Not quite a question. I don't answer, which is its own answer.
"I was hoping, you know. With you here for a few months, I thought maybe we could actually try for something real. But I see I’m too late.” He says it without bitterness, which is somehow worse than if he'd been cruel about it. Cruelty would have been easier to walk away from.
"Dave—"
“But Ivy, be careful. I’ve heard things about Thorne Blackstone. The kind of things that don't make for a happy ending."
"I know his reputation."
"Do you?" His eyes hold mine. There’s a touch of jealousy in them, but mostly I see genuine concern. “Be careful."
The music thumps through the walls. Someone laughs loudly down the hall. And Dave stands there, waiting for something. Maybe for me to change my mind. Give him a chance.
But that wouldn’t be fair to him.
"You deserve someone whose head is fully in it," I say softly.
"So do you," he replies. Then he nods once and walks away, disappearing into the crowd.
Thorne appears around a corner. “What the hell was that?” he demands. A muscle pulses at his temple, and his eyes have gone stormy.
I lift my chin. "You made yourself perfectly clear. I'm a nobody in your world, right? Just someone to fuck and forget." I gesture toward where we left Heather. "You've done it before. Hell, you already did it to me."
He steps closer, crowding me against the wall."What are you talking about?"
"We slept together, and then you ignored me. No more morning swims. You wouldn't even look at me. But now some other guy dances with me and suddenly you care?"
"I do care! That's the fucking problem."
He moves closer still, until barely an inch separates us. The narrow space between us becomes its own universe—hot, charged, dangerous. Time suspends in the vacuum we’ve created, where even breathing is an act of surrender.
“I shouldn’t have come tonight,” he whispers.
“Then why did you?”
His throat works as he swallows, and his eyes that usually reveal nothing, flash with raw honesty.“Because when you told me you wanted me here. With you. I couldn’t stay away.”
A door opens further down the hallway, voices spilling out. Thorne’s hand finds mine, fingers interlacing as he pulls me toward a door marked “Staff Only.” He turns the handle, and to my surprise, it opens.
The room beyond is small. I’m not sure if it’s an office or a storage area. There’s a desk pushed against one wall and shelves lined with bottles and supplies. Thorne closes the door behind us, the click of the latch echoing in the sudden quiet.
Chapter Seventeen
Ivy
The lock engages with a soft snick, sealing us in darkness thick with promise and the muffled thump of bass from the club outside. My pulse pounds in my ears as Thorne’s silhouette moves closer in the narrow space between stacked boxes and a metal desk. A sliver of light from beneath the door catches on the planes of his face, turning his eyes into midnight pools.
“Ivy.” My name on his lips sounds like both a question and an answer.
I take a step back, hip bumping against the edge of the desk. “This is crazy,” I whisper, though I’m not sure if I’m talking about being here with him or the way my body reacts whenever he’s near.
“Completely.” He doesn’t move closer, but his presence fills the small room like bourbon vapor in a rick house—intoxicating, everywhere at once.
"Is this because you want me?" I ask. "Or because you don't want another man touching me?"
The silence stretches just long enough to be its own answer.
"Both," he says finally. No deflection. No smirk. Just the word, raw and honest in the dark. “And because I can’t stop thinking about you.”
