13. Ivy
IVY
I kept my distance all morning, burying myself in filing and correspondence while Duncan moved through his usual routine of meetings and phone calls, though that had been the norm for the past week.
I wasn't exactly avoiding him but the space between us felt charged, every glance he sent my way making my pulse quicken.
It made it challenging but I focused on my work, answered phones, and pretended I couldn't feel his presence twenty feet away.
By eleven-thirty, I needed to leave. The kids would be hungry, and Lauren had texted that Elena was being fussy. I gathered my purse and headed for the elevator, offering a quick explanation to Duncan about lunch plans.
At home, I found chaos. Chrissy had finger paint in her hair, Sammy was crying because his truck was broken, and Elena refused to eat anything except crackers. Lauren looked frazzled.
"I'm sorry," she said, bouncing Elena on her hip. "They've been difficult all morning."
I took Elena and settled her at the kitchen table with a cup of milk. "It's fine. They're probably picking up on my stress."
After getting everyone fed and settled for quiet time, I checked my phone. Three missed calls from the hospital. My stomach dropped.
"Mom's treatment is today," I told Lauren. "Can you stay until this evening?"
"Of course."
I kissed each of the kids goodbye and drove back to the office, my mind racing between worry about Mom and the conversation I needed to have with Duncan.
The executive floor buzzed with afternoon activity. Through the glass walls of the conference room, I could see Duncan leading a meeting with three men in expensive suits. His posture was relaxed, authoritative, but his eyes found mine the moment I walked past.
Heat crawled up my neck. I settled at my desk and tried to focus on the stack of contracts waiting for review, but my attention kept drifting to the conference room.
Duncan gestured toward a presentation screen, his voice carrying the confident tone I'd grown accustomed to hearing in these business discussions.
The meeting dragged on for another hour. When the men finally shook hands and gathered their materials, I felt my pulse accelerate. Duncan walked them to the elevator, exchanging pleasantries about golf and market conditions, but his eyes kept returning to me.
When the elevator doors closed, he approached my desk.
"Do you have a moment?" I asked before he could speak.
He nodded toward his office. "Of course."
I followed him inside, watching as he closed the door and moved to the windows. The afternoon sun streamed through the glass, casting long shadows across his desk.
"I need to talk to someone," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
Duncan turned from the windows and moved to his desk, adjusting the blinds on his interior windows until the office was private from the hallway view. "What's going on?"
The words tumbled out before I could stop them.
"Everything is overwhelming. Mom's chemo treatments are getting harder, and she's so sick afterward.
Dad is impossible to be around—he snaps at everything and everyone.
The kids are picking up on the tension, and I'm trying to hold everyone together while pretending I'm not falling apart myself. "
Duncan listened without interrupting, his blue eyes focused entirely on me. When I finished, he moved closer, his voice gentle. "You don't have to carry all of this alone."
"I don't have a choice."
"You do." He reached out, his fingers brushing my cheek. "Let me help."
My heart fluttered at his touch. "Duncan?—"
"I know this is complicated. I know there are a thousand reasons why we shouldn't, but I can't watch you struggle and not do anything about it."
He moved to his office windows and adjusted the blinds there too, shutting out the view from the building across the street. When he turned back to me, his expression had changed.
"Officially, I'm done with work for the day," he said. "Which means anything that happens now is after hours."
I hesitated, my pulse racing. "What are you saying?"
"You asked me once if we could be naughty." His voice was low, intimate. "I'm saying yes."
The space between us seemed to shrink. Duncan moved closer, his hand finding my waist.
"I want to take care of you," he murmured against my ear. "Let me."
My breath caught. Duncan stepped closer, backing me toward the desk with slow, unshakable certainty. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. Everything I’d been holding in—grief, pressure, exhaustion—rose to the surface at once, and I let it. I let him see all of it.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” he said. “I know you're carrying so much, Ivy. What I'm going to do will help you relax. You'll see…"
The edge of the desk pressed into the backs of my thighs, but I stayed right where I was. I couldn’t have moved even if I wanted to. My knees felt weak, my chest too tight. The only thing keeping me grounded was the warmth of his body in front of mine.
He reached up and brushed my hair back in a slow and possessive movement. His palm lingered against my cheek, his thumb stroking once along my jaw. A touch meant to calm me, not stir me. But it did both. It stirred everything. The nerves. The ache. The parts of me I’d hidden for too long.
His gaze searched mine, reading everything I wasn’t saying. My voice came out in a whisper. “What if I can’t come back from this?”
“I don't know what that means, but I don't think you have to worry about it.” His eyes stayed locked on mine. “Just stay with me right now.”
Then he kissed me. His mouth took its time, coaxing mine open, deepening the kiss when I gave in.
My hands found the front of his shirt, clinging like I needed him to anchor me—and I did.
I felt lost and overwhelmed and this was the one thing that felt right—it felt safe and concrete in a world of waves and turmoil. When he pulled back, I was breathless.
He lifted me onto the desk without a word. My skirt bunched around my thighs, his hands guiding me to the edge until my knees parted for him.
“Please,” I whispered, though I couldn’t tell if I was begging him not to do this thing because it would only make the worry and fear worse, or if I was pleading with him to unravel me and set me free.
His eyes darkened. “Tell me what you need.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just need to feel something good and not like I'm drowning.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I can make you feel so good… You'll feel so good you forget all that stress." Then he sank to his knees.
My heart stuttered as he pressed his mouth to the inside of my thigh, just outside the lace of my panties. One kiss. Then another. My hands slid into his hair, not guiding him—just needing to touch him. Just needing something to hold on to.
When his tongue finally touched me, I broke.
My legs parted involuntarily and his fingers pulled my panties to the side.
My hips jerked. A moan escaped before I could swallow it.
He kept going, one arm wrapping around my waist to hold me still as he worked me open with slow, devastating focus.
No teasing. No games. Just a man who knew exactly what he was doing—and he did it with intent.
“Oh my God,” I gasped.
His grip tightened on me and I rocked my hips upward to meet his hungry lips.
My thighs trembled. The pressure built fast, fierce, impossible to control.
His fingers dipped into me, finding the sweet spot and curling into it over and over, and my breathing grew ragged and loud.
I worried someone would walk in but I didn't want him to stop.
I fell apart with a cry, my back arching, every part of me shaking as the orgasm tore through me. My body clenched around his invading digits and he growled into my core as he continued licking and sucking.
But he didn’t stop. He kept going—relentless, precise, merciless in the way only a man who truly wanted to take care of me could be.
His tongue moved in slow, deliberate circles, coaxing every last tremor from my body.
I was soaked, aching, half-lost in the blur of it.
I tried to pull away—reflex, instinct—but his hands clamped around my hips and pulled me back to his mouth.
I came again, harder this time, my fingers fisting in his hair, my voice too broken to form words.
"Too much," I whimpered, but it wasn’t a protest. It was a plea for more.
"I know," he murmured against me. "You can take it. Just one more…. Relax, baby."
His fingers joined his mouth again, curling deep, unrelenting, and this time he didn't hold back. I cried out, louder than before, my hips bucking up against his face. He growled, the vibration of it sending another ripple of pleasure up my spine.
"Christ, Duncan," I gasped, my hands fisting in his hair. "I can't—I'm gonna?—"
He sucked harder, his fingers stroking deep and I broke. My whole body seized, then splintered. Heat exploded through me, spreading from my core to every inch of my skin. I sobbed his name, legs trembling so hard I thought I might fall apart.
He licked me through the aftershocks, mouth greedy and worshipful, until I was whimpering and twitching with oversensitivity. When he finally pulled back, his breath came hard and fast, and he looked up at me like he'd just survived a war.
"You okay?" he asked, voice rough.
I blinked down at him, dazed. "No. Yes. I don't know. What was that?"
He grinned and rose to his feet. "That was me making up for lost time."
I was still sprawled across the desk, knees parted, my panties barely covering the sopping mess between them. I should have felt embarrassed, but all I felt was relaxed.
He cupped my jaw, brushing his thumb along my cheek. "I’ve been thinking about doing that since the day you walked back into my life."
I slid from his desk sat in the chair across from it, my legs still shaking, trying to process what had happened. Duncan had given me three intense releases without asking for anything in return, his focus entirely on my pleasure, my relief, my needs.
"You should get back to your desk," he said, straightening his tie. "Finish your day."
I stared at him, speechless. "That's it?"
"For now." His smile was both tender and knowing. "We'll talk later." He raised a hand and wiped the moisture from his face, and I could see his dick straining against his slacks, but even when I reached for him to initiate more, to help him, he held my hand away.
"Go," he whispered, kissing my temple, "finish your day while you feel relaxed."
I smiled and stepped back, letting my fingers linger in his hand for a second as I let it sink in what he'd just done, and with a giddy grin I turned toward his door.
I returned to my desk on unsteady legs, my body still humming from his touch. The remaining afternoon passed in a blur of phone calls and paperwork, but my mind kept returning to those moments in his office, the way he'd looked at me, the way he'd made me feel.
At five-thirty, I gathered my things and headed to the hospital. The oncology floor was quiet, the hallways filled with the antiseptic smell I'd grown to associate with Mom's treatments. I found her room and knocked softly before entering.
She was asleep, connected to an IV drip, her face pale against the white pillows. Dad sat in the chair beside her bed, his head in his hands.
"How did it go?" I asked.
He looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. "Rough. She had a bad reaction to the T-cell treatment. They had to sedate her."
My stomach clenched. "Is she okay?"
"The doctor says she'll be fine, but she needs to stay overnight this time. They want to monitor her for the next twelve hours."
I moved to the other side of the bed and took Mom's hand. Her fingers were cold, her breathing shallow but steady.
"I'm going to get coffee," Dad said, standing. "Do you want anything?"
"I'm fine. Take your time."
When he left, I settled into his chair and held Mom's hand between both of mine. The room was quiet except for the steady beep of the monitors and the distant sounds of hospital activity.
"I don't know what to do," I whispered to her sleeping form. "Everything is so complicated, and I'm scared I'm making the wrong choices."
Her hand remained still in mine.
"I think I'm falling for him again," I continued, my voice barely audible. "Duncan. I know it's crazy, and I know it could cost me everything, but I can't seem to stop myself. He makes me feel… cared for. Protected. And I haven't felt that way in so long."
Tears pricked my eyes. "I wish you could tell me what to do. I wish you could watch your grandchildren grow up and help me figure out how to be the mother they deserve while still being the daughter you need."
The words came easier now, spilling out in a rush of confessions I couldn't share with anyone else.
I told her about the kids' latest milestones, about Sammy's obsession with trucks and Chrissy's artistic tendencies and Elena's stubborn streak.
I told her about the job, about working for Duncan, about the impossible situation I'd created by keeping secrets for so long.
"He said he'd move the whole world for me," I whispered, remembering Duncan's words from weeks ago. "I believe him. But I wish he could move cancer too."
Mom's hand twitched in her sleep. The movement was so slight I almost missed it, but when I squeezed her fingers, she squeezed back.
Tears filled my eyes. "I love you, Mom. Fight this. Please."
Her hand remained in mine, warm and still, but that tiny response felt like a promise.
I sat there holding her hand as the evening light faded outside the hospital windows, thinking about Duncan's touch, about the choice I was making, about the future that seemed both terrifying and full of possibility.