Fire with Fire (Crash and Burn, Book 3) (A Military Romance) (15 page)

Ivy sat there, watching him go, knowing that in the space of just a few seconds—everything had gone horribly wrong between them.

Please just come back
, she thought, as if she could pray hard enough to make it so.

But the truth was, she already knew he wasn’t going to return.

S
he was alone
. She’d been alone for the past ten minutes, waiting. Waiting for what?

Elvis has left the building
.

Ivy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the situation. She’d finally been ready to lose her virginity, give herself to a man fully and without reservation—and then that man had rejected her.

Her body was still bathed in sweat and the afterglow of what Cullen Sharpe had done to her. Her buttocks still burned from the spanking and her pussy was still wet with her own juices.

She was naked.

But Cullen Sharpe was gone. He’d left the room almost immediately after hearing that she was still a virgin. His reaction had been nothing short of horrified and disgusted. As if she’d told him she had some kind of horrible communicable disease, instead of it simply being an admission of inexperience.

What’s wrong with me?

More to the point, what’s wrong with him?

Ivy didn’t know. She felt shell-shocked, like she’d been used and discarded by the wealthy CEO with his seductive, finicky ways. One moment he was making her come and the next he was fleeing the scene like a bat out of hell.

Enough time had gone by and the worst of the shock had worn off, leaving her nerves raw and exposed. She got off the bed and got slowly dressed, hating the gross sensation of her smoky, slept-in clothes as they came in contact with her sweaty body.

Don’t cry. Whatever you do, you can’t cry right now. Save it for later.

The task is simple—hold it together until you’re away from Cullen Sharpe, and then you can freak out all you want.

Ivy exited the bedroom and walked down the hallway, emerging into the open concept living room and kitchen that were appropriately beautiful and modern. The space was all granite countertops, beautiful tile floors and sleek furniture with post-modern, Japanese looking paintings and photos on the walls.

Cullen was sitting at the kitchen table reading the New York Times. He was dressed in one of his sleek dark suits, and he looked completely put together, as if he hadn’t even been in her room just a few minutes previously.

He couldn’t have ever been in that bedroom doing those things to her, because look at him. Whereas she was a disheveled mess, Cullen Sharpe was neat, tidy, perfect, reading his paper without a care in the world.

When she came into the room, he glanced up from his paper at her. “My car will take you back to your apartment, Ivy.”

“That’s not necessary—“

“Don’t be silly,” he replied sharply. “You need to get home and ready yourself for work. Unless you intend to go into work wearing the same clothes as yesterday.”

She sucked in her cheeks. “Maybe if I explain why I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes, my co-workers would be more understanding.”

Cullen snapped the paper closed. “My driver will take you home. That’s final.”

She wanted to scream at him. He was so cold, so cruel. How dare he take that high-handed attitude with her? But she knew better than to lose her cool with a man like him.

He would just write her off as a typical crazy woman. And she wouldn’t be written off so easily. Ivy allowed a smirk to creep across her face. “That sounds lovely, Mister Sharpe.”

He blinked, as if her words were unexpected. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad that’s settled.”

“It’s all settled,” she said, and then she turned and walked out of his home.

It seemed as though he’d been about to say something else, but she didn’t give him the chance.

You’re all out of chances, Mister Sharpe. I’m not one of your typical floozies, like that poor pathetic woman I heard begging you for attention this morning. You sent her away, but I’m going of my own free will.

Outside, sure enough, a car was waiting for her. She got inside and they drove away.

Ivy told herself not to look at his house as she drove off.

Don’t give into your curiosity. Forget he even exists
, she told herself.

But she couldn’t help it. More surprisingly, she saw that Cullen Sharpe was standing in the window, watching her go.

It was difficult to tell, but she could’ve sworn that she saw the strangest, most pained look in his eyes. As if he’d never wanted her to leave at all.

* * *

A
fter returning
home to shower and change, Ivy felt refreshed and determined.

I’m not going to let him beat me down.

That was her mantra. Cullen Sharpe would not win. He wouldn’t make her lose faith in herself, wouldn’t cause her to crumble up and blow away just because he’d rejected her when she’d finally allowed herself to open up to his advances.

She dressed in a formal beige pantsuit; blouse, pants and a blazer, with high heels. Looking at herself in the mirror before leaving the apartment, she thought her look today read as “no time for bullshit.”

And that suited her mood just fine.

If flashes of Cullen’s steely blue eyes happened to occasionally pass through her mind unbidden and unwanted, she tried her best to ignore such memories.

But sitting on the T, as it wound its snakelike way towards the station near Biomatrix, she found her thoughts drifting back to the brief moments they’d spent together in Cullen’s bedroom that morning.

The feel of his hand on her bare bottom.

The sting.

The sensation of excitement.

Her opening for him, his finger sliding so easily into her dripping wetness.

Cullen’s rock hard body lowering onto her, readying to penetrate her before those fateful words had left her mouth and changed everything instantaneously.

Ivy found it impossible to resist the memory of those powerfully charged moments. She couldn’t help the fact that it was the most intense sexual experience of her life, and Cullen Sharpe was responsible for it.

But Ivy reminded herself that even if Cullen had been the catalyst for the experience, that didn’t mean another person couldn’t bring her there again someday.

It could and would happen again.

It just wouldn’t be with Cullen Sharpe anymore. That was that. He’d made it quite clear he wanted no part of her virginal escapades.

Finally, she arrived at Biomatrix Pharma, and entered the building confidently, head held high. She had to assume he was already there, sitting in his expansive office, watching his monitors and doing whatever it was he did up there.

Maybe he was even watching her right now on his surveillance system. Knowing Cullen Sharpe’s interest in controlling every facet of his business, she thought it quite possible he was watching her as she came inside the lobby.

That being the case, she made a point to look happy and completely fine with everything.

Because screw him.

She was actually a few minutes early into the cube farm, and so she stopped by the break room to get a cup of coffee. The break room just so happened to be near Emma Marks’s office.

The blond, bitchy supervisor gave Ivy the hives, but it didn’t hurt to wander by and hope that Emma might notice Ivy had arrived early, ready to start her day.

As she strolled by Emma’s office, Ivy happened to see that Emma wasn’t actually in there. But someone else was.

Lucas was standing behind the desk, peering at Emma’s computer screen and appearing to be typing something on the supervisor’s unattended keyboard. He glanced up as Ivy passed by and instantly he stood straight and his cheeks went red, as if caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Hey,” he said, waving. He came around the desk and quickly exited the office, walking in step with Ivy as she continued on to the break room.

“What’s going on, Lucas?” she asked, trying not to sound as suspicious as she felt.

“Not much,” he replied.

There was a brief, awkward silence.

“What were you doing in Emma’s office?” she asked, finally, unable to pretend she hadn’t seen what he was up to.

“Please don’t tell anyone you saw me in there,” he said, sounding pained. “Please, Ivy. They’ll fire me if you do.”

“I can’t promise that. What if they think I covered up for you?”

They were now inside break room together, and she put a plastic cup under the Keurig machine and prepared to make her coffee.

“There’s nothing for you to cover up,” Lucas said. “The whole thing is so stupid.”

“If you say so,” she replied, not believing him just yet.

“Yesterday, there were some emails circulating between the temps,” Lucas continued. “It was like, inside jokes about the job and stuff. Goofing on Emma and…you know…Cullen too.”

“I never got any emails,” Ivy said, watching him as her coffee started brewing.

Lucas nodded. “Yeah…” He looked slightly pained. “Well, the thing is—the other temps don’t really trust you.”

She felt her jaw drop. “They don’t trust me? What did I ever do wrong to them?”

“You didn’t do anything
wrong
necessarily,” Lucas said, sounding increasingly nervous. He looked around as if fearful of being overheard. “But everyone’s noticed the way Cullen Sharpe treats you.”

Ivy paused as she went to retrieve her cup from the brewer. “How does he treat me?”

His hand on my ass—his finger, sliding deep into my wet pussy.

The head of his cock, preparing to push into me, to break me wide open…

Oh, Cullen. Fuck me, Cullen.

She snapped out of her reverie, as her co-worker seemed embarrassed to comment.

Lucas eventually gave an embarrassed half-shrug of his shoulders. “You know he treats you different from the others. Like how he picked you, out of everyone, to bring him coffee. Calling you at your desk—“

“Is everyone watching me? Eavesdropping on my phone calls?” she said, furious now. “Are all of your lives so lame that you need to focus on me and what I’m doing instead of minding your own business?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Lucas said. “I like you, Ivy. You know that. Would I tell you all of this otherwise?”

She sighed, grabbing her cup and putting cream and sugar into it, stirring it with a little plastic stirrer. “I guess that’s true,” she muttered.

“Everyone around here’s paranoid, Ivy. This place is crazy.”

She sipped her coffee and glanced at Lucas now. “None of that explains why you were messing around in Emma’s office.”

“I’m getting there,” he said, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. “We were all going back and forth with those joke emails, and they were getting more and more outrageous. And then I chose to send my worst joke yet directly to Emma Marks this morning. It was an accident, and it was truly stupid. I hadn’t woken up yet, I guess.”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “And that’s why you went into her office?”

Lucas looked again over his shoulder. “Look, I know it was a dumb thing to do. But her door was open and I thought…if I could just delete the email off her computer—“

“How did you get into her email? Everyone has password protection.”

“She didn’t,” he said. “I can’t explain it, but maybe she forgot to lock her computer when she left last night. So I just pulled up the email and deleted the message I’d sent her. That’s it.”

“That’s it, huh?” Ivy said, sighing as she continued sipping her coffee, still not sure how she felt about his confession.

“Ivy, please. Don’t rat me out. Emma Marks is a stone cold you-know-what, and she’ll fire my ass in a heartbeat for this.”

“Well, maybe you should be fired for that, Lucas. That was dumb.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He hung his head. “Just give me a chance, Ivy. I’ll owe you one.”

She thought about it. Was it really her place to tell Emma or anyone else that Lucas had gone into her office and used her computer? If their security system was so great, they should’ve known he’d done so.

And besides, Ivy wasn’t feeling very charitable towards anything Cullen Sharpe had a stake in. As far as she was concerned, the controlling and manipulative CEO and his dumb company could both go to hell in a hand basket.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Ivy said, finally. “I won’t tell anybody.” She shook her head in disbelief that somehow she’d been roped into this little conspiracy on top of everything else.

“You’re the best,” Lucas told her. He turned to leave and then seemed to think better of it, turning back. “Hey, we never even had a chance to talk about last night. Insane, wasn’t it?”

“Very,” she agreed, raising her eyebrows without going further.

“When that fight broke out, you disappeared. I was getting knocked around pretty good,” he chuckled.

“I’m sorry that happened to you. You were nice. You tried to step in and protect me.”

“Tried and did the opposite of succeed,” he said, giving her a wry smile. “They call me Sir Fails a Lot. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Lucas. Everything worked out in the end.”

“I figured,” Lucas said, nodding.

Ivy left the break room, her brow wrinkled with puzzlement.

Was it her imagination or had Lucas seen more last night than he was admitting to? Surely, Lucas or some of the other temps had been aware of Cullen Sharpe’s stepping into the fray and fighting those drunks, and then escorting Ivy from the bar.