile happiness.
    Without Blythe and the others, she’d be dead. She wouldn’t have been able to continue her solitary existence, wondering every moment if she was truly a monster capable of burning people alive. Lev was winding his way into her heart. She was getting used to his presence in her home, but more than that, she was getting used to his touch.
    She’d never liked being touched, even by the people she loved. She tolerated it because she knew they needed it, but she’d never wanted to feel skin against her skin—until Lev. She rubbed the center of her left hand in slow circles, finding it soothing, almost as if she were stroking Lev’s skin.
    She found him warm, allowing her to almost melt into him, instead of feeling his touch as a prickling that was uncomfortable or at times even painful.
    She pushed open the bathroom door and staggered in. She hadn’t felt so clumsy on land for a long, long time, but the direction of her thinking had thrown her. She was never going to be able to fall asleep without him if she let him into her life any further. She would never feel happy again if-no-when he left. No one could live with her eccentricities. She was fine now in her own skin, but she was fully aware she was not the “standard” model.
    She scrubbed her face, looking into her own eyes. She saw him there.
    Lev. How had he gotten inside of her? For the first time in a long while she was terrified. Not of her kitchen being messed up or that someone else shared her house, but that she was coming to need him. She was meticulous about brushing her teeth, a torture for her as the sensation repelled her, but she also had a thing about teeth and wanted them as immaculate as possible.
    Each time she brushed her teeth, she remembered her mother brushing and counting, helping her to focus on the numbers and not the sensation. She still counted and that helped to pull her mind away from the terror of falling for Lev— Levi —Hammond.
    That wasn’t even his real name, not that it mattered to her, but he was shedding his old skin and donning a new one. He could be in her life for a short time and shed her just as fast. Heart pounding, she brushed her hair the one hundred strokes she did every night, counting each one carefully before placing the brush in the exact spot she always put it in.
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    She stepped out of her clothes, her skin sensitive, her breasts aching.
    Breathing deep to push down the building need, she dragged on a tank and the matching boy shorts, a concession to her femininity. She did like beautiful underwear. She sat on top of the covers, her weighted blanket in reach. She allowed Lev to sleep beneath the covers, acutely aware that he rarely slept with clothes on. She’d become accustomed to giving him a massage at night, telling herself it would help him relax and sleep, but it was really becoming an excuse to trace every muscle in his body until she knew him fairly intimately.
    Not tonight. She resolutely pulled out a book and opened it, focusing the light on her bedside table onto the pages. She didn’t look up when Lev came in, but she couldn’t help but see him—his energy filled the entire room. In spite of her resolutions, her body stirred to life. He moved like a creature of the jungle. Fluid and strong, he was every inch a man, every inch a predator. He could shed his name but he couldn’t change what was beneath the skin, and it showed in the way he walked.
    His muscles rippled with strength. His thighs were strong columns and his hips narrow. His shoulders were broad, his chest deep, and he was well-endowed, a fact she couldn’t avoid either. His symmetry appealed to her.
    She knew the flow of his muscles beneath his skin. She knew the heat he could generate. The silk of his hair, already growing out and a little shaggy, the long lashes and piercing sea blue eyes all combined to set her pulse racing and her blood stirring.
    He slipped beneath the covers after turning off the overhead light so that there was only her lamp shining on the pages of her book. Rikki remained very still, head pressed