Again, that pang hit me. The same one that compelled me to join the baby meetings at the café. How could I not get a touch of baby fever with all the coupling going on in the town?
I pushed that thought away. This wasn’t about babies. This was about me taking something for myself that wasn’t attached to work or my brothers. Or my ice cream plans, which were taking over my whole world.
Nope, this was just for me. To feel like a woman who was wanted. Heck, so I felt like a flesh and blood woman all around.
Rory turned back to me as we headed up the spiral staircase. A look of concentration was back on his face. Like I was a puzzle he was still trying to figure out.
I rushed up to meet him, curling my arm around his middle so I could get my cold hands under his sweater.
He gave a little yelp, but pushed me against the wall as we got to the top of the stairs. I smoothed my hand around his back when he eased his knee between my legs. I love how smooth he was along his back and the rough chest hair along the front of him. What would it feel like against my skin?
Would he leave me pink and abraded? Or would it just wind me up more?
“Being thinky,” he said against my mouth.
“Haven’t done this in a while.”
The lines reappeared between his brows. “How long is awhile?”
I brought my hand back around to the front of his torso again. I found a necklace the higher up I went. I toyed with the disk before I tunneled my nails through the hair between his pecs. Thank God it was so late, because we were being improper in such a fancy place. “It’s not my first time. I just haven’t had much opportunity since college.”
“How long ago was college? A second?”
I smiled. “Is that your way of trying to ask me how old I
am, Mr. Ferguson?”
His gaze narrowed. “Should I be wondering?” He tugged on one of my braids. “It’s not right for a grown man to be this lustful toward a woman with braids.”
“Lustful? I like the sound of that.”
He pressed his zipper against my belly. “You know what you’re doing to me, Ivy.”
I shivered. Hearing him say Ivy made me crazy. I rather loved the fairy queen moniker, but there was something about his accent and my name. A low rolling timber of music. I had always thought my name was old-fashioned, but it sounded lyrical on his tongue.
“Say it again.”
His eyebrow shot up. “That you’re near jailbait?”
I nipped his scruffy chin. “My name, sir.”
“Oh, is that what you’re after?” His accent got a little thicker. “Are you looking for this, my fairy queen?”
I rolled my lips behind my teeth with a soft groan. “Is it so wrong to enjoy your accent?”
“All you American ladies do seem to get off on it.”
It was my turn for an eyebrow raise. “I’m not just one of your American chick hookups.”
“Aren’t you though?”
I kicked his boot.
He laughed and curled tighter around me. “No, Ivy Beck, there’s been nothing and no one like you before. Or will be after, I’d wager.”
Before I could unpack that compliment or statement or whatever it was, he dragged me back into the whirling sensations of his kiss. He rocked against me as he took my mouth into a long, slow turn of lips and tongue. He kissed me like he’d been doing it for years, not for less than an hour.
Thoughtful and restless with just the lightest hint of…more. I couldn’t put my finger on what, but I chased it. Consuming and overwhelming, his taste burned my tongue and seared into my memories. He brought his hands up to cup my face and hold me there for him to plunder and own.