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Ivy frowns. Exhales. Shakes her head. “You know what? No. I’m not better for it. That’s the kind of stupid shit dad or Julian would want me to say. That my challenges made me stronger. That I’ve learned so much. But I’m not stronger. I’m docile and weak and I just do whatever I think will make other people happy and I’ve been miserable for years and didn’t even notice. The only thing that brings me any joy at all is that little girl up there and she’s going to grow up and leave me someday. I have no dreams. No passion. It’s just been years of feeling like I’ve let everyone down and will never be good enough and I hate feeling this way. I hate it!”

Ivy’s chin trembles and her eyes fill with emotion. She swipes a hand over her mouth like she can wipe away the truth. Like now that she’s said it, she wishes she hadn’t.

“So yeah.” She sucks in her lips. “There’s that.”

I’m furious. Ready to jump to her defense. To stand between her and the assholes who’ve made her feel like this. But the monsters aren’t in this room, so there’s nothing for me to do with the feeling. It just churns in my chest instead.

“I don’t know what to say. I want to help, but how do I save you from something that already happened?”

“It’s not your job to save me, Micah. This is something I have to do myself.” Her voice is quiet. “I should probably…” She jerks her thumb toward the stairs. “I should probably get my room set up. The cot’s still where we left it.”

I push off the counter, eager to be useful. “I’ll do it.”

“I can do it. It kind of feels good, doing things for myself.” She heads for the stairs.

“I don’t like the idea of you sleeping on that cot.”

“I’ll be fine.”

But she isn’t fine, and she hasn’t been fine and suddenly, the thought of her on that cot is as intolerable as the years she spent having someone chip away at her confidence. I promised to take care of her forever.

And I keep my promises.

“You take my bed…”

“Micah…”

I catch her wrist. She looks down at my hand, her lips parted, her chest heaving. I intended to fight her on the sleeping arrangements, but when her eyes meet mine, everything but Ivy falls away.

Her skin. Her lips. The flutter of her eyelashes. The heat of her gaze. A thousand memories of her taste, her moans, her sighs, the sting of her fingernails down my back.

I thread a hand into her hair, cupping the nape of her neck, and kiss her like she’s still mine. Like she’s still the girl I promised to love forever, while her fingers traced lazy circles along my chest.

She gasps, lips parting, chest heaving. She grips my arms, pulling me closer, then sliding her fingers into my hair. She tastes of wine, of berries, of a thousand kisses from my past, but feels so solid, so real, so out of place in my present. My tongue glides against hers, one hand cupping her head, the other sliding to the curve of her waist.

My dick throbs, needy. Hungry. I sweep her into my arms, carry her through the kitchen and into my room, kissing her, tasting her, remembering her.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ivy

Micah’s kiss sets me on fire, igniting the love that’s hidden under anger for so long. I thought time and betrayal had devoured my feelings for him, but here they are, all these years later, waiting. Lingering. One kiss and they’re surging to the surface, back into the light where they always should have been.

He lifts me into his arms, and I feel the strength in that body. His arms like steel, so hard, yet so gentle, as if he knows how fragile I’ve become. I want to explore him. To pull his shirt over his head and trail my fingers along the hard ridges of his abs, his chest. To reacquaint myself with the person I used to know better than anyone. The one who knew the best and worst of me and loved me exactly as I was.

He deposits me on the bed like I’m something precious, then lowers himself over top of me, hands on either side of my head, body hovering over mine.

“Micah…” My hands press against his chest, and then I’m kissing him again, my reservations disappearing with each brush of his lips against mine.

He pulls back. “What, baby?”

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I say, my breath racing through my lungs and my body rioting against my brain. “I’ve only been here one day, and things are already complicated and awkward…”

But I can’t finish the sentence because my lips find his once again. I can’t think straight. Can’t think at all. It’s just us, together again, like no time has passed and we’re still wildly in love.

Micah skims his hand under my shirt, over my belly, and cups a breast, groaning low in his throat. “I’ve missed these. They’re perfect, you know that, right? The perfect shape. The perfect weight. Your perfect little nipples.”

He pulls my bra down and pinches a taut peak, then lowers his mouth to suck and my back arches and what was I saying about things being complicated?

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