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Such a jackass.
“How long until it’s completed?” Her usual raspy warble is marked with heavy gravel.
He’s gotten to her. Of course, I’ll be the one cleaning up his mess.
“Almost done.” His taunt is indisputably delivered with his signature goading twinkle, whether I can witness it or not.
“Almost done?” She springs off the couch, so I shuffle into the mudroom, out of sight, but still capable of listening. “Wells needs me to help with a business issue. Will that still be the case when you’re done with the job here?”
“No,” he says flatly.
Motherfucker.
“Oh.” She sounds out of breath. She must be pacing or hyperventilating. Hopefully, it’s not the latter. “So, that’ll be it? Jesus, this is a mistake. What the hell did I do?”
I walk back into the kitchen just in time to see Liam reach for her arm. “It isn’t a mistake.” He sighs, clearly regretful that he got her so riled. “Wells might notneedyou for business afterward, but you’ll need him for your inheritance, and he’ll be there. He’s a man of his word. You have nothing to worry about concerning that, Ivy.”
That seems like a decent cue, so I amble through the back of the great room toward my office, feigning oblivion. Ivy catches sight of me, and her deep blue doe eyes morph into orbs of fire while Liam snickers under his breath. I do the only logical thing—pick up my speed.
A trained killer seeking refuge from a petite five-foot-three … vixen. Proud moment.
She storms through my office door before I can even reach my desk, the temperature immediately skyrocketing twenty degrees. How the hell did she manage that?
“Liam said this house is … temporary!” She spits out that last word like it’s revolting, which causes a chuckle to bubble inside my chest. Her aghast slack jaw suggests that is not the appropriate response, but she promptly self corrects. “He told me you’re moving on after you complete a job that has you positioned here. A job that won’t take much longer.”
I move toward her, tucking a stray hair behind her ear and grazing my knuckles down her bare neck and shoulder. Chilled and heated at once—she’s a work of art. And here, for this morsel of time, I’m her composer, reveling in the way my touch undoes her,strumming her complex chords. “Is there a question within your rambling, Little Storm?”
Flustered, cheeks blushed, and her delicate freckled nose beaded with tiny pearls of sweat, she nonchalantly tightens her thighs—fuck me, she must be wet. And her nipples are pebbled through her sky-blue cotton tank.
Goddammit. I can’t focus like this. My cock is already fighting his way up.
She stares at me, breaths heavy. Lost. It takes a fewlongbeats, but she finds her way back, unaware of my shared haze. “Yes,” she mutters. “We had a deal. Five years.”
Bending down, I let my lips ghost across her jaw. If I can control myself, this is a winning strategy. “Still not a question.”
For the briefest of seconds, she arches her neck in an offering, but the moment bursts as she regroups, crossing her arms with a grunt.Onto me.“Are you going to use me for whatever it is you need and get rid of me? Because I deserve to know that.”
“I have no intention ofevergetting rid of you, Ivanna. That’s what you should be concerning yourself with.” Truest words I’ve said to her yet.You’re mine now, Little Storm.
She pins her lips, barely breathing, eyes cast downward. “So, the house?”
Is that really what she’s focused on?
I back away from her, dropping into my chair and shielding my growing bulge with the desk while she awaits my answer. “If you like it here, we’ll stay.”
Reaching into my bottom drawer, I rip open a bag of Sour Skittles and dive in.
She tracks my candy foraging, blinking her dark, fanning lashes a few times. “Just like that? I ask to stay, and we do?”
“Yes.” I nod, popping in a handful of the lemon. “Just like that, Ives.”
“Okay.” And the storm retreats as briskly as it brewed. A forcemelting into a puddle of innocence before my eyes. She falls into the chair across from me. “What’s with the candy?”
I slide the bag to the edge of the desk nearest her as a peace offering. “It calms me.”
She carefully sifts through, emerging with a palm full of only the reds and yellows—myfavorites. “More than the scotch?”
“Different,” I say, marveling at how the room is suddenly cooler, the air more comfortable.
