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She lay against him for a long time, studying his profile, seeing his chest rise and fall, his naked body glistening in the moonlight. She slept for a few hours, but woke up several times during the night, restless, consumed by a thousand emotions, one of them totally new and alien to her, totally directed at the man on the bed.
He fucked her once, almost asleep, almost automatically, but always it felt as if he needed her to live. As if he needed her as much as she needed him.
The next time when she lay awake, he seemed to sense her breathing was different from his. He stirred on the mattress, he was so big that it creaked under his weight, and then he stretched out a powerful arm, as if looking for her, and then gathered her at his side.
He buried his face in the back of her neck and sighed before he started breathing deeply again. Her heart hurt in her chest, because she never thought he could be such a gentle lover and so passionate at once. She never knew he would gather his friends’ money, and pretend he didn’t want to help, but did.
She knew her body wanted him. She just hadn’t expected her heart would, too.
Tomorrow was Monday, and Ivy couldn’t stand to think of not seeing him for a day, much less a week, much less maybe for forever.
She had felt like she’d taken a vacation from reality, and come tomorrow, it would all be back.
She didn’t want it to be.
She wished she could stay here, where nothing could ever touch her but him.
Chapter Five
I have to go. I really have to go.
Cade rubbed his eyes wearily, making his way around Ivy’s apartment for one last time. He’d put on coffee for himself, and now waited for it to bubble up. He hadn’t slept shit last night, but he wasn’t about to tell Ivy. She had lain real close to him and had bad dreams, tossing all night.
She’d been sweating and then she’d sighed, and then she’d moaned as though tortured by some faceless villain Cade had wanted to punch. Even after he’d fucked her and come all over her and she’d gone back to sleep, she’d … been trembling. Not in the way he enjoyed her to tremble for him, but in a way that made him lose his sleep, as well.
Cade just wanted to know what the hell she was so afraid of, so he could show her she didn’t need to be. He wanted to hold her real close and yet he couldn’t … just like he couldn’t protect Laura. Because Ivy was gone today, out to save the world—or at least part of it—from cancer.
Damn it!
The unexpected effects she had on him were not diminishing, as he’d supposed they would if he’d gotten her out of his system. Anger, lust, need, these feelings had emerged so raw he felt sore every time they were together, drunk with her nearness. He couldn’t even meet that innocent honey-eyed gaze for fear of sacking her right there, taking her right there. Mine.
My. Woman. My. Woman. My woman.
His soul seemed to be crying out for him to do something about it. But if he didn’t want her to loathe his black devil self for not supporting her cause, then he’d known he’d had to let her go today. Despite the warning flags, the deafening bells in his ears. Despite every cell in his body screaming at him not to. Despite those wide troubled honeyed eyes that had tugged at his most basic, protective instincts. But what did he want to protect her from? He could see it in her gaze when he refused to acknowledge the disease she wanted to combat that she thought he was being petty and small. He didn’t want to be that man to her.
Still, he couldn’t forget, couldn’t stop hearing that tiny, quivering voice in his head. I have to go. I really have to go.
Something in her voice—something heart-wrenching and as real as the fist that suddenly curled around his gut—made him feel edgy today.
/> “How long will you be gone?” he’d asked only an hour ago.
“A week or two … maybe three. I’ll let you know.”
He’d kissed her, feeling a little desperate. “Make it one.”
It was drizzling outside, and as he poured his coffee, the phone rang. He ignored the rings, but he couldn’t help listening to the message left there when the answering machine picked up.
Miss Ivy Summers, we did not hear from you Friday, so this is another friendly reminder of your procedure of a lumpectomy with possible mastectomy to be done by Dr. Jeff Sabella this morning at ten a.m. at the Prestons Hospital of Chicago …
The drizzle outside was turning into a wild thunderstorm, and Cade stared at his coffee as he tried not to go back in the past to the time he’d heard his wife was getting one, too. No. Instead he was at the charity dinner less than a week ago, watching as dozens of people hugged Ivy and wished her luck and cried on her shoulder. It had not been because she needed more donations. When she’d said she couldn’t have anything serious with him, it wasn’t because she was too busy. It was because she was sick.
Ivy.
Was sick.
Raw pain opened like a rabid monster inside his chest. His hands curled into fists, as a rush of emotions so deep, so dark, and so painful cut through him, he barely registered that he’d grabbed his coffee cup in his hand. It went crashing to the floor. Followed by the nearest lamp. He ground his footing as the vases on the coffee table exploded on the walls. He wasn’t even conscious of what he did, he only heard glass shattering, paper tearing, pillows being ripped to shreds, the sounds muffled by furious, heart-wrenching bellows that tore from his chest.
He’d never thought a human being could make a sound like that; it was torn from his gut and some newly vacant, hollow piece of himself.
