My heart signs along the dotted line before I stuff it back in its box and get to cooking.
I busy myself with sandwiches. It’s not fancy, but it’s this or takeout, and I’d like to be the one doing something nice for a change. “Am I allowed to ask about your work?” Said casually, likehey, no big deal. Whatever. Notwhat you do is really fascinating, and I love hearing you moan, but I’m trying not to be weird about it because even though you’ve had your dick in me and we’re pretend dating, I want us to be friends.
I’m, like, 60 percent sure Lincoln sees through me.
“Ivy, you may ask me anything you like. What do you want to know?”
All of it. There’s not a corner of him I want hidden from me, no room unentered. Whatever he’ll let me see before he closes the door. “Everything.”
“It was a surprise to me, honestly. I never had much of an imagination as a kid, unless you count thinking I was untouchable.” Carefully, he spreads the butter to each edge, his work far more precise than I was expecting. “Then I went on a date with a woman who had a very successful career doing cam work, and she suggested I could make some money using my voice.”
Maybe it’s a good thing that his listeners can’t see him or the slow sweep of his tongue as it wets his lips. I can see it, and I know what those lips feel like. The path his tongue trailed along my jaw, over my chest, across my…
I clear my throat. “So you started for fun and then couldn’t get enough? And you write them yourself?”
“Yes,” he says from behind me. “Would you like a demonstration?”
What a ridiculous question. Of course I do. “Maybe later,” I say, picking up a butter knife and holding it out to him. He clasps my wrist and plucks it from my grip before bringing my hand to his lips.
A peek over at his knowing grin says he heard what I really wanted to say.
I start slicing tomato. “And that’s all it took?” I’m pretty proud of how steady I sound.
“She was very persuasive,” he says, low enough my body is reacting. “And flexible.”
I flush.
Jesus, I can see my eulogy now.Here lies Ivy, drowned in her arousal. When asked, investigators said she’d carved the term “his fucking voice” into the countertop.
“Ivy?”
I duck my head, moving over to the sink to wash some lettuce. “What else do you want on this? It’s not going to be fancy, but I’m making the most of the bare thing you call a pantry. If you want a real meal, you’d have to come to my place.” Great, now I’m rambling. Just invite him for a date, why don’t I.
A date. With my one-night stand/crush/fake boyfriend… Yeah, that tracks for me.
This is more ridiculous than the lengths the showSmashwent to convince people Karen could hold a candle to Ivy, as if viewers didn’t have ears and a brain.
“I’m quite sure I would follow you off a pier, darling. A home-cooked meal would not be a hardship.”
I shake the water off while I compose myself.
Bread buttered, Lincoln walks over and fits himself at my back, even though he has to reach farther to the kettle on the counter. “Tea?” he asks.
A shiver rolls down my spine. It doubles when he brushes my hair off my neck, and I momentarily forget what I’m doing, waiting, breathless, for what’s next. But there isn’t anything. Just the solid wall of him at my back.
“No, thank you. I don’t like tea.”
His head hits my shoulder with a soft thump. “You’re really testing my resolve here, Ivy. Manny will be very disappointed in you.”
I whip around, brandishing the spatula at him, while he bites back a smile. “A real boyfriend would be nicer to the woman who is about to feed him.”
“Tell me more,” he whispers, his hands finding their way to my hips, his fingers skimming the waistband of my jeans. Heat races through me, and my eyes flutter closed. “About what your boyfriend can do for you.”
A flush races up my neck so fast it breaks the sound barrier.
I step away. This is too close to everything I want to pretend it is. “He’d stop distracting me and get us some plates so we can eat.”
Lincoln prefers to eat dinner at his dining table, which is a real adult thing he has in his apartment, but I want to eat on the sofa, so we compromise by eating on his sofa.
