My whisper was faint. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer. He just took a step closer.
“Cade?”
He took another step.
I sat there in the center of the bed, heart pounding out of my chest. His silence was more terrifying than anything he might’ve said.
“You’re scaring me.”
Finally, he made a sound. It was a laugh — a twisted, humorless, half-laugh, but still a laugh. The sound snagged in his throat and then, in one great stride, he was at the bed. His hands planted in the duvet as he leaned over me, bringing his face a hairsbreadth from mine. In the dark, I couldn’t make out the blue in his eyes, but I could see the anger still simmering there.
“I’m scaring you?” he murmured, voice low. “That’s interesting. Glad to know you do possess some sense of self-preservation underneath all that bluster you toss around.”
My spine went straight. “Excuse me?”
“You want to explain what the hell you were thinking earlier?”
I blinked, confused by the question. “What do you mean?”
“Are you serious?”
“Cade, you seem angry and I don’t understand why?—”
The twisted laugh came again. It was worse at close proximity. It seemed somehow wrong, hearing that sound from someone like Cade. Someone good, someone kind, someone steadfast.
“Cade,” I repeated. “Please talk to me.”
“Doubt you’ll like what I have to say. Still, I’m going to say it, even if it doesn’t win me any points.”
He straightened from the bed and began to pace along the side of it. My eyes tracked him in the dark.
Back and forth.
Forth and back.
Then, he spoke. “Earlier, I get a phone call. It’s late, I’m not expecting it. I see the name on the screen. It’s a name I’m happy to see. A name I’m fucking beside myself to see, if you want me to be honest, because it’s the name of a woman I’m pretty damn interested in speaking to.”
I sensed abutcoming.
Wisely, I chose not to interrupt.
“Except, when I answer, it’s not the woman I’m interested in, calling me for a goodnight chat. Instead, I’m listening to that woman wade into the fray of a turbulent domestic situation. I’m listening to that woman put herself smack in between a dangerous man and the object of his obsession.”
I bit my lip.
Cade ran a hand through his hair, a frustrated gesture. His exhale was harsh; so was his tone.
“I’m ten miles away, in my car, speeding twice the normal limit. And still, no matter how fast I drive, no matter how many lights I blow through, I know I’m not going to get there in time. I know I’m going to have to listen as that woman loses control of a situation she had no business being in. I’m going to have to listen as she’s on the receiving end of violence, be that words or fists.”
“Cade—”
“I’m talking now.”
My mouth snapped shut.
“You asked why I’m angry? I’m angry because you put yourself in harm’s way, and I had no way to protect you. I’m angry because I was on the other line listening, absolutely fucking helpless, when that fuckwad put his hands on you.”