Page 20 of Ironside
“So, this is where the magic happens,” Ironside said.
I plucked at his sleeve, feeling a little bashful that I had granted him access into my inner sanctuary. Only my closest friends and family were allowed back here. But never a man I was dating.
“It’s my happy place,” I admitted, tugging on his hand as I pulled him toward the table. “I can lose track of time so easily when I’m in here, surrounded by flowers all day.”
“How did you get started?” Ironside prompted. “With your shop, I mean.”
I shrugged, idly fiddling with a bundle of irises out of habit to soothe myself.
“When I was a little girl, I would spend hours in my grandmother’s flower garden next door. She would tell me stories about a fairy who made her bed in a bellflower, wrapped up in a blanket of petals. I wanted to be that fairy more than anything in the world.”
“You wanted to escape?” he replied, studying me. “From what?”
I glanced away, shaking my head.
“The world. I was a shy, awkward, lonely girl who was teased a lot. The fact that I could rattle off every part of a flower by heart without hesitation wasn’t exactly earning any popularity points either.”
Ironside made a noise of sympathy.
“I’d say you did pretty well for yourself, all things considered.”
I nodded with a small smile.
“My grandmother had this magnificent old rose bush that cascaded over her porch in a shower of pink blooms every summer. One year, she gave me a cutting, and I was hooked. I wanted to be a florist. I wanted to have my own shop and a flower farm. I wanted to fill every inch of my life with flowers.”
Ironside’s unwavering gaze held mine as I spoke. He set the cooler on the table next to us without looking away from me.
I cleared my throat, suddenly overcome with a bout of self-consciousness. I touched my lips.
“And now I’m babbling like a lunatic.”
He took my hand away from my mouth.
“Not a lunatic. Just passionate.”
My face warmed at being the center of his undivided attention. I liked it—Ilovedit actually—but to be looked at with so much intensity and desire and rawwantwas still a new experience and I didn’t know how to respond.
Closing the gap between us, I covered his eyes with my palm. He breathed a faint laugh.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t think straight when you look at me like that.”
Ironside curved his hands around my hips, sliding down to cup my ass. He pulled me against him with a rumbling hum deep in his chest. Our bodies fit together so perfectly like we had been made for each other, like I was always supposed to be here, at home, in his arms, fitted against the strong, wiry muscles of his body.
“You don’t have to think when you’re around me, petal,” Ironside replied. “You can just feel.”
He dipped his head, pressing his lips to the curve of my neck. I closed my eyes with a sigh. He was right. Forty-eight hours was too long to be without him. Without this.
I slid my hands inside his jacket, peeling it off his shoulders. But when I let it drop, Ironside pulled back with a noise of dismay.
“Easy, sweetheart. My cut doesn’t touch the floor.”
As he scooped up his jacket, I noticed it was actually two pieces of clothing in one—a jacket with a vest worn over the top.He dusted them off, then draped them over the back of a nearby chair.
“Club rules,” Ironside added. “A man’s cut is a symbol of his brotherhood. He earned it, and he has to take care of it, respect it.”
I rocked back on my heels with a twinge of guilt.
