Chapter 9 #2
And she was suddenly too quiet. Shit. “You stopped talking. You okay? Did I hurt you?”
Ivy framed his face, eyes searching his for…what?
He couldn’t stop himself from cupping her cheek, wanting to do something, anything to reassure her. She shouldn’t ever have cause to doubt him again.
Evidently finding what she needed, she offered the sweetest smile as she tipped her mouth up to his. “So very okay.”
He’d make sure she stayed that way. He began to move in a torturously slow, controlled rhythm that had her body coiling again for the climb.
He was climbing with her this time, drawing on every shred of control he possessed not to simply plunge into her and lose himself.
Because she was better for him than her books, better than writing.
Right here, with her, he couldn’t think of anything but the slow, blistering glide of their bodies coming together.
Her hands streaked over him, fraying his control as she met him thrust for thrust. As she neared the edge, her body beginning to ripple around him, he fought to hang on, to put her first.
“Harrison.”
His gaze sharpened on hers. She looked up at him, seemingly into him, and he felt more exposed than he ever had in his life. But what shields could he have here, buried inside her? Did she see that he was broken? That he didn’t deserve this? Didn’t deserve her?
He faltered.
Her hands curled into his shoulders. “With me. Come with me.”
At her demand, he dropped his brow to hers. “Ivy.”
“With me,” she repeated, her climax already gripping him. “Let go. You can let go.”
And like the good soldier he’d been, he followed orders.
Every single one of Ivy’s nerve endings was alight. If she opened her eyes, she was positive she’d be glowing. She’d have to check. In a minute. Or twenty. Her limbs felt heavy. So did Harrison’s weight stretched out on her, though he’d tucked his arms alongside her torso to keep from crushing her.
“I’ll move in a minute.” His voice rumbled against the crook of her neck.
Because her hand was conveniently already there, Ivy stroked it through the hair at his nape, enjoying the slide of the strands through her fingers. “No rush. You make an excellent blanket.”
They lay there, still joined, breathing together in the silence.
Ivy waited for that to feel strange. Instead it felt…
peaceful, as if they’d done this countless times before.
Her life would definitely be richer if they had, and she had high hopes that they would do it again.
Preferably as soon as he was physically able.
And maybe sometime later. Or a lot of times later.
She was really beginning to see the benefits of a blizzard.
Harrison stirred, pushing himself up enough to look down at her. He held there for a long moment, and Ivy felt the weight of his stare down to her bones.
“I’ll be right back.” He rolled off and went to take care of the essentials.
Ivy stared at the ceiling, her throat dry.
This whole encounter was more than she’d bargained for.
Beyond the mind-numbing pleasure—and holy shit, he was amazing—there was a gravity to what they’d just done that shook her.
Everything about him had been so wholly unexpected and she didn’t know exactly what to do about it. About them. If there was a them.
He came back up the stairs, bottled waters in hand. Twisting the cap off one, he handed it over.
Ivy guzzled down half.
“I really hope you were at a good stopping point in the outline,” he said, sipping at his own bottle. “Because I’m not letting you out of this bed.”
As threats went, it was one she could absolutely get behind.
Her body hummed at the erotic glint in his eyes.
His shields were up again. Apparently, he was intent on ignoring the weight of this thing between them.
He knew it was there. She’d seen it in his face, unguarded as they’d made love—because nothing about what they’d done had been just sex.
But he wasn’t ready to meet her there yet.
This was more than she’d expected, more than she’d planned, as he was more.
So she wouldn’t make the mistake she’d made before of sharing her observations too soon.
Because it was what he seemed to want, she dug deep to find some levity. She met his gaze over the bottle. “This whole interlude gives ‘Thank you for your service’ a whole new meaning. I don’t think I’ve ever been serviced quite so well.”
He snorted out a laugh and flopped into bed beside her. “Happy to oblige.” The hand he laid high on her thigh told her he’d be happy to oblige again. “So were you at a good stopping point in your outline?”
She finished off the water and set the bottle to the side, intent on freeing her hands to touch him again. “Good enough. I poured out the lion’s share of that first rush. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, how they’d fit together.”
Her gaze traced the coat of arms tattoo on his biceps.
She hadn’t really noticed it before. The shield held a sun, a star, and a lightning bolt and told her without a word that he was an Airborne Ranger, part of the Army’s seventy-fifth regiment.
Special Forces. No wonder he hadn’t thought a thing about rappelling down a snowy mountainside.
“I thought you didn’t write romance.”
“Not as a focus, but relationships add stakes and depth to a story, not to mention verisimilitude and a great vehicle for change. Seeing a closed off character open up because of love is incredibly satisfying as a reader. I don’t think either of them will have the necessary vulnerability to impact each other without it.
And I think you were exactly right. Michael is afraid of caring about her, of what he’d do for her. ”
The hand on her thigh clenched for just a moment before relaxing. “There’s not much more than love that’ll send a man straight into hell. Whether it’s love of a woman or love of a brother.”
She wondered what hell he’d walked through and for whom.
Laying a hand on his chest, Ivy trailed her fingers over the ridges and planes, gratified at the way his breath quickened.
Several scars added character to that beautiful body.
She didn’t avoid them, but didn’t pay any undue attention either.
She had no trouble imagining a knife fight or Harrison hunkered down with his men, taking fire from insurgents.
But she wouldn’t ask him about any of that.
Not now. Still, her curiosity was more than piqued.
They’d been as intimate as two people could be, but she still knew next to nothing about him.
“Tell me something real about you.”
“Something real?”
“Yeah. Like—I don’t know—what was your first car? The name of your dog growing up? When did you lose your virginity?”
“An ’88 Oldsmobile, Buster, and Mandy Gilcrest, in the back of that Oldsmobile on graduation night.”
“I suppose a land yacht would be handy for backseat space. My granddaddy had one of those. That thing was freaking huge. You could fit a whole side of beef in the trunk.”
“They don’t make ’em like that anymore, that’s for sure.” His tone held the kind of affection only men seemed to hold for vehicles.
Okay, she really didn’t want to talk about cars. She wanted to talk about him. “Tell me something else.”
His fingers traced patterns on her back. “Just ask.”
A hundred questions leapt to her lips, but she held them back. She didn’t want to ruin this by voicing any of the ones she really wanted to know. “Where did you grow up?”
“Little town in Washington, near the coast. What about you?”
“Well, as I said, I was a preacher’s kid, so we moved a lot. Most of my childhood was in South Alabama at varying distances from Mobile. Mom, Dad, sister.”
“You’re the oldest.”
“I’m the oldest,” she confirmed.
Leaning up, she pressed a soft kiss to the scar on his cheek. “What’s this really from?”
“Coffee mug. It was Mother’s Day and I was six.
I’d made her breakfast. Which was really a bowl of cereal with an orange.
But I’d watched her make coffee every day of my life, so I made some of that.
Probably got the ratio of grounds to water all kinds of wrong, but I was so damned proud I’d managed the machine.
I was in a rush, trying to get it all done before she woke up, so I could surprise her, and I tripped as I was carrying it to the tray on the kitchen table.
The mug crashed to the floor and I hit right after.
Landed right on one of the pieces of the mug.
So instead of the nice relaxing morning I’d planned for her, we spent it in the ER getting stitches. ”
But he’d tried. She liked knowing that even when he was little, he’d tried to do something to take care of his mom. She liked, too, that not all of his scars were from his military service.
“Y’all are tight?”
“Yeah. It was just us growing up.” He didn’t elaborate and Ivy didn’t press.
Because she wasn’t sure she could hold back the rest of the questions she wanted to ask and because she didn’t want to screw this up, Ivy decided the best course of action for them both was distraction.
Sitting up, she swung a leg over his and shifted to straddle him. “Are you done with your water?”
Arching a brow, he drained the last of his bottle and tossed it.
“Good. Because as my current muse, I think I should get to study this body for research, and round one was all about you studying mine.”
He grinned and sat up, running his hands down her back. “It’s my new favorite subject.”
The position made it more than clear he’d had enough time to recover. Digging for some control, she shoved him back. Or tried. He didn’t budge an inch. “Lay back down and be a good test subject so I can take some notes. With my mouth.”
Harrison dropped back, arms spread wide. “Yes, ma’am.”