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“Is your mum okay?” Ivy asked later that afternoon when we arrived home.
Lunch had turned out to be full of laughter after Ivy and I ran interference with Mum and Annika. Skylar had even asked me again to help with her assignment. Peace had been restored in the King house. Fuck knew how long for, but we’d make the most of it while we had it.
I’d collapsed onto the couch as soon as we walked in our front door, pulling Ivy with me. The plan had been to have the talk I’d promised her, but that plan flew out the window the minute she was in my arms. Hell, it’d been more than seven days since I’d had her. I didn’t care if all we did was kiss; I just needed to touch her.
I needed my hands on her body. Touch calmed me in a way not much else did. Fuck if I understood why, but it was how I knew things were okay in my world. A week without it, and I was climbing walls. Going out of my mind.
Ivy gave me a good five minutes of getting my fill before she pushed me away and asked about my mother. My dick was hard as fuck, and I could barely think straight while working out all the dirty shit I wanted to do to her, but she was right—we needed to talk.
I moved to the other end of the couch. At her questioning look, I muttered, “I’m too tempted to spread your legs and fucking devour you. I need to be as far from that pussy as possible.”
Her lips pulled up at the ends in a smile as she stretched her legs out, rested them on the coffee table and pulled a pillow onto her lap. “I get it, you want me too much. I mean, who wouldn’t?”
Although I’d proposed to her two years ago, and told her I loved her as often as I could, Ivy had no idea just how much I wanted her. I’d known her half my life; she was etched in my heart like no one else. Our lives were entwined, past and future. And my journey through life was something I couldn’t imagine taking without her.
“Mum will be okay.” I finally answered her question. “Thanks for your help with Nik today.” It meant everything that she wanted to help my family. The falling out our mothers had experienced a few months ago had been hard on us, challenging our relationship in new ways, but she’d never once stopped being there for my mother and siblings.
“Always, baby.”
Baby.
It lingered in my mind.
I had to find a way for her to want to call me that every damn day. I had to find a way to quieten the unpredictable thunder between us.
Fuck, I’d just put space between us when that was the last thing we needed. I stood and closed that distance again. Scooping my arms under and around her, I lifted her and walked us upstairs
to our bedroom.
Her eyes questioned me. “I thought we were talking.”
“We are.” I placed her down, sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her to stand between my legs. Taking hold of her hips, I said, “We’ve been engaged for two years, and I’ve been a patient man while you slowed the process down, but I’m done waiting. I want my ring on your finger, and I want it there within the next month.”
Her mouth fell open. “Totally not what I thought we were going to talk about.”
“We’ll get to that, but I need to get this sorted before we move on.” My eyes bored into hers, demanding an answer.
She tried to move out of my hold. When I gripped her harder so she couldn’t, she placed her hands on mine and attempted to pull them from her hips. “Let me go, King.”
I did as she asked and then stood. “Why are you stalling?”
Dropping her gaze to the ground, she bit her bottom lip and avoided my question.
I tipped her chin up so I could have her eyes again. “Talk to me, Ivy. What’s going on?”
It took her a few moments, but she finally asked, “How can you still want to marry me when I can’t even give you what you want?”
I had no idea what she was talking about. “What can’t you give me?”
She crossed her arms so that each hand gripped the opposite forearm. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms in her nervous way, she said, “I know you like rough sex, and I do too, but I can’t do the choking thing, King. I’ve thought about it all week, and—”
Jesus fuck, no wonder she’d pulled away. “That’s why you’ve been distant?”
“I needed space to figure it out.” She paused and took a deep breath, looking up at me with tears in her eyes. “I want to be able to give you whatever sex you want, and I thought maybe I could do it, but I can’t. I’m sorry.” The crack in her voice shattered through my soul reminding me I was a fucking bastard.
I needed to touch her, needed that contact, but I instinctively knew that that was the last thing Ivy needed. We’d been having sex for five years, and it had taken me a good three years to gain her complete trust. After her traumatic childhood filled with sexual abuse, sex had been hard for her. She wanted physical intimacy with me, but something as simple as my hands on her body had been difficult for her. Touching her during this conversation didn’t feel like the right thing to do, so I pushed my needs aside in an effort to give her what she needed.
It was fucking hard not to pull her into my arms, though, when she stood in front of me crying.
