"My pride?" I laughed again, darker this time. "That's rich, coming from you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're the one who was too proud to ask for help. Too proud to stay and fight. Too proud to trust anyone with whatever was really going on."
The anger in her eyes ebbed, her voice softening, but still kept that edge. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Because you never told me! You just left!"
"This isn't about that!"
"Everything is about that!" The words exploded out of me. "Every conversation, every look, every damn minute you're here is about that!"
She shoved me then, both hands against my chest, hard enough to make me step back. "You arrogant ass! You think everything revolves around you and your hurt feelings? I'm here to do a job. If you can't handle that professionally?—"
"Professionally?" I caught her wrists before she could shove me again. "There's nothing professional about any of this. You're standing in my barn, telling me how to run my ranch, wearing clothes that cost more than my hands make in a month, pretending like you belong here."
She lifted her chin, refusing to back down. “I did belong here once."
"And whose fault is it that you don't anymore?"
She tried to yank her wrists free, but I held on, and suddenly we were closer than we'd been since that night by the creek. Close enough that I could see the gold flecks in her brown eyes. Close enough to feel her breath on my face. Close enough to see her pulse racing at the base of her throat.
"Let go," she said, but her voice had gone breathless.
"Make me," I challenged, not sure what demon had possessed me.
She went still, staring up at me, and the air between us changed. The anger was still there, but underneath it was something else. Something that had always been there, no matter how many years or miles separated us.
Lightning flashed again, and in that stark white moment, I saw it in her eyes—the same recognition, the same want, the same terrible realization that this was about to happen even though it absolutely shouldn’t.
The air snapped.
We collided.
I didn't know who moved first. Maybe we both did. One second, we were standing there in a furious deadlock, and the next, we were kissing like the world was ending. Like we were trying to devour each other. Like all the years of anger and hurt had transformed into something physical that demanded release.
It wasn't gentle. It was war—hot and brutal, fourteen years of pain turned to hunger. She made a sound against my mouth that went straight through me, then her hands were in my hair, pulling hard enough to hurt, and I pressed her back against the stall door.
The kiss deepened, turned savage, all teeth and tongue and desperate need. She tasted like rain and regret and home, and I was drowning in her. My hands tangled in her wet hair, and she arched against me, eliminating any space between us.
Thunder shook the barn, or maybe that was just my heartbeat. I couldn't tell anymore. All I knew was that she was here, in my arms, kissing me like she was trying to crawl inside my skin, and nothing else mattered.
I was furious. With her. With myself. With everything. But I was too pathetic to save my pride and push her away. Too desperate to have her like this again to stop.
“I hate you for leaving me,” I confessed against her lips, the words raw and broken.
Ivy looked up at me, breathing hard. The fire in her eyes had dulled just slightly. “Not as much as I hate myself.”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t about to make her feel better for what she’d done to me. To us. If she hated herself, then good. Instead, I spun her around abruptly, hands digging into the swell of her hips. Her body had changed in these fourteen years. Still lean, but fuller. More to grab, more to worship. And God, did I ever.
She still fit perfectly against me. As if my body had changed to hold hers.
Her head fell back against my chest, eyes blissfully shut. I kissed along her neck. She was warm against my tongue, pulsethumping just as hard as mine. She tasted like rain and regret and everything I’d been dreaming of while we were apart.
I hated it and loved it in equal measure.
“Wyatt,” she moaned when I palmed her breasts. They were perfect handfuls. Then again, Ivy had never been anything short of perfection. She pushed her ass out, needy, grinding against my cock. The friction had me sucking in a sharp breath.
