by Quinn, Taryn
One day, I’d returned to find my girl in bed with one of my mates. And that had been that.
Since then, I’d done just fine single file. I rarely even thought about Darla. So, why was she on my mind now?
One guess. And her name was Ivy. But Ivy wasn’t Darla, and she hadn’t betrayed my trust.
Yet.
“Thanks again for a wonderful dinner,” I said to Laverne before I escaped.
I went upstairs to where we’d stashed our instruments, took care of business, then picked up my case on my way back out. Ivy was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“I wondered if you’d skipped out.” Her tone was light, but her deep, dark eyes were heavy with all the things she didn’t—wouldn’t—say.
We were a pair, me and my ginger fairy. She wasn’t mine, but it was getting harder and harder to remember that.
Rather than reply, I dragged my guitar case in front of me.
Her eyebrows lifted. “I get a private show?”
I walked down the stairs to her and shrugged, channeling some of my best mate’s easy charm. I would never be as effortless as Ian, but I’d picked up some pointers after all these years spent with rockstars. “Maybe. If you play your cards right.”
She hit me lightly and I laughed, drawing her in for a hug and a quick kiss on top of her head. She didn’t detangle herself as we said goodbye to the others still lingering around the table with coffee and gossip. Nor did she move to separate us outside as we headed up the meandering gravel path toward the grove.
It wasn’t sunset yet, but from the soft golden light spearing between the budding and blooming trees, it wasn’t too far off. The crisp air skated over my skin, but nothing could touch the warmth from Ivy’s sweet body curved against mine.
She fit me just like my hand fit my Epiphone. There was a groove from my fingers where they notched just right. Somehow Ivy and I locked together in the same way.
As if it was meant.
As if we had known each other so much longer than the sum of the few hours we’d spent together.
It was the type of thing for which stories and songs and sonnets were written. Usually with a tragic ending, because how could anything so sudden and perfect be fated to last?
But that was for later. Tomorrow. Right now, she was still at my side. Sharing my air and smiling up at me with the rosy glow of the sun on her cheeks.
“So, you like my friends? Not that Kellan is one, exactly, as we’re just collaborators for now. But Ian—”
She came to a halt. Just like that, the easy moment between us vanished. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Pretend not to care. Diminish what matters to you. Try to be so blasé about everything.”
I went cold. Inside, outside. I didn’t drop my arm from around her, but I definitely loosened my grip. “I didn’t realize I was doing that. Or that I’d done it enough for you to label it a trait.”
“And now the snooty Irish tone. Jesus H. Christ.” She moved away from me and threw up her hands. “You’re so frustrating, LC.”
Part of me rejoiced that she could still call me by that ridiculous nickname despite her irritation. The rest of me was peeved she was irritated, period. As if she had any right to be.
Okay, so she had plenty of right. But I’d never insinuated we were going to be a long-term thing. My mistake was in coming back to her again.
Your mistake or your salvation?
I gripped the neck of my guitar case. “My apologies.”
She stared at me, her eyes catching the dying rays of the sun and turning them into fire. If this was a super hero movie, I would be lying dead in the dirt while she waited for the wind machine to blow back her flowing locks. “Your obnoxious attitude should not turn me on.”
“No. It shouldn’t.”
“Yet it does. What’s wrong with me?” While I pondered that, she stepped forward and fisted her hands in my shirt. “It’s the accent,” she muttered. “Gotta be the accent.”
Then her mouth covered mine.
The craziest part was I could taste her anger. And her frustration. And underneath both, her sadness. They were layered with the sweetness from Laverne’s pie and Ivy’s natural essence.
“I’m really mad at you,” she said between kisses, slipping her fingers in the gaps in the buttons along the front of my shirt. Her nails teased over my skin and made me hiss.
“Fuck.” I nearly dropped my case in my urgency to tilt her head toward mine. Our tongues tangled, hot and needy. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on you again all day.”
Even as I said it, I dialed myself back. She was worth so much more than just this. Yet I kept falling back on my base nature to avoid the tougher conversations.
I drew away from her and let out a long, shaky breath. “But we should walk first.”
The hurt registering in her eyes nearly undid me.
“You have a right to more than I’ve given you.” I rolled my thumb over her lower lip. “I didn’t expect you, Ivy. No matter how many times I think or say that, it’s not enough. I don’t meet people like you. I don’t—”
Fall for someone that easily.
Fuck easily. It was like crash landing without a parachute to break your fall.
She turned away. “Yeah, I get it. You live in a different world. I’d figured you did, just knowing the LA part, but now that I understand the rest?” She laughed quietly. “Maggie and Zoe came from here, and they made it work. I don’t know how.”
I gripped her shoulder in my free hand. “It takes effort on both sides. I don’t have that in me.” Not again. “Not because of you. But because of—”
“Because of you. Right. Standard line. Besides, who’s to say I’m any different than you? I like fucking too, you know. Just because I have a pair of ovaries and a fine set of tits doesn’t mean I’m one period away from needing to settle down.”
Laughing right then couldn’t have been wise. I just couldn’t stop myself. “Christ, you’re a sight,” I said as she whirled to stab her finger into my chest.
“And that. That isn’t fair. You wind me up and then you compliment me and deflate any argument I might have. You know why? I have no reason to argue. You never lied to me. It was always just sex and you’d be gone in the morning.”
I tried to keep from checking out of the corner of my eye if we were being overheard. Not important. She was entitled to her feelings—including how loudly she was currently conveying them. So what if this was a farm meant for families and children?
It wasn’t as if a telephoto lens would come through the trees of this bucolic scene and catch something unsavory for a tabloid. I wasn’t a true rocker, after all. I just played one now and then when it suited my aims.
As I did most things. This weekend, I’d played the role of boyfriend.
Soon enough, I’d play the role of the asshole who couldn’t commit and hop on a plane without a care in the world.
Right.
I nodded toward the grove ahead of us. “Let’s walk, yeah?”
She gave me a healthy dose of side eye, but she did as I asked. She made no move to get closer to me, so I gave her some space. It was better for her at least, if not for me.
We wandered along the path, passing only a few people coming out of the grove. The deeper we went, following the beams of the descending sun, the more alone we became. After a bit, no one passed us, and I would’ve sworn it got chillier.
The scents of fresh earth and flowers I couldn’t name filled my head. We were surrounded by trees, cushioned in a silence broken only by occasional songs from the birds overhead.
We might have been the only people left on earth.
The property seemed vast. Endless. As if we walked forever. Then she surprised me by taking my hand and veering off the path, rushing so fast that I had to chuckle as I picked my way over exposed roots and around rocks and greenery. She seemed to know where she was going, and I definitely did not.
We emerged into a clearing that led to a short rise. I followed her up it and caught my breath as we stood together viewing the countryside in all its rose-gold splendor below us. Trees bursting with new life, miles and miles of land. Farms and quaint country churches with their steeples mixed with sprawling ranches and businesses in the hills and valleys below. I couldn’t take it all in and had to shield my eyes from the last of the sun. But the air seemed even clearer up here, as if it wasn’t my imagination we were closer to the sky.
Fanciful sot, aren’t you?
But I wouldn’t have said I was particularly. At least not before Crescent Cove and Turnbull had gotten their hooks into me.
Before Ivy.
I unfolded the spread I’d tucked in my guitar case, then sat in the grass and patted the spot beside me. She joined me on the ground, her knees bumping mine. I smiled in silent thanks.
She always eased the way.
Swallowing the knot in my throat, I pulled out my Epiphone. I could feel her shock as if it was a tangible thing.
I wanted to make a joke. Thought I was carrying this as a prop, did you?
But I said nothing so as not to diminish the moment.
The words I’d written for her came easily to hand as I strummed the opening chords. I’d toyed with the song here and there, but it was still very much a work in progress. Still, new lyrics came to me, aided by the soft flutter of the breeze through her hair and the gentle, insistent press of her leg to mine.
A steady reminder.
Light in her eyes, not meant to go out
Broken by me, never
Not a doubt
But places inside me
She has laid claim
To go on with her
Or without her
I’ll never be the same
I stopped, my fingers falling still. And chanced a look at her in the fading light.
Her eyes were damp with tears.
“That’s…” Her throat moved. “You really wrote that for me?”
“Do you think there could be another ginger fairy?” Ever?
I didn’t say the last part aloud, but it echoed through my head.
Her lips curved. “Just as there could be no other Lucky Charms.”
“Not true. I ate some just last week.”
On purpose. To remind myself of her.
As if I ever forgot.
“You ate yourself?”
“This conversation is veering dangerously close to perversion. Alas, I’m not that flexible.”
Her smile grew and the constriction in my throat lessened.
“I wrote that for you weeks ago. I’d tried a few times and nothing came out right.” Idly, I strummed the strings. “Today the last verse just seemed to flow. It needs more work of course, but—”
“It’s perfect. No one’s ever written anything for me.” She dashed at the tears dripping off her chin, laughing self-consciously. “Well, an old high school boyfriend did. But no one who—”
She broke off and stared at me. I stared right back.
I needed to know what she’d meant to say. But I didn’t have the stones to ask.
Rather than completing her thought, she leaned forward and took the guitar out of my hands. She traced the sunburst pattern on one of my most treasured instruments, her touch reverent. Carefully, she set it in its case and turned to me.
I cleared my throat. “Easy enough to string some words together.”
Anything to fill the silence.
She pressed her finger to my lips. Then she sat back on her haunches and drew her quirky skull-patterned top over her head.
No warning. No time for me to prepare. Not even a lifetime would be enough.
The last of the sunshine shimmered over her skin. I tried to keep my gaze on her lovely face, on the ends of her red hair trailing in the wind, but I couldn’t stop from taking in the sight of her perfect breasts encased in lace.
Lace that dropped away to leave only pale flesh and tight pink nipples.
My mouth went dry. I could only stare, my heartbeat throbbing in my head, as she straddled my lap.
Someone could see.
The protests inside me were weak. Practically nonexistent. And I didn’t think to shield myself as I wrapped my arms around her. All I could think about was Ivy.
She coiled her arms around my neck and rocked into me as our mouths met. This kiss wasn’t like any of the others. The same desperation fueled it, but there was more. Gentleness. Affection. Maybe even some regret.
A lot on my side, for sure.
She tipped back her head to give me access when my mouth slid to her throat. I nipped at the pulse just under her jaw, enjoying how it sped up for me. She was so responsive. Tuned to me in a way I’d never experienced.
Not because I was famous. Just because I was me, and she was her, and together, we made wild, wonderful music.
Her fingers drove through my hair to hold me against her as I focused my kisses on the tops of her breasts. I drifted lower to suck on her hard nipples. Her hair flowed around us like water, a silky cocoon. Not much protection from prying eyes, but there was a barbaric part of me that didn’t want to hide. She was mine in this time and space, and I ached for the world to know it.
A scrape of my teeth and she shuddered. A twist of my fingers and she rocked against my rigid length.
Waiting for her any longer required more patience than I possessed.
I took her mouth again as I slipped a hand beneath her flirty skirt to tease the insides of her thighs. She was wet already, and my mind scrambled at just the brush of my thumb over her soaked panties.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured between kisses.
“For what?”
“I need you. So much. I can’t wait.”
“Don’t apologize for that.” She reached down between us to unzip me and free my cock. For just one illicit second, she coated me in the wetness from her slit. I groaned and remembered last night.
I’d been inside her bare.
Again. I could have that again.
No, you can’t, you idiot. Is it really worth risking everything?
She, too, must’ve come to her senses because she drew me away from the inferno slickness of her and held me to her belly. Rubbing me there so that the mixture of us branded her pale skin. She licked her lips and squeezed me hard before slipping her hand below to caress my sac.
“Christ, Ivy, you have the devil in you.”
“Not yet,” she panted, her eyes sparkling, “but I’m ready for him.” Another swipe of her tongue over her full lips. “So ready. Can’t you tell?”
Jesus.
I slipped two fingers inside her. Quick, deep thrusts made her clutch my shoulders and drop back her head to expose her throat. The long, creamy line of it begged for my kisses. As I dragged my teeth over her neck, I knew from her cry that I’d marked her.
I didn’t care. The animal side of me had no compunction.
“I’m gonna ruin another pair,” I warned before I rent the fabric in two.
“God, that’s hot.” She bounced against me, teasing me again with those wet little swipes of her greedy pussy. She caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth. “Such a tough man you are.”
“About to show you.”
But before I did, I withdrew the condom I’d tucked in my pocket when I went back to our room. I hadn’t known what this walk would bring, but being prepared was how I lived my life.
Swiftly, I suited up. Well aware she watched my every movement.
She made a noise deep in her throat as I pulled her down onto me, sliding her down my shaft. She gripped me perfectly, enfolding me in a blinding blast of heat. I drew her up and down again, faster now, and she dug her nails into my shoulders through my shirt. Bearing down when I would’ve driven up, offering just enough of a push and pull that the need inside me wound even tighter.
“Not gonna make it easy on you, LC,” she said breathlessly.
Bloody hell, this woman was unmatched
.
Or worse—she was my match. Fire wrapped in sweetness wrapped in a smart mouth that tasted like pie and sex.
I rolled her beneath me on the spread on the grass, cursing the trousers and boxers that impeded my efforts. I started to shove them down, then recalled, oh yeah, bare ass, fucking outside.
What had I become? And better yet, how could I ensure I stayed this way forever?
Without ending our kisses, I shifted and rolled her on top of me, using her skirt for cover. Although her gorgeous breasts rose and fell with every goddamn thrust, so it wasn’t as if it wasn’t fully obvious what we were doing.
“Put your shirt back on,” I gritted out.
She stretched her arm above her head and rocked her hips. “This is better.” She cupped one of her breasts and toyed with the nipple, nearly making me cross-eyed. “Don’t you think so?”
It was basically dark now. Just the faintest light remained. No one was out on this part of the property. We were safe.
Except nothing with Ivy Beck was safe, and I fucking loved—
It.
Not her.
Christ.
“To hell with it.” Furious at myself, I rolled her beneath me again. She squealed at the sudden position shift and I caught her hands above her head as I hammered into her. Couldn’t. Get. Deep. Enough. I was going to fuck her straight through the condom and pour myself inside her.
No barriers. Nothing between us.
“Rory.” She curled her legs around my hips and clutched my torso hard enough that her nails practically sliced through my clothes. “Coming. God, coming.”
“Yes. Hell, yes.” I bit down on her lower lip. “Squeeze me as tight as you fucking can.”
She didn’t disappoint. I groaned as pleasure streaked through me, white-hot and overwhelming, and let the fraying wire around my control snap.
I drained myself into the condom as I buried my face in her hair. “Ivy.” Just that, over and over again like a song.
A plea.
We didn’t move for the longest time. It was the breeze tickling my bare ass that made me turn my head. And chow down on a mouthful of grass just beyond the spread. I sputtered and lifted my head, blades still stuck to my lips, while Ivy laughed.
