“Because I am on an airplane.”
“And you’re FaceTiming me? Ugh, Cee Cee, you’re one of those people I hate. Airplanes are for quiet reading time.” Ivana sat up straight. “Wait a minute. Why are you on an airplane? Where are you going?”
“That’s why I’m calling,” her sister said, her mouth scrunching up with her grimace. “I know we were supposed to help you move into Granny Elise’s house this weekend, but Aria has a concert at the Hollywood Bowl tomorrow night and we decided it would be the perfect opportunity to bring the kids to Disneyland.”
Ivana rolled her eyes.
“Please don’t be mad,” Sienna said. “If you can hold out another week at Mom’s, we’ll help you move in when I come back.”
Yeah, that wasn’t happening. She loved her mother because she’d given her life, but if she had to spend another week in that house Ivana was pretty sure she would end up at Tulane and Broad. She didn’t come back to this city just to land herself in New Orleans’s Central Lockup for choking her own mother.
“I’ll figure something out,” Ivana said. She was already thinking about how much money she could spare to hire someone to help her move. It’s not as if she had a ton of stuff. It was more about getting the house in order after the last tenant vacated it than hauling her meager belongings there.
“I’m sorry, Vonnie.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ivana said. “Go enjoy Disneyland with the kids. Although, I’m not sure how much you can enjoy it with an infant in tow.”
“That infant has a daddy who is perfectly capable of taking care of him why the kids and I ride the Tea Cups and Haunted Mansion,” Sienna said. “Uh-oh, I’m getting looks from the flight attendant. Let me log off. Love you, honey.”
“Love you,” Ivana said before the screen went black. She set the phone on the desk and blew out an agitated breath. “Well, this is just great.”
“Do you need a hand this weekend?”
She turned in the chair to find what had become a familiar sight, Jonathan casually taking up space in her doorway. He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a cup of coffee.
He gestured to her phone with his chin. “It sounds as if Sienna and Toby bailed on you.”
“Can’t say I blame them.” Ivana laughed. “If I had to choose between Disneyland and cleaning a dirty house, I’d choose Mickey Mouse too.”
“I can help you,” he said, as he made his way over to her desk. “I’m a bit offended you haven’t asked me yet.”
She hadn’t asked because she already felt herself slowly falling for him again. Slowly? There was nothing slow about this; she was diving head first into mind-numbing deep love. Not as if she’d ever fallen out of love with him.
Ivana felt she was due an award for the amount of restraint she’d exhibited this week. There were so many times she’d wanted more than just the few kisses they’d shared. How much harder would it be to fight those urges if the two of them were alone in that house all day? That was asking for trouble.
But she did need help moving in. She could find some measure of control, couldn’t she?
“If it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle,” Ivana said.
“If it would be a hassle, I wouldn’t have offered.” His teasing smile was nothing short of adorable.
He came around her desk and rested his backside against it. The sight of the slacks stretching across his taut thighs was decidedly more than adorable. It was scrumptious.
“I know how much you must love living with your mother,” he continued with his teasing, and Ivana burst out laughing. He caressed her jaw. “Let me help you.”
“Okay,” she said.
“What time should I be there?”
“Whenever you can make it.”
“Let’s try this again,” Jonathan said. “What time do you plan to arrive?”
“I’ll be there by nine a.m.,” she said.
“So will I. I’ll bring breakfast.” His phone beeped. “That’s the reminder I set for a conference call I need to take,” he said. “It’ll probably go on for a couple of hours, so if I don’t see you before you leave for the day, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He winked as he pushed away from the desk and left the office.
Ivana shoved the papers to the side and dropped her head on the desk. She knew leaving a second time wouldn’t be easy, but now it was clear that leaving with her heart intact would be downright impossible.
Jonathan pulled up in front of the wood-framed house in the city’s Bywater neighborhood and realized how long it had been since he’d been to this part of the city. Other than the occasional visit to one of his favorite restaurants four streets over, it had been well over a year since he’d driven these particular pothole-ridden streets.
The Bywater was one of New Orleans’s quirkier areas; in a city that thrived on quirkiness, that was saying a lot. But there was something cozy about the eccentricities found in the colorful homes. The area fit Ivana to a tee.
He took a moment to relish the pure pleasure that cascaded through him just at the thought of her. It was jarring, how quickly his attitude had changed. Just a few weeks ago the mere mention of her name made his blood boil.
Now? Now, he craved her.
Jonathan couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so eager to walk through those doors of his law practice as he was these days, knowing she would be there, working so diligently just a couple of offices down from his. She had him practically running red lights to make it to work in the morning.
It was dangerous, the way he found himself yearning just to hear her voice. He knew he was setting himself up for the hardest fall. But he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not now. Not when he had her back in his life.
She completed him. His world was a thousand times better when she was a part of it.
An unsettling weight landed in his gut. It would kill him when she left in a few weeks. He was talking total annihilation. Heart ripped in two and flushed down the toilet. But if he thought about that, it would wreck him. He would focus on the here and now, and savor every second he had with her.
Though, when it came to savoring Ivana, something way more enticing than just spending time with her came to mind.
A strangled groan escaped his lips.
If there was one thing that was sure to get him in trouble, it was thinking about that. But damn, how could he not think about joining his famished body with hers? Those few stolen kisses they’d shared had ignited a fire that, if he were being honest with himself, had never been extinguished, even in the three years since they’d been apart. It had lain dormant for a while, but those embers had always burned for her.
After tasting the delicious flavor of her kiss again, Jonathan wanted more. He wanted to lock her up in his house for an entire week and take them both on the kind of pleasurable journey that would make up for the years they’d been apart.
Stop, he pleaded with his mind. If he didn’t put a halt to this kind of thinking he would never be able to step into that house and face Ivana without her knowing exactly what was on his mind.
But would it really come as a surprise to her? She had to know how much he wanted her. It wasn’t as if he’d done much to hide his feelings since they visited the warehouse on Julia Street.
Taking a few moments to gain some control over himself, Jonathan sucked in a deep breath and started for the house. He knocked on the door and heard her yell, “Come on in. It’s unlocked.”
Unlocked? She may have been gone for a while, but it wasn’t long enough for her to forget how dangerous this city could be.
“Where are you,” he called as he walked inside. “And why are you in here with the door unlocked?”
“In the kitchen,” Ivana answered. “And I figured I’d hear anyone who came in.”
Jonathan made his way to the rear of the house where the kitchen was located. It was a peculiar setup, but common in many of the shotgun houses native to New O
rleans.
He entered the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks. She was on her hands and knees, scrubbing a spot on the floor. Her narrow hips and pert, round ass looked amazing in the jean cutoffs she wore. He wanted to drop to his knees and plant his face directly in that ass.
He had to swallow another moan as his entire body began to crave her with an intensity Jonathan knew it would take forever to fight.
So why the hell was he fighting it? Why not just come out and tell her that she was on his mind twenty-four seven?
She turned around and smiled. “Hey. Thanks for coming.”
She had a smudge of dirt on the tip of her nose and the crest of her right cheekbone. It somehow made her look even more beautiful.
“You didn’t get here at nine o’clock,” Jonathan pointed out. “There’s no way you’ve only been working for,” he looked at his watch, “Fifteen minutes.”
“Sylvia’s neighbor woke up the entire neighborhood by cutting his lawn at seven a.m.”
“On a Saturday?”
“On a damn Saturday,” she said. “Once I realized there was no going back to sleep, I decided to get a head start on cleaning up this place. And it’s a good thing I did.” She stood and plopped her hands on her hips. “Just look at this place! How do you accumulate this amount of grime in just six months? I swear, whoever Sienna rented this place to didn’t pass a mop on these floors a single time. It’s disgusting.”
“We’ve got all day to clean up. Have some breakfast first,” he said, holding up the coffee tray he’d brought with him. He’d wedged the white paper bag with the cinnamon rolls between the two cups.
“I need that,” she said, reaching for a coffee.
I need you.
The truth of those three little words seared him like a hot, metal brand, imprinting on his chest, on his very heart. He needed her. Always. No matter what happened between them, his life would never be complete without her in it.
It was a sobering thought to know that another human being could hold such power over him. What scared him the most was that he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He’d tried not to want her, but he could no more deny his need for her than he could deny his own name. The best Jonathan could do was learn to manage the emotions she evoked simply by her nearness.
She took a sip of her coffee, which resembled weak tea more than coffee because of the amount of cream she preferred, and released a satisfied sigh.
“Goodness, but that hits the spot.” Ivana motioned to the bag. “I smell cinnamon.”
“Cinnamon rolls from Revelation. Wash up and I’ll set these out for us. I think we can get more done once we’ve fueled up.”
While she washed the grime from her hands, Jonathan ripped the paper bag down the center and used it as a placemat, setting two thick, gooey cinnamon rolls out for both of them. Ivana took a seat at the table and brought one foot up onto the wooden chair. She created such a devastatingly beautiful picture, even in cutoff jeans and a plain yellow tank top. It was that willowy frame and soft brown skin that he couldn’t get enough of.
He’d noticed the faint lines that creased her eyes weeks ago. They hadn’t been there before she left. They didn’t take away anything, only added to her overall grace and allure.
He couldn’t help but wonder about the source of those lines. Was it just aging? Was it a result of the hard living conditions she’d endured in Haiti? Stress from the poverty she’d witnessed?
Would those lines—as beautiful as they were—have ever appeared if she hadn’t left him?
He still wanted to know why. Why had she stolen those three years from him? When he thought of the time they’d missed out on, how much they could have loved and shared over these past few years, Jonathan wanted to rage.
But where would raging get him? Making her feel horrible for what she’d done three years ago would only serve to ruin their day. It would put a damper on the little time they had left together before she once again went off to save the world. There were so many more enjoyable things he would rather they do with that time.
As they nibbled on their breakfast, they talked about the program she was putting together for him. She warned that she would soon reach the point where she no longer had the expertise to go further.
“Maybe it’s time you consider posting about the job on some hiring sites,” she said.
“You’re probably right,” he said.
Jonathan had all intentions of hiring Nicolas to run the program, but things were still so up in the air with his young mentee. With everything going on in his life, he wasn’t sure if Nicolas was prepared to tackle something of this magnitude. Maybe he could contact Serena, ask her if she knew of anyone well-versed in immigration law who was on the hunt for a job.
He wouldn’t bring that up right now. He didn’t want to mention Serena after what happened the last time he’d called his ex bed-partner while in Ivana’s presence.
Jonathan heard the rumbling of a truck coming down the street a few moments before a horn beeped.
“That’s probably my furniture,” Ivana said.
“You bought furniture?” Jonathan asked. For someone who wouldn’t be in town long, it struck him as strange that she’d invest in furniture.
“Just enough to make the house livable,” she said.
The delivery men unloaded four huge cardboard boxes, along with a mattress and box spring. Once they were alone again, Jonathan used Ivana’s house key to slice through the packing tape.
“Why don’t we do this in the living room?” Ivana suggested. “I’ve cleaned the floor in there.”
They pushed the boxes into the living room and began unpacking the contents. As they put together the coffee table, Jonathan couldn’t help but tease her.
“Do you remember the last time you tried to put together a piece of furniture?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re going to bring up that bookcase, aren’t you?”
His head flew back with his laugh. She’d bought a bookcase when she’d moved into his condo years ago, and had insisted on putting it together herself. She’d been so proud of her accomplishment…until the top shelf collapsed under the weight of three measly paperback novels.
“Laugh all you want,” she said, her nose tipped up in the air. “I’ll have you know that I helped to build over a dozen homes with Operation: Hope. My skills with a screwdriver have greatly improved, thank you very much.”
“Have they?” He leaned closer and, knowing the reaction his words would yield, whispered against her ear, “Maybe I can get a little demonstration of those skills later on.”
Her light brown cheeks turned beet red.
Jonathan knew damn well that nothing but trouble could come from this flirting, but he didn’t care. Making Ivana blush was his favorite pastime.
No. That was a lie. Making her scream was his favorite pastime.
He wanted to hear that throaty, pleasure-soaked scream so damn bad. The sound haunted him at night. It was etched into his brain, a ghost from his past that his mind refused to rid itself of.
Pushing memories of her clinging to him as she screamed in ecstasy from his brain, he pointed to the plain white coffee table.
“I have to admit, this table is nothing like you. I think a trip to that unclaimed furniture place in St. Roch is in order.”
“Oh, you do know how to tempt me, don’t you?” she said, a mischievous grin tilting up her lips.
Jonathan studied her for a moment before brushing a smudge of dirt from her cheek and murmuring, “I made a sport out of tempting you. Or have you forgotten?”
Her amused expression morphed into something…different, something intense. Her gaze dropped to his lips. “There are some things a girl just can’t forget, no matter how much she tries.”
“Did you try to forget me?” Jonathan asked, the words coming out gravely. Husky.
She brought her eyes back to his and slowly shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “It was the opposite.”
Her eyes roamed his face. “I clung to thoughts of you. For a long time those thoughts of you were the only thing that got me through the night.”
Her delicately spoken words lit a fire inside him that Jonathan didn’t even attempt to douse. He closed the short distance between them, connecting his mouth with hers.
She hesitated for a moment, but after a gentle urging of his tongue against her lips, she relented, opening her mouth and welcoming him in. He quickly deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue inside and tangling with hers. It was erotic as hell, and enough to set his skin ablaze.
A low moan climbed up his throat as he feasted on her intoxicating flavor. He could never figure out exactly how to describe it. Something spicy and sweet and purely Ivana; that’s what this taste was. It was the most delicious essence in the universe and he would never get tired of consuming it.
He lifted her into his arms, wrapping her long legs around his waist. Then, with only one thing on his mind, Jonathan carried her to the bedroom and placed her on the new mattress. He joined her, slipping his hand underneath her tank top and pulling down the bra cup that covered her right breast.
When it came to breasts he’d always preferred those that were so big they nearly smothered him. Until he met Ivana. Her small, round breasts were perfect for him. He closed his palm over her and made slow circles around her pert nipple, his skin tingling as it slowly beaded as a result of the attention he paid to it.
“God, I’ve missed this, Ivana.” He dipped his head and sucked on her nipple through the tank top. This damn fabric was in his way. He wanted to taste her. He needed to feel that tight nub against his tongue more than he needed his next breath.
Lifting her shirt off, Jonathan pushed her bra up her chest, exposing both breasts to his eyes, teeth and tongue. He lavished the tender mounds with long, slow licks, flicking his tongue across first one nipple and then the next. As he closed his mouth over her right breast, sucking nearly the entire thing into his mouth, his hand slid between them and, with deft fingers, he flicked the snap on her jean shorts. As soon as he had access, Jonathan slipped his hand inside, past the rim of her satin panties and into the nest of damp curls.
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