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REEVE
I wakein Ivy’s bed. Dawn is just breaking outside the window, and Ivy is still asleep beside me, curled in the crook of my shoulder with one arm slung possessively across my chest.
God, this woman.
I stroke her cheek softly. Her hair is spilled across the pillows in a wild tangle, and her brow is furrowed a little, like she’s having a perplexing dream. Her vintage Fleetwood Mac T-shirt is riding up, barely containing her curves, and even though I must have kissed every inch of her a dozen times last night as we groaned here in the sheets, I want to do it all over again.
I want to do italways.
I huff a quiet laugh of disbelief. After spending years bitching that moments like this in the movies were corny as hell –who even watches someone sleep?– it turns out, I just didn’t know what I was missing. Because lying here with Ivy, listening to the steady rise and fall of her breath as the birds chirp outside the window, I feel a sense of peace like nothing I’ve ever known.
Bring on corny. Sign me up for happily-ever-after. I’m there.
Ivy wriggles in my arms, letting out a sleepy yawn.
“Good morning, sunshine,” I murmur, kissing her forehead.
She smiles, opening her eyes. “You missed your curfew,” she teases, snuggling closer. “You’re in trouble now…”
I smile. “It was worth it.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Ivy says, sounding pleased.
I chuckle. “It could be worth it all over again …” I suggest, sliding my hand over the curve of her hip.
Ivy presses closer for a moment, melting against me, but just as I’m about to tip her back into the pillows and wake her up with my mouth, she pulls back with a reluctant groan. “Hazel said they were hitting the road early,” she reminds me, sitting up. “You don’t want to miss them before they leave.”
She looks so sleep-ruffled and sexy that I want to keep her right here in bed for the rest of the day, but I know, she’s right. I promised Lottie my famous pumpkin pancakes before they leave, and she’ll never let me hear the end of it if I bail.
“Later,” I promise Ivy, vaulting out of bed. “I want you right back here later, looking just like that.”
Ivy looks down at her rumpled T-shirt. “This? I have a whole drawer full of silky, naughty nightgowns, and you get hot and bothered over this?”
I lean over, and land a sizzling kiss on her mouth; my hands in her hair, and my tongue sliding in her mouth until she’s gasping against me. “I’d get hot and bothered over you in a damn trash bag,” I tell her, nipping her full lower lip. “But tell me more about these nightgowns of yours …”
Ivy giggles, ducking out of my embrace, and getting out of bed, too. “You’ll see,” she says, shooting me a flirty look. “Let’s just say, I have big plans for you tonight – no curfew allowed."
“I love your plans,” I say gratefully, fishing my clothes off the floor from where Ivy tossed them last night. “Your plans are foolproof and brilliant.”
“That’s just because they wind up with me naked,” she smiles.
“Well, yeah.” I grin, tossing her a robe from the back of the door. “Tell me what’s not brilliant about that?”
Ivy laughs, and dammit, I could listen to that woman laugh for the rest of my life.
You’re done for, Reeve Donavan.
“Want to come have breakfast with us?” I ask, watching as she pulls an outfit from her wardrobe.
“I have to get to the museum,” Ivy replies. “But I’m just working the morning, though. Then I’m all yours.”
“I like the way that sounds,” I reply, before I can stop myself.
Her cheeks flush. “We should really get focused on that curtain clue,” she blurts, like she’s trying to change the subject. “Jake will be tearing those old mines apart by now. And if he doesn’t find anything…”
“He won’t,” I say confidently, but Ivy gives me a look.
“It might not matter. He could fake it, and pretend to find the treasure anyway.”
