Chapter 8 #2
Ivy looked up at me, breathing hard. The fire in her eyes had dulled just slightly. “Not as much as I hate myself.”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t about to make her feel better for what she’d done to me.
To us. If she hated herself, then good. Instead, I spun her around abruptly, hands digging into the swell of her hips.
Her body had changed in these fourteen years.
Still lean, but fuller. More to grab, more to worship. And God, did I ever.
She still fit perfectly against me. As if my body had changed to hold hers.
Her head fell back against my chest, eyes blissfully shut. I kissed along her neck. She was warm against my tongue, pulse thumping just as hard as mine. She tasted like rain and regret and everything I’d been dreaming of while we were apart.
I hated it and loved it in equal measure.
“Wyatt,” she moaned when I palmed her breasts. They were perfect handfuls. Then again, Ivy had never been anything short of perfection. She pushed her ass out, needy, grinding against my cock. The friction had me sucking in a sharp breath.
“You want this, Ivygirl?” The nickname felt foreign on my tongue, yet it also felt like the only word I was ever meant to speak. I couldn’t stop my smile when I felt the shudder roll through her body, heard the hitch in her breath.
Her hands landed on mine, shoving them down her body I’d spent days forcing myself not to think about. “Yes,” she whimpered.
I was already tugging on her belt before she could finish speaking.
The leather was stiff. New. Just another reminder that she left me.
That she didn’t quite fit here anymore. Another wave of anger blazed through me, mixing with the need to remind her just how good we were.
How good we could’ve been if she had stayed.
My lips grazed the shell of her ear when I whispered, “Then beg.”
Her moan was low, desperate. Her belt hit the ground with a clink, deafening over the storm raging outside. “Please,” she whined. “Please, Wyatt. I need it.”
I popped the button on her jeans, ripped at the zipper. “Need what?” My voice was hoarse. Gruff in a way only she could bring out. She could probably feel the hammering of my heart against her back, feel the way my dick was about to tear through my jeans with how hard I was.
“You. I need you.”
The words hit me square in the chest, right in my broken heart that only beat for her.
Her hold on me was ironclad. Resolute. Permanent.
I fucking despised it. I wanted to be rid of it, but I didn’t know what I’d do—who I’d be—with that kind of freedom.
I knew deep down I didn’t want it. And that’s what pissed me off the most.
I yanked her jeans down her thighs. She had on lace panties. Expensive and silky. Nothing like the simple ones she wore when she was mine.
I tore them clean off.
She gasped, bracing against the wall from the rough movement.
The curve of her ass was highlighted by the dim barn lights, and flashes of her bathed in moonlight in the bed of my truck ran through my mind like a freight train.
That last time when we swore forever, and yet the whole time she knew she was leaving.
“You sure you want this?” I asked one more time, breathless, tearing at my zipper. “Don’t have it in me to be gentle with you.”
“I don’t break easy,” she replied, bending over more. And damn her if that didn’t make me want her more. The sight of her bent over sent my blood roaring, sent any logic I had remaining out the window.
I stroked my cock once, stepping up to her. Her breath caught when I notched myself at her entrance. She was soaked, and I couldn’t wait a second longer.
I surged forward, filling her in one swift thrust. She cried out at the roughness of it, hands curling against the wall.
“Fuck, Ivy,” I groaned, not giving her a second to adjust. I couldn’t. I needed more. Needed everything I could get before reality came crashing back in. My hands landed on her shoulder and hip, holding her still while I drilled into her. “Feel just as good as I remember.”
“More,” she demanded, voice high-pitched and needy. She rocked back against me, meeting thrust for thrust. She was wild, desperate. Unlike anything I’d ever experienced with her.
This wasn’t like before. This was raw, primal, brutal. A battle of heartbreak and anger and lost dreams. I poured it all into her, and she threw her own right back at me just as hard.
I leaned over her, wrapping a hand around her waist, bracing the other beside hers on the wall. Next thing I knew, her hand was on top of mine, locking our fingers. “You’re gonna make me come,” she panted.
I buried my face in the crook of her neck, kissing, sucking, biting at her. Her scent infiltrated my lungs. I felt crazed, unhinged. My body was working so hard I thought it’d give out any second. She was so tight, so wet and perfect, I thought I’d die right here and now.
“Give it to me, Ivygirl,” I demanded, through heavy breaths, nearly there myself. “Give me what’s mine.”
She came hard. My name on her lips like a prayer. Her pussy fluttered around my cock, gripping like a vice. I slammed into her, driving as deep as I could while I came, fingers digging into her side to hold her as if she would vanish any second.
When it was over, when the haze finally cleared enough for rational thought, we stood there staring at each other. Her hair was wrecked, her lips swollen, her clothes completely disheveled. I probably looked just as destroyed. I felt it, that’s for damn sure.
She buttoned her jeans with shaking fingers, not meeting my eyes. "This means nothing."
"Damn right it doesn't," I agreed, even though everything in me screamed that it meant everything. Like hell would I let her know that, though. I’d learned my lesson being vulnerable with Ivy Garrison.
"This doesn't change anything. The schedule stays as I designed it."
"Like hell it does."
Her eyes snapped to mine, and for a second, I thought we might go another round—fighting or otherwise. Either way, I was ready. Then she straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and became the polished professional again.
"You don't get to do this again," she said, her voice steady now but her eyes still wild. "We're not those kids anymore. I'm here to do a job. That's all."
She walked out into the downpour without another word, leaving me standing there with the taste of her on my lips and the feel of her branded into my skin.
I dropped my forehead against the stall door, breathing hard. My open palm slammed down against the wall beside my head. “Fuck!”
The word ripped out of me, echoing off the metal walls. The heifer in the chute flicked an ear and stared like I’d interrupted her nap.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I ground out, pacing a few steps before bracing my hands on the rail.
My pulse was still hammering, my skin still hot where she’d touched me, and I hated it—hated how fast all that control I’d built over the years could just shatter with one look, one smart comment, one goddamn breath of her scent.
I squeezed my eyes shut, jaw tight. I wasn’t that kid anymore. I wasn’t the fool who built a house for a dream that walked away. But tell that to my body—every muscle still keyed up, like it hadn’t gotten the memo she wasn’t mine anymore.
Thunder cracked outside, close enough to shake the rafters. The storm raged on outside, but it was nothing compared to what was raging in my chest. Because now I knew the truth—time hadn't diminished anything between us. If anything, it had only made it more explosive.
And that was the most dangerous thing of all.