32. Ivy
Chapter 32
Ivy
I walk across the stone path leading to the auditorium, feeling like a shell of my former self.
The moon is clear and high in the sky, beaming down on the arched rooftops of the buildings around me. The clouds gather around like warships hungry for the taste of blood.
Everything feels like it’s on edge. Just like me.
I remember when I first started here at Raventhorn and met Thorne.
I was so freaked out by him, but that was also because he mesmerized me, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.
We’ve been on this roller coaster of a relationship with all sorts of things thrown at us, and now that he’s out of the picture I feel lost.
Lost like I was before I got here and met him.
This has been such a difficult week.
Of course, Tiffany broadcasted the news of her upcoming engagement to Thorne. The whole campus knew from day one and everywhere I went people were looking at me. Some were laughing, some gave me looks of sympathy, some just stared at me.
I’ve had to sit through various social gatherings with Tiffany and her minions sniggering behind my back.
I guess that was the price I paid for being foolish and dropping evidence of who I was in the tunnel for him to find.
But more than anything, my accident was the price I paid for falling for Thorne Ivanov.
I never knew that when my mother told me to avoid anyone with the surname Ivanov, I was going to fall for one.
Surprisingly, although it feels like the world knows about Thorne and me, Mom and Levgen are none the wiser. The only times when I had to hide my relationship from them was when they were physically here, and the few times when Mom called and Thorne was with me.
I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.
The only thing I should be worried about now is the whole situation with the scar-faced man. When it comes to that, I have nothing. Just Thorne. And I haven’t seen him since I walked out of his apartment on Monday morning.
It’s not something I can leave alone, but it’s going to be hurtful to see him and not have him touch me or kiss me.
It’s going to be hurtful knowing he’s not mine anymore.
Pushing aside my sorrow, I enter the auditorium using the side entrance. The dim automatic lights are already on in the main section, so I assume the janitor must be here.
Oftentimes when I come by at this hour, it’s just me. The place is usually silent and dark until I start playing my music.
I walk down the little hallway when, suddenly, the melodious music of my composition comes to life, playing all around me.
Someone is playing my music on the piano.
My actual composition.
I rush down the hall and into the main section of the auditorium where the grand piano sits on the elaborate stage. Behind it is Thorne, playing my music as if he composed it himself.
I stop short, staring in shock as he plays each note with elegance, grace and confidence. As if he’s played my song every minute of every hour of the day.
The shock consumes me, warming my heart.
He told me it was over ten years ago that he last played and that he found it hard because it reminded him of his losses.
Hearing him play now for me lifts my soul.
Thorne looks across and stares at me with a deep fervency that makes me feel alive again.
I continue my pursuit toward him, taking the little steps that lead up to the stage.
He finishes off the piece and his fingers linger on the keys of the piano before he looks at me again.
“You’re here.” I speak in a whisper-soft voice.
“Yes, Bambi. I’m here.”
I went through moments this past week when I would have given anything to hear him call me Bambi.
“And you know my song like you practiced it.”
“That’s what comes from hours of stalking you.”
A shiver of heat rushes over me. You’re not supposed to get turned on by hearing that someone stalked you, but this guy is the antithesis to every rule.
The normal rules of society don’t apply to him.
“You were here, watching me.” I speak the words more to myself than as a question to him.
“I was here.”
“And you’re here now. Should I be worried?” The dark thought crosses my mind that he could be here about my secret.
Thorne gets up, walks over to me, and touches my face. “Your secret dies with me.” He lifts my chin and holds my gaze, staring into my eyes as if he wants me to see into his soul and know my secrets are safe with him.
“Really?”
“Yes. I’m here to get my girlfriend back.” Thorne gives me a brief smile while I stare up at him and not quite believing I heard him right.
“Your girlfriend?”
“My girlfriend. I foolishly made her believe I didn’t choose her when I did. I was just conflicted. You will always come first in my life.”
“But your company?—”
“No. You. Just you. Only you. I love you.”
My heart stops beating for a few seconds and my mind stills, trying to take in the magical words he just spoke.
“I love you, Annika.” Thorne speaks again with more conviction in his tone, calling me by my real name. The smile that always mesmerizes me dances across his face.
“I love you, too.” The words are so easy to say. There’s no confusion, no worries, no fear. Just love. Pure love.
His smile brightens. “Then forgive me. Forgive me for making you feel that you aren’t everything to me.”
I answer him with a kiss and when he kisses me back, I feel like I’m home.
Thorne pulls me closer, slipping his hand behind my head to deepen the kiss. Then he picks me up and sets me on top of the piano.
The malice that lights up in his eyes as he rolls my skirt up to my hips tells me he’s back to his usual sexiness. And I’m about to get reacquainted with him.
“I missed this pussy.” He bends and buries his face between my thighs, moving aside my panties so he can suck on my pussy lips.
My breath is already going short, seizing in my lungs from the pleasure.
“And the taste of you.” He lifts his head, stares at me, and licks his lips as if I really am delicious to him.
The sight of him savoring me builds that desire low in my core.
“Thorne—”
“Shhhh. Feel this, little deer.” He licks me again, then sucks hard on my clit, pulling pleasure through my body right down to the tips of my toes.
I moan out loud and my voice carries around the hall, echoing off the walls.
Thank God it’s just the two of us in here, because everyone would hear me.
He sucks my clit then slides two fingers into my slick, wet opening to finger-fuck me.
Mindless moans fall from my lips and I come on his fingers. “Oh my God…”
“That’s my girl.”
He takes off my panties, then he shoves his pants down his hips, unleashing his cock.
Seconds later he’s inside me.
God, I missed this.
I missed us.
Thorne pushes inside and I wrap my legs around his hips, locking him against me.
We both groan, then he smiles down at me and starts to fuck me.
Pleasure shatters my body. I’m already so sensitive, but my body soaks up what he gives me as if I didn’t just orgasm.
Heat races across my skin and I can feel the pleasure building again.
I moan from the intensity, pressing my heels into his ass as he pounds harder into me.
“I’m going to fuck you harder, baby,” he whispers over my skin, then he makes good on his word and I lose myself.
We keep going just like this for the rest of the night, taking our passion from the auditorium to his place.
We miss the next day of class, then time fizzles out and I lose track of the days as we make up for lost time.
I once heard of a crazy story about a couple who fucked each other to death.
I never believed that such a thing was possible until Thorne Ivanov.
Suddenly, it's Wednesday. Because the emails and text messages started flowing in asking where we were, we had to tear ourselves away from each other to get back to the real world.
It felt like stepping back into an alternate reality. The one good thing about it was that the campus now knew we were back together and Thorne wasn’t marrying Tiffany.
The effect of that news was vastly more satisfying for me than for Tiffany when the campus thought she was going to be with Thorne.
Isabelle told me that Tiffany was so embarrassed she’s retreated to Switzerland for the next two weeks.
Thorne and I meet up again for dinner. We’re sitting in a booth in a quiet area of the Italian restaurant on campus. We’re enjoying pizza, but we’re also talking business.
There’ve been some new developments with Thorne’s search for the scar-faced man. He’d previously told me his findings on the mercenary group called the Hand, and before we got back together, he’d been talking to a few people.
He leans on the table and plays with the end of his fork. “I found two reports with the same MO as the crimes we saw, where witnesses state they heard the killers chanting some foreign words.”
“When did these incidents happen?”
“Over the last five years, and the witnesses all died mysterious deaths. One of them disappeared for three years, and their body was found in a river.”
Chills rush down my spine. I’m aware that what we’re delving into is dangerous. The kind of dangerous you leave alone.
“You will be careful, Thorne. Won’t you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. You know as a Knight, I’m not exactly like most guys my age.”
Because he was trained to kill.
“I know. Still, I worry.”
“I’ll be careful. Providing I’m on the right track with the mercenary group, the next step would be to find out who hired them.”
I bring my hands together. They’re sweating from nerves. This is my least favorite subject, but it’s something we need to discuss. “That sounds like it might be incredibly difficult.”
“It will be, but even if I only find one person they’ve worked with in the past, that might give me more leads.” Thorne sounds optimistic. I’m using that to encourage myself. “Someone would have referred them. I just have to take things back as far as I can and hope that I get the answers we need.”
“Do you think we’ll really get them?”
“I have to believe we will. This is a lot further than I’ve ever gotten but I have to bear in mind that this is a new direction. It will present its own obstacles. I’m waiting to hear back from one of my sources.”
I press my lips and my thumbs together at the same time. “I keep thinking about my father at the Hallows.” I feel like I can talk a little more freely about my father now that the scar-faced man is in the picture.
Thorne reaches across the table and touches my cheek, his eyes softening. “I promise I will do everything I can to find this guy. I hope finding him will exonerate your father.”
Moisture gathers in my eyes. “You sound like you believe he had nothing to do with your family’s deaths.”
“Yes. I don’t believe he had a part in that.” He nods slowly, and my heart soars.
For years I waited to hear those words. The person who could have said them to me was Mom, but she wouldn’t even entertain any other truth but the one she was told.
“Thank you. That means a lot, Thorne.”
“I know.”
How strange that I was to stay away from anyone with the Ivanov surname, but I met the one who mattered most. He ended up believing me to the point where he’s willing to help me.
“Come on, let’s go back to my place. I need you again.”
I smile back at him, looking forward to spending the night with him.
“I’m just gonna wash my pizza hands and I’ll be right with you.”
“Hurry back.” He gives me a quick kiss before I get up.
I head to the ladies' restroom and wash my hands.
I thought I was alone in here, so when I hear a rustling sound at the end of the cubicle it makes me jump.
God, I’m so paranoid. I need to get ahold of myself. I’m in the bathroom, so there’s nothing to worry about. I walk down the mirrored aisle to dry my hands and check my hair.
I look down at the dryer and wave my hands under it to activate it, then I look back in the mirror. And my lungs seize when I see a man standing in the far corner behind me. A closer look causes my body to turn to ice when I realize it’s the scar-faced man staring back at me.
He smiles, and it’s the most gruesome sight.
I'm momentarily frozen, but I’m compelled to turn around and check that what I’m seeing is real.
In the split second it takes for me to turn my head and look, he's gone.
Literally gone. Like I imagined him being there.
But I know I didn’t.
I saw him. And he saw me.
Oh my God … he knows me.