“Is that right?”
She nods, eyes wide, a hint of her steeliness peeking out from under soft cheeks, hinting at the intensity I find compelling. What she’s feeling penetrates deeply and rises to the surface in a flash, and I enjoy being swept up in her wave.
“So how does it work? Do you…” she trails off, expecting me to finish the sentence. But it’s far more enjoyable to catalog the sweep of her lashes against her cheek as the seconds tick by. “You know,” she finishes, waving a hand at my cock in a move that works like a charm to stir it to life.
It takes some serious willpower to keep it at bay.
“Are you sure you want to know? I’ve heard peeking behind the curtain can kill the magic for some.” I can feel the smile as it takes over my face.
Ivy’s gaze snaps to mine as her back straightens, her eyes darkening as though I just insulted her. “Well, I’m not some people,” she says, and no, she definitely isn’t.
I catch her arm where it’s been resting on her thigh and stroke the inside of her wrist. It lets me feel the exact moment her pulse spikes. “Do I get turned on? Touch myself while I record? Be clear on what you’re asking me.”
She blinks, swallows. “Both,” she breathes. “Either.”
Her heart rabbits under my fingertips. “There have been times it’s turned me on, but I won’t act on it until after I’m recording. Though now I’m curious,” I say, closing the gap between us to drag my lips along her jaw. “What effect did it have on you? Did you listen to them in bed? Were your hands free to wander? Or were you getting off on my voice somewhere else? In public, perhaps? With your headphones on while no one around you knew how wet you were getting?”
Her lips part, her chest rising quicker now. Ivy pulls her wrist free to grip my shirt in her fist. Not pushing me away. Merely holding me in place as we share breath.
“How many orgasms do you think you’ve given listeners?”
With my free hand, I skim the tips of my fingers down her stomach, lingering at her waistband. Hovering in a promise. Waiting for her to ask. To beg. “You’ve done the research. Tell me how many you’ve had, and I’ll extrapolate from there.”
Her shoulders shake as her skin washes over with goose bumps. Nothing gets me harder than knowing how quickly I can bring her to surrender.
One word from her, and I’ll have her on her knees, giving her exactly what I know she’s craving.
“Fuck,” she gasps, but it comes out as a laugh, cutting through the tension as she lets go of my shirt and reclaims the space I closed, leaning back and catching her breath. I pull my hand back to safer ground. “No wonder you’re so popular on there,” she says, “I love the way words sound coming from your mouth.”
I know she does. It’s stitched into every shiver that rumbles through her when I whisper in her ear. The way her body reactsas I lean in. How hungrily she’s staring at my cock right now, half hard and wanting along my thigh. “What a coincidence,” I reply, knowing she’s holding herself back from taking what she wants, but also that I’ll wait forever for her. “Because I happen to adore the way you sound coming from my mouth.”
The heat that floods her skin is almost as good to watch as it would be to taste.
CHAPTER28
FATHER DEAREST
LINCOLN
I knew moving would be hard, but it’s the little things that keep tripping me up.
I miss the piece of shit apartment Manny and I had. The one that was four blocks from the tube. The fish & chip shop on the corner with proper curry sauce and battered cod roe fatter than my fist.
I miss sitting on Dad’s couch, arguing over the football, hearing his Wednesday rants about the price of Hobnobs going up and how all of life’s problems could be fixed with an English breakfast or a pint.
I miss being too far away for anyone to have their nose in my business.
It’s only been a month since I left, and while a day hasn’t gone by that I don’t talk to him, it’s not the same. Instead of getting to share a pint or a pot of tea while I contort myself in his awful dining chairs, watching him carve new smile lines with each new story from the pub, I’m on the other side of the world, staring at him through a phone.
“I think dinner is a good idea,” he says, surer than I am. “I’m proud of you for trying.”
Reed doesn’t deserve it after the shit he pulled the other day, but I made Dad a promise before I left, and I won’t let Reed’s bullheadedness deter me.
“Yeah, well. If he could at least show he gives a damn, it would be nice.”
“You know how he is.” It’s a purely Dad answer, straight from the mouth of a man who worked the same job for thirty-eight years of his life. Nothing fancy, but it was “good, steady work.” He met Mum when she was in the UK studying at Oxford. Dad said she had no business at a pub in Hackney, but there she was, a beauty beyond compare.
They did well to last as long as they did. Twenty years is a lot, especially when Deacon didn’t approve of dad’s “simpler leanings.” He hated that we lived in the UK for most of the year, only visiting during school hols. That’s what ate at them the most, I think. Who they were being asked to be wasn’t who they actually were, and it tore them apart.
