Lust (24 page)

“I assume your decision has something to do with the girl? What happened?” she asked as she sat next to me on the cushion. She wasn’t too close to me, but close enough I could practically feel the concern flowing from her body.

“Nothing happened,” I fought back in irritation, my voice hard and closed-off.

“Okay, fine.” Her tone was harsh and no-nonsense. “I’m going to tell you what I think happened and then you can tell me if I’m wrong. I think you finally realized that you have feelings for her. You made the decision to leave your practice for her. Am I right so far?”

I shrugged, not wanting to explain for the umpteenth time my reasons for leaving. But I didn’t deny the part about my feelings for Ivy. That was without a doubt true.

“I’ll take that as a yes. After that, I think something bad happened. However, I don’t think it was on her. I think it was on you. Did you realize you can’t do what you thought you could? Did you make the jump to be with her and then realize it was too much for you?”

“No,” I answered in a quick, harsh tone. “It’s not too much for me and I
can
do it. I want to do it. I have never wanted to be with anyone, and yet I’m fucking broken over one woman. I don’t want to be a surrogate anymore. I’ve lived out that dream and now it’s time for another one. All I want to do is be with Ivy, but she doesn’t want to be with me. All because of who I am.”

“That doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t want to be with you because of your job?”

“No,” I answered again, but softer this time, more defeated. “It’s because of how I feel about things. I told her a while ago that I don’t believe in marriage. And because of those beliefs, she doesn’t want to be with me.”

“Whoa.” She stuck her hand out, palm facing me, to halt my confession. “You two were already talking marriage? Cade, I was just here a week ago.”

“I know. And to be honest with you, you shouldn’t have been. I had called you over here to see if I could convince myself that I didn’t need her. But it was wrong.
I
was wrong. I did need her and I still do.”

“Are you in love with her?” Her voice didn’t sounded surprised, more of in awe than anything.

“Yes,” I said proudly. “I am completely in love with Ivy Jaymes.”

“Are you sure it’s not just lust? You were just talking last week about needing to fuck her. Lust and love tend to be confused, and since you’ve openly admitted that you’ve never been in love or had a relationship before, are you sure it’s love?”

I laughed. “Alyssa, I know the difference between love and lust. My career for the past twelve years has been about lust. This is love; I’m sure of it.”

“And when did this happen?”

“I don’t know when it happened, but it’s as much of a shock to me as it is to anyone. I never expected to feel this way about a woman. But that doesn’t change anything. I still think marriage ruins people. If you love someone, why can’t that be enough?”

“Because you’re not a woman. We are loud creatures by nature. If we’re in love, we want to shout it from the rooftops. Nothing tells the world that we are happy more than a ring on our finger and a piece of paper that proves it.”

“But that’s where you’re wrong. A circle of metal and a piece of a processed tree doesn’t prove shit. All it does is trap two people together like a cage, making it impossible for them to walk away if they need to. I know… I’ve seen it with my parents.”

Her eyes grew soft and her shoulders slumped. “If you really love the person, you wouldn’t want to walk away. You would want to stick it out and make it work. You’d want to be locked in a cage with them and never be set free. Because outside of that cage is lonely and cold. You can’t go into a relationship looking for a way out, otherwise, at some point, you’ll get out. It’s not fifty-fifty. You each have to put in a hundred percent of yourselves and commit to it. After one stops doing that, it won’t take long before the other gets too tired from picking up the slack. That’s when things fall apart.”

“And that’s when lives get ruined,” I added.

“You already said you love her, but do you love her enough to spend the rest of your life with her? If you guys have talked about marriage already, I’m assuming that means you’ve given this some thought. Can you imagine your life without her when you’re sixty, seventy, eighty years old?”

I didn’t need to think about it. I irrevocably knew the answer. “Yes, I want to spend the rest of my life with her. And no, I can’t imagine my life without her. But I’ve seen what it did to my parents and I can’t do that to her. It isn’t about whether or not I want to walk away. It’s about
her
walking away. It’s about
her
being trapped with
me
. My dad couldn’t live without my mom, but my mom no longer wanted to live with him. I saw what that did.”

“If she’s choosing to push you away because you can’t promise her forever, then I’m going to safely assume that she won’t want to walk away from you in the event you gave her forever. I don’t know anyone that would.”

“That’s because you don’t know my demons. If you did… you’d run.”

“Does she know them?”

I shook my head, not needing to verbalize my answer.

“Tell her. Let her make that decision.”

“I can’t. If I tell her…”

“What? She’ll shut you out? Didn’t you just tell me that she already did? What do you have to lose? Part of that hundred percent means total honesty, Cade. Come on, you should know this, Mr. Master’s in Psychology. You can’t give her half of you and expect her to love all of you.”

She made a valid argument. I’d had feelings for Ivy before she told me her secrets, yet it was after that when I realized I was in love with her. I could never expect her to love me the same way if I wasn’t completely honest with her. And that’s when it occurred to me that maybe my dad hadn’t been completely honest with my mom, and she ended up finding honesty in someone else. I had been too young when it all happened, and then after that, no one really talked about them. I never really knew what went wrong in their marriage, but had blamed it on marriage instead. What if Alyssa was right? What if my lifelong beliefs had been skewed all this time?

“When did you become so versed on all things psychology?” I teased.

“You have kind of pounded it into me for a while now.” She smiled and I laughed, feeling some of the tension roll off for the first time since leaving Ivy. It faded as soon as Alyssa’s expression turned serious. “I know you don’t know my story, Cade, but in a way, you have helped me. You’ve given me hope that I just might survive my past.”

I had always known that I didn’t know much about Alyssa or her past, but for the first time, I found myself interested in it. Maybe it was Ivy, making me see past my own issues and seeing people for more than flesh and bones in front of me. Maybe I was changing and becoming a better person. Whatever the reason was, I looked at the woman I had used for sex, and felt the need to know more about her. I felt the need to have her as more than just a side character in my life.

“What’s your story, Alyssa?”

A small smile grew on her face as she shook her head. “This isn’t the time. You have a girl to chase down. What are you going to do about that?”

“I’m going to go get her,” I answered confidently with a smile of my own.

I didn’t remember my drive back to Ivy’s apartment, but for a different reason than my drive away from there hours ago. Instead of dread and defeat weighing me down, I was filled with nerves and hope. I decided to come clean to Ivy about everything: my feelings, my past, and the possibility of a future, and that made me so nervous I thought I’d throw up. My stomach was turned inside out as I thought of all the different ways it could go.

Alyssa had been right—I had nothing to lose. She had pushed me away and closed the door in my face once already, and it would hurt if it happened again, yet it wouldn’t change things. The only way that things would change is if she gave in and gave me a chance. That was where the hope came in. And this time, it wasn’t wishful thinking.

I beat my fist against the door, covering the peephole with my hand.

“Who is it?” she asked through the door, sounding slightly petrified.

“Police. Open up.” I kept my voice low, making it sound authoritative. I didn’t want to scare her, but I needed her to open the door. It wasn’t planned until I knew I had to say something. That was the only thing I could come up with on the spot.

It worked, though, because the lock clicked open and then the knob turned. I didn’t wait for her to pull on the door before I took hold of the door handle and pushed the door in. Bright silver eyes went wide as a loud gasp sounded. She didn’t have enough time to scream or push me away before I was in the apartment with the door securely closed behind me.

I slid my hand into the crook of Ivy’s neck, tangling my fingers into her hair in the back of her head and spun her around, pressing her back against the door and covering her lips with mine. It took her a moment before her mouth responded to mine. I slowly coaxed her lips apart, invading her mouth with my tongue. She was soft and reactive, grabbing the front of my shirt in her fists and pulling me into her. It wasn’t rushed or heavy, it wasn’t desperate or hungry. It was hushed and nurturing, indulgent and everything I needed.

The moment was over too quickly when Ivy used the hands twisted in my shirt to push me away. I took a few steps back and looked at her just before her tears welled up and fell over her lower lids like Niagara Falls. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and hold her against me. I needed to let her know that everything was going to be okay and there was nothing to be sad about. But I couldn’t do that because she turned around after I took the first step. She leaned against the door with her forehead and covered her face with her arms, crying silently as her shoulders shook heavily with each deep sob.

I closed the space with two more steps until my arms were propped on the door next to hers and her back was against my chest. Her pain radiated through her body like heat and mine absorbed it, taking as much of it as I could. I only wished I could have taken it all and left her pain-free. But I couldn’t since I was the one that had put it there to begin with. It was my blindness that had set everything in motion. But without that blindness, I might not have ever found myself with her in the first place.

Ivy began to slide down the door to the floor and I followed her with my arms around her and holding her as close to my body as I could get her. Her hands covered her face and muffled her sobs, but to my ears, it still sounded as if it were on a loud speaker, filling the quiet room around us. I shushed her as I rocked on my knees behind her, hoping to quell some of the ache.

“I can’t do this, Cade.”

I barely heard what she was saying behind the cries and tears.

“It was hard enough earlier. I can’t keep doing this with you. It hurts too much,” she mumbled through more muffled cries.

I laid my chin on her shoulder and pressed my cheek into hers. Her hair was covering her face and smelled like fresh flowers. I breathed it in, hoping it would calm my erratic heart. “I have to talk to you, Ivy. Before you make any decisions, I need to tell you everything. You can’t push me away until you know everything.”

She started to turn around but I held her firmly in my arms, keeping her back to me.

“No, it has to be like this. I don’t know if I will be able to get it all out if I have to look in your eyes.”

Her sobs had stopped, yet the hiccups remained. “I don’t know if I want to hear this.”

“I don’t know if I want to open up about this, but I have to and you have to hear it. Because it’s the reason why I have gone my life believing marriages never last, and they always end badly. I need to tell you this because if you’re going to own all of me, you have to know what it is you’re owning.”

She stilled in front of me as I searched for the courage to share the rest of my secret. The piece of my story that was the key, the missing link, it was what had generated all the demons that haunted me and tore me apart over the years.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath filled with her scent. “I was hiding under my parents’ bed when I heard my mom let someone other than my dad fuck her.”

“I know, Cade. You’ve told me this already,” she interrupted.

“No, I haven’t. In the middle of it, my dad came home. From the bottom of the bed, I watched as his shoes came through the doorway and stopped. The noises above me continued for what felt like a long time before I heard someone say, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ in a voice that reminded me of a villain from a movie. It was deep and angry and it scared me. Then I heard it again. It said, ‘Get the fuck off my wife,’ and that’s when I realized it was my dad who sounded like that. I had never heard him sound so menacing or angry in my life.

“The bed moved a lot but there were no other sounds in the room until my mom started to cry. In that same voice, my dad told her to shut the fuck up and then told the guy that he was going to cut his dick off and shove it down his throat for touching his wife. There was a lot of arguing and crying, and then my mom begged my dad to close the door before I heard any of it. He did but then made a comment about how I should see what a whore she was.”

Ivy had gone completely still in my arms and I paused to hear if she was still breathing.

I took another deep breath, preparing myself for what came next. “My dad said some more nasty things and my mom continued to cry, but the guy remained quiet until my dad started talking to him. He asked him what made him think he could walk into his house and fuck his wife. The guy said he was in love with my mom and had been for a while. Come to find out, it had been going on for a long time and my mom was in love with him, too. That was the last thing I heard before my ears started to ring and there was a lot of pressure behind them. I didn’t know what had happened or why I couldn’t hear anything. It was just a loud pop and then everything went quiet except for the ringing in my ears.

“I remember curling into a ball at that point and trying to hide my face, but then I heard my mom scream my name. It sounded far off, but as soon as I took my hands away, ready to crawl out from under the bed, her words became louder and stopped me from moving. She was begging my dad to put the gun down. She said she didn’t want me to walk in and see the blood. I didn’t know what she was talking about; I didn’t see any blood. I heard him call her a cheating whore and then the loud pop rang out again. And again—but more muffled that time. And then my dad’s body fell to the floor next to the bed, his face turned toward me. But I didn’t recognize him as my dad, or recognize his face because instead of the smile I had always remembered him wearing, there was blood—lots of blood. His eyes were wide open and he was looking right at me. The top of his head was missing and I immediately started to cry.

“I didn’t move other than to turn away from my dad’s face. I was scared I’d get in trouble for hiding in their room. I wasn’t supposed to be in there. So I waited for someone to come get me. It was dark before I realized no one was coming and that I should probably call for help. But by that point I knew my mom was dead and I didn’t want to see that. I was too terrified of what she looked like after seeing what my dad looked like.

“I was in the room, under the bed, for three days before someone came to the house. I was taken to the hospital, but I don’t remember much of that. I don’t even remember much of the three days I was in there. Out of that time, I remember the silence, the bone-crushing silence of death. And I remember the heat. It was so hot under that bed that I started sweating at some point. By the time I was found, I was covered in sweat and piss and my clothes were stuck to my skin. I will never forget that feeling or the sound of complete silence. It’s why I can’t handle the quietness and why I panic when I feel my shirt stick to me. It’s something I will probably always carry with me. And it’s also the reason why I have never believed in marriage—because I witnessed how it ended for the two most important people in my life. The foundation of my family, everything I had known, vanished within seconds. All because of lust.”

Ivy pulled herself from my arms and spun around, looking at me with eyes full of pity. I didn’t want those eyes to look at me that way. I wanted them to look at me with love and want… not sadness. She leapt up on her knees and wrapped her arms around my neck, latching on as if she was my lifeline and she wasn’t going to let me drown.

“I didn’t tell you that to make you feel sorry for me. I told you so that you’d have an understanding of where I came from. You needed to know where my darkness was born, the entire story.” I gently pulled her away from me by her shoulders so that I could look into her eyes.

“I understand,” she croaked out. “But how does that change anything? We still want different things and I would never ask you to give into my dream, just like I’d never ask you to forgive your nightmare.”

I pulled her from the floor and looked around the room, needing a place to talk where we weren’t just standing in the middle of the front hall. The only place she had to sit was her bed, and with the conversation we were having, I didn’t find that to be appropriate. So I tugged her a few steps into the kitchen and lifted her onto the counter by her hips, standing between her legs with my hands flat on the counter on either side of her hips. She had sat in the same spot when we talked about foster homes as I made her dinner. That had only been two weeks ago, yet it felt like an entire lifetime.

“I need you to tell me what you want, Ivy—
exactly
what you want. That way I can tell you if I can do it or not. You had asked me earlier what I would do if you were pregnant. But you were very contradicting in your explanation. You made it sound as if you’d want to get married; yet then you said you didn’t want to marry someone because you were pregnant. So, please, tell me what it is that
you
want.”

She shook her head and wiped away a lone tear. “I didn’t say I’d want you to marry me. All I said was that you’d live in your house and I’d live here because you don’t think two people should live under the same roof simply because of a baby.”

“Ivy… I fell asleep last night in my bed with you in my arms and for the first time in my life, I actually slept. I’m so used to closing my eyes at night and then opening them in the morning—nothing between the two times as if I had only blinked. But last night, I dreamed. I slept. And I woke up to you. Whether you’re pregnant or not, I want to pack your shit up and move you into my house. I want you there every fucking night so that I can wake up to you every fucking morning. There’s nothing more beautiful than your face, especially when it’s the first thing I see when I open my eyes. I want to see you when I come home from work and then curl up on the couch like yesterday to watch TV. No, people shouldn’t live under the same roof simply because of a baby. They should live under the same roof because they can’t imagine being there without the other person. And I can’t imagine being anywhere without you.”

Her chin quivered as she fought hard to hold back her emotions. Tears filled her eyes, even though she took in quick, short breaths through her nose to try to keep them away. I reached a hand up and wiped them, only for more to follow. I knew I could be content wiping away her tears for the rest of my life, just as I knew I wanted to be with her. I just hoped she saw how genuine my feelings were. I felt raw from the emotions I was trying to convey.

“And when you come home from work, what would we talk about? Would you tell me about the woman you had sex with or would we just pretend like I don’t know what it is that you do for a living? How exactly would that work?” Her question was condescending and I could only smile.

“Nope. I may tell you about the couple that came in, or the marriage I saved, but there would be no reason to tell you about the woman I fucked because you would already know about it, considering you’ll be the only woman I’ll be sleeping with from now on.”