She clenched her teeth tightly to still the ragged sobs tearing from her chest. Shaking her head and holding her hand up in rejection, she moved slowly past him.
“Dammit, Marly,” Cade called out behind her, but his voice lacked it’s usual determination. He didn’t care. He should be glad she finally knew.
She mounted the stairs slowly, step by step pulling herself up them. One arm wrapped around her stomach, the other on the banister as she made herself expend the energy to keep moving. She wanted to lie down and wail out her misery, but the misery refused to exit her body.
She entered her own room, locking the door behind her. The heavy curtains were drawn over her balcony doors. She stood in front of them, staring at the dark brocade and wondering if the son of a bitch would put her out of her misery if she opened them. She shook her head. No, Jack didn’t want her dead. She knew that. He wanted what he had been denied when she was twelve years old.
The tears had stopped, the desperate sobs no longer ripped through her. Looking down at the large silk shirt she wore she began to unbutton it slowly. It dropped to the floor, and the heavy men’s sock she wore on her feet followed. Moving to her closet, she found the only articles left were the gowns that Cade kept supplied. He had been too kind to refuse her the shirts, she thought, so he kept the gowns on hand just in case she grew out of the need to sleep in his clothes.
She grimaced, remembering the comfort those shirts once brought her. She pulled a linen gown and its matching robe from a hanger, then went to the shower. She could feel Cade on her flesh; smell the rich scent of his cologne and his release into her body. Her stomach knotted in renewed agony. God, she hadn’t known anything could hurt so badly.
She stood beneath the pounding spray of the shower, letting it wash over her face as the tears fell once again. She huddled against the wall, so miserable she didn’t know if she could face another day. Sam was nearly dead. Because of her. It was all her fault.
A whimper escaped her lips, then harsh, grinding sobs. The broken sounds she could not release earlier came now.
“Oh, God,” she cried out, sinking to the floor of the shower, rocking miserably, dying inside. “Oh, God, help me.”
Cade stood outside her shower, braced against the wall, his head grinding into the plaster as her wail shattered the steamy confines of the room. Her cries were destroying him, yet there was nothing he could do to halt them. He needed to know she was okay though, at least physically. He knew he had destroyed something precious and dear the minute he realized she had heard his conversation with Rick. He had done more than ravage her innocence. He had shredded her heart.
He lowered his head, his heart breaking with her cries. He had sworn she would never know fear again. That she would never cry again. And yet here she was, broken, sobbing in pain and fear, because of him. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do.
Shaking his head he moved from the bathroom, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans as he felt self-disgust crawl through his body. He had seen her shame, her realization that he hadn’t taken her to his bed because of an overwhelming love for her. God help him, he did love her, he did desire her unlike any woman he had known in his life, but he knew it wasn’t the love Marly needed. She needed a white knight, and God knew his armor had been tarnished years before.
He sat down on his bed, his hands dangling between his thighs as the sounds of her cries drifted into his room. What would he do now, he wondered. What would Marly try to do? She had always been delicate, fragile. She had been protected all her life, and had no idea how to handle the sudden destruction of everything she believed.
They shouldn’t have spoiled her so badly, he thought. He should have been firmer with her while she was growing up, establishing himself as an authority figure rather than one she would adore. But her adoration had brightened his life. Her laughter and freedom with him had dispelled many of the dark, lonely days he had gone through. But that didn’t make it right. He had never told her no, and when faced with the one thing he couldn’t give her, Marly had decided to get stubborn. Spoiled.
He heard the shower turn off long minutes later. He waited, watching the opened connecting door with brooding eyes. Finally, she moved into the room, covered from head to toe with one of her gowns. He frowned.
“I need my clothes,” she whispered.
“You can’t sleep in there, Marly.” He shook his head tiredly. “I know you’re hurt and confused, but I won’t let you risk your life.”
“I know to keep the shades drawn and the lights low.” She moved to his closet.
Seconds later she exited the large, walk-in room with an armload of clothes and went into her bedroom. Cade stayed silent as she hauled her clothes from his room and deposited them back into her own closet, her own drawers.
“Move them all you want, Marly. But when bedtime comes, it’s my bed you’ll be sleeping in.” He rose from the bed, gripping her arm roughly as she moved past him once again. “Do you understand me? You started this, dammit. Now you can fucking see it through.”
“You don’t really want me,” she cried out, trying to jerk from his grip. “It was just to protect me.”
“Oh, I do want you,” he growled softly, his head lowering until he was in her face, snarling down at her. “I want you so bad my cock throbs with it. And you know it.”
“No.” She shook her head violently. “I won’t do this, Cade. You don’t love me—”
“I love you dammit.” He shook her harshly. “I’ve always loved you Marly, just not the way you’ve built in that fairy tale you live in.”
“Stop.” She shook her head, crying out at the anger in his voice.
“No, I won’t stop. You’re going to listen to me,”
“I don’t want to hear anymore,” she screamed out furiously, her blue eyes blazing up at him wrathfully. “You fucked me so you would have a reason to watch me, that was it. That was all. I heard you. Your cock may have got hard for me, Cade, but its because you never loved me enough either way. I wasn’t your niece and I wasn’t woman enough to take your heart either. Either way, I was fucked.”
She jerked away from him then, the fury in her eyes surprising him, the white flash of such anger towards him that it shocked him clear to his bones.
“I’ll stay until your goons find Jack, then I’m going back to school.”
“Like hell,” Cade bit out. “Do you think for one minute I’ll let you leave before finding out if you carry my child or not, Marly? Do you forget what happens when you fuck?”