Page 5 of Solstice

“You know what you both need,” the deviant monster inside of me said. This was the fucker that once loved to shake Ivy’s cage, the one I chained up in college when she started dating Carter and I fell in love with Miri. Now, it blinked awake and stretched, preparing to take out the years I’d spent ignoring it on her delectable ivory ass.

I groaned and adjusted my cock while I stared at Ivy’s ceiling. Yeah, I knew what turned this ginger inside out when it came to me, and it wasn’t the sweet gentleman whore that Carter liked to play or Miri’s demure princess slut.

With me, Ivy needed a fight. And God fucking help me, I loved to give her one.

* * *

Ivy won the election.We’d watched the results from the residence of the White House, and after her mother gave her the fakest hug I’d ever seen Evelyn Washington lower herself to give, the recognition hit Ivy’s features.

“I won,”she thought, seemingly in disbelief, as if she’d never considered she’d actually get here.“I actually won.”

After the celebrations died down, we sat in the back of the Range Rover while Theo drove us through downtown Washington, DC to take us home. At midnight, the streets were almost empty, save for the countless other political monsters out on the prowl, likewise celebrating their victories or drowning their sorrows. Perhaps both.

Warm fingers wrapped around mine where they rested on my thigh, causing me to lift my gaze to my fiancée on the other side of the SUV. She flashed me a rare grin and leaned her head back against the seat, but I focused on the curve of her lower lip, recalling how far I could sink my teeth into that tender skin before she squirmed.

“Thank you,”Ivy said, barging inside my head without knocking.

I cleared my throat and pushed that mental image away before she noticed it.

“I’m proud of you, X.”I returned her smile, forcing my attention on the connection between us.“You were awesome.”As much as I tried to hide the warm, fuzzy ache that had gotten desperate for her touch, it shot out of me in a moment of unfiltered adoration and vulnerability.

Ahh, fuck.

I yanked my hand away and locked my features down, glancing back toward my window and hoping she didn’t feel it.To my utter horror, she stared at me until I couldn’t stand it and eventually said, “What?”

“What’s gotten into you?”

I shrugged. “What do you mean?”

A lock of hair fell into her face, and I almost reached out to brush it back, stopping myself at the last second because after what had happened, touching any part of her was too goddamned intimate.

“What was that”—Ivy cleared her throat and shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with voicing whatever she wanted to say. Her rich vanilla smell assaulted my nose, and I resisted the urge to lean in to get more of it—“that feeling?”

I shook my head and sighed, giving her a sheepish chuckle as a response.

“Miss Washington,” Theo interrupted, bringing our attention up front as he put the SUV into park. “Mister Fairfax. We’re home.”

Ivy looked at me one last time and pushed the button on her seat belt to climb out, clearly ignoring the predatory way I stalked behind her. It reminded me of that night in Ireland when I’d followed her through the halls of Killwater College in the dark before the lust took over our sensibilities. We’d darted into an alcove, and I dry-fucked her against the wall, savage and hard.

And she liked it.

She didn’t want to, but she did.

The thought buried itself inside my brain, setting off a chain reaction of indecent fantasies I suddenly yearned to make a reality.

Would she cry out like that if I fucked her rough for real? Would she fight back? Would she?—

I shook my head to clear them away. If this were the fifties, I might have said my slip was showing. I’d allowed her free rein inside my mind, and in doing so, I’d given away too much. In the four years since Midsummer, the boundaries between Ivy and me had blurred to the point where I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began. Our names were synonymous with one another; they had been our entire lives.

Was I finally accepting my fate? Or did the universe know what I’d wanted all along, even if I’d been a stubborn prick about it?

I didn’t know, and somewhere along the line, I stopped fighting it. What was it aboutthisnight in particular? Perhaps it was the glint coming off Ivy’s shiny iridescent hair that had me transfixed. Maybe it was the way she smiled in that SUV, her lips so incredibly soft and bitable.

Goddamn it.

Once Theo cleared our townhouse and left us alone, I took off my jacket and helped Ivy out of hers, hanging them in the closet by the door. She bent over to take off her stiletto pumps while she rambled on about our schedule tomorrow.

“We need to meet our parents at seven a.m.,” she said, but I’d long since tuned her out. Instead, I focused on the way her mouth moved and the fading remains of what had once been cherry-colored lipstick blurring into her natural skin tone.

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