by Piper James
“Nothing, Nate,” she answered, her voice once again low and weary-sounding.
I didn’t like the way she kept saying my name. When women used a man’s name like that, it usually meant they were fed up with their shit. Only, I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it.
We’d both agreed to sleep together, and I was pretty sure she enjoyed it, if the number of orgasms I gave her were any indication. But now, she was back to treating me the way she had before we struck our deal.
And while it shouldn’t have been a problem—our bargain didn’t mandate that we like each other—her attitude struck a nerve in me.
“Obviously, something is wrong,” I said, my voice firm. “Only, I didn’t do anything, so I don’t know why you’re acting like this.”
“You’re right,” she said, her nostrils flaring a little. “You didn’t do anything. Stay as long as you want. I’m going to bed.”
With that, she got up and left the room. The click of her bedroom door closing echoed in my head like a death knell, and I stood there staring at it for several seconds without moving.
What the fuck?
Half of me wanted to barge in there and demand she tell me what the hell was going on, but the other half told me to settle down and accept that this distance between us was for the best. It would make things so much easier when we ended the deception. No tangled feelings. No hurt egos.
I knew I should leave her be. Sit down on the couch and wait Charity out. Then leave.
Instead, I stomped to her bedroom door and threw it open without even knocking, only mildly surprised she hadn’t locked it. It hit the wall with a bang, startling a yelp out of Ivy. She froze, one knee on the bed as if she’d been in the process of climbing in.
She wore a pair of thin, short shorts and a tight tank top. My eyes zeroed in on her breasts, hard nipples straining against the material. Ivy straightened quickly, standing with a stiff spine as she crossed her arms over her chest to obstruct my view.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
“Sorry,” I muttered, my gaze meeting hers. “I…”
She frowned at me as she waited for me to finish my apology. My mouth opened and closed a few times before I pinched my lips together and shook my head.
“No. You know what? I’m not sorry.” I took a couple of steps toward her, but when she flinched back, I stopped. “We had what I thought was an amazing day together, but if you were left dissatisfied, I’d be more than happy to try again.”
My tongue darted out to moisten my lips, and her eyes widened at the sight of it. Her chest was heaving, and her harsh breaths echoed in the air between us. I didn’t know why I said what I did. Maybe it was my ego, begging for reassurance. Maybe it was a challenge, to make her talk to me. But seeing her reaction, there was no way I was taking it back.
I took another step forward, and other than a slight shudder, she didn’t move.
I ignored the tiny voice in my head telling me this was a bad idea. That sex with Ivy was supposed to be a one-time thing.
All that mattered was getting my hands on her. Touching her. Tasting her. Making her scream my name.
And there was no way I was talking myself out of doing all that, and more.
22
Ivy
I came in here to get away from Nate before I did something I’d regret. Something I knew was wrong. A bad idea that could lead to unwanted ramifications.
Like wrap myself around him and beg him to stick his dick in me again.
Yet, here he was barging into my bedroom, staring at my boobs like they were chocolate cake and he was starving, and telling me he wanted to…what? Prove he could leave me satisfied?
Why did he have to look so good? He stepped closer, and I could smell him. Oil and metal with a hint of rust, and for some strange reason, the scent made my insides clench. I held up a hand, ordering him to stop.
“What are you doing?” I asked, silently cursing the break in my voice.
“I think you know, Ivy.”
I must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, my legs were wrapped around his waist, my hands were in his hair, and my tongue was in his mouth. Nate’s hands were groping my ass, and his erection rubbed deliciously against my lady bits.
I thought about putting an end to it. Stopping this madness and putting some space between us. I really did consider it. For about two seconds.
But the truth was, I wanted him. Again.
So, instead of breaking off our kiss and saying the words that would end the pleasure building inside me, I rolled my hips to create more friction between us. Nate growled into my mouth and spun around before lowering me to the bed, his weight pressing down on me in all the best ways.
His mouth moved to my neck, sucking and licking until I was writhing beneath him. His hand tugged up the hem of my tank top, and he lifted his weight from me to whip it over my head. He stared for a moment, his expression filled with awe, before mumbling something that sounded like “beautiful.”
Then his mouth was on me, sucking a nipple between his lips as he hummed with pleasure. Then he paid the same homage to the other, and my core clenched with need.
“Nate, please,” I groaned.
“Tell me what you want, Ivy,” he said as his mouth released my nipple and trailed kisses over my stomach.
“I want you to fuck me.”
The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them. My face heated as I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d never been much of a dirty talker, but my embarrassment faded at Nate’s heady groan. He pushed himself up to his knees and yanked off my shorts and underwear with impatient hands.
Spreading my knees, he dipped his head and swirled his tongue around my clit. My body jerked at the burst of pleasure, and Nate wrapped his arms around my thighs to hold me still. When his tongue pushed inside me, I chanted his name.
But it wasn’t enough. I needed more.
“Please. Nate,” I mumbled. “I need you.”
He stilled, his grip tightening on my thighs for a moment so brief, I was sure I imagined it. His tongue gave one last stroke up from slit to clit before he released me and climbed from the bed. I opened my mouth to object, but I quickly snapped it shut as I realized he was undressing.
He ripped his shirt off so fast, I was sure he’d popped some buttons. The muscles in his chest and shoulders flexed as he unbuckled his belt, and I propped myself up on my elbows to get a better look as he dropped his pants and stepped out of them.
He started to smile, but it quickly turned into a frown. “Shit,” he cursed, then looked at me with pleading eyes. “Please tell me you have condoms.”
“What?” I asked, my mind not comprehending the change in his mood as I stared at his cock.
“Condoms, Ivy. I didn’t think… I don’t have any with me.”
“No,” I said, my mind finally breaking free from the dick-hypnosis. “I don’t have any either.”
He sighed, but his expression quickly turned to one of determination. He climbed back onto the bed and stretched out beside me.
“I guess we’ll just have to get creative. There are other ways we can make each other come.”
He kissed me as his fingers clasped mine and moved them to his hard cock. Guiding them around its girth, he pumped my hand up and down a couple of times before releasing it. His hand landed on my thigh, gliding over my skin until his fingertips hit that sensitive bundle of nerves that ached for his touch.
When he slid a finger inside me and curled it upward, my hips bucked. It felt amazing, and I knew I was close to coming, but my brain rebelled. I wanted more. I needed it.
I turned my head, meeting his eyes. His fingers stilled as he searched my gaze, his forehead wrinkling with worry.
“You okay?” he breathed, then grunted as my fingers tightened on his cock.
“I want this,” I whispered, stroking it with meaning. “I’m on the pill, and I’m clean. The hospital tests me every si
x months, and…I haven’t been with anyone besides you in a long time.”
“I just got tested last month. I’m clear, too,” he said, then stared at me meaningfully. “I’ve never had sex without a condom before.”
“Me, neither,” I said, barely any sound coming out.
A tiny little voice chirped inside me, telling me this was a mistake. Not because of the physical ramifications. Those were minimal.
It was the emotional risk that sent a shiver coursing through me. Doing this would bring us as close as two people could get, and the fact that it was the first time for both of us…
“Are you sure, Ivy?” Nate asked, breaking off my train of thought.
I looked into his blue eyes, so filled with wonder and anticipation, and I knew those same emotions were mirrored in my own expression. I wanted to feel him. I wanted him to feel me.
“Yes, I’m sure. Make love to me, Nate.”
My breath hitched as I realized what I’d just said, but it didn’t seem to faze Nate in the least. His head dipped, and he gave me a scorching kiss as his finger began to move again, stroking inside me until I was trembling with need.
He pulled his hand free and moved over me, settling between my thighs as his mouth trailed searing kisses across my jaw and down my throat. I wrapped my legs around his hips, pulling him closer until his cock teased my entrance. I bucked my hips to urge him forward, but he held back.
“Look at me, Ivy,” he whispered, and my eyes opened to stare into his.
He had most of his weight braced on his arms, and he stared down at me from beneath a halo of dark hair. His hips pushed forward, his dick sliding into me, and my eyelids drifted closed. Nate pulled out, and my eyes snapped back open.
“Keep your eyes on me,” he said. “I want to see you. I want you to see me.”
My head nodded quickly, and he smiled. I kept my gaze locked with his as he slid inside me, inch by agonizingly glorious inch. Watching the play of emotions on his face, knowing he could see the same on mine—it was the most vulnerable moment of my life.
And the most erotic.
His growl of pleasure as he sank his full length into me was nearly my undoing. My inner walls clenched, making him groan even louder. I tilted my hips, pushing him deeper and holding him there. Nate licked his lips and opened his mouth as if he meant to say something.
Seeming to think better of it, he dipped his head and kissed me. I drove my hands into his hair, clenching my fists in the soft strands as I kissed him back. Our tongues tangled together before he sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and bit down lightly.
Then he began to move. His hips rotated as he pulled out at a snail’s pace, then slid back in just as slowly. He buried his face in my neck, sweat rolling off of him as he moved with controlled precision.
It felt so good. He felt so good.
Barely blinking, I kept my gaze locked on his as he picked up speed, doing that little hip-roll thing he knew I liked. Soon, my hips were lifting to meet him thrust-for-thrust as I moaned unintelligible words.
My eyes slammed shut, and a shout flew from my mouth, my orgasm hitting fast and hard before I realized it was even coming. Nate grunted as he slammed into me one final time, then stilled, his harsh breaths fanning against my face.
His arms shook for a moment before he collapsed onto me, his cheek resting against my chest as if he were listening to my heartbeat. My fingers itched to stroke his hair, but I kept my hands firmly at my sides.
As the post-orgasm glow faded, tension spiraled through me, tightening each of my muscles as one thought cycled on repeat through my brain…
What did I just do?
23
Nate
What did we just do?
I fell back against my couch, a beer in my hand, as memories from Ivy’s bed assailed me. She’d clammed up shortly after we finished, the tension between us becoming decidedly unsexual. After peeking out to make sure Charity had given up and left, I’d given Ivy a stilted goodbye and practically ran to my car.
Make love to me, Nate.
Her tone, her word choice, the pleading in her voice that told me she truly meant it—that simple phrase had broken something inside me. My control had splintered and cracked, and there had been nothing on the planet that could’ve stopped me from giving her what she wanted.
What we both wanted.
The sex had been amazing, even more so given the skin-to-skin contact, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was my fucking emotions. My deal with Ivy was temporary and would be over soon. And while neither of us could deny we had a shitload of sexual chemistry, I was pretty certain this possessive feeling growing inside me was all one-sided.
I needed to shut that shit down before I went right over the edge and did something stupid…like asking Ivy to be mine. For real, this time.
And I couldn’t allow myself to go down that road. Not again.
I took a swig of beer, memories of when we first met flashing through my mind. I’d actually begun to fall for her, my stupid early-twenty-something-year-old brain convincing me I had a shot when so many factors stood between us.
She was my brother’s best friend.
She was a couple of years older than me, and while the gap was inconsequential to me, to Ivy, it might as well have been a decade or more. I was immature. I knew it, and I’d owned it.
She was fresh out of college, starting her career as a nurse, and I was some kid who’d barely graduated high school with grease stains on my hands.
But despite the obstacles, I’d caught her looking at me more than once, a hunger in her eyes that couldn’t be denied. And every single fucking time I’d caught that look, my dick had popped up, begging for attention. I’d had to excuse myself more than once to “use the restroom” when I needed to get myself under control.
I set my beer on the coffee table and leaned my head back, allowing the images of a younger Ivy flood my brain. It was far safer than thinking of more recent times…times like tonight, my bare cock buried deep inside her as she came.
Instead, I thought about the day I’d decided to tell her how I felt. I was going to shoot my shot and ask her out, obstacles be damned. I had the whole thing planned out.
We went to Hero’s for a family dinner with Rafe and Lola, and the tension between Ivy and me had been so thick, there was no denying the electricity between us. Her secret smile and pink blush had boosted my confidence, and I’d just known it…great things were going to happen between us. Long-term things.
And while the thought of settling down had scared me—I’d always been a bit of a player—I’d known Ivy was worth it. That she, above all others, was the one girl whose heart was worth it. And also, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her.
Imagining how her skin felt had given me a rise, so I excused myself to “use the restroom.” I swung around the corner without paying attention to where I was going, and a pair of hands grabbed me and yanked me into the ladies’. Before I could stop her, our waitress had me up against the wall, her tongue in my mouth as her hand rubbed my cock through my jeans.
And, of course, she thought that hard-on was for her.
I gently pushed her away, trying to spare her feelings, and extricated myself from her octopus arms before rushing from the bathroom. I laughed, remembering how I’d smirked at the fact that at least my erection had waned.
But when I got back to the table, Ivy was gone. Rafe said something about her not feeling well, and I couldn’t push for details without making him suspicious of my motives. I was disappointed, but not deterred.
My big confession would still happen, it would just have to be another night.
I didn’t see Ivy for a while, and she refused to respond to my texts or answer my calls. The next time I did see her, she was…different. Guarded. Belligerent. Hostile.
That’s when I knew I’d never get what I wanted. She’d figured out that I was going to make a move and had decided to cut me off at the pass. She didn’t want
me. All the little signs I’d thought I’d seen weren’t real. It wasn’t going to happen.
I’d assumed that once I made it clear I’d gotten her point, she’d chill with the aggression, but it had never happened. And eventually, I began to return the hostility, and we got stuck in this never-ending loop of being assholes to each other.
Until now. Until the one time I really needed her help, and she agreed with barely a thought. Sure, I was restoring the Bel Air, but Ivy knew me well enough to know that was no hardship. It was like she was doing me two favors—pretending to be my fiancée and letting me work on one of my bucket list cars.
I leapt to my feet and shook off the train of thought. I could not let myself get wrapped up in the idea that something real could happen between us. Not again. It had nearly broken me the first time.
And I didn’t think my heart could take another hit like that.
Pretending like something wasn’t hell, when it was very obviously hell, was problematic, at best. It was the weekend, and this was the first time I’d seen Ivy since the night I showed up at her place unannounced.
I’d asked her out on a date—for appearances’ sake—and here we were, strolling hand-in-hand across the parking lot at The Bullpen. I thought about taking her to dinner and a movie, but being at the bar was more likely to get us noticed and have word get back to Charity.
Which was the whole point of this fake relationship.
I held the door for Ivy, and she thanked me politely as she walked inside. We found an empty booth, and I slid in beside her. She didn’t outwardly react to the fact that I’d chosen to sit next to her rather than on the other side, but I could sense her discomfort. I stretched out a hand to take hers before bringing it to my lips.
“Thanks for coming,” I murmured before pressing a light kiss to her knuckles. “Some of Charity’s friends hang out here on the weekends, so word is bound to get back to her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she showed up within the hour.”
