This was what King had seen.Not just talent, but presence.Ivy didn’t fill space loudly.She anchored it.The wall changed under her hands, stopped being just another boundary and started becoming a story.
A couple of brothers wandered over, drawn by curiosity and boredom in equal measure.
“Hey,” one of them called.“What’re you painting, sweetheart?”
Havoc’s spine went rigid.
Ivy didn’t look back right away.She finished the line she was working on, stepped back, then turned with a polite smile.“A mural.”
“No shit,” the other brother laughed.“What kinda mural?”
Before she could answer, Havoc stepped forward.“Move along.”
Both men blinked, surprise flashing across their faces.
“We’re just looking,” the first said, sounding a tad defensive.
“You’re in the way,” Havoc replied flatly.“You got duties.Go do them.”
The air shifted.Not hostile, but final.Havoc had pulled rank without thinking.The brothers exchanged a look, shrugged, and peeled off without another word.Havoc didn’t realize his fists were clenched until Ivy spoke.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said mildly.
He turned to her, irritation flaring again, though he wasn’t sure at what.
“They were bothering you,” Havoc pointed out reasonably.
“I can handle myself,” she answered.
“I know,” he said.The admission came out rougher than he meant.“Doesn’t mean they get to distract you.”
She studied him for a moment, something curious flickering in her eyes.Ivy didn’t look offended or grateful, which she ought to be.She simply gave him an assessing look, as if she was filing the moment away for later.
“Okay,” she said simply, and turned back to her wall.
That was it.There was no argument or probing.Huh.It unsettled him more than if she’d called him out.
Time passed differently after that.The sun climbed, shadows shifting across the compound.Engines came and went.Men laughed, argued, lived their lives.Through it all, Ivy worked.
She replaced charcoal with paint and color bloomed against brick.There were deep blacks and burnished reds, steel grays and flashes of bone white.The image took shape, a rider emerging from shadow, his posture loose and powerful, eyes hidden beneath the brim of a helmet.
Havoc recognized the stance.The subtle angle of the shoulders.The way the bike leaned like an extension of the body riding it.It hit him in the chest, sudden and unguarded.
She wasn’t painting a fantasy.She was painting them.The temptation of the road.The way it got into your blood and never left.
“You ride?”he asked without thinking.
She glanced back at him, brush paused midair.“No.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he said.
A corner of her mouth curved.“I watch.”
That tracked.She noticed things, felt them, and translated them into something permanent.
His restlessness was gone now, replaced by a strange calm that settled into his bones.Watching her work scratched an itch he hadn’t known how to name.It reminded him that not everything worth guarding was fragile.Some things just needed space to exist.
Another brother wandered close, slower this time, eyes respectful.The others must’ve warned him.He stopped short when Havoc cut him a look.Havoc wasn’t even sure what possessed him to be all growly and possessive.It was certainly out of character for him.Then again, his reaction to this particular woman was odd.
