Chapter 9
Ivy
Morning light hit my cabin like a confession—brutal and unapologetic. It poured through the uncovered windows, spotlighting every sin from last night in unforgiving gold.
I groaned and threw an arm over my eyes. Too bright. Too real. Too damn soon to face the fact that I’d lost my mind in the barn.
No. We’d lost our minds.
I’d kissed Wyatt. Or maybe he’d kissed me.
Didn’t matter—once it started, there was no telling where one of us ended and the other began.
We’d devoured each other like starving people at a feast—years of anger and want and heartbreak boiling over into something that felt like combustion.
Rain hammering the roof, thunder shaking the walls, his mouth rough and hungry against mine.
My lips still throbbed, tender reminders of every reckless second. My body still ached in that sweet, sore way that said I’d been thoroughly claimed, even if it wasn’t supposed to mean a damn thing.
I could still taste him—rain, whiskey, and that wild, dangerous something that was purely Wyatt Blackwood. The smell of hay and heat clung to my skin like a secret I couldn’t wash off.
“Stop it,” I muttered, glaring at my reflection as I brushed my teeth for the third time. “It meant nothing. He said so himself.”
My reflection wasn’t buying it.
I spat, rinsed, and leaned closer to the mirror. My hair was a wreck, my mouth still swollen, my neck sporting the faintest hint of a hickey that absolutely did not exist because I was not that woman anymore.
“Jesus,” I whispered. “One storm, and you forget every boundary you ever built.”
But God, the way he’d looked at me right before it happened—eyes dark, jaw tight, like he’d been fighting it just as hard as I had.
The way his voice had gone low and rough when he’d said my name.
The way his hands had shaken when they found my skin, like he hated himself for wanting me but couldn’t stop.
I gripped the edge of the sink, breath catching all over again.
“Get it together, Ivy.” I straightened, forcing a steady inhale. “You are a professional woman with a PhD, a reputation, and exactly zero business thinking about a cowboy’s mouth before breakfast.”
Still, my reflection’s lips curved—the tiniest, traitorous smile.
“Fuck.” I closed my eyes and let my head drop against the mirror. “I am so screwed.”
I threw myself into work with the kind of manic energy that had gotten me to the top of my field.
If I couldn't control my traitorous body's response to Wyatt Blackwood, I could at least control the data.
Numbers didn't lie. Charts didn't fuck you senseless, then agree it meant nothing.
Spreadsheets didn't make your knees weak with just a look.
The lab was my sanctuary. I spent the morning recording calf health metrics, entering weeks of backlogged data into the system, creating algorithms that could predict optimal breeding windows down to the hour.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, building something concrete and quantifiable from the chaos of genetics and chance.
I was in the middle of prepping semen samples for analysis when my phone buzzed across the counter. Mark’s name lit up the screen.
Missing you. How’s the cowboy consultation going?
I froze, scalpel in hand, staring at the message like it might morph into something else if I looked long enough.
Seriously?
We’d had the breakup conversation before I left Dallas—I’d said the words clearly, calmly, like an adult. This isn’t working. I’m sorry. But apparently, Mark’s ego had better noise-cancelling than my AirPods.
Another buzz.
Hello? Earth to Ivy?
I huffed out a humorless laugh. The timing was cosmic. Less than twelve hours after letting Wyatt Blackwood push me up against a barn wall, my ex was texting like we were still scheduling dinner reservations.
Guilt twisted in my stomach, sharp but fleeting. I hadn’t thought about Mark once since I left him in my apartment. Not once. And now, looking at his name on my phone, all I could feel was… nothing.
No spark. No ache. Just distance.
I should respond. Something polite, detached. Maybe remind him that we broke up, remember? But the words wouldn’t come.
Because I wasn’t the woman who’d left Dallas anymore—pressed, polished, perfectly in control. That version of me wouldn’t recognize the woman standing here now, heart still bruised from last night’s storm and the taste of Wyatt’s mouth haunting every breath.
Instead, I turned the phone face down and went back to my samples.
By lunch, I'd analyzed genetic markers for thirty head of cattle and identified three potential champion bloodlines. I'd also successfully avoided anywhere Wyatt might be, timing my movements around his schedule like we were opposing magnets.
"You can't hide in here forever," Maggie said from the doorway, making me jump and nearly drop a vial of very expensive hormone solution.
"I'm not hiding. I'm working."
"Uh-huh." She came closer and perched on the edge of my makeshift desk. "Is that why you've been in here for four hours straight without a break?"
"The program needs—"
"The program needs you not to have a breakdown in the middle of our breeding barn." Her voice was gentle but firm. "Mom sent lunch."
She produced a basket that smelled like fried chicken and heaven. My stomach growled, betraying me.
"Come on," Maggie said. "We'll eat on the porch. Like old times."
Except old times hadn't included this awkwardness between us, this careful distance where easy friendship used to be. But I followed her anyway, because Louisa's fried chicken could probably broker world peace if given the chance.
We settled on the main house's porch, the basket between us revealing not just chicken but potato salad, coleslaw, and what looked like apple pie.
"Your mom still cooks like she's feeding an army," I said.
"Some habits die hard." Maggie handed me a plate. "So. Want to talk about whatever has you hiding in the lab like a teenager avoiding her parents?"
"Nothing to talk about."
"Right. And Wyatt storming around like a bear with a sore paw all morning is also nothing."
Heat flooded my cheeks. "I don't know what you mean."
“What she’s trying to say is, are you two fightin' or flirtin'?" Louisa's voice came from behind us, making me nearly choke on my sweet tea. She settled into the rocking chair beside us with her own plate, eyes twinkling with mischief. "Hard to tell with you two. Always was."
"We're not—" I started. "Neither," I said firmly. "We're maintaining a professional relationship.”
Louisa and Maggie exchanged a look that said they weren't buying it for a second.
"Professional," Louisa repeated, drawing out the word like she was tasting it. "Is that what we're calling hickeys now?"
I slapped a hand over my neck, mortified, while they giggled. But before I could respond, a commotion from the north paddock caught our attention. Dust was rising in clouds, and I could hear whooping and hollering.
"Oh!" Maggie sat up straighter, grinning. "It's breaking day. They're bringing in the wild horses."
"Breaking day?" I echoed, though I remembered now. Once a season, they brought in the half-wild horses from the far pastures—young ones that needed training, older ones that needed refreshing.
"Come on," Maggie said, already standing. "You can't miss this. It's better than any rodeo."
Against my better judgment, I followed them toward the arena. As we got closer, I could see the organized chaos—ranch hands on horseback herding a group of horses through the gates, dust swirling, everyone working in practiced synchronization.
Clay was in the thick of it, of course, standing on the fence and calling out directions with the easy authority of someone who'd done this a hundred times.
Hunter was manning the gates, his quiet competence a counterpoint to Clay's showmanship.
Liam sat on his horse like he was born to it, helping guide the stragglers.
And Wyatt.
God help me, Wyatt was magnificent.
He rode Tempest with the kind of movement that spoke of absolute control and trust between man and horse. His hat was pulled low, shirt already dusty and clinging with sweat, and when he swung his rope to separate a particularly stubborn mare from the group, it was poetry in motion.
The moment he rode into the clearing, something low and primal uncoiled in me. A tightening. A pulse. A full-body remembering.
His hand tightened on the reins, and my scalp tingled from the phantom feeling of that hand pulling my hair. That sharp, delicious sting that shot straight down my spine as he yanked my head back and crushed his mouth to mine.
His thighs gripped the horse, and heat flared between my legs at the memory of the force of those same thighs shoving mine apart. The unyielding strength of him pinning me wide against rough boards, the scrape of wood biting into my skin.
His hips moved slow and controlled in the saddle, and my chest squeezed, remembering the brutal rhythm of his cock driving into me. Each thrust that pressed me harder into the wall, vibration rattling up my spine, breath knocked clean out of my lungs.
And then the worst part—the most visceral part—that slammed into me so hard my knees nearly buckled where I stood: the way my whole body clenched around him—tight, sudden, involuntary—and the way his entire frame jolted in response, as if he felt it everywhere, like the moment I shattered pulled him right over the edge with me.
Wyatt still rode forward, calm, oblivious, the picture of control, while I stood there, heart pounding, thighs pressing together, body remembering every violent, sensual, unstoppable second of being pinned to that wall by the only man who’s ever undone me.
A memory shouldn’t feel that real. Touch shouldn’t echo like that.
But God… it did.
Everywhere.
“Close your mouth, honey,” Louisa murmured beside me, amusement laced through her drawl. “You’re catchin’ flies—and probably every cowboy’s attention this side of the fence.”