Wild: The Ivy Chronicles (3 page)

Chapter 4

T
HERE WAS THE BAREST
minuscule of a second when my mouth touched his that I wondered what the hell I was doing. Then that thought died.

I mean, you don’t take a leap off a bridge and then change your mind. It didn’t work that way. If I was going to kiss a guy as hot as this, then I was going to give it my all and enjoy the hell out of it.

I still had a hand around the back of his neck and my fingers flexed in his cropped-short hair. My hand slid upward, my fingers enjoying the feeling of hair that was both sharp and soft against my skin.

His lips were softer than I expected. I didn’t get an immediate response so I stood on tiptoes and angled my mouth over his.

The idea that I was somehow forcing a kiss on him panicked me. That would be too mortifying.
Please. Please, kiss me back
.

My free hand grabbed a fistful of his shirt and tugged him down, willing him to kiss me. To not let me walk away from this feeling like a complete loser. I pulled back slightly, my lips moving against his. “What’s the matter, Logan? Not up for it? I thought you were good at this.”

An exhale passed from him into my mouth.
“Brat.”

His mouth opened over mine then. Whether he thought I was a brat or not, my words had done the trick.

He released the kraken. All of the sexual promise Logan Mulvaney radiated spilled into me.

He crouched in one quick motion, wrapping an arm around my waist and lifting me off my feet so that our fused mouths were level.

No me standing on tiptoes or him bending down. He kissed me back. No. More than that. He took over. Kissing me with lips and tongue and faintly scraping teeth.

I released my death grip on his shirt and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, hanging on for dear life.

We were moving. I was faintly conscious of this. I didn’t open my eyes to look. I was lost, reveling in his tongue in my mouth, his fingers diving into my hair.

I gave the barest grunt when he backed us against the wall of the building, but that didn’t stop the kiss. No. He didn’t slow down.

His mouth was hot and aggressive, punishing on my stinging lips. I’d never been kissed so hard. So thoroughly. I felt him everywhere and this was just a kiss. Oh. God. What would the rest of it be like with him? It would wreck me.

“Is this what you wanted?” he growled against my lips.

I mewled against his mouth. He pushed his hips against me and I moaned, shifting slightly so that the juncture of my thighs was lined up more accurately to take the hard thrust of him that made my insides melt to warm pudding.

He increased the pressure of his mouth on mine, his body rocking and grinding into me until I wanted to tear our clothes off and just have at it. It was that or I die from this exquisite torture.

“Talk to me, Pearls,” he commanded between kisses. “Let me hear that sweet accent telling me how much you want this.”

I kissed him desperately. I was out of breath and drowning and couldn’t think to form coherent words. I could only gasp his name as he sucked on my bottom lip. “Logan.”

Laughter intruded. I blinked dimly, clearing the haze from my vision and unattaching my face from Logan’s. My gaze landed on a couple stumbling up the porch.

“Couldn’t even make it into the building before going at it, Mulvaney?” a guy called out amid laughter.

Just like that the spell was broken. I shoved at Logan’s chest and stumbled out from between him and the wall, smoothing a hand over my wayward hair.

The couple disappeared inside the building.

“Georgia.” Logan stepped toward me, looking a little shell-shocked. But not nearly as much as I was.

My lips had just attacked Reece’s little brother. I’d gone beyond wild tonight and descended into things you should never ever do.

“Stop.” I held a hand out like a shield.

He stopped, looking from my hand to my face.

“Let’s just forget this happened.” And never tell a soul.

He looked like he was on the verge of saying something but I never gave him the chance. I did the mature thing.

I ran.

I SLEPT LATE INTO
Saturday morning, waking to the stillness of my room. Sunlight poured in through the slats of the blinds, tiny motes dancing on the sunbeams. I lifted my long hair so that it wasn’t trapped under me and stared up at the ceiling. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I dropped my arms from above my head with a gust of breath.

A door opened and shut somewhere outside my room, echoing down the hallway. A full ten seconds passed before the memory of last night hit.

A sharp inhalation escaped me. My fingers flew to my mouth, tracing lips that still felt swollen. Impossible, of course. You couldn’t feel a kiss into the next day.

Except I did
.

Logan Mulvaney’s mouth had branded mine. I’d been kissed by a total of four guys in my life. I had dated two guys, briefly, before Harris. I couldn’t even remember those kisses. I could barely remember their faces. That’s how much of an impression they had left. Then there was Joshua. No need to elaborate there. I only remembered him because he was so recent—and slobbery.

I had been with Harris since I was sixteen, and he wasn’t much for kissing. Maybe in the beginning there had been some heavy kisses, but once we started having sex, he didn’t waste a lot of time on foreplay.

But that kiss . . . Logan . . .

A full-body shudder swept through me. I had felt it down to my toes. Deep in my very bones. It had gone on forever and yet it hadn’t been long enough because I still longed for a repeat. I scrubbed both hands over my face as if I could rid myself of these thoughts. Even if I was open to a physical-only relationship with a guy—a fling—I couldn’t go there with Reece’s little brother. That was wrong on so many levels.

A glance to my left revealed Emerson’s bed exactly as it had been the night before. Same clothes strewn about. Clearly she hadn’t come home. She’d spent the night with Shaw. Again. A sigh escaped me.

Most nights she spent at Shaw’s these days. I tried not to let this bother me. Not only were they a couple, but they were working together now. She had started airbrushing the bikes he built. He’d turned half his work shed into a studio for her so she could even work on her paintings there, too. Still. It didn’t stop me from feeling lonely. Shaking my head, I reminded myself that I’d be home in a few weeks. Back in my old hometown. In my old room with my mom and dad and Amber. I wouldn’t be lonely then. It would be impossible to feel lonely with my parents breathing down my neck. With my sister barging into my room to invade my closet and wax on and on about her boyfriend, Jeremy, and whether she should follow him to Vanderbilt where he was hoping to get in the year after next. In short: misery.

Pepper and Emerson were staying at Dartford for the summer and I felt a stab of envy. Pepper was taking classes and Emerson was going to work with Shaw and help him get his garage up and running. As little as I saw of them lately, I wish I could stay here, safe from my prying family. I could see my summer in Muskogee unfolding so clearly before me. It would be worse since the breakup with Harris. Mom would want to talk about Harris all the time and what went wrong. Every time I bumped into someone in town, they would ask about him. Groaning, I forced myself from bed. No use dreading it. This was the plan. Even if I wanted to stay here, I couldn’t. I’d have to suck it up and put my big girl panties on and start packing to go home soon.

Still groaning, I grabbed a bottle of juice from the small fridge and tore into a breakfast bar. Deciding the endorphins from a run might make me feel better, I changed into my running shorts and top. It was still a little chilly in the mornings, but my muscles soon heated up as I ran across campus to the nearby cross country trail that cut through some wooded acreage.

After my run, I showered and grabbed a quick lunch before settling in to study for my Statistics final. Anything math related wasn’t really my thing, but I was a business major so I couldn’t escape the requisite courses. I tried to focus on my notes in front of me but the formulas swam and blurred after a while. Sighing, I leaned back in my swivel chair and pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. For once, studying wasn’t working to distract me. When the door to the suite neighboring mine opened and shut and Pepper’s and Reece’s voices floated through the wall, I was more than ready to take a break.

I knocked once on the partially cracked door, pushing it open as Pepper’s chirped, “Come in!”

She bounded over to me and gave me a hug.

Reece waved at me from where he lounged in the bed before tucking his arms behind his head. My chest flipped a little at his resemblance to Logan. After last night, the memory of Logan’s face was fresher than ever. They had the same piercing blue eyes. The same square jaw. My gaze drifted to Reece’s lips and then jerked away. I would not check out my best friend’s boyfriend’s lips to see if they resembled his brother’s lips. Just. So. Wrong.

“Hey! How’s your weekend?” Pepper asked. “Didn’t you have a date last night?”

I wrinkled my nose and made a face. “The last.”

“Oh, that bad?”

“Just no . . . sparks.” I slid a glance to Reece’s polite stare. Polite yet intense. Like his brother. These guys didn’t just
look
at you. They
looked
at you. Like they were seeing directly into you. Maybe it was embedded in their DNA or something.

“Oh, well. Then better not waste your time there anymore.”

I nodded, noticing then that there was a buzzing energy that seemed to cling to Pepper. Like she was a kid who had just been told she was going to Disneyland, but was trying to keep her act together and not totally explode from excitement.

I looked back and forth between her and Reece. An elusive smile clung to his lips. “What’s going on?”

She and Reece shared a look before she blurted out with: “I’m moving in with Reece.”

I stared for a moment, equal parts happiness and something else filling me. “Wow.” I pulled her in for a hug and then moved to hug Reece. “Congratulations. You’re moving into the apartment above Mulvaney’s?”

“No.” She shook her head, her beautiful auburn waves tossing around her shoulders. “Reece offered on a house last week and he got it! It’s so cute! It’s this little bungalow over on Smithson Avenue. I can’t wait to show you.” Reece reached for her waist and she moved in closer, sinking down on his lap so easily. So naturally. It had never been that way with Harris and me, I realized. It never felt easy or natural, and a pang struck me in the chest for the four years I’d wasted on something that had been so far from right.

Reece rested a hand on Pepper’s jean-clad thigh. It was casual, but there was something possessive in the touch. It hinted at a shared intimacy and that sparked a deep longing awake inside me. I had never known that kind of intimacy. I was no virgin, but some things still felt so foreign to me.

“I can’t wait to see it,” I said.

“We’re moving in next week.”

Next week. My stomach dropped. “W-wow. Really?”

A house. That seemed so permanent. So grown-up. I looked between the two of them, marveling that Pepper had this. That she had found the one. Love. I had no doubt, looking at them, that they were the real thing, and I felt a little foolish for thinking that I had had that with Harris. Now I knew. I never had that.

Pepper nodded, her arm draped around him, her fingers idly rubbing his muscled shoulder through his T-shirt. “Yeah.” The word slipped past her smiling lips.

“Congratulations,” I repeated. “I’m so happy for both of you.”

Pepper looked back at me. “I know we planned on living together again next year—”

“Don’t worry about that. Emerson and I can put in for a single. Or maybe see if Suzanne wants to join us.” Assuming Emerson wasn’t moving in with Shaw.

“When are you heading back for the summer?” Pepper asked. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“Then stay.”

“My mom would flip. And I don’t have a place to stay anyway.” Emerson was staying at her dad’s condo in Boston. At least that was the cover story. She would be at Shaw’s most of the time. Her dad was hardly ever in Boston, so he wouldn’t know.

“Oh! I just had an idea.” She looked at Reece eagerly. “Georgia could stay in your old apartment above Mulvaney’s.”

He shrugged and nodded at me. “Sure. It will be vacant. You could stay there a couple months.”

“That’s really nice of you, but Mom has a job lined up for me back home for the summer.”

“If you need a job over the summer, you could work at Mulvaney’s,” Reece offered. “We have two spots opening up for the summer.”

Working at a bar? My mom would have a coronary. “Thanks, but I kind of have to go.”

Pepper wrinkled her nose. “To that bank you don’t want to work at. You’re going to work there?”

Admittedly, Reece’s offer was tempting. Staying here over the summer. Having an apartment to myself. Working at Mulvaney’s—having a job where I didn’t have to wear a suit and be “on” and impress everyone so they would go back and say great things to my mother about me. It sounded like heaven.

Reece must have seen something in my face. “Think about it, Georgia. Since Pepper and I just bought the new house, the apartment is there if you want it. And with the second Mulvaney’s open across town, we’re looking for new staff. If you need work, it’s there.”

I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.” And I realized they weren’t just words I was uttering to placate him. I really would think about it. Long into the night.

I went for pizza with Reece, Pepper, and Suzanne from down the hall. Emerson and Shaw met up with us, too. Thankfully, I didn’t feel like such a third wheel with Suzanne there.

Over slices of Greek and Hawaiian pizza, we all talked about our summer plans. Suzanne was going home part of the summer to house-sit while her parents went on a month-long Mediterranean cruise. I sighed internally. I wish my parents would go on a month-long cruise. Maybe then going home wouldn’t feel like such an impending tragedy.