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There’s a small smile she tries to hide. Brat.
“Sir.”
I tap my fork on the side of my plate. “But I can be creative. Maybe I like the idea of you paying me back. Not with actual money, though.” I let my gaze slide over her as I drop the fork onto the table. “But I think it will be worth it. Do you want dessert?”
“Depends on the dessert.”
She obviously thought dessert would be served at home and her disappointment is clear when we drive in the opposite direction of my triplex. But her eyes light up when James pulls up to Orb and O-Ring in SoHo. I lead her into a back entrance, and we walk up to Orb where my table waits.
I have a special chair brought to my table for her, one that’s low to the ground so she can sit below me.
Ivy sinks onto it, her eyes floating closed as I touch her head, smoothing my hand over her hair. I spread my thighs so one pushes against hers. She slips one hand on the inside of it and rests her cheek against the top.
I have no fucking idea if this is shit she’s learned online, if it’s instinctual, or both, but it feels good.
“You like that, Pollyanna?”
“Yes, Master,” she says. “I know it’s not real, but it feelsreal. And being in your hands, being yours, gives me peace. It’s something that’s been missing in my life for so long.”
She’s not drunk, but I think she’s sinking deeper into her role because she needs it. All the deaths on her young shoulders. A strange guilt starts to rise inside of me, one I squash.
Goddammit, it’s not my guilt. And it’s not my place, but I didn’t lie about the symbiosis.
We’re connected, and I feel that intensely right now. I want to protect her in this moment. She’s right, it isn’t real. But it feels fucking real.
“Ivy,” I murmur. “Jaxson didn’t join the military just as a ‘fuck you’ to your dad. He didn’t do it because you called the cops. I know that for a fact—I knew him in ways you didn’t. Ways you couldn’t. Brother and friend relationships are different. But you need to know it wasn’t because of anything you did. He never wanted to be your father, just like you never wanted to be the good, conservative wife to some prick.”
She’s quiet, the low music and hushed voices floating in the air around us. I barely notice as I slide my fingers against her soft, warm cheek.
“I sent him to his death. I was the reason why my sister got hurt and my parents killed. I got you sent to prison, I was to blame because you couldn’t save Ruby.”
A lump lodges in the back of my throat, constricting my airway. My eyes itch. That fucking cigar smoke from dickwad’s place, no doubt. “A drunk driver hit the car. How the fuck would you have known? Ruby made her own decisions, and you’re helping your sister by helping me now.”
And paying off her debt to me. The debt, dammit. That’s what I have to focus on, not these crazy stirrings inside of me at the sound of her tormented voice.
“Ivy—”
“Finally, I get hold of you. You’re a hard man to pin down, Vale.”
My teeth grit, the voice behind me slithering over my skin like a poisonous snake. “Henderson.”
Ivy goes stiff under my hand.
“Pretty little sub there. You’re going to share soon, right?”
I don’t think I understood how deeply I hated him until this moment. Killing him is going to be so fucking sweet.
Leaning back in my chair, I watch him make his way around the table to face me. Without even nudging her, Ivy slides under the table, settling between my thighs. Like she’s going to blow me here, like she’s the ultimate brat of a sub and so into me she’ll do anything to have me.
His lips twist into a grimace, stark jealousy and avarice scrawled all over his pompous face. Yeah, I’m betting he wants a piece of her now.
Not even when I’m dead will that sonofabitch lay a finger on her.
If he survives me.
Which he won’t.
I give him an easy smile and laugh like we’re old friends and this isn’t our first meeting. “No, I don’t share.”
