8. Ivy
Ididn’t think it was possible to hate Lex more than I did, but he’d found a way to make me. I burned with fury. I wanted to launch myself across that fire and tear into his face with my bare hands. I wanted to wrap my fingers around his throat and watch as the life drained from his eyes.
I hated him.
“Weeds,” Carter called after me. “Wait up.”
“Go away, Carter,” I said, walking faster.
I didn’t know where I was going. It was midnight, and I was drunk. I’d managed to avoid the paparazzi thus far, but I didn’t know how long that would last. I should’ve called a driver to come get me, but the cool air in my lungs kept me from doing whatever I could to get Lex thrown in supermax. So I kept walking.
“Weeds, c’mon. Lex was being a dick.” Carter’s hand on my elbow stopped me, and I whipped around, my wrath centered on him.
“Lex is always a dick. I’m tired of putting up with it.”
“If it’s any consolation”—Carter’s mouth cracked into a huge grin—“I think you won that round.”
“I don’t care if I won.”
Lies. I absolutely cared. It was the only reason I said it. Part of me flushed because not only had everyone heard Lex call me a virgin, but I’d also insinuated that I liked to fuck other girls. While I’d said it in a way that could be interpreted as a burn, another part of me worried about the headlines on The Puck tomorrow.
Ivy Washington a lesbian? Sources say she’s been sleeping with Princess Miriam for years. Quite the scandal. No comment from the royal family regarding these allegations.
My cheeks flamed as I imagined how my mother would react. I doubted I was the first bisexual Washington, that was a statistical improbability, but I’d certainly be the first publicly out one. That simply would not do for Evelyn Washington. Nope, nope, nope.
“You should have told me,” Carter said.
“Why does it matter?” I barked. Carter had given me no indication he was interested in anything more than friendship. Even if I wanted to climb him like a tree, all the reasons I couldn’t were still there—my dreams and his promiscuity and the public and the media and my mother.
We don’t belong to us, her voice said at the back of my mind. We belong to the public. That’s the price we pay to live the life we do.
Carter opened his mouth and rubbed at the back of his head.
“I don’t know. I would have—” He stopped and looked down at me with playfulness in his eyes.
“What? Pity fucked me?” When he didn’t answer, I rolled my eyes and started walking again. “You and Lex deserve each other.”
“Weeds, that’s not what I meant. Look.” He put his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to stop and face him, his masculine sandalwood scent pluming up around me and pulling me in, unfurling this aching throb in my chest. “I don’t pity you. I’d never pity you.”
“So? You’d fuck me and get rid of me like you do all your other flings? No, thank you.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I waited for him to continue, my pulse thundering through my veins, but the longer the silence went on between us, the more infuriated I became. With both of them. With all of them. Lex. Carter. Miri. I was so confused, and I didn’t know who to trust. I started walking again.
“I’ve wanted you since the day I met you,” he called.
That stopped me. I turned to face him.
“But c’mon, you’re Ivy fucking Washington.” He cleared his throat. “Someone like me does not put his hands on someone like you unless you make it obvious that’s what you want.”
My heart beat against my ribcage, and I took a deep breath to try to steady myself so I didn’t show him how much hearing that delighted me. My skin burned and grew tight, suddenly too small to hold all of me in. I thought I might burst with how hard my muscles trembled.
Was he fucking with me? Was this a trick? It had to be. Any second, Lex would jump out of the shadows and tell me he’d set up the whole thing, but that never happened.
“You—you want me?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You think I wake anyone else up for class every day? You think I give a shit whether they pass their Econ finals? No, Weeds. You’re my favorite girl.”
You’re my favorite girl.
With a few hurried steps, I propelled myself into his arms and wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck with my legs circling his waist. Our lips collided, my nerves exploding under my skin as a rush of lust surged through my entire body.
I kissed him.
As much as I devoured his mouth, he explored the depths of mine. God, he felt so good—warm and demanding and sensual. All the months of tension between us slid away, revealing a deep wanton affection so profound that it made me shake, and I rubbed myself against the thickening length pressed between us.
A chuckle echoed from deep in his chest, and he slid his hands up my back while he put me back on my feet.
“I should have done that months ago,” I said.
“Come back to my room with me.” He pressed his forehead to mine, his hot breath pouring down the front of my shirt. “My roommate already went home for the summer. It’ll just be us.” He rubbed the tip of his nose against mine. “Let’s see if I can make you come harder than your vibrator.”
I grinned like a fool and carried that with me while he walked me back to his place. Our lips locked the minute the door closed behind us, and he took his time slowly peeling the clothes off me like I was a present. Then, he laid me on his bed and worshipped my body, kissing and devouring each part of my skin like he was memorizing how his touch made me moan.
He settled his weight between my knees, his legs outstretched behind him, and when he trailed his lips down the inside of my left leg with small, needy pecks, sparks flew up that entire side of my body. He teased and sucked and licked me, bringing me right to the edge of orgasm before working me back down again. He did this twice. He made me moan and beg and plead, my hands fisting in the sheets and sweat beading on my forehead, only to leave me panting and anxious for more. When he finally let me come, it was earth-shattering. Absolutely astounding. I arched into him and moaned, every muscle in my body clenching with the intensity of my climax.
He kept going, probing and licking me, even after I became too sensitive. I pushed his forehead away, and he laughed, fighting me and wrapping his hands around my knees to hold them apart.
“No, no, no. Stop, stop, stop,” I panted, trying to get away. Trying to sit up and close my legs around his head.
Carter smiled up at me from between my thighs with a huge grin that stole my heart. “Say I made you come harder than your vibrator.” Another greedy lick, and I let out some defeated laugh that came from my postcoital bliss.
“Carter—”
“Say it.”
“Okay, okay.” I struggled to get the words out between giggles and heavy pants. “You made me come harder than my vibrator.”
“Challenge completed, Miss Washington.” He crawled back up my body and kissed me, tasting like me and him and sex, and it turned me on again, my aching cunt already wanting more of him. Pride swelled up in him, making him impossibly more beautiful with the added confidence.
“Now it’s my turn,” I said, pushing him so he was on his back. I climbed on top of him, positioning myself between his knees and dancing my hands down the front of his body. I kissed him once…twice…and trailed my tongue down the center of his chest, loving the way he groaned and rolled into my touch, brushing the hair out of my eyes. “I’ve been dreaming about doing this for so fucking long.”
“You have dreams about sucking my dick?”
“I have dreams about doing a lot worse to you, Mr. Scott.”
I gave his cock a lick, and it bobbed in response.
“Jesus Christ.” He crossed his arms under his head to prop himself up and watch me, the undivided attention urging me on. I sucked him deep, swallowing him and making him grip my hair. He tasted salty and sweet, and when I cupped his balls and propped him up so I could really focus on his sensitive tip, he fisted his fingers in my hair and he let out a guttural noise. “Keep doing that. Just like that. Fuck, that feels so good.”
I relaxed my throat and focused on my breathing, taking him all the way back and letting him buck into me however he wanted. I gagged around his cock, my eyes burning and tears streaming down my face, his grip on my hair punishing. God, this was so dirty, and breaking him down like this, knowing I’d been the one to turn him so disheveled, turned me on in ways I couldn’t understand.
“Stop,” he said, pulling my head off him. “I’m gonna come. Stop.”
Something had been unleashed in Carter, some kind of hunger that he’d finally let himself satisfy. He yanked me up his body, twisted us around so he was on top of me and positioning his cock at my entrance. When he pushed inside me, the connection between us sparked to life like a scalding flame. He paused, letting me adjust, but God, I didn’t want him to be careful. I was so done with being careful.
I won’t lie and say it didn’t hurt. It did. Even though Miri had fucked me hard. Even though I fucked myself with vibrators. But it mixed with a pleasant euphoria that overpowered all my other senses. He took me carefully, lovingly, and the indigo in his eyes glittered with all the adoration he had for me.
My climax burst behind my eyes, a moan barreling out of the abyss inside me. He surged inside me, his cock kicking as he found his own release. Then he collapsed on top of me, and we breathed down the serotonin high together.
In the afterglow of all the things we’d done, I lay pressed up against Carter’s body, my head on his chest and my arm draped over his stomach as he played with my hair.
“You have to make me a promise,” he said.
I glanced up at him.
“I want this, Ivy. I do, but I still want Hollywood. I still want my dreams.”
“Me too,” I said. “I don’t want this to hold us back from anything.”
He kissed me, and the sensation rattled down my body, making me curl my toes.
“That’s why I kept my distance from you,” he said. “I can’t afford to get distracted.”
“Me, neither,” I told him.
He took a deep breath.
“We have a deal, then. If we make it to the end of college, we let the chips fall where they may. We go into this knowing how it will end.”
I sighed and trailed my fingers over his naked chest. “Do you think that will make it any easier when the time comes?”
“No. But I can’t stay away from you any longer, and I’m tired of trying.”
Carter had never been a part of my ten-year plan. No, that solely included graduation, Harvard Law school, and election to Congress. I wanted to be the youngest representative ever elected, even younger than my mother, and Carter would never—could never—play a part in that, especially if he wanted to go to Hollywood. Our lives went in opposite directions after this, but I couldn’t find it in me to stop the relationship from happening. It seemed fated, perhaps, even if completely doomed from the start.
“Thank you for taking care of me tonight,” I told him. “Thank you for being so fucking awesome about all of it.”
“Ivy,” he said. “I’d do anything for you.”
My heart overflowed with contentment, like nothing or no one could burst my bubble.