Chapter 30
Micah
Sated and pleased, with my heart doing this silly little dance in my chest, I draw a bath in the two-person tub I didn’t think I’d ever use, then head into the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine and two glasses. When I return, bubbles cover the surface of the water, hiding Ivy’s body from view.
“Not fair.” I pout, filling one glass with wine, then the other.
“Come on.” Ivy leans back in the water, the top of her breasts breaking the surface. “A post-sex bubble bath? With wine? What’s more decadent than that?”
“As long as you’re not using the bubbles to hide yourself.
” I lower myself into the tub, then pull her against me, so her back rests against my front.
I grab a breast in each hand and give them a squeeze.
“Because these? These are fucking perfect. I’m gonna make a rule that you walk around naked all the time so I can suck on them whenever I want. ”
Ivy leans against me, sipping wine. “I’d get chilly being naked all the time.”
“I’ll turn the heat up. Besides, you’re used to Seattle weather. You said so yourself.”
And just like that, all the rage I felt towards this Julian prick comes boiling back to the surface.
That fucking asshole wasn’t content controlling every aspect of her life, but had to go ahead and destroy her self-esteem, too.
Breaking her down bit by bit so she wouldn’t have the confidence to leave.
That’s the thing about Ivy. She’s stronger than anyone gives her credit for.
She did leave. She’s here. With me. Where she belongs.
I press my lips together to keep the shit in my head from spilling out and ruining the evening. “I just want you to know you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I want you to know it and believe it and…” I trail off, unsure how to communicate exactly what’s in my heart.
Ivy’s quiet, and I’d call it a comfortable silence if it wasn’t for my desire to drive to Seattle and punch this asshole in the dick. I kiss the top of her head, silently promising to do everything in my power to restore Ivy’s confidence.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you for being everything I thought you were when we were younger.”
“Thank you for coming back to me.” I rest my chin against her head while she draws lazy circles in the bubbles. Peace descends around us, and I feel myself shifting, claiming Ivy as mine rather than Julian’s.
“I’m gonna say something,” I murmur, “and it’s important to me that you really hear me.”
She nods and I take a breath before continuing. “Julian’s hang up with your body has everything to do with him and nothing to do with you. Being judgmental like that? It’s ‘projection as protection’ at its finest. He’s an inadequate fuck and knows it. He cuts you down to make himself feel better.”
“You know what?” Ivy shifts, the water sloshing as she sits up to look me in the eye. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone. In the past. And the only thing that matters is you and me and Nell, making steps that take us to a better future.”
I lift my glass. “Amen to that.”
She clinks her glass against mine, then drinks, smiling as she swallows.
“Do you remember when we were like sixteen, maybe seventeen? I was starting to worry about college, and you had the great idea to make a pact? We promised that no matter what happened, we’d come back to each other.
Remember? We even looked up contracts on the internet and signed it to make it official. ”
“Of course I remember. That pact is a promise, and you know how I feel about those. My cousins have been making fun of me for years because on some level I always believed you’d come back to me, and we’d end up here.”
“In your bathtub?” Grinning wickedly, Ivy slides her hand down my chest, under the water, along my abdomen, and pauses at my lower belly.
“You know what I mean.” I lean back, widening my legs, inviting her to continue her journey. “I never stopped loving you. I never stopped holding out hope that we’d be together. I still have that pact we wrote.”
Her hand stills. “You do?”
“In a box in my closet. Wanna see it?”
“I do.” She wraps her hand around my swelling cock. “But there’s something else I wanna see first.”