by Croix, J. H.
I was lost, I truly was. How could it be my fault she didn’t get married?
“Amelia, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally said.
She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “No one looks at me the way you did. That’s the whole problem. Why’d you have go and be such an asshole?”
While I was reverberating at what she said, she kept on talking, the words spilling out every which way, here and there a word slurring. “Earl tried, oh he tried, to act like it mattered, but he was like every other guy I dated. Not that there were that many. I’m too big. I’m not feminine enough. It’s like he thought he could prove he was a man by dating me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She punctuated these words with a thump of her forehead against my chest, all the while I stood frozen on the sidewalk. Traffic rolled by and pedestrians stepped around us.
Her eyes whipped up again, lasering me with an accusing glare. “You weren’t like that. But after it all, you were.”
Anger rose inside. She’d boxed me out of her life so effectively, I’d never had a chance to even tell her what didn’t happen with Shannon. I looked down at Amelia and started walking quickly, driven by the lingering anger at what tore us apart and the fresh anger at what she said about herself. She kicked her legs against mine.
“What are you doing?”
I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know. It so happened my truck was parked just ahead. I kept walking and stopped beside it, easing her down. The moment her feet landed on the sidewalk, she tried to push away, only to stumble. I reached for her reflexively, catching her fast against me. A bolt of need hit me. Amelia was tall and strong with generous curves. Just as before, my body knew what it wanted. I’d always loved how she stood nearly level with me. My eyes canted down of their own accord to see the soft curves of her breasts mounding up over the fitted top of her wedding dress. I had to force my gaze up and found hers wide and locked on me.
A familiar electricity arced to life. This was Amelia. This was us. Nothing had faded between us, if anything, it burned hotter than it ever had. In a distant corner of my mind, I tried to tell myself not to do this. If I wanted to make things right, I had to go slow. Yet, with her held against me and her amber eyes flashing fire, I did the only thing I wanted. I backed her against my truck. “You’re not too big. Don’t ever say that again,” I growled before crushing my lips to hers.
It was as if no time had passed, well except for the fact I was pouring seven years of longing into our kiss. She arched into me and threaded a hand roughly into my hair, moaning in my mouth with every stroke of her tongue against mine. I couldn’t stop kissing her. She felt so good, so damn good. My mind fuzzed out and all I knew was the feel of her against me. A horn honked nearby, and Amelia tore her lips free.
I opened my eyes, my heart pounding so hard, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I cracked a rib. Her head fell back against my truck. She closed her eyes, her breath heaving. Her fingers loosened in my hair and her palm slid down to rest over my chest. After a moment, she opened them.
“What was that?” she finally asked over the pounding of our hearts.
“I never stopped missing you.”
Chapter Three
Amelia
I came out of sleep suddenly, my eyes flying open. Darkness greeted me. I didn’t know what the hell I’d been dreaming about. For months now, I’d been having anxiety-fueled dreams. Every so often I’d remember them, but they weren’t reality-based. The last one I recalled had involved me falling out of a plane in the sky. They’d started not long after Earl and I had finally settled on a wedding date. I should’ve known right away what they meant. I’d been a bundle of anxiety and nerves about the impending wedding and had known deep inside I didn’t want it and neither did Earl. Well, I couldn’t speak for Earl. What I knew was I didn’t feel much from him. Having once experienced love—the wild, thrumming kind—and passion—the out of control, burning yearning kind—I’d known we were about to miss out big time.
I couldn’t remember where I was and suddenly became aware of the body beside me. My eyes gradually adjusted to the dark room, and I could make out the smudgy outlines of the basic furniture in the hotel room. The body behind me? Definitely not Earl. I knew this with certainty because the man was curled up around me and I could feel a rather impressive erection against my bottom. Earl tended to sleep flat on his back. In fact, I couldn’t recall a single time when he’d spooned with me. My mind gradually flickered to life from its slumber.
Cade Masters. Here. With me. In bed. The muddled anxiety of my dreams morphed into the most confusing string of feelings I’d ever experienced. It felt so, so, so, so good to have Cade curled up around me. If I thought about it, which I didn’t like to do, Cade was the last man I’d been with who’d been affectionate like this with me. He’d almost always touched me—no matter where we were. If we were in public, he had an arm over my shoulders, or my hand held fast in his. In private, well…we’d been young and foolishly in love. We’d snuck off every chance we could get before we were eighteen. After that, we hadn’t bothered with sneaking. In bed, we slept just like we were now—with him snugged up behind me, one of his strong, rugged hands resting on the curve of my belly.
It felt so good to have him here, so good it was dangerous. On the heels of how good it felt, I felt sad. Again. I’d made a mess of yesterday. I’d tossed my phone into a ditch somewhere along my meandering walk through Anchorage after I’d dashed out of the church. I hadn’t wanted to answer anyone’s calls. I must’ve walked for a solid hour before I ducked into the bar where Cade found me. Oh God. I bit back a groan. I’d started a fight. If anything represented how angry I was at the state of my life, that fight did. I’d hurt Earl, but he hadn’t played fair with me either. I didn’t know what he thought he’d get out of marrying me, but he didn’t love me. Not the way Cade once had.
Correction—not the way I thought Cade once had. That old bitterness twisted its knife in my heart. I’d lost two of the most important people in my life in one day—Cade and my former friend, Shannon. I’d been out of town for the weekend. I couldn’t even recall why. I’d returned to the small home I shared with Cade to walk in and find Shannon—completely naked—climbing into bed with him and kissing him. Aside from all the obvious reasons why that hurt like hell, it was all made worse by how Shannon just happened to be the girly, gorgeous girl all the guys chased after when we were in high school. It got under my skin to see Cade with her, and I’d never been able to shake how small I felt in that moment.
In the years since, I had plenty of reasons to reconsider whether I might have misinterpreted what happened, but in the end, all I knew was crushing pain in my heart and burning anger.
I lay still and tried to suss out if Cade was awake. It didn’t matter that seven years had passed. I knew the way he breathed when he slept, and he was definitely asleep. With his rock hard cock pressing into me, I didn’t dare move, but holy hell, I was turned on. I could feel the moisture at the apex of my thighs. I might be confused, but my body sure as hell wasn’t. If my body had its way, I’d wiggle my bottom and roll over and straddle him. I swallowed and tried not to go there in my mind, but I couldn’t help it. The mere thought of having Cade inside of me again nearly made me frantic with need. My pulse was racing, my low belly clenched and my channel throbbed.
My recollections from last night after Cade kissed me senseless on the sidewalk were vague. I’d definitely been drunk. By the time I threw my punch at Mr. Hulk, I’d probably had another three beers on top of the three I’d already downed. I remembered Cade helping me into his truck. Next thing I knew, he’d bundled me into his arms and carried me to the elevator at this hotel. This after I almost fell on my face on the entrance stairs.
I had no memory of getting out of my wedding dress, but I wasn’t wearing it. I fingered the edge of the t-shirt I was wearing. Cade’s shirt. The scent of him surrounded me and made my heart clench. Suddenly, I was blinking back tears. I sho
uld’ve cried yesterday when I dumped Earl. Instead, I was swamped in emotion now and none of it had anything to do with my former fiancée. Every feeling rocking me now was linked to the man curled up behind me. I swallowed against the tightness in my throat, doing my damnedest to get a grip.
I had to get up somehow and get the hell out of here. I couldn’t face Cade. Not like this. Not when all I wanted to do was cry and the only person who might be able to assuage the hurt was Cade. I carefully shifted, incrementally moving toward the edge of the bed. It was the hardest thing I’d done in, well, since I’d stormed out of his life seven years ago. The only thing that had made it a tiny bit easier was I’d been so driven by anger and hurt then, the combined force had propelled me away.
Right now, my longing to wrap myself in Cade’s warmth and strength and pretend like seven long years of bitterness had never happened was so powerful, it was a pure force of will to move at all. Just when I managed to inch a little bit further, Cade moved. His palm slid across my belly and over the curve of my hip. The calloused skin of his hand sent sparks skittering under the surface of mine. He was all man—every inch of him, including his hands. Even before he’d left for training to become a hotshot firefighter—one of the most physically demanding jobs there was—he’d been nothing but raw, rugged and pure masculinity, a man on octane fuel. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he was more mouth-watering than ever now. I might be a tad fuzzy in my recollections from last night, but I hadn’t forgotten looking up at him in the bar. My heart gave another squeeze. The Cade I’d once known had been reserved, but I hadn’t missed the distant, guarded look in his eyes when I first looked into them.
His palm kept moving, sliding into the dip of my waist and coming to rest under the curve of my breast. My nipples tightened, a wash of need rolling through me. He had to be asleep. Right? On the heels of another deep breath, I started to move again and suddenly felt his breathing change. Oh shit. My incremental movements away had been erased when he moved. My bottom was pressed firmly into his hard cock. My channel throbbed, and all I wanted was to give into the wild, burning need I’d never forgotten. When sex with everyone else had paled in comparison—nothing even came close—it was hard not to want to give in. Nigh impossible, really.
My skin prickled with awareness as I sensed him coming awake. He held still, but I could feel the thrum of tension in his body. Hot all over, I pondered how to gracefully get out of this mess when all I wanted to do was straddle him and forget everything else. He might’ve kissed me last night, but he’d gotten distant afterwards. I remembered that much.
Oh hell. I wasn’t going to be a coward. I rolled over, swiftly enough to dislodge his hand from where it was cupping my breast. The moment I rolled over and opened my eyes… Oh. My.
In the smudgy darkness, I couldn’t see much, but a light had been left on in the adjoining bathroom, its light filtering across the bed. Just enough for me to see him and just enough to make me nearly melt. His gorgeous green eyes slammed into mine, his gaze, dark and intent, scanned my face. For a flash, I felt lost and alone. The Cade I knew was hidden behind his impenetrable gaze. I could hardly breathe, my pulse skittering wildly.
To say I didn’t know what to say might be the understatement of the century. After a few beats of silence, the air around us weighted with seven years of hurt and obviously failed attempts to move on, he pushed up onto an elbow. His hand had slipped onto my belly when I rolled over, and his thumb moved in idle strokes. My senses narrowed to the thin strip of flesh under his thumb, slivers of fire radiating outward. Just a soft brushing back and forth, and I was about ready to lose my mind. My breath was shallow, and my thoughts scrambled.
I clung to my sanity and swallowed. “Cade...”
He saved me. “Amelia, we don’t need to talk now. Okay?” he asked, his voice gruff with sleep.
“Okay,” I managed, mostly because I had no idea what else to say.
He eased off of his elbow and adjusted the pillow under his head. His eyes were still on me, and I couldn’t look away. Years of unspoken feelings crowded the space between us. I sensed Cade knew I was unsettled. Once upon a time, he would have teased me and jostled me out of this place in my head. That was then, this was now. He didn’t move away, but he was quiet.
After another few beats, he spoke. “Go to sleep, Amelia.”
He lifted a hand and brushed the tangled hair away from my face. On a sigh, I closed my eyes. The tension knotted in my chest eased slightly as I relaxed into this space with him—even with him guarded, I felt right when I was with him. Just myself. I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Four
Cade
I took a sip of coffee—a double shot in the dark, just what I needed. Two shots of espresso in the already rich brew from the diner were enough to nudge me out of my muddled state. Amelia sat across from me, one elbow on the table while she flipped through the menu. She was wearing one of my t-shirts and a pair of jeans she’d picked up at the department store near the hotel. Sporting a black eye and looking tired and out of sorts, she was so damn beautiful it took my breath away. I took a gulp of coffee, needing the bitterness to anchor me.
The sun glinted in her amber hair, gilding it with gold. Last night had been, well, maybe the hardest night of my life. I wanted Amelia—so fiercely, it was an ache I couldn’t assuage. She’d been just drunk enough to test my limits. She didn’t appear to recall she’d sashayed out of the bathroom last night, after unceremoniously yanking her wedding dress off, and straddled me where I’d been resting in the bed. Propped up on the pillows, I’d gritted my teeth and roughly set her aside. I might want her like I’d never wanted anyone, but I wasn’t about to take her when she was drunk and on the heels of walking out on her fiancée. I’d gathered bits and pieces of what happened. In short, she’d dated Earl, never loved him and didn’t believe he loved her. Apparently, she’d missed me the whole time.
Even now, I was still trying to wrap my brain around that. Amelia was a passionate woman. She didn’t do anything in half-measures, including anger. She’d iced me out of her life so completely, I couldn’t quite believe she’d missed me the whole damn time. I’d sure as hell missed her. Yet, I was also pissed. Seven years of being shut out and never once had she given me a chance to explain that absolutely nothing had happened with Shannon. Much as I wanted to erase the time in between, I couldn’t. I didn’t even know if what I felt was really something. Was it just the echoes of what once was? Maybe I simply needed to get her out of my system, once and for all.
Amelia closed her menu and glanced over at me, her cognac eyes searching my face. My heart clenched so hard it hurt. Amelia was…well, she wasn’t an easy woman. She was so strong on the outside—tall, leggy and powerful, she exuded confidence and an innate power. Yet, behind that strength was a soft side.
Oh fuck. I couldn’t look at her and not go all crazy inside. Even worse, I was still sporting an erection. Had been pretty much since I’d picked her up off the floor last night. A mechanical release in the shower this morning hadn’t done the trick. I couldn’t be around her and not want her. I might not be full on like I’d been when I woke up beside her, but my cock was at half-mast and had been ever since I’d laid eyes on her in a tumbled mess in her muddy wedding dress on the floor.
Another gulp of coffee, and I realized I’d almost drained it. I caught the waitress’s eyes and held my cup aloft. She nodded from a few tables away. I glanced back to Amelia and decided I’d better figure out how to talk to her. No matter what happened with us, I was moving back to Willow Brook to stay and it’d be best for us both if we could find peace.
“So…”
I stared over at her. I’d meant to start off with something blunt, maybe even harsh. But my gaze landed on the purple, reddish skin around her eye and saw the pain flickering in the depths, and I just couldn’t. I could only drift but so far on the tides of bitterness. She was Amelia, the one and only woman who’d ever gotten to me. No matter how ang
ry I was she never gave me a chance to explain, I’d loved her so hard once upon a time. The echoes of that love—in all of its wild, tangled glory—were still ringing inside. I also knew perfectly well why she’d been so pissed at me.
Hell, I’d almost lost my mind when I heard she was engaged. I couldn’t even stand to think she might be with anyone other than me. Thousands of miles of distance between us, and the only way I’d managed to deal with any of it was to shove everything away.
After Amelia had walled me out of her life almost instantly, I’d tried in vain for a week to talk to her. I could be as stubborn as her, so by the time my flight rolled around, I left Willow Brook behind, plenty pissed and bitter. Being able to walk into an intensely demanding year of training and stay on in a job where I often worked so hard I could barely think served to help me forget Amelia. Or trick myself into thinking I had.
I couldn’t help but wonder if my biggest mistake had been in actually leaving Willow Brook. Time and distance had allowed me to put off revisiting the ghosts of the lies Shannon wove around us. Hell, had I been around, at some point Amelia would’ve had to have talked to me. But I’d spent the last seven years flying in and out of the wilderness all over the place. Wherever the worst fires were, I went, along with my hotshot crew.
Now, I was back in Alaska and here to stay. Amelia sat before me, and I’d completely underestimated the hold she had on me. Beyond the fact she could easily intimidate any man, what with her height, her strength and her ballsy attitude, she held my heart in her hands and always had.
“So, don’t suppose you have a car somewhere around here?” I asked.
Amelia’s cheeks flushed as she shook her head. “No. My mom drove me here because, well, because we were supposed to fly out to Hawaii today.”
Of course. She had a honeymoon planned. The very idea of Amelia going on a honeymoon with anyone other than me nearly made me want to pound someone into a wall, but I took a breath and kept it together.
