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?
He wasn’t about to tell his friends where he was, especially Luke Preston, the loud-mouthed son of a bitch who was up on everyone’s cases, all the damn time. Good thing Luke was a little tamed now that he had a new woman, a real sexpot who seemed to know just what to do with Luke Preston, but Cade still snorted at the thought that it would even last. Nothing good ever did.
He and Ivy were …
Shit, they were probably not going to last more than a week.
He felt like he’d just swallowed a bowling ball, and he scowled once more at the waiting message. No, he was not telling Preston or anyone he was at a cancer dinner. They wouldn’t believe him. Hell, they almost pitied him, and always danced around the subject of Laura. Nobody dared speak her name around him. They tried to pretend she’d never existed, which was something that irked him, for it prevented him from ever really … venting at all.
Busy.
He shut his phone off after texting that brief word, and waited for a half hour more, thinking of all the things he ached to do to this woman. He waited. Keenly aware that for once in his life, anger didn’t dominate his every thought. For once in his life, he actually gave a shit about something.
Even it was only burying himself inside of Ivy.
* * *
Ivy kept stealing glances at Cade across the room, and her heart flipped and vaulted in her chest every time she spotted him. In a black suit, and already without the tie he’d worn this morning, he scowled as he gazed around the busy room and hung back from the crowd.
Her heart grew wings for him. Because he looked so good—even if he appeared like he sorely needed something to drink. The rigid line of his jaw hinted at a frustrating day at work, and the scowl deepening the crease on his forehead said he’d rather be anywhere instead of here. But a hunk was always a hunk. And Cade defined the word, scowl or no scowl. Not in a clean, boy-next-door way, oh no. More in a dangerous, raw, and real way that was proving unbearably attractive to her.
Because she was over the fairy tales. She liked the truth, straight up and out front, and that was what you got with Cade West.
His virile face, with every one of its perfect features, was what Ivy had seen today in her mind’s eye when she woke, brushed her teeth, had breakfast, lunch, dinner, even when she spoke to all those people. But seeing those thick-lashed gray eyes in person and that dominant nose and that sensual mouth had her rapidly approaching the point where she would tackle him down on the marble floor and take him right there in the lobby. In front of everybody.
She was that desperate. That utterly hot for him.
Sharp black business slacks covered his legs and a snowy white shirt stretched across his wide, square shoulders, his jacket draped on the back of a chair now. His twilight hair was hopelessly mussed, like he had a habit of raking his hands through it when he grew impatient. Places in her body throbbed with yearning. She ached to run her hands through that satin black mass, grab a fistful of it, and yank him forward until that fat, juicy mouth of his was all over hers.
But that fat, juicy mouth was so thinned it almost vanished.
And why didn’t he look at her?
He stared absently at the ladies at a table, his profile proud and masculine and utterly wrecking to her body—which she’d feared after so many years of not using it might have gotten a bit rusty. Well, it throbbed now, every inch of her. Her breasts and nipples tingled, and she’d creamed her panties the instant she’d seen him walk into the room. Her tongue felt so heavy she couldn’t seem to speak and she was damned glad her discourse was over.
She observed as he glanced at his watch, all impatient, and so adorable her vagina clenched painfully tight.
Finally, she watched him get up, and out of the corner of her eye, she became excruciatingly aware that he came over, a few heartbeats later she felt his hands curl around her hips possessively. He drew her closer until the force of his chest was palpable against her back. “Can we leave now?”
His voice was low and velvety, a decibel away from shattering her to pieces. It brought forth memories of him whispering other kinds of words to her last night.
She’d never known a need so powerful, so consuming. She ached to lick his lips, feel the strength in his muscles bulging under her fingertips. Taste
his flesh, his male parts, every hot and hard inch of him.
Normally she stayed at these events until the very end, but tonight she found that she couldn’t concentrate. Didn’t want anything but … him.
So she nodded.
Chapter Four
He’d arrived in another Bentley, one with polarized windows, including the one that separated them from the driver. Cade slid in after her, and when the car eased into traffic, he engulfed her in his arms and started kissing her.
Ivy pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his slacks and slid her fingers up his smooth chest, feeling his hard stomach rise and fall on each breath. He spoke in her ear, his breath moist and hot, his textured voice just about the sexiest thing she’d ever heard. “I ordered a complete farmful of veggies for your breakfast tomorrow. And for the weekend as well. I’d like to spend it with you.”
She nodded, breathless with desire. “Yes,” she said, and he closed his mouth over hers.
She felt like cotton against his chest, his drugging kiss, no more aware that people walked past, car motors hummed, for her, there was only Cade. His mouth burning, his tongue thrusting hotly into her.
She shivered when he pulled her onto his lap, her hands grasping the dark locks of his hair as he dipped his head and spread her silk buttoned shirt open so her heated skin could receive his kisses.
Ivy’s body puddled under his mouth. They weren’t just any kisses he gave her. They were open-mouthed, dripping wet kisses. His greedy tongue swiped and tasted the path down her throat, between her breasts, where he circled one nipple through the fabric of her bra with his tongue. He sucked it into his mouth, lace and everything.
Ivy whimpered helplessly when his thick hand slipped past the waistband of her skirt and cupped her sex. He squeezed, rubbed, then eased under her panties and penetrated her with his middle finger.
She drowned in the taste of his intense kisses and moaned her pleasure into his mouth, mindless with lust, his blazing thirst calling to her own. It made her want him more, more than anything, anyone. Intensely, desperately, she felt so pained, she felt alive and female.
A flash of heat lashed through her when that thick, long finger slid deeper inside her and slowly began to fuck her. Juices spilled out of her like flowing rivers. His finger felt so good, stroking inside her.
Her hands raked down his arms as soft, helpless whimpers trembled on her lips. “Oh, God, Cade, you know just how … just where … oh, God.” A hot, dizzying fever had taken hold of her. A mass of energy was coiling within her womb, and yet it felt tight, compact, needing him to loosen and let go.
She reached beneath his splayed thighs and, after fumbling with his belt, buttons, and zipper, she parted his pants and delved under his cotton underwear, finding him throbbing and hard and so big her mouth watered. She couldn’t even close her fist around all his pulsing flesh. He thrummed in her hand, and as she kissed his mouth with frenzied moans, she started working him. The muscles in his face contracted when she stroked him up and down, up and down. His hips gyrated and a drop of moisture beaded at the crown of his cock.
He groaned, a deep, ragged sound that spilled into her mouth and set her pussy on fire.
“I want you bad, Ivy,” he whispered huskily, pulling her shirt off and tossing it aside. “All day, I’ve wanted you.” He tangled his hand into her hair and then swept down to kiss her skin, everywhere he could touch. He eased her off him as he ducked, and his tongue rimmed a circle around her belly button, then twirled lower and stopped at the waistband of her skirt. Coming from the opposite direction, his fingers slid up her bare thighs and stole under the fabric, stroking her soaked entry through her underwear.
She watched him through heavy lashes, unable to miss the heated look on his face when he discovered her so wet. She squirmed against his grazing fingertips, her sex hot and throbbing. He withdrew, all of a sudden, and fell down on the long seat until he was lying on his back across the length, his broad chest expanding on each haggard breath.
“Sit on my face.”
She protested with a small sound, but his hand tightened on her waist and he easily began dragging her up his torso. She could hear the scrape of her wet panties against the fabric of his shirt.
“Come. Sit on my face, please.”
Her bare legs parted of their own volition, so widely, they ended up around his face and all of her weight was on top of him.
“Cade … I…”
He silenced her with his mouth, his tongue, his lips. Hot and burning, he teased the entry of her sheath, holding her panties aside as he stroked her with his tongue. His toe-curling groan vibrated against her pussy lips as he plunged decisively inside.
His mouth was so hot and so sweet, gentle, but voracious. He palmed her ass and pressed her down against his hard jaw, his mouth moving, sucking her with a lusty growl.
Just to know that he was down there, basically feeding himself from her, sent her on edge. Winged sensations whipped her into a frenzy. She rocked her pelvis against him and cried out as cars rushed by the window at dizzying speeds.
She came with his name, drowning in lava, in passion, in his kiss, and when he slid out panting from under her, his mouth was beautifully pink and swollen, and his eyes smoldered so hot on her face, she felt branded.
His big hand cupped her nape as he brought her lips to his, making her taste her pleasure from his mouth. “I’ve waited all night to debauch you like this. Make your lips swell red and get your hair undone. Fuck you with every part of me.”
She drenched her panties again, adrift in this need of him, her nerves ragged from the pleasure still screaming for more. “Fuck me, Cade.”
His eyes flicked immediately to the compartment shielding them from the driver, then out the window where his building loomed in the distance, and his face tightened. He bent to lift her blouse, his hands shaking as he handed it over, his voice barely intelligible.
“In five minutes. Put this on, Ivy.”
He fucked her mouth with his tongue in the elevator. Then they were in his penthouse, and he was all over her, his mouth slanting over hers, his hands fumbling with his clothes.
He jerked off his shirt, buttons flying everywhere and landing on the floor with little clicks. Ivy kicked off her skirt, and Cade caught her in the middle of the room and threw her down on the sofa, tearing off her panties.
She cried out as piercing arousal ripped through her insides, and then she caught his earlobe between her teeth and shuddered when he pinned her arms up and held her still as he thrust inside her. She screamed, creaming all over him. Every solid dive of the thick, stiffened muscle of his cock felt delicious, hot, filling …
She curved her spine to shove her hips closer to his. “Cade.”
“You like that? Do you?” He rammed into her so hard her teeth knocked and she mewed and dug her fingers into the back of his hands.
“Yes. Oh, God. Cade.”
His eyes fell to the hickey he’d left on her neck yesterday, and he dove and suckled her once more, his fingers tightly laced through hers, his palms engulfing her own.
The rhythm he set shot ripples of ecstasy through her tattered nerve endings as he buried his cock inside her, again and again, fast first, and near the end, painstakingly slow.
He felt so good, so strong with every slow, slow penetrating thrust, every fiery sensation traveled through her body in a shock wave of pleasure. She felt impaled down to her soul.
When they were both panting and sweating and quaking for release, he plunged down to his balls and up to her blazing core. He remained there for seconds at a time, pulsing in wet heat, deep, so deep inside her that her eyes blurred with tears of ecstasy. When he dragged back out completely, Ivy mewed, the aching void in her pussy throbbing for him. Her vagina flared and rippled and ached at every one of his minute absences, and a shot of pure bliss tore through her when he thrust again, filling her, stretching her open to him.
He was so lost in the pleasure of his thrust, they we
re both so utterly lost in each other, they no longer spoke, but the sounds of their pleasure echoed in the room, their breathing broken only by their moans, Cade’s body so completely possessing her, so completely overpowering her, Ivy was the first to break in orgasm.
She sought his kiss, shuddering as she felt his mouth covering hers, penetrating her with what he could. Her tremors started subsiding, and he tore his mouth away and flipped her around, entering her pussy while it still rippled from behind.
He impaled her even harder in that position, dragging her up on all fours, and Ivy hadn’t realized she could climax so many times. Pleasure like this had never existed in her mind. Pleasure so dark and deep, it bordered on pain, on beautiful, all-consuming pain. He latched onto her hickey with his lips, grazing it with his teeth, gently suckling it back into the blazing heat of his mouth.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t need to.
Their bodies were in perfect synchrony, their gasps and groans spoke more than words. Cade slid his hand down her abdomen and thumbed the nub of her clit with slow, easy strokes, and the pleasure hit her from all sides, exploding through her in a massive orgasm. She cried out for him, “Cade!”
He intensified his strokes with both his cock and his fingers in her pussy, growling into her ear, “I want to come inside you.”
“You can! I’m protected!” Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as he pinched her clit and surprisingly pushed her to another explosive orgasm. “Come inside me. Come inside me, Cade!”
“Ah, God.”
His fingers clenched in her pussy, striving to keep the rhythm as he broke out in a hard, loud orgasm. His breath tore out of him, a warm, sweet blast at her nape as he continued riding her, prolonging their pleasure to levels beyond her understanding. Ivy was so loose, so wet, and so primed, she came again for him as ecstasy knifed through her at each of the four times his cock spurted and jerked deliciously hot inside of her.