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“How long have you been watching me?” she asks without opening her eyes.
“A while,” I admit. I’ve been up for hours. Since around the time she started whimpering in her sleep. I’d woken her out of her nightmare but she’d crashed immediately into a deep sleep, leaving me with no idea why she’d been begging for forgiveness. Or who she’d been begging it from.
The idea that it might be her pathetic excuse of a mother or her asshole brother had tortured me into a ball of anger and frustration, so I’d gotten up and headed to the gym down on the second floor. I spent a couple of hours there, lifting heavy shit and taking my aggravation out with a bout of kickboxing.
Nathaniel Croft. The way Ivy has been abused by her own family. I’m struggling to sleep with the need to do something about it. And in the background, ever present, that fuckface Alec Hawthorne and his obsession with my family.
When I walked into the kitchen the coffee machine had chirped happily to signal that it was ready, so I’d made a cup and come to wake her up. Instead I’d stood here ever since. Watching my heart beat outside my body.
I reach for the light switch and flip it. The overhead dimmers turn off.
“I’m keeping you awake?” She sits up. Naked.
I love when she’s nude. I love the shape of her body. Her curves. The pink tips of her tits and the creaminess of her skin. The way it blushes when I touch it. Kiss it. The way the color sticks when I use my teeth. She picks up her glasses from the bedside table and slides them onto the bridge of her nose. They’re adorable on her. A shiver runs up the middle of my back. I take another mouthful of coffee from the cup in my hand. “You’re not.”
“I am.” She purses her lips as she pulls her hair up and tucks it into a hair elastic. We’d dropped past her and Adira’s apartment when she decided to stay the second night. Picked up a few essential items. “Maybe I should stay at home tonight so you can get some sleep.”
“I slept just fine,” I tell her. It’s not exactly true. I’m struggling with the light that she’s so used to. And she definitely kept me awake with that nightmare, not that I’m going to tell her that, in case she gets embarrassed and does decide to end our sleepovers. I’m already getting used to having her here. It’s only a matter of time before it’ll bother me more when she isn’t beside me. “Besides, I like having you in my bed.”
Perhaps she’ll even decide I’m enough to get her safely through the night.
“I like being here.” She climbs off the bed and pulls on a T-shirt. One of mine. It doesn’t quite cover her ass when she stretches. Bonus.
She glances around and picks up a pair of panties. Considers them.
“Leave them off.” I’m almost surprised by the timbre of my growl.
She blinks at me like a sleepy little owl. Fucking adorable. “You okay?”
“I want you.” It’s my only excuse. I want her all the time. In every way. And there are so many ways I’ll have her when she’s ready. “But you know that already.”
And she wants me too. But she didn’t suggest we wait until her birthday because she doesn’t want me. She did it because she needed to be certain that I’m not going to bail on her if she allows herself to be vulnerable. Every day we take a step closer to her truly believing that I won’t hurt her. That I can love her for who she really is.
“Marie Kondo says we should get rid of anything that doesn’t spark joy,” I comment.
“What?”
“Your panties. They don’t do it for me,” I say.
“What’s wrong…” her brow furrows as she looks down at them, “with my panties?”
“Nothing.” I clear my throat. “But they spark more joy for me when they’re on my floor.”
She giggles. “Okay then.”
“That ass peeking out. That brings me joy. Even if it’s just because I get to squeeze it…or sink my teeth into it or...” I shake my head.
Ivy drops the scrap of lace and eyes me curiously. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I am.” This is new ground for me. Sex has always come easy. But caring about someone like I do about Ivy…figuring out the pace that we should go…it’s like waiting with bated breath for a wild animal to trust that I won’t hurt it. Nerve wracking.
“Are you sure?”
I clear my throat. I’m nervous. Oscar acceptance speech level nerves. “I want you to be sure. I want you to jump me, but I want you to do it on your own terms, when you’re ready. Whatever speed we’re taking this relationship at, you need to set it. Whatever we’re doing, I want you to be the one who decides.”
“Rogue, that’s not—” Her phone starts to play theJawstheme song as it vibrates on the bedside table. She almost jumps out of her skin before she snatches it up.
Her shoulders climb to her ears as she turns her back on me. “Hey.”
