Ivy

“I felt you out here.” Fighting my shudder, I hold the towel wrapped around me in place as I step out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. I knew he was back the minute I climbed out of bed.

I rushed into the bathroom and started pacing back and forth. My nerves twisting and jumpy in my stomach. I don’t want to see him. I’m a mess. I’m scared, angry. A mixed up woman who has been locked away, and even though I understand why. It still reminds me of Drew.

After realizing I couldn’t stay in there forever, I took a shower. I felt him out here before I heard him rummaging around.

My heart pauses as his eyes travel up my legs. Stopping at my stomach long enough for them to flare before softening as they roam across the swell of my breasts, my neck, my mouth and lance onto my eyes.

It’s been so long since my skin has spread heat from his caress across my flesh. I’ve been cold, withdrawn, tucked into my safe place after everything I’ve been forced to suffer through.

“Got back about an hour ago. Chaz and Ellie went home. I took a shower in the spare bath. Forgot to grab clean clothes. They said the doctor gave you the blood tests. I’m glad you’re going to be okay, Ivy.”

I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, plaster myself against his wet naked chest in order to feel his heartbeat or melt into his skin with those muscular arms around me.

“He did. The idea of someone slipping me something scares me. I’m not around many people. Then again, you know this, right?” My mind stutters. Does he know the doctor ran all kinds of tests with my blood? Blood, the kind doctor apologized for taking without my permission. I told him I understood and appreciated what he did for me even if I couldn’t remember. I sigh. I’m thankful, which, I’ve told him already. “Well, maybe you should grab your clothes and get out of here so I can get dressed. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Chaz wasn’t kidding when he said Ellie bought me clothes. She bought more than that. Makeup, shampoo, everything I need to make me comfortable. If I could have walked around naked I would have, unfortunately, I can’t, so I accepted what she gave me with gratitude, now that the man who paid for it is back, all I want to do is throw it in his face.

“I’ll leave when I’m done talking. Nick is working on trying to find out who drugged you. There are several men he has to check out.” He runs his fingers through his wet hair. Those eyes still trying to read me. “I don’t know everything about you, not like I used to. Not like I want to either.” Not like he wants to? What does he mean by that?

I don’t ever want him to know everything. I wish he didn’t know anything at all.

His inked covered chest expands with a deep breath. Lips I’ve missed curl into a crooked smile. He’s staring me down, filling this room with thoughts of sweaty, earth-shattering sex, the kind that leaves me satisfied. All kinds of desiring thoughts are running through my head seeing him sitting on his bed only wrapped in a towel himself. The same bed I’ve been sleeping in as my mind drifted all over the place, my nerve endings fraying because I was in his bed wishing he was beside me.

A person's mind can race faster than anything else. It drums up the craziest things. It hopes. It deceives. It scares. It speaks lies and truths. It spins in a malicious circle until wondering gets the better of you. Over the past four days since he’s been gone, I’ve learned how loyal it is too.

Cade might not have had his family with him, but he had friends. He had brothers who fought next to him all the while protecting his back.

I tried with everything in me to get Ellie and Chaz to open up and tell me more about Cade. Ellie gave me a look that spoke she didn’t know a thing, and Chaz turned from the playful man he’s been to a menacing one with the look of the devil.

On the outside, Chaz is the complete opposite of Cade. He’s funny; he’s loud, he watches sports. Yet underneath his soft exterior is a man similar to the one who left me on his couch with unanswered questions. Men who are hiding their pain behind brutality. Men who are hiding lies behind truths, and men who will take their last breath for one another.

I learned where and how these three dangerous men met. Nick, I haven’t met yet. I have a feeling he was with Cade. Also, I’m pretty certain they killed either Adam or Sam. Those are the only other two friends of Drew’s that hung around as much as I did back then.

I always wondered why Adam Chambers and Sam Fredrick left New York in the middle of their sophomore year in college. Now I know why. They didn’t need an education to be rich. They already were.

I suppose if I wasn’t so damn confused as to why Cade walked out and left me just when he gave himself back, I wouldn’t be standing here in front of him after showering, happy he found people who stood by his side, so he wasn’t alone. But the longer he gazes into my eyes like he wants to rip my towel off instead of talk, the more scared and angrier I get.

Cade is alive. He’s been living and breathing the same air as me all these years. I don’t know what hurts more, knowing he was alive and never told me, or him thinking I could ever hurt him, his family, or myself in an unbearable way.

From top to bottom I hurt almost as much as the day the loud boom that woke me up, forcing both Dad and me to rush out the door only to see the St. James house burning. Glass shattering, wood hissing.

Flames. They will forever haunt me.

I’ll bet it’s why Drew named the club BURN. Sick man who I want dead.

I’ve done a lot of thinking while he’s been gone. A lot of searching inside my soul. Some people assume they have the right to do what they like no matter the consequences to others. To take without asking even if those actions end up taking a life. But, what does it mean when one person's actions affect the actions of another?

Drew killed his family for money, and for me. An obsession I knew he had. However, I didn’t know just how obsessed he was. Those actions resolved in the man standing before me. His desire to kill, but there’s more behind this man. More secrets and lies.

At the moment, Drew isn’t part of this. It’s me and a man who can deny all he wants that he doesn’t have room for me. If it were true, someone forgot to tell the few parts of his betraying body. His eyes, his twitchy finger and his dick.

My heart freezes with an ache as my eyes scan his skin. Good God, the man is insanely buff. I guess owning a gym will do that to you. The gym I belong to.

What has me sliding to my left and using the wall to hold me up is the way the outline of his hard cock leaves little to the imagination. The one part of a man I never wanted to get on my knees again for. He’s not Drew though; he’s Cade. Dangerous Cade.

And I’m so, so scared that if he asked me to drop to my knees, I would. But I’d be doing it willingly. I’d be doing it for me as much as for him.

“You’re a killer and a liar.”

His mouth curls higher, the smirk should repulse me. It’s devious, makes him look like Drew. For one brief moment, my instincts thinking it’s the man who set out to destroy me scream for me not to speak another word.

“I am a killer. These hands killed Sam a few days ago. These hands are going to kill again. They are going to kill a man who took my life from me. They are going to kill a man who took you, a gift and hurt you when you should have been cherished. The one thing they would never do is hurt you.”

I want to annihilate the cause of our pain myself. I want to be fearless of Drew and the things he’s done to not only me but to Cade and his family. The things he’s still capable of doing.

But I remain still. Like the way I was taught. A shadowless ghost I keep trying to convince myself I shouldn’t be.

In his next breath, he’s moving toward me. My legs wobble, my palms lay flat against the wall. The repulsive hate from the other night still hangs all around him, the veins in his neck strain to hide the angered pulse thrumming as wildly as my own.

Please touch me.

We watch one another. I see his jaw tic, his eyes dilate, his heart pounding in his chest.

“If I lie, it’s for your own good, Ivy. It’s to protect you, not hurt you.”

I want to elaborate on that, but I’ll leave it alone because the grown woman in me knows all too well how to lie to save hurting others.

“There are other ways to hurt me, Cade.” I don’t have to elaborate. Not when his face doesn’t hide his guilt as easily as his heart and mind do.

“I know, Ivy. I shouldn’t have left. Having you here. Knowing you were in pain from my brother's hands, it messed me up more. I’m not a good man. I’ll never be again. I’ve planned this vengeance since the day I walked away from that fire. I told you I would have killed you, and I would have, Ivy, even if it killed me to do it. I’ve lived with guilt for not being able to save them. Lived with hatred for you marrying him when you should have been with me. Seeing you at the club in pain, feeling it in my gut that you were drugged and your life wasn’t as perfect as I thought. It threw a wrench in my plans. I can’t have distractions in my life. And you are a distraction. One I don’t deserve. Not anymore. You can’t fix me, but I can fix the mistake I made by leaving you.”

Tears blur my vision as I drop my eyes to the carpet. I can’t look at him anymore.

“You think I’m damaged. That’s it isn’t it? You think because of the things he did to me that I’m weak, that I can’t handle what you're doing. I’m not going to try and stop you. He might have hurt me, but he didn’t break me. Not like I thought he did.”

Without warning, his hands come up and cradle my face. My God they feel good. Him touching me like this. It brings back the fondest memories of him telling me how holding my face was the best thing he ever held in his hands.

Slowly he lifts my head. My breaking heart pleas to pinch my eyes closed. I can’t. Not after feeling his breath feather across my lips, the touch of his very much alive hands touching me.

I’m frightened. Terrified even. My legs are having a hard time keeping me upright. He’s touching me. Oh, God. It feels so good when it shouldn’t. I should be cowering and begging him to leave me be. I’m not ready for this. Not at all.

“You aren’t damaged. You are the strongest, most beautiful woman I will ever know. It’s me; I’m damaged, Ivy. Goddamnit. I don’t need this.”

He must need this because before I catch my breath, his lips crash against mine.

“Open up, Ivy,” he demands. Goosebumps scatter my skin from how close he is; they break out everywhere from his touch. My pulse quickens.

I open, proving I’m not strong at all.

This kiss is right in so many ways. Wrong in others. Ways I’m not going to dwell on for fear that what I’m feeling will slip away. And it will, as soon as my desperate mind realizes I’m not hallucinating and that Cade is actually with me, his hard cock pressing against my stomach.

I’m completely captivated. Enthralled and in tune with every ghostly touch of his across my face. His breath, his hands, his mouth, his tongue. They all steal my sense of reasoning. The way we both keep our eyes open as we capture a taste of each other.

He tastes like danger. Like tobacco, and a hint of the man I missed.

There’s so much lingering in the air. So much that still needs to be said and yet here I am letting his tongue swipe every inch of my mouth.

I gasp when he removes his mouth from mine, his hand angles my head off to the side in order for him to kiss across my jaw, along my cheek, and inhale my scent before sliding his hand to wrap around my throat. I melt in his hands.

Desperately seeking to slip away with him just for a little while.

I whimper when I feel the growl rip from his chest and enter my mouth when his lips take over mine again. He’s making me forget about everything that is my life and letting him take me to a place I frantically need to go. I’ve kept so much inside of me that I’m ready to unhinge. I need to stop bottling it up and storing my life’s demons. I just don’t know how.

I panic. Heart fluttering like a caged bird when the other hand glides down my side until it lands on my inner thigh. His fingers inching higher.

My momentary bliss fades when mistakenly I open my eyes, and what flies out of his mouth throws those demons right back inside of me.

“How many times did Drew fuck you with my knife?”