She was relating some sort of survival rate list to the attendees, where everyone clapped after each mention.
“Mary Ellen Wolfander, going for six years now!”
Clap clap clap.
“Kathleen Marie Anise, well into four years now!”
Clap clap clap.
Cade didn’t glance around to see those who stood. His eyes just refused to leave Ivy.
She’d gathered her hair up in a twist that revealed her throat, exposing the tender skin between her shoulder and neck. Cade could clearly see, though she’d seemed to have applied makeup, the exact spot where he’d sucked her skin into his mouth yesterday.
His teeth suddenly ached. That small pink hickey was teased by a blond wisp of hair that fell there, and fuck, what he wouldn’t do to brush that wisp aside, to press a kiss to the steady pulse that fluttered just under her skin, to cup those fragile little shoulders in his hands, push her down on the floor, suck her into his mouth, and bury all his pain inside her again.
But little bald heads kept popping up in the room and a sensation of blackness opened in his chest. A dark cloud hovered above him, pressuring him.
There were men here, too. Some maybe sick, some supporting the women. All he knew was that none of them deserved this. Nobody did. But they were here. Supporting each other. Quiet and attentive to her words. The entire room seemed to belong to her. Even Cade.
He felt both touched and frustrated and transfixed, all at the same time, as she finished with the phrase, “Remember, fighters make survivors. May God bless you all!”
She descended the podium steps, and the incoming nearness of her scent in the air made his nostrils twitch. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, it seemed like the place had come alive by her simple presence, people rising and heading toward her to say hello. His cock stirred, and it made his lips curl in disdain at himself. In loathing.
His fucking dick hadn’t worked when it should have. When his wife had lain in the hospital, dying, begging him to make love to her. And Cade had kissed her and caressed her—but no. He hadn’t been able to make love to her. Not once.
She’d been too weak, pale and yellow, bald and frail, and he’d been hurting too much to feel anything but pain.
For years, he’d shut himself off. Convinced he just didn’t want sex like the rest of humanity. It had taken years for him to begin responding to his dreams, dreams about faceless women doing shit with him. But it had never been like this. He had never felt this need. And never with a woman he’d just met. He’d always known he would never love again, and felt it was wrong to want somebody when he hadn’t been able to want Laura like this. But JesusLordChrist, he wanted Ivy. What she stirred inside him felt so raw and so violent, so fucking dangerous, all he knew was that he would take her until she begged him to stop.
Heart pounding as she neared, he watched her wind around the tables hugging people and his eyebrows pulled low. He didn’t like the way the men looked at Ivy. The way they hugged her, like they wanted to feel her chest against theirs. He fisted his hands so hard, his knuckles jutted out. Visions of violence teased his mind, until he saw her come closer still, toward him, and his pulse quieted.
Finally she was near enough for him to hear people wish her luck, like she was this white knight of theirs, “fighting” to get donations. Cade wanted to be the black knight who took their white knight away from them and took her somewhere where cancer did not exist, and was not a word she ever spoke again.
“Hi,” she said, reaching him, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. Her scent did a number on his senses, and he got more protective, tenser in his stance. Ivy didn’t belong here.
She. Did not. Belong here.
He set his forehead against hers and pulled her closer to him, his voice gruffer than he’d intended. “Let me take you home.”
She drew back and gave him a startled look that clearly told him she suspected he was crazy, which was actually spot-on. “What? Cade, I can’t leave now.” Her expression softened all of a sudden, and so did her voice as she touched his arm lightly. “I understand if you want to leave, though. I’ll catch up with you. I promise I’ll stop by when I’m done.”
He hesitated, but shook his head and remained, almost fevered in his skin by that mere light, fleeting touch of her fingers.
He wanted her hands under his shirt, all over his torso. He wanted her writhing again. Moaning his name.
Throat tight with desire, he watched as she once again turned to greet some other attendants, and he edged back to give her space, tapping his thigh as he waited, hoping these people didn’t make Ivy cry. He could see her eyes were red-rimmed.
He clenched his teeth. Fucking shit, why did she expose herself to this pain? Again and again? For new people? People she didn’t know, wouldn’t even have to know were dying?
He tore his mind away from the black cloud of his thoughts and focused just on Ivy. On what he wanted to do to her. On how they would both shatter to a thousand pieces when they got to his home or her home. It didn’t matter. He was so anxious to feel her he’d do her in a bathroom.
A text popped into his screen.
You coming to poker? We’re sitting here waiting like idiots.
You’re always an idiot.
U coming or not?