“Well, he’s a slick one.” The deep voice of the stranger told Cade with a slow drawl.
“Background check on him shows time in the Marines. It must have been well spent. We also have a report of several years spent with some of the homeland terrorists out in Utah. He’s a badass, Cade. I won’t try to sugar coat it for you. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you the night you went after him.”
Marly’s breath shuddered from her chest as she fought to control the sobs racking her body now.
“Marly’s all that matters, Rick,” Cade told him carefully. “I want her protected above all else. The bastard must have thought Sam was me when he shot. The pictures we found out in that cabin shows he knows my relationship with Marly, or at least suspects it.”
Marly clasped her arms around her chest, closing her eyes in pain as she listened.
“He’s definitely obsessed with her. The pictures show that for a certainty,” Rick assured Cade. “He knows you found the cabin by now, and his little hidey place up on the hill. He’ll be harder to find now. Your best bet would have been to call us in first, Cade.”
“Yeah well, I wasn’t thinking real clear after seeing those damned pictures,” he bit out roughly. “Son of a bitch, Rick. Marly’s had things hard enough. She doesn’t need this.”
“Her bedroom is out of bounds. It’s too accessible by too many directions. Keep her in your room.”
“That’s why she’s there now,” Cade grunted, and Marly felt a wound strike her soul that she wasn’t certain she could recover from. Shame struck her, making her body rock with the agonizing pain inflicted on her heart.
“No one needs these bastards running around,” Rick sighed. “Where is Marly, by the way? I haven’t seen her since the shooting started.”
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There was a moment of complete silence before she heard Cade’s muttered obscenity. She couldn’t stem her tears, so she just lowered her head, burying it in the jacket she had wrapped around her body.
“Marly.” There was a wealth of pain in his voice when he stepped around the door.
“God, baby. I’m sorry.”
His voice was tormented, rough with worry. She shook her head, refusing to raise it as she heard him kneel in front of her. His hand touched her hair, the other one lifting her chin. There was worry and fear in his eyes as he watched her now.
“You lied to me, Cade,” she whispered, her breath hitching with her suppressed sobs. “About the wolf, about why you suddenly wanted me. All of it. You lied to me.”
Her chest ached with her pain, with the sense of betrayal running through her. And she was right. She knew she was right by the look on his face.
“God!” Her fists clenched as she fought the demoralizing knowledge that he hadn’t taken her because he couldn’t resist her, or because he loved her, needed her. He had taken her to keep her close, to ensure her obedience and protection. Sobs ripped from her chest as the pain lashed her soul.
“Marly please. Baby. It’s not like that.” But it was, she knew it was. She had seen the truth in his eyes.
Moving painfully, her muscles cramped from the hours spent on the floor she raised to her feet, ignoring Cade as he now towered over her.
“He said he wouldn’t let me go,” she whispered, remembering those terrifying hours before her mother had returned home and caught her step-father touching her. She remembered with blinding shame the things she had refused to think about for years. The ways he had touched her, making her cry with pain as he groaned in pleasure. She remembered how he held her down, hurting her, his lips always moving over her, his hands harsh and hurting.
She clamped a hand over her mouth as she fought the heaving of her stomach. She wanted to scream, but it hurt too badly to even try.
“Marly.” Cade’s voice was tortured now as he tried to pull her to him.
“Don’t touch me,” she cried out, flinching away from him, unable to bear the touch of his hands now. She had been a fool. Such a fool to think he could love her. “It was all a lie. All of it. God, what a fool I made of myself.”
No wonder there had been no gentleness, no sense of caring in his touch when he fucked her. And he had fucked her. He hadn’t made love to her, he hadn’t possessed her, he had used a bodily function to control her.
Her hand flew out, connecting solidly with his face. Shock and fury flared in his expression, though he stood silently.
“You lied to me.” She was shaking harshly, her teeth nearly chattering from the overwhelming pain and anger. “It was all a lie. ‘Tell me to fuck you, Marly’,” she sneered his words back at him. “Well you fucked me Cade, good and proper.” She Lora Leigh
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didn’t care about the audience she had attracted. The unknown Rick, or Brock’s brooding concern as he watched from the kitchen doorway. “You fucked me good and proper.”
She turned away from him, her head held high as she saw the confusion in the stranger’s dark face, and Brock’s sympathy. She couldn’t stand it. She could feel her soul breaking apart, tearing loose from the moorings that had always held it. For eight long years she had believed her dreams would come true. That Cade would love her, that he would need her.
Such a fool’s dream. She shook her head and walked tiredly away from them all. She didn’t run. There was nothing to run from, nothing to run to. Her whole world was collapsing around her and she didn’t know which way to turn now.
“Marly.” Brock touched her arm as she went to pass him. She pulled back, staring up at him, and rather than seeing the brother who had comforted her through the past eight years, she just saw another lie. Pity and sympathy rather than the love she had needed.
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.
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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. Lora Leigh
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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?”
She turned back to him, mocking amusement crossing her pale face.
“Sorry, Cade, I’ve been on the pill since I decided to seduce you. I wasn’t as stupid as you obviously think I was. There won’t be a child. Not with you. Not ever.”
She slammed the door behind her, and for the first time in eight years, he heard the key turn in the lock.
“Fuck,” he bit out, running his fingers through his hair. He clenched his teeth, setting his hands on his hips as he considered his options. There weren’t many, he admitted. But he had made his mind up when he took Marly to his bed. He would marry her. She was his, and he’d be damned if he would let her go. He may not love her like she wanted, and he may have upped his schedule in fucking her due to Jack’s threat to her, but he wasn’t about to backtrack now. And by God, he wasn’t about to let her do it either.
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She wanted him. She wouldn’t be able to deny him for long once he started touching her. And once he did, she would learn what it meant to be his lover. To belong to him. To be part of his family. She wasn’t outraged over Sam and Brock, she was curious. He knew that now. She would see where curiosity led. His eyes narrowed on the door. He had the key. She wouldn’t sleep there. He wasn’t about to let her. She belonged in his bed, in his arms, screaming beneath the pleasure he would be certain she received. Playtime was over. Lora Leigh
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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
She was dressed in jeans and a soft cashmere sweater that barely met the waistband. The gold chain was missing around her waist, but the little gold ring was visible beneath the fabric of the sweater. Cade watched her broodingly as she entered the family room and moved to the built in bar late that evening. She mixed a soda and gin, then a splash of Jim Beam. She sipped it often until she had the taste where she wanted it.