“You sure you’re not hungry?” Zane’s voice startled me and I turned.
Holy sweet Jesus. Was there anything this man didn’t look good in? He was wearing a pair of low-slung athletic pants. You know the kind, black with the two white lines going down the legs. But that’s not what had my attention, even though I knew what he was packing under those pants. What I zeroed in on was the black t-shirt he had on. It wasn’t meant to be tight, but damn if it wasn’t, and in all the right places, too. The short sleeves looked like the seams were about to come apart as they strained to contain his biceps.
“Ivy?” he prompted.
“I think I should go home.”
His eyes narrowed, and he asked, “Why?”
“There’s no need for me to be here. And I sleep better in my own bed,” I quickly added. It was a lie. I didn’t sleep well in my tiny apartment with my cheap mattress, but at least I’d have peace of mind knowing a hotter than hell man I’d had a one-night stand with wasn’t in the next room.
Zane ignored me as he walked to a side table in his dining room and poured himself a drink. He held the glass in my direction, silently asking me if I’d like one. As much as I’d love some liquid courage, I knew I needed my wits about me or I’d do something stupid like jump the man and beg him to take me to his room until we both were sweaty and tired.
No, I didn’t need a drink.
I needed to get my head straight.
“Why don’t you tell me what you meant about not affording me?” he asked when he sat on his expensive-looking black leather sofa.
“Why don’t we forget I said anything and you take me home?” I returned.
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“And what would you do if I tried to walk out the door?” I asked.
He leaned back and took a drink before he answered, “I’d stop you.”
“So, you’re holding me against my will. I’m a prisoner.”
Stupidly, that didn’t scare me as much as it should’ve.
“Is that what you think you are? A prisoner?”
“You’re maddening,” I declared. “I don’t understand why this is important to you. I’m no one to you. A woman you fucked. That’s all. It’s a coincidence I work for a man you’re investigating.”
“Worked.”
“What?”
“You worked for him, Ivy. Past tense. You no longer work for the dickweed.”
I was fast losing patience.
“Zane. I need that job. I can’t quit.”
“You need it so you can continue to gather information on Forester.” Shit, he kind of had me there. I needed the money, too, but mainly I still needed more information before I could nail him. “Right. So check this, babe, you are done playing Dick Tracy. I have the means and the resources you don’t have. You’ve been lucky, and he hasn’t caught you. Which is a damn miracle because you weren’t exactly stealthy. If he hadn’t been so wrapped up in pussy he would’ve clocked you in two-point-five seconds. That’s over for you. There is also the added benefit of you not breathing the same air as the scumbag.”
My head was close to exploding.
“Zane!”
“Why’d you say you can’t afford me?” he repeated.
Goddamn, he wasn’t going to drop it.
“Because I can’t. I assume by your office, your house, your car, and the suit you had on earlier you’re expensive.”
“Don’t bullshit me. I told you, you weren’t paying, and you had some fucked comeback about still not being able to afford me and how no man helps a woman for free. Someone fuck you over?”
Yes.
More than once.
“That’s none of your business.”
“That may be true, but I’m making it my business. Who fucked you over, Ivy?”
I clamped my mouth shut and crossed my arms over my chest.
“An ex-husband? A boyfriend?”
Who hadn’t fucked me over? Not that I had an ex-husband.
“Tell me about your sister.” He changed the subject.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re infuriating and incredibly nosey?”
He contemplated my question before he answered, “I’ve been accused of a lot of things, nosey has never been one.”
“Well, you are.”
“Your sister, Ivy?” he semi repeated.
“What about her? She’s dead. Forester conned her into believing he was going to give her a fairytale and instead he whored her out, made her run drugs, then killed her when he was ready for a new girl to take her place. Not much to tell.”
“You already told me that. Tell me about her.”
“Joey is my stepsister. She and her dad came to live with me and my mom when she was eight. I don’t know what happened to her before she came to live with us, but considering who her father was, I didn’t think any of it was good. She was hollow – even as a child. I tried to help her, but I was only sixteen and barely surviving myself.”
“Did he touch you?” Zane growled.
“Her dad? No. No one ever touched me like that.”
“Who’s her dad?”
“Lance Long. His friends, or buyers, whatever you want to call them, called him Double L. Stupid, right?”
“So Lance was a dealer?” Zane continued to ask questions.
“Dealer. User. Both. I only had two years left and tried to stay away from the house as much as possible. By then, my mom was so bad, she didn’t notice where I was or what I was doing. All she cared about was Lance supplying her with drugs. Hell, she didn’t even care if the power was on. As long as she was high, all was right in her world.”
“Baby.” Zane gentled.
“Don’t. It was a long time ago. I’m over it.”
“You are? Is that why you look at me like I’m a piece of shit with some shady motive? I offer you help and protection and the next thing that comes from your pretty little mouth pisses me off so bad, I see red.”
“I didn’t…”
“You did. I get it. It pisses me the fuck off, but I understand. They did you dirty, baby. How else are you supposed to look at me? Just by the little you shared, I take no one has ever offered you anything without their hand out. But check this, Ivy. I’m not them. Not that you’ll believe me now, but in time you will.”
In time?
There was no time.
“I like it better when you’re being an ass,” I blurted.
“Why’s that?”
I thought about ignoring him.
But I didn’t. Instead, I gave him my truth.
“Because no one has ever taken the time to understand anything I say or do.”
“That’s fucked.”
“That’s my life.”
“Still fucked.”
“It is what it is. Why would someone take the time?”
“The time has come.”
Oh, no. It was time to change the subject.
“If you’re not gonna let me leave, can I at least go to bed?”
Why was I giving in? I should’ve walked my ass out the door and never looked back.
But I didn’t.
“You want the master or the spare?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“The master bedroom or the spare room?” he spoke slowly.
“Um. Where are you sleeping?”
His face got tight and his forehead pinched.
“Serious as shit, woman. Are you asking what I think you’re asking? I fully understand you’ve been fucked in the past. But I am not another douchebag in what I assume is a long line that’s screwed you.”
“It’s not...” I started, then stopped.
“Come again?”
“It’s not a long line. After my dad abandoned me, not that it was a bad thing, and what my mom did to me, I learned. If the two people who were supposed to love me the most in the world could do what they’d done to me… well… I learned.”
“What’d you learn, baby?”
“Anyone w
ill.”
“Will what?” He kept at me, not letting the conversation die.
“Will screw me over and toss me aside. Abandon me. Not ever do something without expecting payment. I learned. I learned quick and I learned deep. That shit is so ingrained in me, I never let anyone close to test the theory. So, no, there hasn’t been a long line. Just two. The two that were supposed to matter.”
Zane stood a few feet away, his chest heaving, his nostrils flaring. I was surprised he wasn’t breathing fire. A dragon. That’s what he looked like - a scary, beautiful, fire-breathing dragon. I don’t know why I’d told Zane what I had. I’d never shared my past with anyone. I just kept my distance so the topic never came up. I’d had relationships in the past, but they were never deep, not on my end. And I always left them before they could leave me. The moment I’d sensed my bullshit issues were getting too much for them, I’d split. It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out why I did it.
Relationships were like everything else in my life, disposable.
I always left.
9
Zane
Ivy had done what no man or woman had ever done - rendered me speechless.
My heart throbbed in my chest.
My gut was tight.
What the fuck had happened to this woman?
I had serious issues with commitment and trust, mine came from the obvious. It was no secret what my time in the field had done to me. I wasn’t under the illusion I hid it from my team. Others? I could put on my mask of indifference and no one was the wiser. I preferred it that way; it kept people at bay. I was a dick and didn’t try to hide that either.
Life was too fucking short to put on a front and pretend I was someone I wasn’t.
I was paid to kill.
And there was never a shortage of work.
But this woman standing in front of me should’ve had a beautiful life. Instead, she’d been fucked every which way but Sunday. She stood tall and proud with her chin stubbornly uplifted.
Strength.
She had it in spades. However, there was a need that simmered just below the surface. The need for a hero. Someone to protect her even if it was from herself. I wasn’t that man. The one thing I was not, was anyone’s hero. I couldn’t even save Eric; he’d died under my watch. Hell, too many good men had. No, I was no one’s hero; I was a failure. I couldn’t begin to show anyone how to heal from their past when I held on to mine like a blanket. The guilt acted as a daily reminder of everything I wasn’t.
I remembered her original question about sleeping arrangements and answered, “You’ll take my bed and I’ll take the spare.”
“I can’t take your room.”
“You can and you will.”
I didn’t try to understand why it was important to me nor did I want to put a name to the emotion that stirred deep at the thought of her in my bed.
“But…”
“But nothing. Besides, the master has its own bathroom. It’s easier all the way around.”
She followed me back to my bedroom and stood silently in the doorway. What the fuck? Was she afraid I was going to throw her on the bed and fuck her again? Not that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind a time or a hundred, but after what she’d told me, she was off limits. I wouldn’t be the one to prove her right. I’d offered her help because… shit… I wasn’t exactly sure why I felt the need to wade in and nail Forester. But I’d offered, and it wasn’t because I wanted her in my bed again or that for some unknown crazy reason I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Then there was the nagging reminder I never double dip.
Instead of addressing the huge elephant in the room and questioning why she was still standing in the doorway, which pissed me right the fuck off, I went about grabbing her a tee out of my dresser for her to sleep in. I debated grabbing her a pair of sweats, but it would’ve been useless. Even rolled up, they would’ve fallen off of her slender frame.
“Here.” I tossed the shirt on the bed and waited for her to move so I could leave and give her privacy.
“I can’t do this.”
“Do what?” I questioned.
“Stay in here. Put you out like this.”
I looked at Ivy, really looked at her - her posture, the lines in her forehead, the way she crinkled her nose, her discomfort.
I was a dick.
“Ivy, listen, I’m not going to touch you. You’re safe here. We’ll work everything out tomorrow and reevaluate. If we find it unsafe for you to be out in the open, I have a safe house you can stay in. My secondary team can rotate watch. Bottom line is, I won’t come near you. You have my word.”
“Is that what you think the problem is? I think you’ll attack me?”
“Well, yeah. Hell, woman, you’re standing in the door frame with your arms wrapped around yourself.”
“Zane, you can bet your ass if I thought I was in any physical danger my rear end would be long gone. There would’ve been no way you could’ve made me stay in this apartment.” It was cute she thought that. I thought it best for me not to point out that I could easily put her sexy little ass anywhere I wanted it. And there wouldn’t be a damn thing she’d be able to do. I kept my mouth shut and waited for her to finish. “I don’t like being an imposition and I really don’t like asking for help.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“What?”
“You asking for help?”
“Hell, no!”
“I didn’t figure it did. And you didn’t ask. I offered,” I reminded her.
Her lips tipped up in amusement. “Is you demanding I go to your office, then taking me and keeping me against my will, your idea of an offer?”
She was joking, and the tight ball of insecurity, another thing I wasn’t used to feeling, unraveled.
“Best you’re gonna get from a man like me.”
“What kind of man are you, Zane?”
“A man that doesn’t ask. I take. I demand. When I see something I want, there is no stopping me from getting it.”
“And is there something you want from me?”
Was she fucking flirting with me? I felt my cock start to lengthen at her playful tone. He seemed to remember last night just as vividly as I did.
She was still standing in the doorway, but her body had relaxed, and she’d unwrapped her arms from around herself.
I still wasn’t going to touch her.
I still wasn’t that man.
“There sure as fuck is. I want you to get your happy ass in my bed and get some sleep.”
Her smile slipped before she schooled her features. It was impressive. She almost had the mask of indifference down as well as I did.
I hated it.
I didn’t want her to hide her emotions from me.
I didn’t want to know how or why or where she’d learned the trait. None of it would be good. You didn’t learn to hide and wall yourself off because you’d been surrounded with hearts and fluffy fucking unicorns. You learned because you’d been surrounded with devastation and destruction.
I shouldered my way past her and didn’t wait for her response. I couldn’t take one more second of the pain in her eyes.
Rejection.
She’d said she knew it well.
Was that what she’d thought I had done? Rejected her? As much as I wanted to explain there was nothing I wanted more than to be in my bed next to her, sheets tangled around us, until we both collapsed hot and sweaty, I wouldn’t.
It was better she thought I’d rejected her.
The last thing either of us needed was me barging into her life bringing more of the shit she’d already had.
No. I walked away.
It was better this way.
10
Ivy
I wish I could say I slept like shit. But I didn’t.
Zane’s bed was soft and his sheets were to die for.
After I’d kicked my own ass for embarrassing myself for trying to flirt with him and failing miser
ably, I let the memories of the night I’d spent in bed with Zane lull me to sleep.
I felt safe, which was not something I normally felt. I’d usually slept with one eye open, or however the saying went. I learned early on bad shit always seemed to happen in the middle of the night. With a parent who uses drugs, there is no such thing as normal sleeping hours or what time was appropriate for a friend to pop by. Two a.m., two p.m., it was all the same to them. Music, yelling, arguing, fighting, none of it mattered. Not in my house. It also didn’t matter there were two kids in the house. Joey’s dad never tried to shield the girl from anything. Not when she was ten, and not before he took off and left her to live with my mom. I guess he’d had enough of Sarah’s shit and when he hit bricks taking his daughter wasn’t something he’d packed into his car. I tried then to get Joey to leave Sarah’s house and come live with me. She refused.
Joey knew I would put up with a lot, but having drugs near me was a sure-fire way to get me to go ballistic. I’d seen and been around them enough to last five lifetimes. I had zero tolerance for any kind of substance abuse. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that was me. Mentally I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I couldn’t watch my mom continue to choose drugs over me, I couldn’t watch her sell herself, and mostly I couldn’t imagine me turning into her. So I hit the road, too, leaving them both.
Then Joey died.
Maybe I had been wrong. Maybe if I’d tried harder, stayed, forced her to see the light and run far and fast from that life, she’d still be alive.
Or maybe I was fooling myself into believing I had some superpower that would’ve made Joey clean her life up.
“Ivy?” Zane’s voice pulled me back to the present.
I was sitting in the conference room again. Declan, Lincoln, and Colin were all in the room, too. Jaxon, Leo, and a very pregnant Jasmin had come in then left when Zane barked orders for them to pull more information on Forester.
When I scolded him about his rude, short temper, Jasmin weirdly muttered “finally” before she left the room. Jaxon and Leo must’ve thought what she’d said was funny because both men let out a belly laugh before they followed her out of the room. The one person that didn’t find humor in her comment was Zane. If it was possible, the scowl on his face deepened.
Recovering Ivy Page 6