She skirted the giant pink canopy that hung over her bed—no doubt the present Ivy had ordered—and pulled her curtains shut, blocking out the dying afternoon sunlight.
“Hit it!” she told Porter.
He must have pressed a button, because the butterfly lamps came to life, as did the wall behind her bed. It was one of those glitter wallpapers Ivy had talked me into, swearing it was necessary. The windows hadn’t given it the right light, but the butterflies did, sending sparkles all over the wall that reflected onto Hannah’s face as she looked up at me with an impish grin.
She shined. Even under circumstances that would break grown men and women, my Hannah shined. I wasn’t going to fuck this up because she’d never let me.
“Isn’t it perfect?” she asked, her little voice filled with the kind of wonder reserved for Disney World, or some other childhood moment of bliss.
“It is,” I agreed.
And so was she.
“I’m glad you stayed for dinner,” I told Ivy as I loaded the last of the dishes into the dishwasher. Not that there were many. Hannah had demanded we order Chinese food because ‘everyone should know their fortune in a new house.’
“Me, too,” Ivy answered. “She was out like a light by seven-thirty.”
“Big day.” I shut the dishwasher and dried my hands, turning to look where Ivy sat perched on the counter again. Pretty soon I wasn’t going to be able stand in this kitchen without thinking about her even when she wasn’t here.
“It was,” she agreed. “But it was great.”
“True story. I still can’t believe I own it, or that everyone showed up to help.”
“They care about you. Hannah, too, of course, but you know they’d go to war for you.” She sighed deeply, her exhaustion showing in the slight dishevelment of her hair, and her half-mast eyes, but nothing else.
She looked...real. Not the Ivy I’d first met at the party in the fall, all polished and shiny. She looked softer, authentic, and infinitely more touchable.
“Everything smells so new. Not in a bad way, just in a fresh, clean paint scent,” she finished, looking at the finished kitchen.
“That’s why I wanted new construction,” I admitted. “Not the smell. I can definitely live without wondering if I’m going to get high on fumes. But the fresh start. I didn’t want to buy a place with someone else’s bad memories attached. Everything this house sees will be of our own creation.” I looked around the space, imagining what would happen in here over the years. “It’s so white, though. I like the whole minimalist thing, I do, but it feels a little catalogue right now.”
“You’ll make it your own,” Ivy assured me.
“Yeah. I’m just thinking we might have to mess up the counters or something. It’s way too Williams-Sonoma in here.”
“That’s Jeanine,” Ivy said hopping down from the counter. She padded past me to the little built-in desk and opened the second drawer down, pulling out a few sheets of paper. “This,” she said as she passed me again, stopping at the frig, “is you and Hannah.” She clipped a few of Hannah’s drawings to the refrigerator door with the Shark magnets I’d grabbed from my old place out of nostalgia.
The huge expanse of stainless steel suddenly felt like home with just that dose of color Hannah’s art gave it.
“See?” Ivy asked, smiling back at me.
I walked over, looking at the picture. One was a unicorn, another the Space Needle, and the last was a big hockey rink with three stick figures labeled, “Uncle Connor, Me, Ivy.”
“Looks like it’s you, too.” God, she was everywhere. My kitchen, my niece's heart, and my fucking head.
She was fucking inside me.
“Huh, I guess it is.” She tilted her head to the side, her smile softening.
“Sometimes I hate that about you,” I admitted.
“What?” she asked, her eyes flying wide.
“Your ability to know exactly what she needs. What I need.” My voice was quiet despite my words. “The way you somehow make everything...better without even trying.”
She blinked. “I’d think that would be a good thing.” She turned, putting her back to the counter.
“It could be.” I followed her.
“Except we don’t like each other,” she reminded me, tilting her chin up at me.
I took the step that separated us until she had to crane her neck to meet my eyes. “Right. We don’t like each other.”
Her lips parted and the air between us charged to an electric frequency. “It’s kind of a loathing thing.”
Damn it. I wanted her.
“Definitely borders on disdain.” My hands reached for her hips before my brain could tell them not to, and I lifted her to the counter. She weighed nothing but was all soft curves and sharp tongue—an addicting combination.
“That’s because you’re an irreverent, judgy asshole,” she whispered, her eyes dropping to my mouth. Her breath hitched, and my hands flexed where they’d stayed on her hips, knowing if I moved them—let her go, I might never feel her under them again.
I leaned in slowly, letting my mouth brush her cheek.
“Judgy? Irreverent?” I spoke the words slowly, letting my lips drag across her smooth, soft skin. Then I slid back slightly so I could look into those eyes for some kind of hint, a clue, a sign that she wanted this, too. “I was thinking irresistible.”
She snorted, and damn, that was cute, too.
“You think you’re irresistible?” Her hands rested on my chest, but to tease or to push? Her gaze went to those hands and then back to my eyes, full of fire and desire? Or simmering hatred? God, we’d been enemies so long I wasn’t sure the two were too far apart.
“No. I think you’re irresistible, and it’s infuriating as hell.” My hands flexed on her hips, digging into the soft flesh.
Her knees parted, and I was done fighting it. The want. The need. The persistent ache that came with the relentless desire to know how she tasted.
My mouth met hers at the same time I stepped between her thighs and pulled her against me.
Her lips were crazy soft, and when they
parted on a surprised gasp, I took complete and utter advantage, sliding my tongue against hers, tasting the mint chocolate chip she’d had after dinner and something even sweeter—Ivy.
She whimpered and arched, tangling her hands in my hair and tugging me closer.
Hell. Yes.
The kiss exploded, turning carnal as she returned it, her tongue moving with mine like smooth, warm silk. She was intoxicating. Smoother than whiskey. Sweeter than rum. Potent as tequila.
I changed the angle, taking her deeper, releasing one of my hands from her hip to cradle her neck. Fuck, I was never coming back from this. I would have to live here the rest of my life, between her soft, denim-clad thighs, held prisoner by her hands, her lips, and those tiny, throaty sounds she made when my tongue retreated only to get a sigh when I slid back home.
“Connor,” she moaned against my mouth.
I was dreaming. I had to be because hearing my name on her lips like that was straight out of my biggest fantasy. Her nails dug into my scalp, and I kissed her again, ignoring the need to go further, to find out if she tasted as sweet between her thighs as she did between her lips. I ground my dick against the hardwood of the cabinet, sending him a silent signal to calm the fuck down. Then I used my mouth like I meant it, using every trick I had to make sure she’d never forget this, that she’d crave it long after we parted.
If I could ever drag my mouth from hers.
She writhed against me, her breasts pressed against my chest, her thighs gripping the sides of my hips, her hands drifting down my neck to my chest.
She didn’t just have a fiery temper, she flat-out was fire. Hot, sweet, and dancing on the edge of something I knew would pull me under if she ever used it against me.
Fuck it, she could use it all she wanted—do whatever she wanted as long—
She went rigid in my arms, and her hands pushed against my chest at the same moment that she ripped her mouth from mine, turning her head.
“Ivy?” I asked, my breath heaving like I was an out-of-shape middle-aged man instead of a professional athlete.
“Let me go.” Her voice was something I’d never heard before: small.