Page 54 of Recovering Ivy

“Almost. I thought I was going to pass out when you hummed on my cock and I blew in your throat. I had no idea it could be that good.”

I laid my head on his chest and listened to his strong heartbeat under me. I never wanted to leave this place, this bubble of contentment.

“We should shower so I can feed you,” he said after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

“I’m too relaxed,” I told him, and his body stiffened under mine. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking the same thing. I’ve never felt so… at peace in my life.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, baby. I’m just surprised is all.”

“Surprised in a good way?” I still hadn’t lifted my body off of his and if I wasn’t careful, his tender hands caressing my back would lull me to sleep.

“Only you, Ivy. I can’t explain why or how, and I’m smart enough not to question it. But I know someplace deep in my soul there is no one else who could quiet my demons.”

And that was when I fell in love. Not a storybook happily ever after love, but an all-consuming blinding love. He’d melted my soul to his. It didn’t matter what happened in the days, or weeks, or years that would follow. I would forever belong to him.

Long after I walked away, he would still own me.

19

Zane

I had mentally prepared for the rash of shit I was going to get from the team. I knew before we walked through the door it was going to be painful. They’d never let something as good as me claiming a woman go without busting my balls.

I tried to avoid the topic and jumped right into the case.

“Where are we with the images?” I asked Garrett as soon as the team settled around the conference room table. He slid a folder across the table and I reached out to pull it the rest of the way.

“So we’re just ignoring the fact you walked in the office holding Ivy’s hand?” Leo jumped right in.

“Yep,” I answered, but the team ignored me.

“Hopefully, with steady ass it will improve his attitude,” Colin added.

“Do not ever call Ivy steady ass.” I leveled Colin with a stare.

“I take it the plan we’d come up with to use Ivy as bait is now a no-go,” Jaxon said, reminding me of what I had said to him on the plane on the way home from Africa about his woman Violet.

His comment was met with a growl.

“How the mighty have fallen.” Jasmin smirked.

I glanced at the two men left in the room that hadn’t commented and waited. Declan didn’t seem to have much use for the current conversation. He was new and hadn’t been around when I was giving Linc, Jax, and Leo a hard time when they were trying to figure their shit out and claim their women. Smart man. Linc, on the other hand, was, and I figured he’d be the ringleader busting my balls and getting his digs in. But he sat lost in his thoughts, giving me nothing, which could only mean bad things.

“Happy for you, brother,” he said. I should’ve known he’d turn a good old ball-breaking session around to sappy emotional shit.

“Great. We done? We’ve got work to do,” I told the group.

They weren’t done. Another round of comments was made. All at my expense, all rude, and through it all I sat back quietly and took it. Nothing they threw my way phased me; not with Ivy by my side. I’d endure any amount of verbal torture if it meant at the end of the day she was mine.

“When’s the wedding?” Declan asked.

The question should’ve made me break out in hives, but it didn’t. In the past, the thought of a woman being tied to me in a permanent way would’ve had me gagging at the concept. But this was Ivy, not some woman. For some strange unexplainable reason, I knew she was made for me, not that I would tell the room at large my feelings on the subject and give them more ammunition to use against me.

“Now we’re done.” I opened the file Garrett had given me and scanned the images from the hotel’s security feeds. “Ivy was right. Forester leaves the backpack he carries in with the prostitutes.”