Chapter 42
Ivy
There may be nothing left to say; still, we talk for another hour or two.
It seems we’re greedy for every detail about each other, desperate to hoard every tiny, golden tile so that the mosaic we each walk away with is every bit as complete and as splendid as the ones adorning the Basilica San Marco.
‘There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you about,’ Xav says eventually. ‘It might ruin the evening—mine and yours—but I can’t not know. It’s been driving me crazy, and I thought if you were willing to share some of it with me, I might be able to make peace with it.’
I have a hunch as to what this is about. ‘Go on, babe.’
‘Alchemy.’ He presses his lips into a flat, unimpressed line before continuing. ‘I know I judged you for it in the beginning, and I’ll always regret that, but still. Why did you do it—how did you do it?’
‘So I went there with a date,’ I begin. ‘This finance guy took me along—he was a member—and I thought it was so cool. I got chatting to Gen that night, and she gave me a full-on sales pitch. She sold it to me, really: the glamour, the money, the security aspect. I could tell it was a classy operation. But basically, I couldn’t say no to the money.
Dawn was getting worse every week, it felt like, and I didn’t have a clue what our future looked like.
All I knew was that I needed to pull some serious cash together, and it was the only vaguely legal thing I could think of that would do it. ’
‘And you started? Just like that? Weren’t you terrified?’
He looks stricken. Horrified, even. Bless him. I know how hard he’s trying not to clutch his pearls right now.
‘I told you that first night, I really like sex. And I’d already been there as a guest. So I did my training and rocked up and just treated it like, let’s go get laid.’
I think Xav might actually be having a cardiac event. ‘And you didn’t mind? You just let any fucking guy do whatever the fuck they wanted to you?’
‘No,’ I say cautiously, as if I’m talking to a toddler who might melt down at any moment, ‘only the ones I found remotely attractive. But the standard there is pretty high, let me tell you. It’s an amazing place to go if you want to get laid. No wonder your brother loves it so much.’
He ignores my mention of Benedict. ‘So talk me through it. A guy likes the look of you, he comes over and, what, asks you if he can fuck you?’
‘Is this seriously what you want to talk about on our last night together?’ I ask. I haven’t missed the fact that he’s been hardening, his dick pressing against my lower stomach area. He may be torturing himself, but some part of him is getting off on the idea of me at Alchemy. Who’d have thought?
‘No.’ His face crumples. ‘But it’s been tearing me apart, wondering and wondering. And I’ll never get another chance to ask, will I? I know how fucked up it is.’
‘It is fucked up,’ I say gently. ‘But I spend far too much time wondering how you’ll fuck your wife, so I guess we’re even.’
‘Jesus.’
‘What? It’s the truth. And the worst thing is, all my Alchemy shit is in the past, and your marriage is in the future. And I have to live with that.’
‘I have to live with that, too,’ he whispers bleakly.
This is pointless. We’re going round and round in circles, and we’re going to spend the whole of our last night in utter misery.
I roll away from him and onto my back. ‘Stand up.’
He stares over at me. ‘What?’
‘Stand up. You want to know how it works at Alchemy? Stand up and let me show you.’
He’s still looking at me like I’m insane, but he does as I say, clambering off the bed and standing, arms folded and dick now fully standing to attention. The sight of him, naked and golden-skinned and dark-haired, is one I’ll take to my grave, I swear it.
‘You’re at Alchemy,’ I say, stretching luxuriously and crossing my hands behind my head, ‘and you’ve just told me that you want to play. You’ve taken me to a private room, and here I am. So what are you going to do with me?’
I slide my feet up so my legs are bent, the beautiful cotton cool beneath my soles.
He doesn’t answer me. Instead he asks, ‘Do you miss it?’
‘When you fuck me like you mean it, I don’t have to miss it, do I? Quality over quantity. So you’d better make this count.’
The expression on his face tells me he’s taking this less as a challenge than a personal affront. ‘Open your legs.’
Bingo. I smile and let them drop languorously open.
He saunters around to the end of the bed so he can get a better view, his nakedness doing nothing to undermine his natural air of authority, his belief that this is his birthright.
He’s so fucking gorgeous.
‘If you were a punter at Alchemy, I’d be begging you to fuck me,’ I say with a gasp, watching him take me in.
‘And if I wasn’t?’
‘I’ll still be begging.’
‘So I see. Looks quite needy down there. Do you need to get off?’
Desire is such a powerful anaesthesia. The angst, the heartbreak, are ebbing away as a more primitive, urgent need takes over: the need to have Xav obliterate everything that’s not his body inside mine.
‘Badly.’
‘Hmm.’ He puts a knee on the bed and crouches down, his fingers flickering between my legs. I gasp loudly. It’s enough sensation to tease but not nearly enough for anything else. ‘Where can I touch you?’
‘Anywhere, I swear.’
‘Anywhere? Here?’ His fingers ghost further back, brushing my back entrance. (I mean, a lot of people would technically see it as an exit, but I’m not a lot of people.)
‘Yeah. Of course.’ I don’t elaborate. I’m not sure he needs the full lowdown on the amount of action my arsehole has had at Alchemy from guys who probably didn’t deserve it.
He blows out an unsteady breath and moves so he’s crouching over me fully.
I gaze up at him, revelling in the delicious joy of this moment: of being caged in by him, spread out for him.
His eyes are forest-green rings, his pupils blown wide as if my body is his drug of choice.
His gaze sweeps over my taut, aching nipples.
‘I could happily spend the rest of my life like this,’ he says. The look in his eyes threatens to finish me off.
‘You don’t get the rest of your life, I’m afraid, sir. But you do get me for the night.’ It’s as true of our little Alchemy game as it of our real-life situation.
‘Like you said.’ He lowers his face to my chest and flicks my nipple with his tongue. ‘Better make it count, then.’
He takes my nipple into his mouth and sucks hard, his pulls sending a cascade of pleasure through all my nerve endings.
The sight of his dark head bent as he enjoys me threatens to unleash a similar cascade on my emotions, so I force myself to focus purely on the sensation.
Bracing on one arm, he slides the other between our bodies and finds my pussy again.
Based on how easily his fingers glide through my flesh, I’m shamefully soaked already.
But I’ve never let shame dictate any of my actions in bed, and I’m not about to start now.
‘Harder,’ I say in reference to both his mouth and his fingers. I don’t want gentlemanly, lovelorn Xavier tonight. I want the guy who bent me over and railed me up against the pillar of his four-poster bed, the guy who’s far more like his brutish ancestors than he’d ever care to admit.
‘Greedy.’ The word vibrates against my skin. ‘I like that.’
I’m not the only one. The laps of his tongue grow more fevered as he alternates between my breasts, the brushstrokes of his fingers against the soaking canvas of my pussy heavier, more skilful.
I reach between us and wrap my hand around his dick, and he groans, lifting his face as if finding my mouth is the only way he can survive this.
We kiss, working each other with our hands as our tongues dance to a tune only we know.
My cheeks grow wet, but they’re not my tears.
They’re his.
‘Roll over,’ he says in the throaty voice of a man desperate to salvage this situation before we both fall foul of our emotions.
I look into those anguished eyes of his once more, and then I do.
He rears back up and hauls me up onto my knees, pushing them apart with his leg as I press my face into the pillow.
‘I bet you taste like a fucking miracle,’ he rasps from behind me. ‘You look like you do.’
His fingers find my pussy once more, but then his face is down there, too, his nose nudging at that hole further back as his tongue slices cleanly over my clit, and oh my God—how does he do it like that? How? How does he know exactly what I need?
He works me until I’m pulsing everywhere. ‘I don’t want to stop,’ he grumbles against my clit, ‘but I need to fuck you before I come all over these sheets. God, you taste like nothing else I’ve ever known. Fuck.’
‘Fuck me,’ I beg. The more turned on he makes me, the more desperately I need him to fill me up.
‘I will, sweetheart, I will.’
As he pulls away, I get myself up onto my hands. I want to be able to twist my head and kiss him as he rails me, even if face-to-face fucking is too much for both our hearts.
It’s not the last time, I tell myself as he strokes my bottom with infinite care and notches his wide crown at my entrance. I have to close my mouth so I don’t drool. The chances of us not having slow, sleepy morning sex are zero.
It’s not the last time.
It can’t be.
He pushes in with a sound of pure anguish, and I jolt at the intrusion. It’s so deep like this, and our fit is so perfect. I can’t bear it. I want this to last as long as physically possible, but we’re both pretty far gone.
‘Pull me up,’ I say, and he bands one strong arm around my waist, tugging me until I’m in a high kneeling position, my legs bracketing his, my shoulder blades coming to rest against his pecs as his dick holds us in place.
‘The most beautiful woman in the world,’ he says, dipping his head to kiss my neck, and I tilt my head to give him more access.
He slides his other hand around to stroke my breasts, toying with my nipples until I’m gasping.
We can’t fuck like this, not really, and I can’t see his face, but it’s both intimate and exposing, the way I’m plastered to his front.
The hand around my tummy slides south until he’s sinking his fingers between my legs and stroking my pussy again.
I let out a moan at the sheer pleasure of it.
‘Ivy, Ivy, Ivy,’ he croons, kissing along my neck, my jaw. ‘Your parents couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate name, could they?’ He circles my clit far too lightly. ‘You’ve wrapped your tendrils around my heart, and I’ll never, ever be free of you. I hope you know that.’
‘Ivy is a dangerous parasite,’ I gasp, and he chuckles without mirth.
‘You think I don’t know that? But this one is as sweet as honeysuckle.’ He presses the most tender kiss to my cheek before whispering, so quietly it’s almost unintelligible, ‘I never stood a chance.’
With that, he releases me, and I lower myself down, bracing on my hands and eyeing the velvet-padded headboard warily. I’d put money on him being able to rail me right into it.
He begins to move, and I can tell he means business: smooth, powerful thrusts that hit the spot every single time.
His fingers dig into my hips, holding me in place as he pounds me.
The ache in my core spreads from my inner walls all the way through my pelvis.
It feels like my womb is getting ready to contract.
The sensation is so powerful, it leaves me breathless.
I’m taking every hit he gives me, urging on my orgasm like the greedy little thing that I am even as I try to hold tight to every second of this, to wrap each moment up in tissue and preserve it forever in a box of memories.
He’s got it wrong, I think, as the blunt force of my orgasm hits me in a head-on collision of a magnitude my body can barely process. My tendrils are useless. I’m a disgrace to my name.
I couldn’t hold on to him at all.