Chapter 32 Ivy
IVY
Ivy stood close enough to feel his heat, close enough to see the green in his eyes go darker when she lifted her chin and pressed her mouth to his.
His hand hovered a breath from her hip. He waited.
“I am choosing this,” she said. She heard her own voice, steady and sure, and felt it anchor something inside her. “I’m choosing you.”
His touch settled, careful and firm. “Say stop if you want to stop.”
“I will.” She smiled and brushed her lips to his again. “I know you’ll listen.”
“Always.”
He kissed her with that promise still between them, a slow seal, his mouth confident but not greedy.
He tasted like mint and the last sip of black coffee.
His stubble rasped her lip, and she felt the shiver run down her spine.
He moved a fraction closer, chest to chest, and she soaked in the breadth of him, the heat stacked under his shirt, the quiet strength he wore without needing to prove it.
She slid her palms up his chest, over warm muscle and the steady thud of his heart, until her hands cupped his jaw.
He was beautiful in that dangerous way, tousled black hair falling into his eyes, cheekbones cut like he had been carved by shadow, and that mouth that made her forget how to breathe if she let it.
The scent of him curled around her, spiced rum and midnight forest, and her fae senses hummed like they were standing in a grove full of old magic.
“Tell me what you need,” he murmured against her lower lip.
“You,” she said. “On purpose.”
He smiled, small and helpless, and kissed the corner of her mouth like he was thanking her.
They undressed without hurry, making a rhythm of it the way musicians slipped into harmony.
He took her sweater from her shoulders and kissed the bare skin he revealed, a trail under her collarbone that made her toes curl inside her boots.
She tugged his shirt free of his jeans and lifted it, and he raised his arms so she could peel it away.
Candlelight and daylight both seemed to like him, gold over smooth skin and strong lines, a map of heat and restraint she could read with her hands.
When her fingers stilled at his belt, a brief ripple of doubt flickered at the edge of her thoughts. He felt it. He covered her hands with his and paused.
“We can slow down. We can stop.”
“I don’t want to stop. I just…” Her breath shook and she hated that it shook. “I just needed a moment.”
They finished undressing as if each button and zipper had its own small vow tucked inside it.
He stripped her skirt and tights and eased the lace from her hips with his eyes never leaving hers, as if looking away would steal an answer she had not finished giving.
She bared him too, the hard heat of his cock pressing against her palm when she freed him.
His breath hitched. He stood there, proud and unashamed, and let her look, let her learn.
He was thick in her hand, hot and heavy, veins pulsing against her fingers.
He swore softly when she stroked him, a ragged sound she wanted to hear again.
“Careful,” he said, voice rough with humor and need. “I’m trying to go slow.”
“Maybe I like you losing a little control.”
“You and the cat both.”
She laughed against his mouth, and he swallowed the sound with another kiss.
He backed her toward the couch set against the far wall, the one Diana kept in here for late rehearsals and quiet storms. The cushions gave under her, soft and familiar, and she lay back with her hair spilling across the arm like a spill of copper ribbon.
Dorian stood over her for a breath, taking her in, and the reverence in his face undid her more thoroughly than any line of poetry ever had.
“Come here,” she said, because she wanted him close. “Please.”
He knelt and slid his hands along the outside of her thighs, thumbs pressing a patient path up, up, until his fingers hooked behind her knees.
He kissed one knee and then the other, slow and indulgent, and pulled her legs open with a tenderness that made heat race low in her belly.
Her skin tasted like rain and apples, he told her.
He said it like a secret as his mouth found the place where she ached.
The first stroke of his tongue over her pussy was so slow her breath left her in pieces.
He kissed and licked like he had all afternoon to learn her again, the sweep of his tongue broad and warm, then the tip teasing circles that made her hips lift.
“Tell me,” he said against her. “Tell me what feels good.”
“Right there,” she whispered, one hand in his hair, the other gripping the cushion. “More pressure. Not fast. Stay with me.”
He did exactly that. He settled his shoulders under her thighs and kept the pace she wanted, steady and deep, his tongue and two careful fingers working in a pattern he built from her gasps and the way her thighs trembled when he curled just so.
The sounds he made while he ate her were shameless and hungry, little hums and soft groans, and the vibration of his voice against her clit sent a hot shiver up her spine.
“It feels like flying,” she breathed, only it felt safer than flying. It felt like wind and a net both, like a sky that would catch her if she fell.
“Good,” he said, and the word hummed into her. “Then fly.”
He held her there until her body started to climb on its own, until the muscles low in her belly drew tight and electric.
She tried to chase the crest and he steadied her hips with that patient grip.
He was not teasing. He was keeping the promise he had made, the one about showing her the difference between performance and gift.
“Dorian,” she said, helpless. “Please.”
“Give it to me,” he said, simple and sure.
She did. The wave took her and then another followed, and the way he did not stop until she came down again put tears in her eyes.
He gentled her with kisses to the inside of her thigh and the softest stroke of his fingers, then shifted up the couch and gathered her against his chest while she caught her breath.
She kissed him, and the taste of herself on his mouth made her blush. He kissed the blush and smiled into it like it was his favorite wine.
“My turn,” she said, and eased him onto his back.
He let her. His hands slid to her waist but did not guide.
She straddled him and leaned forward to kiss the hollow of his throat, the ridge of his collarbone, the place beneath his ear where his pulse beat strong and calm.
His skin salted her tongue, clean and warm, and she felt the rumble of his panther purr under her palm where it rested over his heart.
She kissed her way down his chest and belly, slow as he had gone for her, and wrapped her hand around his cock.
He was hot and slick at the tip, heavy in her fist. She stroked him and watched his head tip back, eyes closing, lashes casting a dark crescent on his cheek.
When she took him into her mouth, he swore and then bit the inside of his wrist to keep the sound from getting loud.
She smiled around him and hollowed her cheeks, then relaxed and took more.
His hand, when it slid into her hair, did not push.
It cradled. He breathed her name like a prayer.
“Ivy. I won’t last if you keep doing that.”
She lifted, kissed the head, and laughed softly when he swore again. “Then do something about it.”
“You’re going to kill me.”
“Not today.”
He rolled and brought her with him, easy as shifting keys on a piano, and settled between her legs again. He reached down, lined himself up, and paused with the blunt head of his cock at her entrance. His eyes found hers.
“Last chance,” he said, and it was not a warning. It was a gift.
“I want you,” she said. “I want to take you in and keep you there.”
He pushed in, slow and steady, and the stretch burned in the way she craved.
She welcomed it, opened for him, and felt the deep pull of it all the way to her throat.
He groaned when her body tightened around him, a low sound that felt like it was caught between man and cat.
She lifted a leg and hooked her calf behind his hip to take him deeper.
He sank the rest of the way and went still, chest pressed to hers, breath mingling.
“Okay?” he asked, and the care in his voice undid her.
“So good,” she whispered. “You feel so good.”
He drew back and thrust shallow, then deeper, testing what made her gasp, what made her nails dig into his shoulders.
He set a rhythm that built like a song with a long, patient verse, each stroke a line, each inhale a rest. She moved with him, hips meeting his, the couch creaking in a soft counterpoint.
The window showed a slice of sky, pale and clean.
Dust motes drifted in the light, and the whole room felt like a small sanctuary outside of time.
“Talk to me,” he said through a tight jaw. “Tell me what it is.”
“It feels like you’re inside my bones,” she moaned, honest and unglamorous and unafraid. “Like you’re filling in every hollow place.”
He dropped his forehead to hers and groaned. “You’re going to break me.”
“You’ll be fine.”
He changed the angle, tucked a hand under her thigh and lifted, and the new line of his thrust dragged over a spot that made her cry out.
He did it again and again, deeper, harder, inside the bounds they had drawn together.
She reached down and pressed her fingers to her clit, tight circles that matched his rhythm.
The heat climbed fast. He felt it. He reached over and covered her hand with his, the two of them moving as one.
“Come with me,” he said. “I want to feel you take me when you do.”
She shattered on the next stroke, a fierce, bright break that left her sobbing his name.
He held her through it, hips rolling, mouth at her cheek, breath hot and ragged.
He followed her a heartbeat later, buried deep, cock throbbing as he spilled inside her.
His body went hard, then soft, and he whispered thank you into her hair as if she had handed him something he thought he would never be given.
They stayed exactly where they were until their breathing calmed, skin slick, hearts settling.
He eased out of her carefully and pulled her onto his chest, both of them stretched full length on the couch.
Afternoon light warmed her bare shoulder where his fingers traced lazy patterns.
The room held the scent of sex and old wood and the faint echo of the songs that had been played there, and it felt right, like breathing after a too long dive.
This time, when they came together, it was with full knowledge of what they were risking and what they were building. Not the desperate passion of people seeking escape, but the deliberate intimacy of two people choosing to trust each other with their hearts.
“Tomorrow night,” she said quietly, lips brushing his skin, “when I sing myself free, will you be there?”
“If you want me there.”
“I do. Not to protect me or rescue me if things go wrong, but to witness my choice. To see me take my life back.”
“It would be my honor.”
“Good.” She pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. “Because after I break Sebastian’s bindings, I want to celebrate with someone who understands what that freedom means.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means I get to choose what comes next. And I am thinking I would like to choose you.”