Disclaimer: All the characters belong to Rainbow Rowell; I just borrowed them to give them a little extra story...
A/N: I originally wanted to give these guys the smut that was denied to us in the book, but my writing is rusty and my smut writing even more so. This is what came out. Hope someone out there enjoys it!
Angry Kissing
Cath couldn't say the summer had sucked. She'd gotten to spend time with her sister; they'd reconnected in many ways. She'd been able to keep an eye on her dad and see for herself that he was really taking better care of himself. On the other hand, she had missed Levi so much.
They had seen each other a few times, but Levi's family really needed him at the ranch, and he hadn't been able to visit her as much as he –and she, to be honest- had wanted to. He'd tried to convince her to visit him, but she was still too shocked by her first encounter with Levi's mother and she was not sure that Marlisse wanted her to spend any time at the ranch visiting her son. So, they had called, texted, Skyped, but it hadn't felt like enough.
She was back at Lincoln now, though; she couldn't wait to see Levi. He had had to cover someone's shift today at Starbucks, so he couldn't be at dorms when Cath and Wren had gotten in. Levi and Reagan had arrived the day before. Cath was at her room keeping track of the time. Reagan and Wren had gone to get dinner together; they had gotten quite close discovering how bitchy the two of them could be.
"You should have seen him! He's always been the good guy everyone loves, but it was like all the girls notice him now." Cath heard Reagan's voice carrying from outside their room.
"Levi? Cath's Levi? A women's magnet?" Wren asked surprised at the same time that the door opened.
Reagan and Wren stopped dead when they saw Cath. They obviously hadn't expected her to be at room. She was supposed to be with Levi already, but he'd texted her to let her know he was running late.
"Cath! Wasn't Levi supposed to pick you up half an hour ago?" Reagan recovered fast and tried to act like she and Wren hadn't been talking about him just seconds ago.
"He's running late…" She wasn't sure she wanted to go along with Reagan and ask no questions or if she actually wanted to know what the hell she was talking about with that thing about girls noticing Levi.
"The dork! He should be hurrying up to get here and see you already. He's been all lovey-dovey on the phone for months." Wren tried to divert Cath's attention, just as Reagan had tried to do; the two of them had really gotten close.
Just as Cath was making up her mind about asking what it was that they'd been discussing, Levi appeared through the open door. "I'm pretty sure that 'dork' was meant for me, right Wren?" He bumped his shoulder with Wren's. "It's a good thing I'm used to Reagan's rudeness. It helps me understand your nicknames for me don't mean you don't like me." He was smiling, always smiling; that was probably what had gotten him so much attention during the summer.
"Not that you need anyone else to like you, uh?" Cath couldn't help her comment or the sarcasm behind it.
Reagan and Wren looked at each other. Levi turned to face Cath and his smile got bigger just for her. "Cather… you are totally right. If you like me, really, really like me, what do I care that your sister likes me or just can't stand me."
He came closer to her bed and just when he was about to get a hold of her, she got out of his reach and moved towards the open door. "That's not what I meant." She said forcefully. "I was talking about all the fans you left behind in Arnold."
That was all it took for Levi to realize that something was wrong, terribly wrong. He frowned and didn't try to reach for her anymore. "Fans? Do you mean my sisters? At this point I think it's safe to say that only the youngest keeps blindly adoring me." He was trying to joke, but he was quite sure that was not what she was talking about. Not that he had the slightest idea what she was talking about.
"Apparently, she's not the only one who adores you back in Arnold." Cath said tightly. She really didn't want to keep this up in from of her sister and her friend, but she really couldn't control herself.
"Well, my mom obviously adores me. I mean, I am her only son…"
"I'm talking about all the women who notice you now back in Arnold. Levi, the women mag…" Cath couldn't finish her idea because in a flash Levi had reached for her waist and was kissing her silent right in front of Reagan and Wren. A memory flashed back to her from when they'd been arguing about him carrying her laundry and he told her not to force him to angry-kiss her. That was what was happening right now, he was angry-kissing her. God, she'd really missed him and she'd ruined their first encounter by being jealous, jealous about something she hadn't even seen herself. She was crazy! She pushed him away from her, even when all she wanted was to keep on kissing him, and then she turned around and stormed out of the room.
Levi looked after her for a few seconds before turning back to face the girls. "What the hell, Reagan?" She obviously had something to do with this. Cath had been talking about his fans in Arnold. Reagan was the only one here beside himself who had spent the summer back at Arnold.
"Yeah! What the hell? PDA is not supposed to happen, Levi." Reagan defended herself.
"You broke the rules first. Aren't you supposed to not talk about our relationship or interfere in any way?" He hardly ever got pissed, but he'd been looking forward to seeing Cath for weeks and now Reagan had managed to ruin it. What had she said?
Reagan groaned. "I was not talking to Cath about it; I was talking to Wren. We didn't think she'd still be in the room. You were supposed to pick her up half an hour ago!" She had to blame someone else; she didn't want to accept that she had had something to do with creating this problem between Levi and Cath. It had been hard for her not to be Levi's favorite girl anymore, but he obviously adored Cath, and she got all soft and gooey with him; they made a cute couple. She didn't want them to be arguing because of her.
"I'm not arguing with you! You already got me in trouble where it counts." Levi turned to look at Cath's bed and picked up her overnight bag. Then he put her laptop into its bag and took both things with him before turning to leave the room. He smiled at Wren –a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Good to see you again, Wren."
"She's not really mad at you. She just missed you like crazy. Said Wren.
"Well, whatever the reason, she's angry now, but I'll be damned if she stays angry much longer." He said decidedly and left the room.
He thought for a moment that he might find Cath by the elevators, but she was not there. He found her waiting by his truck. She looked like she was not sure whether she should be waiting there. She was hopefully thinking about how she'd overreacted, but the truth was Levi was not even sure what she had listened from Reagan's conversation with Wren; he didn't know what the conversation had been about!
Cath looked up and saw him carrying her stuff; he had even taken the time to pack up her laptop. Her stomach started making those weird somersaults it always did around Levi. She didn't know what to do, so she started with the first thing that came to her mind, "You broke one of the rules. No PDA in front of Reagan."
"You forced me to angry-kiss you." He said as if it were the most natural thing in their relationship, to angry-kiss each other. "Plus, she broke the rules first." He looked straight into her eyes. "I don't wanna talk about Reagan." He took a step closer to her. "Cather…" He waited for her to look at him and not look away after a few seconds. "This is not how I pictured our reunion." He looked pensive for a while. "And believe me, I've been picturing it for almost three weeks." That was the last time he could get some time off to go visit her in Omaha.
She looked at him and couldn't help smiling. "I didn't imagine it like that, either…" She pushed off the side of his truck and came closer to him. "It's just…" Just, just, just. "I noticed the ladies noticing you and your intrinsic goodness when I was there for your sister's wedding, but I convinced myself I was being silly and possessive, and I forced myself to let it go. Then, Reagan said you were getting all of this attention and…" She took the last step to be almost flushed with him. "…and I got a little jealous of those girls who got to spend time with you."
"Cather… Look at me." Levi put his hands on her cheeks and forced her to look straight at him. "The only girls who got to spend time with me…" He paused to let that sink in.
Cath was hoping he would complete that sentence with 'were my sisters.' He gave her an impish, but shy smile and she thought Reagan was going to be in that group too, and she didn't love that her friend –and his first love- got to spend time with him when Cath herself couldn't, but Reagan was the best choice if Cath had to share Levi's time.
"Hey. Are you still with me or are you already planning your next Baz/Simon story?"
You could trust Levi to know when her mind had started wandering. "All of me is still here with you." She assured him.
Levi grinned. "Good! I was about to tell you that the only girls who got to spend time with me this summer were…" He raised a brow in order to intrigue her. "…my cows!" He finally finished.
She laughed. You could trust Levi with many things, one of them being making you laugh even when you were not sure you could handle it just yet. Cath threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. "I missed you! I missed you so much that I might get jealous of those cows who got to have more of your attention than I did this summer."
He wrapped his arms around her waist and breathed deeply into her hair. "Sweetheart…" Cath couldn't believe she loved that pet name now; she liked everything that Levi made up just for her. "…I might have spent time with the cows; my attention, however, was always on you: getting through every day so the summer would end and I could come back to you, finding time to text you or Skype with you, thinking about your dirty fanfiction, and hoping you were inspired enough to start writing some about us."
She leaned back, letting his arms around her waist support her weight, and grinned at him. "My dirty fanfiction might have been the only thing that kept me going through the nights without you."
His smile got so big she could barely see his eyes. "Cather… you're making me wild desire right now."
She felt shy all of a sudden. She had never planned on telling him about the fiction she'd been writing about them. "Don't even think about it." She said firmly. "I'm not reading that to you."
He nuzzled the side of her neck. "Why? I'm the one who inspired it, wasn't I?" She swatted his arm as a way to tell him 'Don't be ridiculous. Who else could it be?' He just bit behind her ear in response. "So, if I'm the inspiration, why can't I listen to the art I've inspired."
She pushed her hands into the back pockets of his black pants and pushed him a little into her. "Because it's private."
He laughed, raining small kisses up her neck to her lips. "No biggie. If I'm not allowed to listened to the stories, I guess I'll have to keep giving you inspiration then." He took hold of her hips with his big hands and pushed his hips harder into hers. He was hard against her.
Cath didn't care that they were out in the open; she moaned loudly. She had missed him too much. They'd seen each other, but they hadn't been together, together in three months; it wasn't like she was about to have sex in her father's house or at the ranch with his very Christian mother around.
He moved his hands and took hold of her ass; she didn't have another choice, but to wrap her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. "Can we get to the aerie now?" She asked, nipping her earlobe. "I'm in need of some really hard inspiration."
Levi groaned and hoisted her a little higher. "Cather… don't use words like that around me when you can already feel how hard I am."
He forcefully opened the passenger side of his truck and deposited her there. He closed the door and ran to the driver's side. The truck was on in a few seconds. Cath looked at him and innocently said, "You are the one who mentioned inspiration in the first place."
He just sent her a look. "You know what I'm talking about." He looked out the window and said, "To the aerie it is!" before pulling off the curve.
She saw her bags on the cab seat between them and she leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Thanks for bringing my things with you." He just smiled at her, a smile that said 'You're very welcome.'
This was more like the reunion she'd had in mind: she and Levi being just Cath and Levi, no need to pretend, no need to delay, no need to explain, no need to hide who the two of them really were, whether that was a little crazy or a lot needy. They really, really liked each other, and everybody knew what that meant exactly: they loved each other like crazy.
Cath hadn't thought they could work out; she thought they were too different and she was too crazy. It turned out that she was just the right amount of crazy for Levi. He loved her the way she was; he'd always liked who she was, even her 'secret and dirty fanfiction.' And she loved the way he accepted everything about her, the same way she accepted his easy nature and his easy smiles for everybody. She had long ago discovered that his smiles really were different when they were for her. He was different with her, but she hadn't wanted to see it before. She'd thought he was dating her roommate for God's sake!