Chapter 15
15
“Dude, how the hell did you manage to score Ivy Laine? She’s insanely hot.” Blake’s younger brother Freddie is obnoxious at the best of times. He used to come visit us at Harvard from Cornell all the time. Always loud and borderline inappropriate, I never really warmed to the guy. The only thing I’m fucking warming to right now is the idea of throttling him if he so much as mentions her name again.
Blake picks up on my tension and steers the conversation in a different direction. “I booked us a charter fishing boat tomorrow morning for a few hours. So we don’t have to stand around twiddling our thumbs while the girls get ready. How hard is it to put on a tux, am I right? All we have to do is show up and be standing there by two o’clock. Shit, don’t let me forget the ring.”
What makes the fact that most of these guys have heard of Ivy Laine even worse is that they can go back to their rooms tonight and scroll through the photos of her barely dressed.
There was nothing extreme about the way she was posing, or what she was wearing, but knowing half the men in this bar are probably going to be helping themselves later tonight—I can’t even fucking think about it without wanting to bend a crowbar in half.
When she’s mine, we’re going to have to have a conversation about this. She won’t need to post photos of herself half-dressed for the money. She won’t have to “create content,” or whatever the fuck they call it. I’ll take care of her. She’ll be free to write her music, without having to rely on the influencer sideline.
With the kind of talent she has, it makes me wonder why she hasn’t done more with the music. She said she performs around Manhattan but rarely goes further.
But then I remember. The brother. She needs to stay local to make sure he’s not getting into trouble. She mentioned he was seventeen. Growing up with three younger brothers, I know only too well that seventeen-year-old boys are always a handful.
Is she okay? How is she managing to hold it all together?
And she must be holding it together. Very well. The kid got into Columbia.
How’s she paying for that?
It occurs to me then that the two hundred and fifty grand is probably going a long way toward helping with that. But not all the way.
Will she have enough for the other things she needs or is every spare penny going toward the college fund?
She agreed to be my fake date only because she wants to get her brother through college.
I pull out my phone and make a note of it. Pay for Josh Laine’s entire four-year tuition at Columbia.
Easily done.
I think of her now, alone in the room, taking that long, hot shower.
Damn it.
I do my best. I make polite conversation. I agree to meet them in the morning to go out on the charter. But I’m insanely grateful when Blake finally announces we need to have an early night so we’re not too hungover to make the most of tomorrow.
We wrap it up and I head back to the room.
I’m careful not to wake her. She’s curled up under the covers, facing away from my side of the bed. She looks so small in the huge bed. My protective instincts flare.
It’s been so hard for her, handling so much on her own. Now she’s got me. I can’t overthink it, but I’m already in deep.
When you’ve spent a lifetime mired in a kind of quicksand of discontent like mine, so that it takes all your effort to breathe on a daily basis, when pure beauty in the form of a tattooed little musical unicorn walks into your life, you don’t just let her walk out again without fucking fighting to keep her.
It’s burning in me along with my heartbeat. She’s mine.
I go into the bathroom and turn on the shower. To ice cold. To ease the wildfire that’s taken over my cock since the minute I saw her. I fist my rock-hard length but I don’t get myself off. I can’t.
I don’t want to be the grumpy grouch Cleo warned her about. Or the cold-hearted prick women always accuse me of being.
I want to make her happy. Can I? Am I capable of something like that?
I fucking want to try. I want her safe.
She’ll have bodyguards and drivers. I’ll find out what she dreams about. I’ll use all the resources I have—which are significant—to please her.
Would you fucking listen to yourself?
I don’t care.
I turn off the shower and dry myself off. The cold shower did nothing to tone down my colossal hard-on, but it can’t be helped. I pull on a pair of boxers, doing my best to stuff myself into them.
She’s still asleep.
I turn off the low lamp. The moon is full tonight, flooding the room with silver light, but I leave the door that leads out onto our private patio open. The air feels good.
I get into bed, careful not to wake her. I lay on my back, covering myself with only a sheet, to my waist. I’m hot.
Glancing over at her, she’s curled up on her side, facing away from me. Her long hair spills over the pillow in glossy waves.
Is that sweet pussy wet for me?
My cock surges, leaking pre-cum. I try to ignore the agony I’m in right now.
The skin of her shoulder is so smooth. There’s another tiny tattoo, one I haven’t seen yet. It’s a simple heart with the word love inked into it.
I wonder if she’s ever been in love.
I know for a fact I never have. Not until?—
I stop myself from even thinking it. You can’t fall in love with someone in one day, you idiot.
It’s a mild obsession, that’s all it is. It’s lust, pure and simple.
I fight the raging urge to hold her. To run my fingers along her flawless skin. To sink my fist into that silky hair.
To rub my cock against her.
To cover her in my hot cum.
To claim her. I feel like a wild animal.
Never in my life have I watched a woman sleep, hypnotized by the details of her beauty. I’ve never felt this burning, visceral desire to be as close as it’s possible to be.
I have no idea how I could be so fucking besotted with this gorgeous little stranger. All I know is that I can’t move, because I can’t trust myself not to reach for her.
I close my eyes. Count some sheep. Think about the fishing trip. Baseball. Anything but those tight nipples. That nubile, squirming body. That slippery-sweet pussy. So close to me.
Fuck.