Surviving Ice

  But I can tell by the look in his eyes now that this wasn’t a forgetful slip up in the heat of the moment.

  He waits inside me, letting me decide what I want to do.

  How safe I feel with him.

  How much I trust him.

  I curl my arms around his head and pull his mouth down. And push my hips into him.

  He moans softly against my ear and then starts to move, the muscles in his body cording in such a beautiful way with each thrust, as they come harder and faster, and his pants grow louder, the bed creaking noisily with each one until the headboard is knocking on the wall behind us.

  I don’t care about that, though. All I can think about is that Sebastian is about to orgasm inside me.

  Just the thought of that brings me immediately to the edge. His own groans follow closely behind, and I revel in the feel of him pulsing inside me, my thighs squeezing his body involuntarily.

  My chest swelling with warmth and adoration.

  I’ve never trusted anyone this much.

  Completely.

  He rolls us over so that I’m lying on top of him, but he doesn’t pull out.

  We fall asleep like that.

  THIRTY-TWO

  SEBASTIAN

  The lemon falls from the branch with barely a touch of my fingers.

  “I was thinking of making a lemon pie later today.” Dakota strolls into the greenhouse behind me, coffee in hand. “Do you like lemon pie?”

  “I do.” I smile, counting out four more on the branches. “They remind me of Greece.”

  “What’s in Greece?”

  “A vacation.” My villa, for another week. Sitting empty.

  Dakota hums softly as she plucks the other ripe fruit from their branches and drops them into the hem of a billowy white shirt. Hums, just like she did half an hour ago, when I was taking a shower and she strolled into the bathroom to pee. I didn’t think to lock the pocket door from her bedroom.

  There really wasn’t much I could do. This is her quirky little house with only one bathroom.

  “Thanks for letting me stay here.”

  “Plumbing, right?” She says it like she knows I’m lying.

  “Right.”

  The sound of Ivy’s bare feet padding into the greenhouse turns my attention and, thankfully, ends that conversation. She’s fresh from the shower, her long black hair combed poker straight. I’ve gathered that she’s not much of a morning person, because I couldn’t get her up with me, even with the lure of a shared shower. She’s a deep sleeper; I know because I listened to her breathing for hours last night, while I watched the street and played through various scenarios, and then again when she went back to sleep, and I played through our conversation. Her words bring me comfort, but they’re just words, born of ignorance. She’d like to believe in me, that I only do good, with the best of intentions. Hell, I’d like to think that, too. And I did, up until this assignment. But the more time I have to dwell on it, the less settled I feel for having handed that video to Bentley.

  The more I wonder if I’ve been lied to by the only man besides my father I trust unequivocally.

  “Good morning, Ivy. The pot of coffee is almost brewed. I’ll get you a cup.” Dakota whispers something to her on her way by, earning Ivy’s confused look, and then her sharp gaze on me.

  I force the dark cloud from my thoughts. “She brings you coffee, too?” I lean down to steal a quick kiss from her lips as she closes the distance, tasting the mint from her toothpaste. She’s already hidden her eyes behind dark makeup.

  “And breakfast, sometimes. What were you two talking about out here?”

  I shrug. “Lemons. And Greece.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” I frown. “Why? What’d she say?”

  “That I’m a very lucky girl.” She smirks, her fingers coiling around my belt buckle and giving me a tug closer to her. “That usually only means one thing with Dakota.”

  “Oh.” I shake my head but grin. “Might have something to do with the clear shower curtain and her walking in on me.”

  Ivy groans, but her tiny smirk tells me she’s not mad. “Get used to it, as long as you’re staying here. She does it to me almost every day.”

  “That’s . . . weird.”

  “That’s Dakota.” She hesitates. “As long as you don’t pull the curtain open to invite her in, we won’t have any issues.”

  I wrap my arms around her body. “Are you jealous?”

  “No!” she throws back instantly, tension coursing down her back. I’m guessing being jealous would be as unappealing as being needy in Ivy’s book.

  Dakota’s hot, I’ll give her that, but I need more than just looks. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  Her hands run over my chest and down to my stomach as if memorizing the curves before her sharp, dark eyes peer up at me. “I’ve never let anyone do that before.”

  She doesn’t have to spell it out. I smile. “I’ve never wanted to do that with anyone.” That’s the truth. I haven’t come inside a woman since my ex-fiancée, and with her, it was more laziness than my own need. But with Ivy last night . . . I wanted to fill her with me. I wanted to mark her, in a way.

  Just the idea had me rock hard.

  I should have asked first, but . . .

  Ivy inhales deeply and then releases. “Hopefully you’ll get this plumbing issue fixed soon, and we can stay at your place once in a while.”

  She’s watching my expression to see if she can read something from it. She still probably thinks I have a girlfriend hiding back home, even though I’ve told her that’s not the case. “Yeah, hopefully.” I checked out of the shit motel yesterday morning. I’m going to have to find a short-term rental somewhere, so we have some privacy while I’m here. Which could be a while, because I’m not going anywhere until I figure out exactly why that car was parked outside her uncle’s house yesterday.

  Ivy averts her gaze, but I sense the tension lifting. “So . . . lemons and Greece.” She reaches up to touch the still-green one hanging.

  “Yeah. Do you wanna go?” I blurt out.

  Her eyes dart to my face. “Where? Greece?”

  I nod.

  “With you?”

  I smile and nod again. The idea hit me last night. It’d get her far away from Scalero and this city and her uncle’s death. She loves to travel, and she has no issues picking up and going. Would she go with me, though?

  She looks to be considering it. But then she sighs, and I know the answer. “I wish I could. But my cousin’s relying on me to get the house and the shop sorted out for selling. I can’t just take off.” Very quickly, she adds, “But I would, if things were different.”

  I accept her decline with a nod.

  “Does that mean . . .” She frowns, hesitating. “Are you leaving? I remember you saying that you were going after I finished your tattoo.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” I already know she doesn’t. I’m just wondering if she’ll actually say it out loud.

  She purses her lips and shakes her head no. Admitting that was a big step for her. Admitting that she’s falling for me last night was an even bigger one.

  I smile. “Then I’m not going anywhere.”

  Her shoulders sag with an exhale of relief. “Yeah, you are.” She checks her phone. “To Black Rabbit, with me. I have to see what they’ve done to the place.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  IVY

  “How bad do you think it is?” I ask, watching the technicolor of buildings pass by.

  “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  I sigh. “I don’t know.” Fausto phoned me last night to say they would be finishing up this morning and that Black Rabbit—or, as he jokingly called it, “White Rabbit,” much to my annoyance—would be ready. I’d love to hire him to paint Ned’s house, too, but we don’t have the money after I bought the materials to repair the walls.

  Sebastian pulls up alongside the curb, where the same rabid rabbit that stared dow
n at me when I was five stares down at me now. I can’t imagine it not being there, but I guess that day will come.

  “I’m just going to stick my head in and see what it looks like,” I mumble, hopping out of his car. I step onto the sidewalk with my stomach churning. After what Bobby said about my paint color choice, I’m dreading this, and I don’t necessarily want Sebastian witnessing my breakdown.

  “Remember, this is for resale value, not immortalizing your uncle,” Sebastian says, rounding the front of the car. Ignoring my request completely.

  I shoot a glare at him, but he ignores that, too, slipping a hand onto the small of my back. He still has that cool, aloof bodyguard aura about him, but more and more he’s taking any opportunity he can to touch me. I guess spending the last few days and nights together has helped inspire that. Whatever the reason, every time he’s near, I find myself leaning into him, craving his touch.

  Even now, when I can sense that something is still bothering him. I catch glimpses of it—a furrowed brow, a distant look. He’s distracted. As distracted as a guy like Sebastian, who takes in everything, can be anyway.

  The door to the shop is propped open. I hold my breath and step across the threshold. The shock of the glaring, cold white hits me around the same time as the paint odor. “Oh my God, what have I done?” I whisper under my breath, staring at the pristine walls.

  Black Rabbit is officially gone. The only place I’ve ever truly thought of as home has vanished, buried under several coats of chalky white. I may as well tear the sign out front down now.

  A painter is on his knees in the corner, brushing the thick baseboards with yet more white. It only makes the worn, honey-colored floors look dingier. I want to yell at him to stop ruining the place. I want to find Fausto and scream at him, tell him that he was wrong about this paint color, Ghost or Ice, it doesn’t matter what.

  Sebastian’s soothing hand around the back of my neck, his thumb rubbing my skin back and forth, stays me.

  Fausto rounds the corner from the back hallway, brush in hand, coveralls smeared.

  “So? What do you—”

  “I hate it.” I can’t keep the venom from my voice.

  He snorts. “You’re joking, right? This looks like a whole new place!”

  “That’s the problem.”

  He frowns at me, like he thinks I’m crazy. He doesn’t understand.

  No one understands. Everyone has already forgotten, moved on from Ned.

  Everyone but me.

  “When do you think you’ll be finished?” Sebastian asks, taking over the conversation.

  “By noon.”

  “Thank you. She’ll be fine.”

  I’m both relieved and irritated with Sebastian for speaking on my behalf. He’s wrong. I will not be fine. But I don’t want to have to explain that to anyone.

  With one last wary look at me, Fausto and the guy working on the baseboards disappear into the back.

  “This kind of change was inevitable,” Sebastian says.

  I pull away from his hands and scan the space again. “Then why does it feel so wrong?”

  We stand in the middle of the empty, lifeless room for a long moment, until finally he says, “Maybe painting it isn’t the issue.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s the issue.” I sneer at the empty white walls. Something about plain white walls drives me crazy. I need color and personality—art.

  “Maybe selling this place is the issue. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Not you too,” I grumble. Which reminds me, I need to talk to Ian again.

  He chuckles. “You made the decision to sell and leave San Francisco when you were upset. You made it so you could run.”

  “You say that like you know me.” He’s right, though.

  “But maybe that’s not the right decision for you anymore,” he goes on, ignoring my sarcasm. “Maybe, deep down, you want to stay here. Maybe you have a reason to stay now.”

  “What would that reason be?” Is this Sebastian’s way of asking me not to leave San Francisco because he’s here? Because if he is . . .

  I desperately want that to be the reason.

  I’ve known this guy for days, and yet I feel like I’ve been through so much with him. Is this what happens with his clients, too? Do they form hard-and-fast bonds with their bodyguard when he’s shuttling them around, responsible for their well-being, protecting them from harm, spending long periods of time with them? That I’ve just been through a traumatic event only amplifies my dependence on him, I’m sure.

  And it also probably doesn’t help that I’m sleeping with him.

  I sure as hell hope he doesn’t usually do that with his clients, too.

  I’m definitely guessing he doesn’t ask them to go to Greece with him. That has to mean something.

  Right?

  This is not me. I don’t form dependencies on people, especially guys.

  And yet I can’t push him away.

  I sense Sebastian approaching me from behind, but I don’t turn. His hands on my hips and the feel of his rough jaw against my cheek as he leans in make me shiver.

  Settling his chin on top of my head, he murmurs, “It doesn’t look bad. It’s different, yeah. A bit cold . . .”

  I snort. “It’s so cold, it’s icy. I guess that’s why Fausto called it Ice. I hate it. It isn’t me.”

  Sebastian hesitates, his body going slightly rigid against my back. “Then make it you. Add enough of Ivy to it to bring it back to life.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then keep it. Run it.” He spins me around to face him, tipping my chin up until I meet his gaze. “Stay here and make sure you really want this. You can always walk away later.”

  I don’t think he’s talking about Black Rabbit right now. “I don’t know the first thing about actually running a shop, though.”

  “Do you know anyone who does?”

  “My cousin.” And Ian is all on board for keeping it open. “He has a place in Dublin.”

  “I’m sure he’ll help you out. It can’t be that hard.” His eyes wander over the corners. “I can upgrade the security system for you. You need something better than a VCR.”

  “You know how to do that, too?”

  He smirks. “I’m a man of many talents.”

  I take a deep breath and begin surveying the walls under a new light.

  An Ivy light.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  SEBASTIAN

  Did I do that to her today?

  Did I convince her to stay in San Francisco because I’m here?

  Because I don’t fucking live here!

  Technically, I don’t live anywhere. Just a series of comfortable hideouts to choose from.

  But standing in that shop and convincing Ivy to basically settle down made me wonder if maybe I could do the same. There’s nothing stopping me. I have no commitments, nowhere I need to be. No one to be there with.

  But here, in San Francisco, I could have her.

  And she wants me. She’s falling for me.

  I don’t have to tell her about what I’ve been doing for the past five years. No one besides Bentley knows, and he’s not going to say a fucking word about any of it because he’s tied to it as much as I am.

  Though she’s going to wonder why I’m not working after a while. Where all my money comes from. Maybe I could get a legitimate job as a bodyguard. Alliance hires them. It also hires people to train others—police, firefighters, military—in combat. I could do that, too. The money won’t be as good, but what has all the money I’ve made gotten me so far?

  Even as I convince myself of all this, that little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that I’m a fucking moron if I think I can hide my past from her forever. That she’ll have anything to do with me when she does find out.

  “I’m getting out,” Ivy says, peering up over her shoulder at me, her soaked black hair roped around her fist. Water streams over her body in rivulets, trailing between those perfe
ct tits, down a taut belly, down thin but toned thighs. Her skin is coated in gooseflesh. I’m guessing on account of the cooling water. We’ve spent the entire hot-water tank fucking against the wall after a long day working on the house. I forgot both how difficult shower sex is and how much I actually enjoy showering with a woman, even if I spend most of it outside the stream of hot water.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” I promise, bending down to kiss her shoulder. She turns to me, meeting my lips with her own. I watch her duck out, wrapping a towel around her curves.

  Staying here is the best thing for her, I tell myself. It’s the easiest way for me to stay with her. If she takes off somewhere, I’m going to have a harder time explaining why I’m following her. And until I know that nothing can come of Detective Fields investigating Royce’s former Alliance connections, I’m going to be following her everywhere, because I’ll never forgive myself if something bad happens to her.

  So that’s it. The decision has been made.

  I’m staying in San Francisco.

  Maybe for good.

  “The fucking guy actually knows what he’s doin’.”

  I turn to find Bobby and Ivy standing side by side in the doorway, covered in plaster dust and watching me as I drill a support into the wall, readying it for the new chunk of drywall. This will be my seventeenth one, and there are plenty more. Ricky and whoever was in here with him while Scalero watched us at the club did a number on this house.

  “I’m not just a pretty face.” I wink at Ivy.

  “No, you certainly are not.” She chews the inside of her mouth as her eyes drift over my chest. I had to take my T-shirt off to keep from getting it dirty. It’s my last clean one. I’m not going to lie—when Ivy picked my clothes up off the floor and tossed them into the wash this morning, I sighed. Not that I expect her to do my laundry.

  But, hell, it’s nice not to be alone.

  Finally, she smiles, with heat in her gaze. “Do you like the tool belt?”

  I look down at the leather pouch hanging from my hips that she threw into the shopping cart with a smirk when we went back to the store yesterday to buy drywall supplies. “It’s come in handy.”