He stood there for a minute, wondering how in the hell all this had happened—in his own den, right under his nose—and he hadn't heard a sound. He didn't like it, not one little bit, but this is what it meant to have a gaggle of witches in his life now. For as sure as he had Ivy, her coven sisters were kind of a package deal.
Truth be told, Uriah was willing to deal with whatever came his way, so long as it meant being with Ivy.
*****
Ivy awoke slowly, wallowing in the warm silence. The mattress beneath her was soft and deep, the blankets she snuggled beneath thick and heavy.
She listened hard for the sounds of the meditation music Astrid listened to, which sounded like warbling aliens, or the sound of Juliet on the phone with one of Rowena's suppliers, chewing him out for not delivering something on time. She inhaled, checking for the scents of sulfur and burnt hair that seemed to permeate the manor after Callie's experiments went awry.
But there was only blessed quiet and the smell of something musky and masculine.
Memories tickled at the edges of her mind, and the taste of blackberries lingered on her lips.
With a warm rush, Ivy remembered she wasn't in the coven house. She was with Uriah, her belly full of the delicious meal he'd cooked, sleeping in his bed, in the beautiful house he'd built for her.
Or had it all been a dream?
Had the events of this morning might have been nothing but another fevered fantasy? Ivy opened her eyes to look around, surprised by the despair that took hold of her. To her relief, Uriah was the first thing she saw.
He sat in a chair not far from the bed, his long legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed. Shirtless, he studied a thick magazine with a deep frown of concentration on his rugged face.
His eyes tracked back and forth as he read the article, while she smiled at the way he carefully turned that page, ensuring the paper didn't crinkle or make noise to disturb her.
After settling the page, Uriah glanced her way, then did a double take when he realized she was awake, a smile curving his lips almost instantly.
“Hey, beautiful,” he greeted warmly, setting his magazine aside without a second thought. “Have a good nap?”
Heat blossomed on her cheeks when he got up from his chair to sit beside her on the bed. Ivy rolled to her back to keep hold of his gaze, smiling sleepily up at him.
“The best ever. Were you sitting there the whole time?”
Uriah shook his head, reaching across her body to plant his hand on the bed next to her hip. “No, just for a little while. I didn't want you to wake up in a strange place alone. Rowena got in touch to make sure I was treating you right. I didn't want to assume anything, but a bag of your stuff appeared in the kitchen right after we got done texting.”
Ivy yawned and stretched, turning her face into the touch of Uriah's knuckles on her cheek. “It was probably one of the Brownies who made the delivery.”
“Brownies? You mean fairies?” Uriah asked, sounding almost offended as he looked around the empty bedroom like he was expecting to see the little creatures peeking out from the closet or something.
“I do mean fairies. Rowena has a contract with a pair of them, and they're very sweet. They won't pop over unless Rowena asks them to.”
“They did the dishes, and I didn't hear a damn thing.”
Ivy realized Uriah was unhappy because he didn't like having the unseen creatures in his home. Because if they could get in and his bear didn't notice, what else could get in?
“They're kinda O.C.D. about dishes. They might not have been able to help themselves. I'll put out some extra cream for them when I go back to the manor.”
Uriah didn't say anything in response, but it was obvious if he had his way, Ivy wouldn't be going back. She considered how quickly the universe had spun in an unexpected direction, and how calm her mind was despite the huge shift in her circumstances.
Again.
Despite the easy quiet that lingered between them, Ivy found her mind racing a mile a minute. Uriah stared down at her with a pinch of determination wrinkling his brow, and Ivy admitted to herself, she had zero desire to return to the coven house.
As much as she loved her sisters, the continued dormitory lifestyle—especially sharing two bathrooms with five women—was getting old.
The smell of Callie's botched experiments coupled with the constant tromp of footsteps on the stairs at all hours, the random perverted ghosts that would appear at the end of Ivy's bed to loom over her when Kerrigan was working in the house, or the blast of Juliet's favorite band of the week vibrating the windows as soon as the sun came up, the space music Astrid played as soon as the stars came out...
Rowena was the only one of the group who was quiet and steady. Until Callie blew something up and Rowena got pissed and started shrieking the house down. That witch could bitch when she got riled.
Ivy really did want her own place, she needed it and behold, here it was, complete with a sexy man to pamper and adore her.
“You're thinking so hard I can practically hear it,” Uriah accused with a crooked smile.
Ivy reached up to set her palm on his chest, scratching her fingers into the sparse mat of hair between his rigid pecs. A gooey melting sensation bubbled through her when Uriah shuddered in response, covering her hand with his.
“There's been a lot of change going on in an extremely short amount of time. I'm processing.”
He accepted her response with a nod, going so far as to lift her hand up to his mouth to kiss the center of her palm. Ivy felt a surge of electricity zooming straight down her arm and into her heart. Bliss.
“Maybe a bath would help.”
A bath in the giant slipper tub that looked out on the river? Hell yeah. “I think you're right.”
Uriah grinned and gave her hand another kiss, rubbing the roughness of his scruffy beard against the sensitive skin. “I'll get it started.”
When he got up, Ivy rolled to her side to keep him in sight, biting into her lip to stifle her appreciative groan. Coming or going, it was one hell of a view. She saw him come up short after opening the door, the muscles in his back standing out in sharp relief as tension gripped him.
Ivy even heard him growl under his breath, but when she asked what was wrong, he shrugged it off and disappeared from view.
“Nutthin, everything is fine.”
The sound of the water coming on came next, and with the speed of a sloth, Ivy got out of bed. By the time she made it to a sitting position, a few wicked wheels spun in her mind.
Just because she didn't have the power to cast spells, didn't mean she was powerless.
She stood up, shrugged out of her sweater, her tank and matching shorts, and padded naked into the bathroom.
Uriah had his back to her, which was good, because a swell of emotion surged to see the spray of candles he'd brought up to surround the tub. Feathery ferns sat in pots by the window, the fluffy towels and baskets of potions and lotions made with her own herbs carefully arranged on a bench right next to the tub. There was even a big green bathmat made out of moss that hadn't been there before.
Uriah was busy lighting the candles, giving her plenty of time to marvel at the beautiful transformation that had happened while she slept, but when he turned around and saw her standing there in the buff, the lighter fell from his nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor.