Give Us a Chance (35 page)

"You could've told me that."

"I know, and I'm sorry I didn't. But I really
did
need time to think. And it wasn't because I was confused about my feelings for you. I knew exactly how I felt about you, and that's why I wanted to make sure that I was completely committed to this. That I wasn't going to panic someday and leave you, out of my fear of losing you."

"You're not going to lose me, Jake. Nothing's going to happen to me."

"Anything could happen. To any of us, at any time. Like today, do you know how freaking panicked I was when I heard guns going off right outside that room you were in? You could've been killed."

"Yeah," I say quietly. "I know. I shouldn't have gone there. It was stupid."

"What I'm trying to say here is that even though I can't even imagine how bad it would hurt if something ever happened to you, I won't let that stop me from being with you. The fact that I even considered not being with you shows how messed up I was." He takes a breath. "I'm sorry it took me this long to answer you. But the answer is that I want this. I want our relationship to continue and I don't want it to end." He locks his eyes on mine. "I love you, Ivy. I love you, and I want to be with you." He pauses. "That's my answer."

I'm so shocked that he said all that that I need a moment to let it sink in. Jake loves me. Jake Wheeler, Chicago's most eligible bachelor, loves me. And we're not breaking up. He wants this. And so do I.

The heaviness and sadness I was feeling over having to say goodbye to him is replaced with a lightness, a happiness, as it sinks in that Jake and I are going to be together. We're actually going to do this.

"Can you please say something?" Jake asks, sounding nervous for the first time ever.

I smile. "I love you too."

He smiles back. "Are you serious?"

"I'm serious. I love you, Jake."

He pulls me into his arms. "You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that. I thought you were going to break up with me."

"I was, but only because I thought you were going to break up with
me
, but I didn't know when, and I didn't want to keep waiting. It already hurt, knowing this was ending, and I just wanted to get it over with."

He pulls back. "I'm sorry, Ivy. I never wanted to hurt you. And I never wanted to end things between us. I just wanted to get my head on straight so I could be the person you deserve."

"So you really love me?" I crack a smile.

"So damn much."

"And you um...have the afternoon free?"

"I do. I'm free for the rest of the day." He leans in and presses his lips to mine for a slow, incredibly hot kiss, then says, "Is there something you'd like to do?"

I laugh a little. "Do you really have to ask?"

"That's all the answer I need." He scoops me up and slings me over his shoulder.

"Jake!" I laugh as he takes me to his room. "Put me down."

He sets me on the bed and I take off my t-shirt, then lie back and watch as he strips off his clothes, admiring how hot my boyfriend is. He's the hottest guy I've ever been with and every woman wants him. But he's mine. All mine. And he loves me.

"What are you smiling about?" Jake asks, smiling back as he slides my panties down my legs.

"You. And us."

"That's it?" He kisses my lower abs, his hand moving up my thigh.

"That's all I need."

"I'm going to give you something else to smile about." He shoots me a sexy grin, then his face disappears between my legs.

Moments later, I'm yelling his name, gripping his hair, my body spiraling out of control. He raises himself over me, then slowly sinks inside me.

"You're still smiling," he says.

I open my eyes and meet his gaze. "Yeah. I think you know why."

He chuckles. "Let's see if we can keep it going."

He positions himself to hit just the right spot, each thrust igniting a storm of sensations that build on the ones before it. He lowers his head to my shoulder, skimming his lips over my skin, then his hand grips my hip and he thrusts harder, deeper, and I feel it rising again, my muscles tensing. I grab onto him as the pleasure rolls over me, reaching all the way down to my toes.

He follows shortly after, letting out a deep groan as he releases. He remains inside me as he kisses my neck and then my shoulder. I want him to stay there but then he rolls onto his back.

I snuggle up beside him. "Can we do that again later?"

"Like in a couple minutes?" He skims his hand down my chest.

I laugh. "I think you need more recovery time than that."

"Trust me, I don't. There's pent-up demand after you made me wait a month to be with you, and now another whole week's gone by without doing it."

"I didn't want to wait that long. I wanted to do it the first week we were dating."

"Are you serious?" He turns on his side to face me. "Then why'd we wait so long?"

"Because I
thought you'd break up with me after we did it. I was starting to really like you and I wanted us to keep going out."

"That's why you wouldn't do it with me? Because you thought it would end things between us?"

"Yeah."

"Ivy, I would never do that. If I were only interested in you for sex, I would've told you that."

"You would've come out and told me you only wanted sex?" I roll my eyes. "Yeah, right. You wouldn't have done that."

"Yeah. I would have," he says, his face serious. "I told you, I don't play games. When I was with those other girls, I never once led them to believe that it was anything more than sex. I've always been upfront about it, saying it was one night only, and if the girl wanted more than that, I wouldn't do it with her. I was clear about what I wanted and most women respected that. Sometimes I'd get one who didn't stick to the plan and kept calling me after we'd been together, but for the most part, it was a mutual agreement. One night and that's it."

"But what about that girl who showed up outside your building? She acted like she'd been with you before."

"Ashley. She and I had a different agreement. If we were both single and needed some company and didn't want to go find someone at a bar, we met up and that was that." He sets his eyes on mine, his hand brushing over my cheek. "I don't want to talk about this with you. I don't want you thinking about me with other women, so I don't want to talk about it. There's no need to. I'm with
you
now. No one else."

"So you really wanted to date me," I say.

"Yes. I really wanted to date you."

"And it wasn't about sex?"

"Well, obviously I wanted to have sex with you. You're gorgeous. But no, that wasn't why I asked you out. My goal was to get to know you. I liked you when I met you last summer and I liked you even more once we started working together. I'm usually not shy when it comes to going up to women but shit, I gotta tell you, I was fucking nervous when I first asked you out. Like hands-shaking nervous."

I smile. "You were?"

"Yeah. And then you turned me down. First time that's happened since...hell, I don't think it ever happened before that. You were the first. Way to crush my ego there, Ivy."

I laugh.

"You think that's funny? Crushing my ego?"

"That's not why I was laughing, but yeah, that IS funny."

"Then what are you laughing about?"

"The fact that we didn't have sex for all those weeks based on something that was never going to happen. Do you know how hard it was to not have sex with you?"

"YOU?" He points to himself. "I was dying over here. You know how many cold showers I had to take?"

"Well, you don't have to do that any more. Now you can have me whenever you want." I give him a kiss.

"Like right now?" He kisses me back.

"Not now." I flip away from him and get out of bed. "I'm starving. I need to eat, and then we're going to see my dad. After that, we're coming back here for the rest of the night."

"What about Liza?"

"She's working until midnight. I'll see her tomorrow. Now hurry up. Let's go."

We grab some lunch, then go to the hospital. My dad's awake and watching TV.

"Hey, Dad." I walk in his room with Jake right behind me. "How are you feeling?"

"Good. I was wondering if you were going to stop by."

"Sorry I wasn't here earlier. I had some things to do." I'm not going to tell him where I was this morning. He doesn't need to know.

"Hi, Jake," my dad says.

"Hey, Steve. You been getting some rest?"

"Not much. I'm starting to get my strength back so the nurses have had me walking the halls."

"Did it hurt to walk?" I ask.

"My back was sore from the surgery but it wasn't anywhere near the pain I had before."

"Dad, you should've told us how much pain you were in."

"It's all behind us now. The doc said I could be pain-free in a few months if I keep up with the physical therapy."

I still don't know how we're going to pay for that. Insurance only pays a small part of it and he'll have to have therapy for months.

"So, Jake, you off from work today?" my dad asks.

"I took the afternoon off." He looks at me and smiles, and I smile back as he takes my hand.

I hear my dad again. "Is there something you two would like to tell me?"

Jake and I turn back to my dad.

"I'm dating your daughter," Jake says.

"Liza said the two of you broke up."

"We didn't break up," Jake says. "We just had to work some things out." He looks at me. "But we're together now. For good."

"Huh." My dad rubs his hand over his jaw. "My daughter's dating a Wheeler boy? I'm not so sure about this."

"Dad!" I say, laughing. "That's not nice."

He chuckles. "I'm just giving him a hard time."
 

"If it makes you feel any better," Jake says, lightly squeezing my hand. "I love your daughter. I have for a long time."

I can't stop smiling, and hearing him say that makes me smile even more.

"That's good to hear," my dad says. "I admit I wasn't too sure about you in the beginning, but now that I know you, you're a good kid, Jake. And you're from a good family."

"Dad, we're not kids," I say. "Jake's 23."

"Almost 24," he says. "My birthday's at the end of March."

"Really?" I look at him, surprised. "So's mine. March 22
^nd
."

"March 24
^th
. Guess we'll celebrate them together. And Nash's birthday is March 10th. It's on a Sunday this year so we're having a party for him at Sunday dinner."

"Did you tell her about the other party?" my dad asks Jake. "Well, it's not really a party, I guess. What are we calling it?"

"A benefit concert," Jake says.

My eyes move between them. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Your boyfriend and his family are organizing a benefit concert to help pay the hospital bills."

"You are?" I ask Jake.

"I was going to tell you about it later," he says, "but now's as good a time as any. It was actually my dad's idea to do some kind of event, and yesterday at family dinner, which you missed by the way, we had a brainstorm and Austin came up with the idea for a concert. His band, along with some others, are going to play, and all the money from the ticket sales will go to help pay your dad's bills. Callie's going to make some food to sell and we were thinking maybe you'd want to make one of your wood pictures that we could auction off. And Bryce is donating the car he's been fixing up and we're going to sell raffle tickets. We still have a lot of details to figure out but we already have the location and Austin is lining up the bands and Jen is working on the artwork for the promo materials."

"I don't know what to say." I sit on the bed, tears now falling down my face. "I can't believe you're doing all this for us."

"We can't thank you enough, Jake," my dad says. "And your whole family. You're really saving us here."

"We see a need and we take care of it. We're just happy we could help."

I sniffle and wipe the tears from my face. "So when is this happening?"

"We've got the location booked for the first week of March," Jake says. "I can't remember what day. We'll have to ask my dad."

"That's so soon. You sure you have time to get everything done?"

"We're going to have to put in some extra hours to get it done, but we didn't want to wait. You guys need the money now, not later."

I get up and hug him. "Thank you. This is awesome. I can't believe you're doing this."

"Why don't you two go out and do something fun," my dad says. "I'm going to take a nap before those nurses have me walking the halls again."

"Okay." I let go of Jake and hug my dad. "I'll see you soon. I love you."

"I love you too, honey."

Jake and I leave the hospital and go out for coffee and he tells me more about the benefit concert. I can't stop hugging him and kissing him and thanking him.
 

There are so many reasons I love this man and now I've added another one. And I have a feeling the list will just keep growing the longer I'm with him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jake

"What do you think?" I ask, scanning the crowd of people.

It's March 8th, the night of the benefit concert. Ivy and I are standing off to the side of the big open warehouse that has been converted into a club for the night. There's a stage up front where Austin's band is playing, and in the middle is a dance floor. The whole place is packed. I never thought we'd have such a huge turnout. We're going to raise a lot of money, more than enough to cover Steve's medical bills and follow-up care.