Chapter 30
Ivy
‘You sure you don’t want anything to eat?’ Xav asks as he leads me up the sweeping staircase in his family’s London mansion. It has marble steps and a beautiful rose-patterned carpet held in place by shiny brass rods. The kind of staircase you’d float down in a ballgown for your Cinderella moment.
I shake my head. He had me at ‘bath’, honestly. If a tub filled with hot, bubbly water is the intersection between him wanting to look after me and me wanting to pounce on him, then the tub is where we shall make a beeline for. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred pounds.
Besides, I had a cheeky bacon-and-egg sarnie in the kitchen an hour ago. The only thing I need in my mouth in the next hour is Xav’s lovely dick.
Flora’s not due home till two, which gives us two and a half hours to mess around.
Apparently, the room he’s led me to is his room in London, although there’s very little to suggest it’s anything more than an anonymous guest room.
It’s very tasteful, very neutral. The only real clues that it’s his space are the few masculine touches: the dark wood and hefty build of the bed; some moody black-and-white photos of London in a bygone era; a brass suit hanger with a shirt standing to attention across it.
I’m taking it all in as he enfolds my hand in his and pulls me across the room. His smile is boyish: pleased and a little mischievous. At the sight of it, my poor heart drifts up and out of my body as if it’s attached to Mary Poppins’ brolly.
Okay, this is a seriously dreamy bathroom.
I never, ever want to leave. How is it that, half an hour ago, I was serving cups of tea to toothless street sweepers and now a heartbreakingly handsome aristocrat is pushing his dark hair out of his eyes as he runs me a bath?
He calls it ‘drawing’ me a bath. Of course he does, because we’re apparently in Downton Abbey now, only we’ve switched roles and he’s the lady’s maid, hell-bent on pampering me.
The bathtub is a huge, freestanding oval made from some swanky matte marble.
This house does a great job of mixing modern and classic in a way that’s mystifying to me but just works.
Hell, does it work. Xav adds an endless and frankly wasteful pour of gloopy bubble bath to the water thundering out of the tap, but I’m not complaining, because the steam turns instantly geranium-scented as bubbles multiply like magic on the surface. I’ve never seen a bath fill so quickly.
‘Time’—he paddles the water with his hand to check the temperature and straightens up—‘for you to strip.’
I grin at him and make quick work of my clothes.
I feel less self-conscious standing in front of him naked, funnily enough, than I do in my crappy, cheapo leggings and t-shirt.
When I’m bare, I’m the version of myself that he wants, whereas in my caff outfit, it couldn’t be more clear that I don’t belong here.
Nudity is honest. It’s an equaliser, in a way, even if the fact that he remains fully clothed as he stares at every inch of skin I reveal to him should feel like the very opposite of equality.
‘That’s it.’ He sighs the words more than he speaks them. ‘Christ, look at you.’
The hungry whisper of his voice and that fucking male gaze has a pulse jumping between my legs.
I raise my arms to make sure my hair is still secure in its messy bun.
My bandana, which felt sweetly quirky in the caff, now feels naff, so I tug it off.
My hair will frizz up no end in here, but I get the feeling he won’t give a shit.
Not from the way he’s eye-fucking my boobs, my outstretched arms framing the perfect view for him.
‘You’d better be getting in too,’ I tell him as I raise one leg and lower it into the wonderful, life-affirming warmth. Who can afford their hot water supply on all day? The de Veres, that’s who, and I’m here for it.
I think it’s the flash I give him of what awaits him between my legs, but I’ve never seen a man undress so quickly.
I laugh as I lower the rest of myself in, sinking delightedly into a frothy underworld as Xav rips clothes off in some chaotic, desperate order with little concern for logic or for the fragility of fabric or ears.
His soft, expensive-looking turtleneck goes first, ears emerging pink and angry as he bends to get a sock off, then straightens to unbutton his belt, then bends again for the other sock.
I’m still laughing as he clambers in opposite me, hasty but still somehow elegant, his body a beautiful punctuation mark of golden skin and dark hair against the tasteful neutrals of the room, dick and balls swaying heavily between his legs in a yet-unspoken promise.
‘Come here,’ he chokes out, kneeling before me, and then he’s tugging me to him, and I’m gasping as I go to him, straddling him, winding my legs around his waist.
The contrast of hot water and decadent bubbles and his still-cool skin is the most glorious kind of shock: a bodily shock that makes me feel like I’ve been sleepwalking through the past few days since I last felt his skin against mine.
We’re nose to nose like this, his breath warm and soft on my face as we sit, still and awed, taking each other in. I loop my arms around his neck; his hands skitter along my spinal column and brush stray hairs off my jaw.
‘This is the best idea you’ve ever, ever had,’ I say.
‘Mmm. It definitely comes a close second to allowing my brother to throw me a birthday party, that’s for sure.
’ He brushes his lips over mine, reacquainting himself with me now that we’re alone and suspended in our own watery haven, no invasive street noise or members of the public pushing testily past us.
I smile against his mouth at the memory of his party: me with my tits out, his moral outrage and clear conflict.
But there’s no conflict as he kisses me now, as he lets his hands journey over my body, as his dick thickens and jerks against my stomach.
His mouth is soft against mine, his lips supple, his tongue silken.
Quickly though my horniness levels are ramping up, I could stay like this forever, enjoying each other.
He sighs into my mouth before breaking the kiss, letting his head rest against the wide lip of the bath.
His beautiful green eyes dance over my face.
I pull my arms out from behind him so he can lie back properly.
That collarbone of his is so perfect that I trace a wet fingertip along it.
A few inches below it, the dark, soft hairs begin before bubbles steal the rest of him from me.
‘Ivy,’ he says.
My gaze flickers back up to meet his eyes, and what I see in them makes my sinuses burn. It’s some quiet, sad mix of resignation and wonder and God knows what else—a million different things, probably. Just like how I’m feeling.
He brackets my waist with his hands, his strong thumbs rubbing circles into my skin. ‘I want to reiterate: I didn’t bring you here for a booty call. That’s not what this is.’
I smile. Now that we’re here, the concept of a booty call falls so far short of what this is—even if it’s precisely how someone who’s not a part of this moment would define it. ‘I know.’
‘This thing between us is…’
He trails off, his brows pinching together in a frown, and I wonder at the unspoken weight, the danger of all the terms he could deploy like weapons.
Drop like little emotional bombs that might destroy me.
Ill-advised, he may say. Or complicated.
Complicated would definitely fell me. The ultimate cop-out. Or—
But the smile he gives me now as the muscles between his eyes relax is not the smile you use when you’re deploying emotional hand grenades. It just isn’t.
‘I don’t really have words for it,’ he says slowly, carefully, like this bathtub is his confessional and accuracy here really matters, ‘but the closest I’ve managed to get is miraculous.’
I stare at him, my sinuses really bloody fiery now, and my eyes aching with the wells of tears they’re holding.
Miraculous?
‘We shouldn’t make sense,’ he continues. ‘But…’
But we do.
And it feels like a miracle.
‘I feel as though I don’t have to explain it to you,’ he says, releasing my waist with one hand and brushing something I suspect is not a drop of bathwater from my cheek.
I shake my head within the cradle of his palm, blinking furiously. ‘You don’t.’
A miracle is an amazing thing. A gift considered too wonderful to be physically possible.
It changes lives and changes people—for the better.
Xav and I may be ill-advised and complicated—God knows, it’s complicated—but he also believes that this thing we are, we have, is the stuff of miracles, and that’s probably the best gift he can give me.
‘I could never, ever have imagined you.’ He brushes his fingers over my cheek. ‘You’re the stuff of fairytales, honestly. I think about you every second of the day. And I can’t—’
His voice breaks, and I hasten to comfort him, because whichever version of the truth he’s planning on following with, it’s all undeniable.
He can’t.
Full stop.
We don’t exist in this reality, where no part of his future is his to choose and little part of my day-to-day life is ripe for self-indulgence. He has an arranged fiancée, and I have a secret family, and God knows, we both serve equally cruel masters in our own way.
So I say the only thing possible.
‘Right now, you can. Right this minute, you can do whatever the hell you like.’