Page 32 of The Spice Is Nice

“Easy,” my voice croaked. “You hit your head when the truck crashed into the river. I got us to a cabin. We’re safe now.”

She was still for a long moment, her hand flat on my chest. Processing.

“The truck,” she murmured. “Something hit us.”

“Yeah. A big SUV ran us off the road.”

“I remember now. But who?”

“Idon’t know.”

“Seth?”

I had my suspicions it was Seth’s SUV. Had he found out somehow that we had been in his room, and waited for us outside the ranch to run us off the road? Or could he have found out already how we pulled the transfer of the Hollis Ranch out from under the Congressman’s grasp? Either way, I didn’t want to trouble Ivy with my theories yet.

“I’m trying not to think right now,” I admitted.

“Why not?”

“Because if I think too hard about the current situation we’re in, something else might get hard.”

She pulled back, and in the dim firelight her big, round eyes found mine. She clocked my bare shoulders. Looked down at herself under the quilts. Looked back at me.

“We’re naked.” Very observant, in her state.

“You were hypothermic. Body heat. Basic survival medicine.”

“Did you get a good look at me?”

“Of course. But I was a complete professional. I absolutely did not notice how you wore a matching set of black lace bra and panties.”

She snorted, hand still on my chest, and shifted slightly against me. The movement sent heat through me that had nothing to do with the quilts or fire. The humor was still in her eyes, but something else had joined it—something that made the cabin too small for what was between us now.

“Did you carry me here?” She asked.

“Over my shoulder, about fifty yards in pouring rain.”

“Must have killed your back.”

“Youweigh nothing.”

“You’re somehow always there for me.” That pulled a genuine smile out of her—small, surprised, the version without any performance attached to it. “Colt, my hero.”

My first name. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d used it. It had always been Calhoun. She’d always been Wylde. A wall we built that we both pretended not to notice. “Yeah. You couldn’t have picked a better fake boyfriend.”

“This doesn’t feel like we’re pretending here.” The words hung in the darkness between us.

“Ivy.” Her first name almost felt foreign to me, but I liked the way it slipped off my tongue. “You hit your head. You’re hurt. Probably a concussion. You need to rest.”

“I know where I am, and who I’m with. And resting is the last thing I want right now.” Her fingers traced the ridges of my abs, as if memorizing a landscape, my muscles flinching at her touch. The intimacy of this moment multiplied ten times over what had happened in that closet.

“What exactly do you want?”

“You, Colt,” she whispered, the mole above her lip close enough to kiss. “I want you.”

Where our time in the closet had been about adrenaline and survival, this was different. She was choosing me, and I let her.

She slid her hand up to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, and pulled my forehead down to rest against hers. We breathed the same air. The quilts were heavy and warm over us, and the fire crackled. Outside, the storm was tearing the world apart. But inside this bed became our entire world and all that mattered.