by Jessica Gray
“Come on. You might pull that crap with others, but not with me. It’s that chick, right?”
“Why would you think that?” Ter asked, popping the top on the soda he’d just snagged from the fridge to keep his hands busy.
“How about the fact you can’t get through the song you wrote and dedicated to her?”
“It needs some more work–”
“Bullshit. It needs a singer with his head screwed on straight. What’s wrong? You two have a fight?”
“I’m fine.” Ter finished the soda and tossed the can in the trash. “Let’s go finish this so I can get back to writing.”
Jason relented and they headed back into the studio. Under the threatening stares of his band members, Ter took a deep breath and pushed images of Ivy aside long enough to finish recording her song – “You’re All I Ever Want.”
The only good thing to come from his breakup with Ivy was that his creativity was through the roof. He was full of sorrow and a broken heart always made for great songs. Emotional and captivating songs his fans loved.
Within three months, Electric Flow had written and recorded an entire full length album. The reviews were fantastic and the album was a raving success, breaking the charts in the first two weeks after its release. A fact that should have sent Terrence over the moon.
But he wasn’t happy. The long awaited success hadn’t brought him even a fraction of the happiness he’d had with Ivy. Something had to give. He couldn’t keep going on this way, knowing she was living in the same city and not seeing her.
No matter what happened, he had to see her again. He just had to.
Chapter 22
Three months, four days, and sixteen hours. That’s how long it had been since Ivy had talked to Ter. That’s how long it had been since she’d broken up with the only man she’d ever truly loved.
She’d stopped feeling. Her insides had gone numb and she went through life like a zombie. Every time she met her parents, she despised them more and it was all she could do to not scream at them for ruining her life.
But she said nothing.
She’d been raised to obey her parents and as an obedient daughter, there was no way she would ever go against the explicit orders of her father.
Maybe, she tried to convince herself, they were right and Ter hadn’t been the one for her. But her heart wasn’t buying it. It knew the truth and while her mind might buy a lie for a short time, her heart couldn’t be budged.
At work, everything was moving along smoothly and she was finally climbing the corporate ladder. Her boss had been impressed with her handling of the Electric Flow account, and she’d taken his advice to ask for what she wanted, resulting in some bigger and more popular artists’ contracts.
Bella had tried to shake her out of her depression, insisting she start dressing like a woman. They’d gone shopping together, Bella’s remedy for all kinds of sadness, and she’d all but forced Ivy to buy some feminine yet businesslike skirt suits and even high heels.
Ivy had dressed in the new clothing with trepidation that first day, but as people at work suddenly took notice of her, she realized they weren’t looking down on her for being herself. She’d become the rising star of the legal department, received a huge pay raise, and she’d even been offered a junior partner position in the coming year. But it didn’t bring her the joy she’d expected.
She should have been the happiest woman in the world, but she wasn’t. Things weren’t the same with no one special to share them with, and the only one her heart wanted to share her success with was Ter.
When Electric Flow’s album hit the charts, everyone at the company congratulated her for having secured the band for the record label. Sure, she was happy for Ter and his band members and even felt a small measure of pride in helping them get to this point, but at the same time she feared to die of a broken heart. She couldn’t keep on this way. Something had to give.
A soft tap on Ivy’s office door cut through her morbid thoughts and had her calling out, “Enter.”
Her youngest sister Sequoia stood in the door. “Sequi. What a pleasant surprise.” Ivy came out from behind her desk and hugged her sister. “What brings you down here?”
Sequoia tightened her embrace before she took a step back and said, “I’ve seen how unhappy you’ve been.”
“You shouldn’t be worrying about me, Sequi.” Ivy squared her shoulders to fend off the turbulent emotions attacking her.
“Why not? Someone has to worry about you. Look, Ivy. All my life, I’ve looked up to you. I admire how strong and independent you are, and I would totally understand if you went against father’s wishes. I wanted you to know that I will support you in whatever you decide.”
Ivy was so overcome with emotion, she burst into tears. “Why now?”
Sequoia looked at her and blushed. “It’s not entirely unselfish. I just turned twenty-two and thought about my own future. I don’t want to face the same fate if I met and fell in love with a guy father didn’t approve of. By helping you, you’ll actually be blazing a trail for both of us.”
Ivy couldn’t help but giggle under her tears and pulled her sister into a hug.
“I overheard Mother trying to change Father’s decision,” Sequoia said.
“You did?” This was the first glimmer of hope since her father had issued his ultimatum.
“Mother is very concerned about you. She said you’re a mere shadow of yourself. Mother even mentioned she’d never forgive herself if you were never happy again.”
Chapter 23
Ivy was working late in her office a few nights later when a knock on her door caused her to look up from the contract she was proofing. She rubbed her eyes and rolled her neck even as she called out, “Enter.”
For a short moment, she closed her eyes as she tried to work the kinks out of her neck and when she opened them with the sound of the door, she jerked up from her chair. Ter strode into the room in all his glory. Leather pants and black t-shirt that molded to his muscled body like a glove. A devilish glint in his emerald eyes.
She put a hand to her thundering heart. Seeing him again filled her with so much love and happiness, she knew without a doubt he was the one. The one she would do anything to have, including confronting and defying her father if it came to that.
Right then and there she decided if, together, they couldn’t convince her father and he kept insisting she stay away from Ter, she would choose him over her family. No. Doubt. About. It.
She watched him walk towards her, letting her eyes drink in his image. He was so different than any other man she’d ever met. He respected her. Loved her.
When she didn’t move from behind the desk, he slowed down and their eyes locked. She saw such sadness mirrored there she almost died. He stopped a few feet from her desk and just watched her. One breath. Two breaths. Three…
Ivy launched herself from behind her desk, throwing herself into his arms. “Thank God, you’re here. I was so miserable without you. I don’t care what my father wants, because from now on – I’m yours.”
Ter pressed her against his chest and took her mouth in a punishing kiss filled with all of the loneliness and desperation of the last three months. She felt how he poured his pent up emotions into their exchange, demanding she pay for the hurt she’d caused him and the anger he’d been trying to deal with.
Ivy didn’t fight him, but gave herself wholeheartedly to the kiss. She gentled him by submitting to his hold, opening her mouth when he demanded entrance. From now on she was his. To love. To hold. To have forever if that’s what he wanted.
Long minutes later, Ter broke the kiss, looking down at her red and bruised mouth. He brushed a finger over her bottom lip, wet from his kiss and whispered into her ear, “I love you Ivy. I will always love you and I will never let you go again. Ever.”
He crashed his lips down on hers again and she sighed into his mouth. Being in his arms was where she belonged and she never wanted to be without him ever again.
; ***
It felt so good to hold Ivy in his arms once again. From the moment he’d walked into her office and seen her again, he’d known without a shadow of a doubt she was meant to be his. When she’d launched herself into his arms, any remaining worries had disappeared like the mist when faced with the rising sun.
Ivy was his.
He held her at arm’s length and then took another step back, letting his eyes travel up and down her body as he let out a low whistle. “You’re even more beautiful now than three months ago.”
Instead of the boxy pant suits she’d previously worn, she was wearing a figure hugging skirt with a matching jacket. The jacket only had a single button at her trim waist, and dipped low, revealing the lacy camisole she wore beneath it. A figure hugging skirt suit ended below the knee, exposing her beautiful calves.
His mind went down a very dirty road as his eyes followed the outline of her legs from her high heels to her curvaceous hips and wandered to the vee between her legs. Then he swirled her around, appreciating every inch of her amazing body. “Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?”
She giggled, and her blush was too much for his self-control. He kissed her hard, letting all of the emotions from the last three months pour out of him. When he released her, he strode to her office door and locked it with a loud click.
He strode back to her, kissed her hard on the lips while one hand trailed down the exciting skirt suit, which revealed so much yet nothing at all. The other hand traveled down her back and cupped her ass that was nicely accentuated in her pencil skirt.
His erection pressed painfully against his jeans and his thoughts were clouded by the need to claim this woman as his— for good. He backed her up against the wall and shoved his hand under her skirt, slowly traveling up her wonderful thighs to cup her ass again. Oh my god, she was killing him. His fingers traced the smooth skin of her gorgeous legs.
“Oh, lovey. I want you so much.”
“I want you too. Only you.” She was gasping and panting in his arms as his fingers traveled beneath her panties, and slid inside her wet folds. A needy moan escaped her throat as he rubbed his thumb across her sensitive nub. “You are so wet for me already.”
When she didn’t protest, he carried her over to her desk and leaned her over it. She moaned again and his desire for her was ever rising. Her backside was begging him to touch it, to move his hands over it. He squatted behind her and placed his hands at her ankles, skimming them up her smooth legs, watching her as she leaned into his touch and her breathing became ragged.
When he reached the hem of her skirt, he slipped his hands under the edge and began to methodically push it up her legs. Up her thighs, past her ass, revealing the lacy thong she wore beneath. He pushed it to her hips and then used his mouth to map the backs of her thighs.
When she moaned in pleasure and spread her legs, he ripped the panties from her, tossing the scrap of lace behind him. Then he stepped back and took in the exhilarating sight in front of him.
His woman leaned over her desk, naked from the waist down except for her black high heels. Then he delved between her thighs to find her wet and ready for him.
“God, please don’t stop,” she pleaded with him.
Ter had no intention of stopping, but before he took her, he wanted to give her pleasure like she’d never had before. He stood up, pressing against her so she had no doubt about how much he wanted her. His hardness squashed into her softness, and he smiled when she moaned in pleasure and tried to reach back for him.
He grabbed her searching hand and laid it flat on the desk in front of her. At the same time, he slipped his hand further between her legs, finding the spots that gave her the most pleasure.
“Ter…rence!”
“Easy, love. I want you to come all over my hand.”
“I want you.”
“And you shall have me, but first I want your pleasure. Give it to me.”
He rubbed and teased her, sensing when she was close as her body tightened and she arched her back. His fingers plunged deeper into her core, driving her over the edge, her cries of pleasure music to his ears.
Then he leaned over her, whispering into her ear, “This was only the beginning. I want you to come for me again and again.”
She was still gasping for breath. “Ter, I’m not sure if I can take more.”
“I’m sure you can, lovey. A lot more.”
***
Ivy tried to regain her calm, his weight pressing her down onto her desk and for once she didn’t mind that she was a woman. On the contrary, she’d never felt more cherished and wanted.
His hard length pushed against her oversensitive core while his upper body pressed her onto her desk. She was completely at his mercy and she loved it. With him, it felt good and safe to give up control. She was in control all day long, at night she wanted to surrender to him. To the love of her life, the one man who’d shown her she could be tough and successful, as well as feminine and sexy.
Suddenly, she didn’t feel his weight on her anymore, and wanted to stand up, but he nudged her down again with his big hand on her back and said, “I’m not finished with you yet, lovey.”
Those words, whispered in a rough and greedy voice sent thrills through her body as if she hadn’t just experienced a mind-numbing orgasm. “I want you inside me.”
He growled. “Not yet. You may be in charge during the day, but not at night.” With these words, he lightly spanked her bare ass and she hissed.
“You like that, lovey?” His voice was liquid sex and she quivered.
“Yes.”
He gave her another slap on the other side of her ass and she felt the sting of pain heightening her arousal to almost unbearable levels, setting every cell in her body on fire.
She hissed again, but he didn’t give her much time to assimilate the sensations. His tongue and lips laved her backside with soft kisses before he knelt down behind her and cupped her cheeks with his hands, squeezing and kneading them, while pushing her legs further apart. “Oh my god.”
Her legs were already trembling before he buried his head between her thighs and licked and sucked her wet folds, sending darts of pleasure to every region of her body. Ragged breaths of ecstasy filled the otherwise silent room and minutes later, tremors swept down her thighs and up her stomach, her inner muscles clenching and unclenching in anticipation of another powerful release.
When his tongue darted deeper into her, she shattered against his mouth, wave after wave of a climax rolling through her. He circled his tongue over her cleft until the last wave of orgasm left her body.
Trembling and shaking, she gasped when she heard the sound of a zipper and then felt his thick tip teasing her opening.
The need to feel him filling her up overwhelmed her. Never had she wanted a man more than Ter right now. She tried to thrust her hips onto his hard length, to take him in. But he countered every one of her moves with one of his and poised his thick crown right at her entrance without entering her.
“I want you inside me. Now.”
“Lovey. You have to wait.”
She sighed in sweet agony. Yes, she would have to. And she knew the reward would be galactic if she let him have his way. “You’re torturing me, Ter.”
“That’s exactly my intention. I want to hear you scream with pleasure. And completely wasted when I’m done with you.”
His shaft firmly poised at her entrance, he continued to tease her and slid a finger into her tightest hole. “Ahh.”
“Relax, lovey,” he whispered before he started moving the finger. It was a thrilling sensation and before she knew it, she came again. He slowly calmed her down and then flipped her around, carefully putting her legs on his shoulders. He looked down on her, his face full of love. “You’re so beautiful. I have to see your face when I’m inside you.”
Ivy was certain she’d died and gone to paradise when he unbuttoned her jacket and pushed up her camisole and bra to fill his palms with her bre
asts.
“God, I love you so much, it hurts,” he said as he plucked her nipples into taut, pulsating peaks.
“God, I love you too,” she hissed and then he finally — finally — slid his rock hard erection into her, until he was buried balls deep, filling her completely. “This feels so good. I missed you so much.”
She watched his rippled abs and chest as his pounding became wild and hard, taking them both over the edge together. As the orgasm claimed him, she caught his eyes and could see right into his soul. An eternity later, she lay wasted on her desk, absolutely certain she’d died of pleasure.
“I’m yours, forever,” she whispered and he leaned over her to kiss her, his breath ragged even as his body was still hard inside of her.
“I love you, Ivy.”
“I love you too.”
Chapter 24
After righting their clothing as best as they could, Ter escorted Ivy from the office, taking her to his new place. They stopped by her apartment and she gathered up a change of clothes and her bathroom stuff.
“Oh, I’m so glad you two are back together,” Bella said and then hugged Ivy for several long moments. “Whatever you need, honey, you know I’ll always support you with everything.”
Ter watched the two women together and was glad that Ivy had Bella. It would be difficult enough for her if he couldn’t convince her father to change his mind.
Once they sat in his vehicle and drove to his apartment, he clasped her hand and said, “I’m never letting you go again. You know that, right?”
Ivy smiled at him and then scooted over on the seat. “I know that.” She laid her head on his shoulder and then sighed.
“What was that for?” he asked, sensing her worries.
“I’m just concerned about my father.” When he glanced at her, she explained, “I’ve already made my decision, don’t worry about that. But if I never see my family again…it would hurt. It makes me sad to think about that happening.”
Ter hugged her close as he turned into the parking garage for his apartment building. He parked his vehicle and then turned her to face him. Cupping her jaw, he searched her eyes and told her, “Everything will work out fine.”
