Hear Me (9 page)

And now Ivy knew they both had lost someone at the barrier. But then why had Archer made her think the children were his? “Forest tricks,” she mumbled. She had to remember. “Forest tricks.”
 

“I do not lie, Ivy. You know that. The children you saw in my vision… how old are they?”

Ivy blinked. That was a good point. She wasn’t good with estimating the age of kids. There were so few in this neighborhood, after all. But the ones she’d seen in Archer’s memories weren’t babies. And they would have to be, wouldn’t they? Three years wasn’t enough for Archer to have anything older than a toddler, even if he’d started right away.

Forest tricks, indeed. No wonder he was laughing at her mistake.

“But they are still my responsibility,” he said. “I cannot leave them to their fate in the forest.”

What would his responsibility have been to children he left in town? Her mother hadn’t seemed to mind leaving Ivy there. Forest folk weren’t very consistent when it came to such things. “And what would have happened to them had you died during your ritual tonight?”

“I would have died trying to save them,” he pointed out. “As my brother did. That’s different.”

She didn’t need to hear his forest folk logic. Dead was dead, and alone was alone, no matter what lofty ideals had preceded the action. It didn’t matter if her father had been despairing of the loss of the forest, or reaching for a flower, or if he’d just tripped and fallen into the barrier. He was gone, either way.

“You liked making me think they were yours,” Ivy accused Archer. “Admit it.”

“Fine.” His jaw was set. “I was less than forthcoming. Does it make you happy I’m still bitter you chose your precious town over me?”
 

“You chose the forest over me!” she snapped at him. “You could have left back then. My father warned you all—”

“More lies!” he replied. “And you accuse me of trickery, of treachery? Your father told us
nothing
. We had no idea we were about to be trapped. Remember how I said I came looking for you the day after the bells began to ring? Would I have done so if I’d known there was no way across the barrier?”

Ivy felt like she might choke. Her arms dropped to her sides. Her father had told everyone he’d gone to the forest people and presented his case. Why would he lie? She remembered how heartbroken he’d been that they rejected him. He’d told her how they’d laughed at him, rebuffed him, called him a silly townie. He’d explained how even his wife—even Ivy’s mother—had chosen the forest over her own safety.
 

He’d told her all of this, and Ivy had comforted him. It
had
to be true. The life she’d lived, the duties she’d upheld, the torture she’d suffered and the feelings she was even now at this moment fighting to deny—it had to be true. The forest was evil, the folk there were fickle, the town was safe, and her choices were right.

Archer leaned in now, his hands braced above her on the thick, wavy glass. “Don’t you think if he’d warned us, I would have run to town to be with you? Ivy, Ivy, did you think so little of me as to believe that?”

She swallowed, hard, the council’s posters flashing before her eyes. The vine-wrapped girl sentenced to a life of forest drudgery, the men with eyes of violets, the roar of rumors in town warning of forest men and forest tricks. The words of her father, echoing in her head every day and night as she tried to convince herself he was right.
The forest folk are different. The forest folk cannot be trusted. They don’t think as we do, don’t live as we do, can’t love as we do…

“I would have given up everything I’d ever known to be with you,” he cried. “But you… you, who knew the barrier would go up, did
you
come for me?”

Ivy hung her head, miserable. That awful night. She hadn’t even heard the bells start to ring, she’d been so encased in her own despair. This was the problem with having a boyfriend who had no email, no cell phone, not even a real address. She couldn’t tell him that even as his cage lowered, she was trapped, too.
 

“I tried.”

“What?” It was more a breath than a word. She couldn’t face him, though he was only inches away.

“I tried, Archer. I would have given it all up, too. My father had to lock me in my room the night the bells began to ring.”

Silence fell, a quiet more complete than a snowy night, unbroken by the jangle of silver bells. Blood rushed in Ivy’s ears, her heart pounded, but she didn’t breathe. Neither did Archer.
 

Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and three years of waiting crashed down around them both.

CHAPTER NINE

This one couldn’t properly be called a kiss either. Kisses were gentle, sweet. Kisses were things given on altars when you wore white lace and flowers. Kisses belonged to babies and friends and shy boys on first dates. This was mouths and breath and wanting so bad it might singe off their skin. This was hands clutching and nails scraping and clothes rent at the seams.

“Ivy,” he said or breathed or thought directly into her soul. She couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. “Ivy-mine.”

“Yes,” she gasped, though pausing for breath seemed so beyond the point. “Yours.”
 

The old plaid shirt went flying, and her sweater seemed to shred like fine silk. Maybe it was magic, maybe even dark magic, but Ivy barely noticed. She was too busy taking stock of every square inch of her skin that touched his skin, and thinking it was a miracle. Everything else about this night—the bells, the arguments, the threats—nothing else mattered. This was Archer, here, for her. This was the thing she’d told herself she didn’t want, couldn’t have, mustn’t crave. Ivy no longer cared.

“Bras?” he grumbled, his face buried in her collarbone. “I forgot how much I hated bras. You want dark magic? Whoever invented these things should be cursed.”

“Mmmm,” Ivy replied, and unhooked hers. She flung the cups away, and they landed on a bush halfway down the greenhouse walk. “Better?”

“Partly.” He glared at her jeans. “You’ve already seen me without my pants.”

 
She kicked off her boots, undid her jeans, then shoved them down too. “Now better?”

“Panties,” he said, smiling. “Not like bras. So much better than bras.” He hooked his fingers into the scraps of cotton fabric at her hips. “What happened to all those lace and bows and strings you used to wear?”

“It’s been three years since anyone’s seen them, Archer. Lace and bows are itchy.”

He fell against her, burning Archer on her front, the frozen glass at her back. “Ivy,” he groaned in wonder. “No one…?”

“I told you.” She pressed herself into his embrace, moaning. “I’m yours.”

And she was. They’d played games and they’d tossed about anger and accusations and yes, even lies, but they couldn’t deny it. He was hers and she was his and they had the same soul. Didn’t they know that? Didn’t everyone know? Her father had locked her away, the town had put up a wall of magic between them, but here they were again.
 

His beard scraped the skin of her face, her throat. This beard that he hadn’t had when they’d been teenagers but still felt as familiar as her own hand. His palms covered her breasts, hot and gentle, possessive and perfect. She whimpered when his thumbs grazed her nipples and his tongue delved into her belly button, she writhed when his hands slipped down to divest her of her underwear, she bit her lip over a scream when she felt him nuzzling her thighs apart.

Before she could stop him, he’d hooked one of her legs over his shoulder and his mouth moved against areas of her body that hadn’t felt the touch of anything but her own fingers in ages. And this wasn’t kissing either, exactly, but my oh my, she was fine with it, too.
 

More than fine. Way, way, way more than fine. Her hands glided over the steam-soaked panes of the glass, searching for something to grip. When she found nothing, she reached for him, swept her fingers through his mass of curls, threw her head back, and gave into the sensations he was sending through her with his lips and tongue and voice rumbling her name in a tone almost too low to hear.
 

Her nerve endings blazed and her mind was filled with memories of summer nights, the taste of creekwater and woodwine and salt from Archer’s skin, the evenings she thought she could live on nothing but sex and forest magic, and she didn’t care what the kids at school would say Monday morning, when her locker would be filled with leaves and pebbles, and her father would shake his head and tell her to be careful, be careful, be oh so very—

Archer’s tongue pressed against her flesh just so and Ivy cried out, shuddering in sudden, shattering pleasure, half here and half in the memories they both shared. If this was magic, then so be it. Ivy would cross her heart and hope to die and let Archer turn her to stone or smoke or rain. As long as she could feel this way for one more moment.

He rose before her, that wild look in his eyes. The one she was supposed to fear. But all she did was want it, and when she kissed him this time, it was a real kiss, full lips and breath and the tang of her pleasure on his tongue. She licked his bottom lip, and nibbled, and smiled against his mouth.

“I’m getting cold, Archer,” she begged him coyly. “Make me warm.” She rubbed her body against his. He was so hot. Hot like a rock in the summer sun. She wanted to spread herself over him and soak him up.

“Wait, Ivy,” he mumbled, fiddling with the fastenings on his own pants. “Wait, Ivy, I have to—”

She lowered her mouth to the hollow of his throat and bit, then quickly laved the spot with her tongue. The nice spot, the one he liked, had always liked. The one she knew because he was always hers.

And just as she wanted, Archer groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as she reached into his pants and took him in her hands. They fell against the glass. Steam rose around them, wafting through her hair and over her feverish skin. She felt his fingers between her legs, felt one slide slick inside her, testing.

“Three years,” she reminded him, and pulled him in for a kiss. “Don’t make me wait another second.”

Archer didn’t. He gathered her close, lifting her easily as she wrapped her legs around him. His pants still hung low around his hips, the waistband rubbing against the underside of her thighs. She felt him push inside her, the hard, hungry warmth of Archer filling her up. Ivy breathed out, her sigh swirling the steam that wreathed around them and radiated outward, cloaking this part of the greenhouse dome like a silver curtain. She couldn’t see the night or the stars or the snow. She couldn’t see anything but Archer.

She fought for leverage as he began to move inside her, pressing her spine against the cool, slippery glass at her back, sliding her hands up the panes to grasp at the metal veins crisscrossing the dome. Her skin squeaked over the glass, chilly water dripping down her shoulder blades in contrast to the fire building between them.
 

Her head overflowed with memories, Archer’s and hers blending, her feelings and thoughts mixing with his until she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began. Three years of wanting doubled in her head as she felt his desire and his wonder crashing over and through her.
 

And yet, how could it be a surprise? How could she ever want anything more than this, than him? She’d worked to deny it, forget it, and why? Nothing could compare to this, this spiral of pleasure, his and hers combined, reflected back and forth in an endless chain.

As soon as Ivy found a grip against the bronze bands, Archer allowed his hands to slip from her back, to grasp her hips and thrust with more force. Steam rose around them, thick and heavy and smelling of trees and earth and a raging fire, the kind that opens pine cones and scares town folk. Ivy didn’t want to feel the cold anymore. She just wanted Archer. Even as his ragged, half-formed desires filled her head, she wanted more. Some were fine and beautiful, and some were base and dirty, and she loved them all.
 

She pulled herself forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He staggered back and lowered himself to the ground, lying down as she straddled him. Ivy pressed down on his chest and moved on top of him, finding a rhythm that worked for them both. His moss-colored eyes stared up at her, smooth and even and filled with an emotion Ivy didn’t dare name. Her pale, blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders, and she swiped it out of her face as she leaned down and kissed him again.

His hands tightened on her waist and his hips thrust up, lifting them both off the ground. “Ivy, oh, Ivy…” And then, abruptly, he pulled her off him and gasped, taking his shaft in his hand as his orgasm hit. Ivy nearly cried out too, as the connection between them was severed.
 

At last he relaxed, his head lolling against the ground as he sighed in pleasure. He reached for her and gathered her close, so her head was tucked into the hollow spot between his collarbone and his chest. She could feel his heart thumping against her temple, strong and fast. His contentment enveloped them both, and as she laid her hand on his chest, she saw herself through his eyes, lifted up against the dome glass, her head thrown back in pleasure. She closed her eyes, suddenly embarrassed, and he squeezed her.

“You all right?”

She nodded against his muscles. “You just surprised me… when you pulled away.”

“I wanted to protect you. I didn’t know if you still took those pills.”