"It's... all I know," I confess, regretting the words as soon as they fall from my lips.
"No, it isn't." A small smile curves her lips as if she's recalling something. "I have seen your softness. You are capable of letting your guard down. Eva has seen it. Antonia too. I just think you are terrified of giving it away so freely, in case anyone gets the wrong idea about you. That you are actually good and decent inside."
"Well, that would be the wrong idea," I murmur.
“Give me an inch,” she says. "I'm not asking for leaps and bounds. All I'm asking for is that you try to trust me, like you asked me to do."
“Trust you like I did today, when you went to your father with one motivation in mind?”
“I wouldn’t have to sneak around if you’d just talk to me,” she retorts. “And I did want to see my father. It wasn’t just to interrogate him.”
"I suppose you want me to trust your word that your father wasn't involved too?" I ask. "That's what this is all about."
"Partially, yes. I know him, and I know when he's being truthful. I'm asking you to trust my intuition on this. At least until you have solid evidence to otherwise condemn him, and not just your own suspicions."
“How do you know I don’t already?”
“You would have brought it to The Tribunal if you had, surely.”
I have to give her that. She has a good point, but I wouldn’t have brought it forward because this justice will be doled out myself.
"You are too close to the situation to be unbiased," I tell her. "What you're asking me is to give up my revenge."
"I'm asking you to give my father time to prove his innocence. Now that everything is out on the table, we can all work toward the same goal together. Let me help you. As your wife and your partner."
I stare down into her eyes and swallow. She isn't in a position to barter for her father's life, but right now, I can't seem to tell her no.
"I will... consider it."
My voice is strained, but somehow it still manages to produce a relieved smile on Ivy's face. She presses her naked body against mine, the softness of her skin rubbing against my cock. I drag my fingers up to the base of her skull and hold her there while I lean down to kiss her.
Her hands stroke over the scars on my back as she parts her lips for me. I swallow her soft moans, pivoting her body toward the wall and walking her backward. She reaches down between us wrapping her fingers around my cock, greedy for it as our kiss deepens to something hungry and feral.
She's stroking me, driving me mad with need. I want to fuck her hard and rough, reclaim her all over again. But I don't know that it's safe.
I pin her against the wall, my fingers sliding down over her throat, her collarbone, and then stopping to pinch and grope her nipples. She arches her head back, biting her lip, and then sucks in a sharp breath when I lower myself to my knees before her.
Our eyes connect as I lift her legs and drape them over my shoulders, using the wall against her back as leverage. She tangles her fingers in my hair, arching her pelvis forward at the same time I dip my head between her thighs.
The first lash of my tongue seems to send a shockwave through her body, thighs clenching around my face as she tightens her grip on my hair. I groan and do it again, and again, watching her come undone for me, losing herself to the pleasure. But through it all, her eyes never leave mine. She's watching me watch her. It's an intimacy I am unfamiliar with, yet, neither one of us seems willing to break it.
"Tell me what you're thinking," I demand.
She pants broken fragments of her thoughts. "So good... it's so hot. Watching you do this."
My dick jerks in anticipation, and I squeeze the bottoms of her thighs in my palms, spreading her wider for me.
"Where do you want to come, Mrs. De La Rosa?" I tease her with my nose, dragging it along the seam of her pussy, inhaling her. "On my face, or on my cock?"
"Both," she answers breathlessly.
"Someone is greedy today." I thrust my tongue back inside her and she squirms against me as I bury my face deeper. Devouring her.
Within seconds, she's rocking, tugging on my hair, crying out as her orgasm rips through her. She clenches around me, toes curling into my back, hands falling loose as her body nearly collapses in the aftermath.
I hoist her up into my arms as I stand, adjusting her body so her legs are wrapped around my waist. She watches me, face soft and relaxed as I fumble to get my dick inside her, sliding around the wetness and pushing the head deeper and deeper until I've sank all the way in.
I release a contented sigh, rolling my hips against her, and she reaches up, pulling my face down to hers. We kiss as I fuck her and hold her, and I can't stop it.
I can admit that her hands on my body, her lips on mine, feel better than anything else ever has. Her pussy may as well have been molded for my dick. It's so warm and soft I don't ever want to leave.
I'm too drunk on this feeling to unpack the meaning behind it. So I just thrust. In and out until she's crying my name, coming for me again like she wanted. And then it's my turn as I bury myself inside her and groan out a release that seems to last for minutes. I'm still rocking in and out of her as my dick begins to soften, come dripping down between us.
She reaches up and touches my cheek, warmth in her eyes. Something happens at that moment. It feels like I'm being electrocuted, and all I want to do is get away. I'm thinking about it already, setting her upright and telling her to go to sleep while I go to my office. But Ivy seems to sense this weakness in me, and she cuts it off before it can sprout wings.
"Let me wash you. You've had a long day."
She wiggles free from my arms, and my dick falls sad and limp against my thigh as she reaches for the soap and squirts it into her palms. While she lathers, I turn away, offering her my back as I try to catch my bearings. When I feel her hands on me though, all my fleeting thoughts fall away.
“I didn’t mean it,” she says quietly. “What I said about you being in love with yourself. I just… it came out all wrong.”
“I’ve forgotten about it already,” I lie.
She doesn’t reply, and we settle into silence as she washes me like one might detail a car. Slowly tracing over the ink on my skin, examining every line and swooping curve. It's something I never would have allowed anyone at one time, but with her, I don't mind it. I want her to know this part of me, even though I can’t understand why.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
She's halfway through the front of my body, already teasing my dick again when I reach behind her and grab the soap.
"Your turn."
She frowns like a child who's just been told playtime is over, but she gets over it quickly enough when I start by massaging her shoulders. I wash her arms and breasts and slide my soapy fingers between her legs, to which she reacts with a soft moan. A side effect of the hormones, I tell myself. But when I reach her belly, splaying my palm across the small curve taking shape there, it hits me unexpectedly.
We are making a human together. A tiny human that will have her qualities and mine. It chokes me up unexpectedly, and I hope she can’t see it. This is just the natural order of things. This is what we were supposed to do as husband and wife. But right now, I feel oddly... proud. And content.