Chapter 18
Ivy
“Morning!” Punk bounces down the steps of the sunken fire pit lounge. It’s my second favorite area of the house. Surrounded by cushions and overgrown plants.
Punk starts yapping off about whatever carnage she’s planned for tonight, but my mind keeps drifting back to last night. I swear I can smell him everywhere. On my skin, in my hair—in my soul.
I force myself to focus on Punk's mouth moving, but then Asher drops into the chair directly across from me. The air shifts. Thickens. My pulse hammers against the bruises his mouth left on my throat. I swear I can still feel them.
He doesn't speak. Doesn't need to. Just spreads his legs wide and watches me with those blue eyes that saw me shatter four times last night. Five, if you count what he did with his tongue after he thought I'd fallen asleep on him.
“You good?” Punk's voice cuts through the haze.
“Perfect.” The word comes out raw. Asher's mouth twitches.
He reaches for his coffee, and I catch the angry red scratches I carved down his forearms when his hips held me down with enough force I almost split open. When he made me beg for things I'd kill anyone else for suggesting.
You're mine, Venom.
Now he sits there, civilized in his designer shirt, playing fiancé and friend while my thighs ache from the bruises his fingers left. While I can still feel the ghost of his hand around my throat, cutting off my air at the exact moment I—
“Punk’s bringing people tonight.” Parker's voice slices through the memory. His hands land on my shoulders, and every muscle in my body locks.
Asher's expression doesn't change, but something lethal flashes behind his eyes. He takes a slow sip of coffee, tracking Parker's fingers on my skin. The same fingers that'll never touch me the way Asher's did. The way they will again.
Because that's the thing about last night. It wasn't enough. Not even close. He opened something in me, something hungry and vicious that recognizes its match in him.
Parker's grip tightens, possessive in all the wrong ways. “You'll play nice, won't you, baby?”
I meet Asher's stare over the rim of my mug. His tongue traces his bottom lip—the one I bit enough to draw blood—and I know he's remembering how I looked under him. How I sounded when he fisted my hair and made me take everything.
“I always do,” I say, but I'm not talking to Parker.
I force a smile up at Punk, both hands wrapped around my mug like it might protect me from whatever disaster is about to pop off this morning. This is robotic. From the outside, I seem engaged. Nodding, a few mmhmm’s and aha’s.
She drops onto Jord's lap. “Ivy, have you got all the ingredients you need?”
Fuck. I almost forgot all about my promise to cook tonight.
Punk quickly continues her chatter. “So are you guys going to come and drink tonight with us?”
I shake my head, doing my best to ignore Asher. “We'll be here. Making s'mores and letting you young people—” I wave my hand in front of me, the gesture dismissive enough to hide the knot forming in my throat. “—do all the young people things.”
Lucinda kicks her legs up and folds them beneath her butt. “Nah uh. I want to party too!”
Camille’s scoff comes like a bucket of ice water and my teeth clench. “No one is stopping you, Lucinda.”
Resting my head back against the bench, a lazy smirk tugs at one corner of my mouth.
Jord barks out a laugh. “That’s Ivy’s absolutely fucking not face.”
I flash a smile at Jord.
Hands come to my shoulders and I jerk upward, adrenaline splitting my muscles open.
“Relax, it’s just me.” Parker’s voice creeps through my spine. “Jesus, why are you on edge this morning. Are you heading into town?”
I flash him my widest smile. “Sure. I have no idea what I’m cooking yet.”
Parker clucks his tongue, drawing in his lips. “That’s right. You don’t cook.” His attention snaps across the fire pit. “A woman who doesn’t cook. Where do I get a refund?”
His joke leaves no one laughing, and both muscles on the side of my jaw tense.
After a moment, a small laugh draws out of me. “Mmm. Hilarious.” I pat his hand that’s on my shoulder. “Mind your misogyny, husband.”
My neck straightens and both twins have their eyes locked on Parker. Atlas's brows climb high. Shock mixed with something like disgust. But Asher? Nothing. His mouth forms a flat line, and the temperature drops ten degrees where his stare lands.
Christ. That's the kind of look that precedes body bags.
I file it away. Never piss off Asher enough to earn that particular brand of nothing. This version of him isn't the kind I'd particularly like to know.
I finish my sentence. “Our friends might think you're fragile.”
His fingers dig into my shoulder like five pressure points grinding against bone. The muscle beneath my temple jumps. I swallow the wince threatening to crack across my face, keeping my expression neutral while Parker tests how much force it takes to make me break.
Moisture pricks behind my eyes, hot and unwanted. Oxygen vanishes. His rage fills every molecule of space between us, thick enough to choke on. Whatever easy warmth existed seconds ago dies instant and absolute.
My body locks down. Every muscle frozen except my lungs, which keep pulling in air like nothing's wrong. Like my husband isn't one squeeze away from snapping my collarbone in front of everyone.
Like this is normal.
Like I haven't put my body through hell to know the exact amount of pressure it would take to snap my bones.
Like my throat hasn’t felt screams that left scar tissue behind as if it were confetti.
I'm falling forward until I slam into something soft, warm, and alive.
Arms catch me—small hands, trembling fingers that dig into my ribs like they're trying to keep me upright and push me away at the same time.
“Clean her!” He barks at the maiden, before something to his left catches his attention. He disappears, the door flapping shut.
“Merde.” The voice belongs to a girl. Young. Terrified. Her French slips out before she catches it, stuffing the word back down her throat.
My vision swims. Blood pools in my mouth where my teeth cracked against my tongue. Copper and salt. The taste of failure.
I blink, forcing the world into focus.
She's nineteen. Twenty at most.
She quickly grabs for the veil, shoving it over her head. Hair pulled back tight, uniform pressed crisp—one of the new ones they brought on in Monaco, probably.
“You need to—” Her grip tightens on my arms, nails biting through the thin silk of my dress. “Shit. Fuck!”
What is her problem? The maidens are usually calm. Demure. Sedated, most likely. They don't speak.
“Ivanya.” My name falls from her mouth and the world around me caves in.
Two years. Two years I've been gone. Who is this woman?
Gunfire cracks through the yacht.
One shot. Two. Three in rapid succession, the sound ricocheting off steel and glass until it's impossible to tell direction from destruction.
Her hands release me as she flips us around, guarding my body with her own. Another burst of gunfire rips through the deck above, wood splintering, glass shattering, men shouting in languages I stopped trying to translate years ago.
My cheek presses against cold marble.
“Get up!” She orders, grabbing me by the arm and tugging me to my feet.
“Who are you!” I yell, following her through one of the back doors.
She checks every way we go, careful, on alert. Almost professional.
She rips off the veil, grabbing my arm again. “I'm the woman who's going to save you, take you—”
She crashes into someone, causing me to land against her back.
“—hurry!” I look up to see him.
The burning man.
The maiden hesitates, her head turning over her shoulder for a moment, as if checking I was still there. “Yes! Lets go.”
I follow behind her. Behind him. Behind hope. And away from the past two years of torment at the hands of one man.
He releases his grip and air flows into my lungs, pushing memories away.
Asher's focus drops to where Parker's hand pressed into me. The temperature shifts. It’s subtle, but I feel it in the way Atlas goes still beside his brother.
Asher doesn't move. Doesn't need to. The absence of reaction is louder than any threat.
My composure holds, but barely. I’m as frail as my weakest opponent. This is not good.
“Use your imagination, honey. I'm sure you can figure something out.” Parker's words land on me, but he winks at the twins before heading for the yard. “Oh!” He spins back. “Bill and James are flying in tonight. I'm just not sure where we'll put them.”
The names hit my stomach wrong. I force my mouth into something resembling pleasant. “We can put them in one of the bedrooms.”
He shakes his head, hands sliding into his pockets. “No. I'd rather the pool house.”
The pool house where Asher, Atlas and Punk currently stay. He knows this. We all know this.
Parker shifts his attention to the twins. “How's your house coming along?”
Asher answers first, voice flat. “Not nearly ready. It's not a new build, but a—” he pauses, “renovation.”
My coffee turns to acid in my throat.
Parker weighs his next words. I already know where this goes. He'll suggest they find somewhere else so his worthless friends can stay. Friends I've never met but Parker has spoken about on numerous occasions.
Lucinda’s thigh grazes mine.
“Oh, I have an idea!” She pipes up, attempting to save the scene.
“Nah, it’s cool. We can stay at one of the hotels in town,” Asher answers coolly, and the calm assertiveness in his tone only makes him more attractive.
Parker chokes on his laugh. Jesus, what the fuck is his problem? Mine and Asher’s friendship has never gotten to him before, and if he’d figured out I was fucking his friend behind his back, it would only upset him because of what it makes him look like to everyone else.