So maybe I'm different. Maybe I'm not.
I wipe a hand roughly down my face. He's dead. But he's still here, in every choice I make and every line I cross.
As I get out of my car, my gaze lands on my newest motorcycle. A surprise for Ivy. I paid them double to prioritize it, and it arrived yesterday—two weeks ahead of schedule. Every detail exactly as I specified.
My gaze shifts from the bikes to the door to the house. Half of me hopes she is pacing, waiting for me. The rational part of me wants her to be sound asleep.
I think I’d like somebody—not somebody. I’d likeherto worry about me.
But this isn’t realistic for a man like me.
And it’s not like I can tell her what I’ve done. She wouldn't understand. She'd see it as witness tampering, obstruction of justice. And sure it is those things, but it’s also protecting my brother, hell, my whole family, and our employees from my father’s actions.
Unlike her, I can’t afford to be noble.
Sometimes I need to do what needs to be done and live with the consequences.
I come in from the garage with no idea what to do or where to go. Drink? No. Work out? Maybe. Find Ivy—
Rustling from the family room stops me. A shadow gets up from the large leather sectional and comes closer.
It’s Ivy in cotton sleep shorts and a tank top. I rub my eyes to make sure I’m not dreaming. “Ivy?”
“Where did you go?” she asks.
Instead of answering, I reach for her. My hand slides around the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair as I pull her against me. Our mouths collide without finesse or careful seduction. Just raw need. I angle her head back, deepening the kiss, pouring everything I can't say into the press of my lips, the sweep of my tongue. She gasps against my mouth, softening, melting. Her fingers twist into my shirt, clutching the fabric like she's afraid I'll disappear.
I need this. Need her. Need to shut out everything from Williams to all the choices and mistakes I've made. This is familiar territory, losing myself in physical sensation, using sex to silence the noise in my head. I've done this before, with other women, in other beds.
But it's not only about escape this time. It's the way she tastes, familiar now in a way that undoes me. The small sound she makes when I tilt my head just right. With her, it's more than sensations; it's her specifically that I want, and that realization should terrify me more than it does.
I walk her backwards, my lips never leaving hers. Her hip catches the edge of the sofa, and we stumble slightly, my hand steadying her at the small of her back.
"Thorne—"
"Not stopping," I murmur.
We keep moving, my shoulder brushing the archway as we leave the living room. In the hall, we knock into a table, and I catch a wobbly lamp without breaking the kiss, setting it back with one hand while the other keeps her pressed against me.
By the time we reach my bedroom, we're both breathing hard. I kick the door shut behind us and guide her to the bed, already imagining her spread across my dark sheets.
"Thorne..." She pulls back enough that I can see the crease between her brows, her fingers still twisted in my shirt, but her body hesitates. “What happened with—”
“Not now.” I ease her down onto the bed, following her. “Right now, I need you.” I pause, searching her face even as everything in me screams to keep going. “Do you want me to stop?”
She pulls me down to her. "I need this too."
The tension in my shoulders releases, and I capture her mouth again, harder this time. Thank God. Because I don't know what I would've done if she'd said no.
I take off her thin tank top. She isn’t wearing a bra. I press kisses to the newly exposed territory. "You're so beautiful," I murmur against her collarbone. "Do you know that?"
Her breath hitches. "You might have mentioned it once or twice."
I smile against her skin, though I’m a little unsettled. She is becoming my center, my anchor, when everything else is spinning out of control.
The realization makes me uneasy, so I focus on her. I take one nipple into my mouth. She arches into me with a sharp inhale, her fingers digging into my shoulders. The taste of her skin, the way she responds to every touch. It strips away everything else until there's only this. Only her.
I remove her pants, her underwear, until she's bare beneath me. Standing at the end of the bed, I drink in the sight of her while I work my shirt buttons free. Christ. Every time feels like the first time. I take in the curve of her waist, the flush spreading across her chest, the way she's watching me like I'm something she wants to devour.
