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“She’s in her bathroom, Mr. Maddox. Can’t keep anything down.” He holds the door for me. “Told me to tell you that’s where you’ll find her.”
“Shit.” I scowl at a visual of Summer talking me into staying at the compound instead of racing back here to look after Ivy. I should have followed my damn instincts. I leave Jackson at the door as I make my way to the bathroom.
Ivy is on the floor in a ball. Her cheek is pressed to the tiles.
“Fuck. Baby.” I shouldn’t have let her push me away.
“Rogue?” Her voice is a rasp.
“Yeah, Ivy.” In three steps I have her scooped up in my arms. She looks wrecked. There are dark circles around her sunken eyes and her hair hangs in strings. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
She lifts her hand but then covers her mouth with it. “Gonna puke.”
I put her down in front of the toilet again and when she sinks to her knees, I gather her hair up in my fist while she wretches. “You’ve been like this the whole time?”
“Mmhmm.” She nods, her cheeks pinched.
“I should have been here.” I help her to her feet and then lift her up onto the counter.
“I pushed you away.” She rests her head on my chest and takes a shaky breath. “I was scared. You scare me with your intensity.”
“I can’t change the way I am.” I stroke her hair back from her face and rest my chin on the top of her head.
“I know, and I don’t really want you to.”
“But I can try to be better about it.” I’ll do anything I can to make this work for us. “Because I love you.”
“I love you too.” Her hand splays over my left pectoral. “I let Nicole scare me more though. She’s always had this power over me… always made me feel like I can’t stand up to her. These past few days have given me time to come to the realization that not being with you is worse than anything that she could do to us.”
“You know I won’t let anything happen to you.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders and press my lips to the top of her head.
“It’s not me that I’m worried about,” she says.
“My lawyer is putting together a defamation case,” I tell her. “And I spoke to a detective about the threats she’s sent. We’re going to deal with her.”
“What if it’s not enough?” She wraps her hand around my forearm. Clings to me. She’s still scared. Still tortured by the way she’s been treated her entire life. It’s part of the fabric of who she is, and I can deal with that. As long as we’re together. “If it isn’t then we’ll go to the next step. Marty is looking into something that might help.”
“Marty?”
“I didn’t tell you because I don’t know what it is exactly that we have. It might be nothing.” Or it might be earth-shattering for Ivy, and I’d rather be certain before she is forced to deal with yet another life-altering discovery. “We can talk about it when you’re feeling better.”
“That sounds good,” she says.
I pick up her toothbrush and squeeze a line of toothpaste on it. “Brush. And then I’m putting you to bed.”
She takes a couple of minutes to brush her teeth and rinse out her mouth, and then I pluck her off the counter and carry her into the bedroom where I help out her out of her clothes, except her panties and camisole.
“You’re back now, right?” She grips onto my T-shirt when I sit on the edge of the mattress with her in my lap. “Are you staying? Was I clear that I love you and I pick us? I want you here. I need you with me.”
I lay down on the bed and she drapes over my chest. Drawing the covers up over us, I hold onto her tight. “You couldn’t get rid of me again if you tried. I’m not going anywhere.”
Her breathing evens and she grows still. As sick as she’s been she probably hasn’t slept any more restfully than I have.
I carefully move us so that I’m on my side, with her in my arms. I press my lips to the side of her head. “There won’t be one single night we spend apart from now on. Not even the night before I marry you for real, baby girl.”
I must have fallen asleep too because the next thing I know I’m waking up to her wiggling her ass against my crotch. Fucking love the way she does that. Even if it makes me hard as rock. “You awake?”
“Mmhmm.” She wriggles again and this time it’s obvious that she’s doing it on purpose.
