Chapter 2 #3
It hadn’t escaped him how she was willing to talk about her job, about the resort itself, about generalities like favorite books and the latest news from the Sectors, but she skillfully deflected each attempt he made to learn more about her past or her family.
She’d give vague answers or turn the question back on him.
He had no secrets—at least no nonmilitary ones so it had taken him a while to realize he wasn’t finding out much about her as a person.
He’d leave here in a few days not really knowing Ivy Wilson at all, which made him sad.
Colvin was convinced there could be a much deeper connection between the two of them if Ivy would only let down her walls but he was at a loss for how to maneuver around them.
This was the first time he’d been so interested in a woman on a deep personal level and he was at a stalemate, which is not where a general of his stature wanted to be or often found himself.
“Do you want your own kids?” Ivy asked as they finally left the store.
“I always expected to have a wife and family,” he admitted, “But it never happened for me. I was gone so much of the time and the years flashed by while I did tours all over Ardannan territory and the Sectors on joint missions. It’s one of my biggest regrets but at least I have my nieces and nephews. ”
“And they’ll have their Resort Planet souvenirs soon,” she said with a smile before shifting the conversation to a different topic.
When they got to their suite at the hotel, Ivy disappeared into her room, shut the door and was there for quite a long time, He drifted past the closed door and heard voices so he knew she was on a com call but the hotel’s soundproofing was too good for him to catch any words.
Eventually she emerged, having changed into a comfortable looking pair of old pajama pants and a tee shirt with a top ranked Sectors tisba team’s logo and the uniform number of their number one scoring player.
“Have you ever seen them play?” he asked as they studied the room service menu.
“Not in person. Although I’d love to someday.
” She pointed at the number on her chest. “I heard him speak at a companywide meeting once, done with holos of course, which was a thrill. I try not to miss a game during the season even if I do have to watch them on a delayed basis. My staff knows not to tell me who won before I have the chance to see the game.”
“I’m a huge tisba fan,” Colvin admitted. “I’ve seen this team play once or twice, having been in the right place at the right time, but the Stellar Shooters are my favorites.”
What followed was a lively discussion of the merits of each team. Ivy had a surprising depth of knowledge about the various players’ statistics and the teams’ current rankings and yet again Colvin was struck by how well they matched.
After an excellent room service meal, they discussed what trideos to watch and he found they shared many favorites.
“Have you seen the latest Kev Stevens trideo?” she asked him going through the available selections on the hotel’s trideo channel. “Do you like his stuff?”’
“I missed his last two—I was deployed in an area that let’s just say doesn’t offer any amenities.
When we were at our base, which wasn’t often, their catalog of entertainment options was limited and out of date.
Stevens is one of the few action stars I respect.
A lot of them get the military aspects all wrong but he actually served from what I understand and his trideos depict our life pretty well.
As much as you can in a civilian trideo meant to entertain, where the hero saves the galaxy. ”
“You’ve never saved the galaxy on any of your deployments?” she asked with an impish grin, queueing up one of the trideos they’d been discussing.
“Not yet.” He tried to match her light mood but stark memories intruded. Yeah, real life was not anywhere near the clean and neat scenarios the trideo writers depicted.
Ivy touched his knee and he realized he’d allowed his mind to drift. “I apologize if I’ve brought up bad memories. I forgot your life experiences might not make a good basis for enjoying these stories. We can pick something else—”
“No, I’m fine with a Kev Stevens trideo marathon,” he said. “Bring it on.”
They had a great time sitting close together and watching the action stories unspool.
He tried to keep his critiques light and shared a few of the more humorous experiences he’d had over the years.
Ivy’s opinion of the romantic elements in the trideos had him chuckling.
Oddly enough, the truly intimate scenes sprinkled through the stories didn’t embarrass her in the least and as the night progressed, she moved into his lap and they did a lot of serious kissing and touching.
Colvin’s cock was hard beneath the luscious curves of her derriere and as they shared one heated caress after another he hoped they might make it to the bedroom.
But Ivy yawned a huge yawn and laid her head on his chest. “I think I’m almost down for the count here. What do you want to do tomorrow?”
Take you to bed and spend hours making love to you. He managed not to give voice to his true desire. “Whatever you’d like to do is fine.”
She raised her head and stared at him. “No, soldier, not a good enough answer. Today you made one of my dreams come true so tomorrow what can we do to make one of yours a reality?”
“Actually,” he said as she got up and took the popcorn bowl to the kitchen to refill it. “One of the best times of my life was when I was in college, before I went into the officer corps. I took a year off and rode all over the planet on my AGcycle. I had long hair—“
She snorted. “I’d like to have seen that.”
He took out his handheld and showed her a small holo.
While Ivy was gawking at younger him he continued.
“And I rode wherever I wanted, stayed as long or as short a time as I wanted. Just wild and free. Rode the wind. Got my tattoos… A last fling before stepping into the regimented life in the military.”
“So what I’m hearing is you’d like to ride an AGcycle again.”
“I checked the list of resort amenities and there aren’t any here,” he said. “I suppose it’s not an activity most IDA guests would be interested in. The beaches and the ocean are the big lures here.”
“What if I could arrange it?” Head tilted she challenged him.
“You can’t borrow another man or woman’s ride,” he said. “Even if you know a fellow employee who has one.”
“Leave it to me—I may surprise you.”
She started up the third trideo they’d agreed to watch but fell asleep in his arms before the villain engineered his first crisis.
Colvin held her while he watched a bit more of the show but then he rose carefully and took her to her room, laying her on top of the comforter.
Ivy promptly rolled onto her side and curled into a ball, murmuring something.
He covered her with the fringed throw folded at the foot of the bed and left the room, turning off the light as he went.
He had to take a cold shower and use his own hand to ease the ache of unsatisfied desire, which was nowhere near to the pleasure he was sure he and Ivy could have shared together.
She’d plainly wanted the evening they’d had, with a little fooling around like kids—he hadn’t had such a relatively pure evening with a woman in decades—and nothing more.
He was an officer and a gentleman and he’d given her what she was willing to take no matter his own desires.
He could see the remaining days slipping away from him in the same fashion, never getting to know the real Ivy she was keeping hidden, and the thought made him melancholy.
Get a grip, soldier, what’s the matter with you?
You had no expectations coming into this thing and now you’re all languishing like a lovesick puppy over this girl.
Get over it. She’s so much younger than you and at a completely different stage of her life.
What would she want with a broken down old soldier anyway?
Enjoy what you can have with her this week and stop pining for more.
But it would be so amazing to settle down, get married and have a family with her. A little girl with her eyes…
He lectured himself sternly and for lack of anything better to do returned to the main room and finished watching the damn trideo, after which he cleaned up, despite the fact the hotel housekeeping staff would be coming in tomorrow to do their jobs.
When he went to bed he had a hard time falling asleep because he was plotting ways to stay in touch with Ivy after this week was over.
Fostering any kind of relationship long distance was going to be next to impossible and if he couldn’t get past her defenses when they were together in this beautiful place, his chances of truly getting to know her once he’d gone back to duty were slim.
He got as far as pondering whether he could enlist his mother to invite Ivy to visit the family on Ardanna Prime before he pounded his pillow in disgust, rolled over and forced himself to go to sleep.