47. IVY
47
IVY
“Grayson!” I shot to my feet.
With nothing but the company of silence, my head had been in dark places. I’d promised him I wouldn’t move this time, and I’d kept my promise, but as one minute bled into five, then ten, my body trembled with the fear that Grayson might’ve been killed.
The icy rain pelted my skin as I slammed into Grayson’s solid chest, my arms wrapping tightly around his muscular frame. When he jerked slightly, I didn’t have time to savor the heat of his chest warming me in the cold air; instead, I pulled back and noted his grimace.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Just a scratch,” he assured.
“A scratch? Wh?—”
“You almost got yourself killed, Ivy!” He dropped his hands into fists at his sides. His features darkened with fury. “What the fuck were you thinking, coming back into the woods?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Instead, the only sounds were raindrops assaulting the forest while Grayson stood in the midst of it, looking like a dark angel in the moonlight—beautiful and terrifying.
“Have you no regard for your own goddamned safety?”
The sky cracked open with more rain, cascading to the leaf-covered ground like a waterfall, heightening the smell of damp earth and anger. With every word, a slight fog emerged from our mouths, from the battle of our heat against the cold air.
“I didn’t mean to complicate things by coming back,” I managed. “I just?—”
“Well, you fucking did!” Grayson took a step closer to me, leaves squishing beneath his feet. “Do you know how close you came to almost dying?” His fury crushed me, inciting a nervous gulp. “Or how about me having to take my eye off that man?”
He stepped closer still, and out of instinct, I stepped back.
“I didn’t want you to die!”
“What has this all been for if you run toward danger and get yourself killed, Ivy?”
“I came back, because the thought of leaving you out there alone, in trouble or bleeding out, I couldn’t do it!”
My hair, soaked with chilly water, clung to my skin. I stood rooted in place, transfixed by Grayson’s palpable anger. Water drops cascaded down his strong jaw and gathered on his eyelashes as he fixed me with an intense, unwavering stare. His fury seemed to crackle in the air between us, as tangible as the rain that drenched us both.
“If you had died”—he closed the distance between us until my back hit the tree—“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
My chest swelled, icy air hitting the bottom of my lungs as I stared into the eyes of a man who would literally lay down his life for me.
He could’ve died just to protect me. How many times would this realization feel fresh before it cemented into my DNA? How many men would literally kill or die to keep someone safe?
“I can’t protect you if you don’t listen to me, Ivy!” Grayson snarled. “Next time I tell you to?—”
My mouth crashed to his before he could finish his sentence.
I could feel his surprise in the way his mouth froze, his arms taking several seconds before his hands came up to frame my face. Around us, the rain pattered on the forest floor, and the chilly air frosted my skin into goose bumps, but Grayson’s warmth and his mouth were all that existed.
When he finally kissed me back, his lips were hard and angry. His hand snaked into my hair and fisted it, a few strands plucking from my scalp as he pulled away slightly, Grayson’s hot breath gliding over my lips.
“I can’t lose you.” He paused. “You’re everything to me.”
Everything . The word penetrated my skin and traveled to my heart, planting roots and growing inside of me.
Then, his mouth was on mine again, desperate and searing as he kissed me like a drowning man finally coming up for air. I clung to him, warming against his body, the slide of his tongue making my back arch.
I wanted the kiss to last forever. I wanted it to lead to more—so much more—but after a few seconds, Grayson’s lips abandoned mine, and his attention darted around the forest, a heightened look on his face as he scanned for any impending danger.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you in some dry clothes.”