Page 16 of Recovering Ivy

“I can’t afford it,” she repeated softly.

“Please stop talking.” I turned to Garrett, mainly to try to get my anger in check. I didn’t fully understand what her comment meant, but I understood the implication loud and clear. And what I understood I didn’t fucking like.

She’d been used.

She’d been hurt.

The pain I saw in her eyes had been real and by the tone of her voice it was so deep it had leaked into her bones in a way I doubted would ever work its way out.

That pissed me off.

I gave the guys a lift of my chin, not trusting my voice, and gave Ivy a tug.

We worked our way through security and out to my car. We were five minutes into our drive before she’d snapped out of her daze and announced, “You’re going the wrong way.”

I ignored her and asked, “Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Did you eat?”

“Yes. I ate before I went to the bar. I didn’t know how long the meeting would go.”

“Mind if I hit a drive-thru?”

“You eat fast food?” She sounded shocked.

“Yep.” I chuckled.

“You don’t look like you eat junk food. I mean, there’s not a pinch of fat anywhere on you.” She trailed off at the end, realizing what she’d admitted.

She’d seen me naked.

The flip side to that was I’d seen her naked as well, which was making it hella difficult sitting next to her now.

I couldn’t think far enough back to remember when the last time was I had a woman in my car after I had her in my bed. I wasn’t a dick, well I was, but not because I didn’t do second go-rounds or breakfast the next morning. Nothing good ever came from eating breakfast with a woman. Breakfast led to lunch. Lunch led to conversation. Conversation led to false hope. I was not that man. I always made myself perfectly clear at the beginning of every encounter; there would be no calls, there would be no changing me. My demons ran deep, too deep. I would never burden a good woman with the ghosts of my past.

If that was the case, why was Ivy in my car now?

Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her all day?

Why in the fuck had I woken up prepared to make breakfast for her?

I tried to think about which fast-food joint I wanted to hit in an effort to keep my wayward cock under control. He seemed to be in charge at the moment and that wasn’t something I was wholly comfortable with.

I was breaking rules.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow I would figure this shit out with Forester and her sister, make sure she was safe and he was in lock up, and I’d send her on her merry way, secure in the knowledge I’d done what I could for her and we both could forget last night and move on.

I had a plan. It was a good one, too. A safe one. But my chest ached at the thought. Maybe Jasmin was right and all these years of being an angry son-of-a-bitch had caught up with me and I was finally having a heart attack. That was a more likely reason for the pain, not that never seeing her again was physically causing me discomfort.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“For work,” she clarified.