Cade: Fire And Ice: A Second Chance Hockey Romance

by Hart, Alana

  At five minutes to ten, there was a knock on the door. I actually thought I'd imagined it and stayed where I was on the sofa until it happened again. Then I got up and looked through the peephole. It was Cade. He looked exactly the same, maybe a bit bigger, more muscular than he had been at eighteen, and with a much shorter haircut, but it was definitely him. His face looked anxious and I had to lean against a table as my head swam with the surreal feeling of five years seemingly wiped away in an instant.

  "Ellie?"

  Cade was speaking through the door, trying to keep his voice down. I panicked, not wanting him to wake the sleeping children but not in any way prepared to handle looking him in the eye, either. What was he going to think of me? What did he want? Did I trust any part of myself around him?

  "Ellie? Is that you? Your mom told me you were here."

  So he'd gone to the old trailer. I was surprised my mom had told him where I was. She'd probably been too drunk to notice who she was talking to.

  I put one sweaty hand on the doorknob and opened it. Then I just stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, clueless as to what to do.

  It's scary how fast a person can slip into old habits, old emotions. I felt myself, my body, recognizing that it was Cade standing in front of me and everything just clicked back into place as if it was five years ago and he was there to pick me up on the way to an Ice Kings game.

  "Cade," I breathed, stepping towards him and pulling his head down to my shoulder without even thinking about it. It was always like that between us. I reacted to Cade instinctively, without thought. That's how it had been that night in the car when he took my virginity and it was how it was then, as he stood on my doorstep with his head buried in my hair.

  "Cade. Oh my God."

  I stroked the back of his neck and the feeling of his warm skin, so smooth and real, woke something up inside me that had been dormant for a long time. When I turned my head towards him and pressed my lips against his neck, murmuring his name, it was almost as if I was watching myself from the outside. How was this happening? How was Cade Parker back in my arms after five years of nothing? And why was I holding him and kissing him after the way he left?

  None of those questions mattered. As soon as he felt me kiss him he lifted his head up and found my mouth with his, pushing me up against the wall just inside the front door and running his hands over my body with what felt almost like desperation.

  "Ellie." Cade's voice was full of emotion. "Oh my God, Ellie. I missed you so much. I missed you so much."

  I should have questioned him. I should have asked him why he never made any attempts to contact me if he missed me so much. I should have asked why all those photos of him with various women were all over the internet if it was me he wanted. But I didn't ask him any of those things. I couldn't. Something was in control of us but it wasn't me. I don't even think it was Cade. It was whatever force grew out of our sudden proximity, and I didn't stand a chance of resisting it. His hands on my body, the scent of his skin, the sound of his heavy breaths - I couldn't do anything but respond the way I did.

  We stumbled our way into the trailer, tearing our clothes off as we made our way to the couch, both of us completely out of our minds with blind need. When he pulled me down onto his lap and I felt him between my legs he let out a low groan.

  "Ellie. I need to be inside you."

  "Cade, I know, I-"

  My voice dissolved into a needy little sigh as he cupped one of my breasts in his hand and leaned down to suck the stiff nipple into his mouth. My back arched sharply towards him as the sensation of his tongue flicking over my nipple seared its way right down between my legs. When he flipped me easily onto my back and pulled my panties off I lay there, looking up at him, knowing what was coming and breathless with how much I needed it. I reached up and trailed my fingers down one muscular arm as he unzipped and took his cock out.

  "Cade."

  My legs opened automatically and I dug my fingers into the firm, muscled flesh of his shoulders when he pushed himself into me, positioning his body just right and then thrusting the rest of the way in until I was clamping my own hand over my mouth to stifle my little cries of pleasure.

  "Oh. Ellie."

  I couldn't help but smile as he rocked his hips down against me and I lifted mine up off the couch to meet him.

  "Do you like that?"

  I gasped as he suddenly slowed right down, pushing himself all the way inside me and holding himself there for a few sweet seconds.

  "Yeah, Cade. I love-"

  He buried himself inside me again, forcing the breath of my lungs and cutting me off. No other man had ever come close to doing to me what Cade did without even trying. As soon as he was inside me I could feel the orgasm beginning to build, I knew it was coming. He knew it, too.

  "Are you gonna come, Ellie?"

  I nodded quickly, conscious of the sound of my breathing getting faster.

  "Yeah...Cade. Please, I, Cade-"

  He leaned down and kissed my neck, dragging his tongue over my skin while I felt the muscles of his back tightening under my hands.

  "You sound so good, Ellie. You're so sweet. I want to feel it when you come. Are you close?"

  I was close. I could feel the impending blank space looming over my consciousness as Cade's breathing started to get ragged.

  "Yes. Cade. I have to be quiet. I - the kids are - sleeping. Please, I have to be-"

  I was completely incoherent but he knew what I was saying. He ran a finger over my lips and pushed it into my mouth as my body started to stiffen and my head rolled back over the arm of the sofa. It wasn't enough, though. The shaky moan I let out started to turn into a scream and Cade closed his hand flat over my mouth as I felt myself starting to pulse around him and the ache in my sex exploded into bliss.

  "Look at me. Ellie. Look at me."

  I couldn't do it, I was too lost in my own pleasure to understand anything he was saying, so he lifted my head himself, forcing me to look into eyes just as he was brimming over. I watched his jaw clench as his body went rigid and his hips pinned me down on the sofa. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath and groaned my name as he started to come, not looking away from me for a second.

  I remembered that feeling. The one I got when I'd been with him before, years ago. The raw masculinity of his orgasm, the intoxication of his hunger for me. He kept his eyes locked on mine until he was finished and then he leaned down and kissed my sweaty forehead.

  "Ellie."

  He wanted to say something more, I could feel it. He didn't, though. We got dressed without saying much, mostly just listening to each other's breathing slow down again. Then we sat on the sofa next to each other as a sensation I can only compare to a kind of emotional shell-shock rose up in my chest. Before I had time to try and stop myself, I was sobbing. Big, ugly, gulping sobs that shook my body and sent tears cascading down my cheeks.

  "Ellie!"

  Cade looked distraught and he tried to reach out for me but I pushed his hand away, shaking my head because I wasn't able to speak and pressing one hand to my chest in a useless attempt to try and control myself.

  "Cade," I finally managed to say, my voice choked, "why the fuck did you leave?!"

  It wasn't quite what I meant. I knew why he'd left. What I wanted was an explanation for why he'd done it the way he did, why he'd never made any attempt to contact me. My thighs were slippery with his cum and my neck was still burning with his kisses as I sat there beside him on the couch fighting to get a hold of myself. I'd never felt more vulnerable in my life.

  "I had to, Ellie. You knew I was leaving. You knew I was going to get drafted. I wish you could have come with me. I think about you every single day, you know."

  I looked into Cade's jewel-like blue eyes.

  "Then why didn't you tell me? Why did you just leave like that? It was so hard for me, Cade. You just...you left me behind and I never heard from you again. Why did you do that to me?"

  "What? Ellie,
are you joking? I sent you letters for months. I wrote to you almost every week. I admit I'm not the best letter-writer in the world but you didn't have an e-mail address or a phone. What was I supposed to-"

  "Wait," I said, holding up a hand, "you wrote to me?"

  He nodded. "Yes. Every goddamned week. And when you didn't write back I just assumed you didn't want me to keep sending them."

  "Cade. Wait. I never got a single letter from you. I never heard from you again. What are you talking about?"

  He reached out and grabbed my shoulders. "Ellie. I wrote you a ton of letters, that whole first year after I left. Do you really think I could have just left like that, with no explanation? I sent them to you, with your name on them, to your mom's trailer."

  Was it possible that my mom, in her drunken stupor, had managed to intercept every single letter? It didn't seem likely. Then again, I had sensed her jealousy at the time, her abject fear at even the tiniest possibility of me managing to escape the life of poverty and desperation that had consumed her?

  "Cade. Did you really? I mean, you sent lots of letters? Because I didn't - I didn't get a single one. Not one."

  He was angry. "Yes! Ellie, yes. Goddamnit, are you serious? You didn't get ANY of them? What happened? Did your mom take them?"

  I leaned back and tucked my hair behind my ears. "She must have. There's no other explanation. I mean, unless someone at the post office...?"

  "Nah, that's illegal. It had to be your mom. What the fuck, Ellie? Why would she do that?"

  "You don't know my mom, Cade."

  "I know I don't. You never let me into your home life."

  His tone sounded slightly disapproving.

  "I know. There was a good reason for it, too. My mom is an insane drunk. I was too embarrassed to let you meet her, to let you see how bad everything was."

  He visibly softened as I teared up again and I let him pull me in close.

  "I know, Ellie. I'm sorry. I'm just so pissed that you didn't get any of those letters. I thought you were ignoring them. We both spent five whole years thinking the other one didn't care about us. It's messed up."

  I pulled back a little, so I could look at him. "It is messed up, Cade. This whole time I thought you had forgotten about me."

  He chuckled ruefully. "I didn't forget about you, Ellie. I tried to, because it hurt too much to think about never seeing you again or about you hating me for how I left, but nothing worked. And believe me, I tried a lot."

  "I know. I used to read all the stories about you online. I saw that photo in the sports magazine of you and your...girlfriend."

  I reached out and ran my fingers over his cheek, still not quite believing he was actually there with me, and then let my hand slip down to his chest. That's when I saw it. The tattoo. It was still there, and it was my initials. Cade saw the expression on my face.

  "What? Does that bother you? I went out with some of the guys and they all got Kings tattoos. At the last minute I changed my mind and got this. They still give me shit for it."

  I traced a finger over the letters E and H on Cade's smooth, California-tanned skin.

  "No, it doesn't bother me. Actually, it's funny. I saw it in a photo of you online. Then in that shot with your - with that woman - it was gone. I thought you had it removed."

  "No. They airbrushed it out. It would have looked odd in the photo with Jessica."

  A pit formed in my stomach at hearing that name come out of Cade's mouth.

  "Is that her name? Jessica?"

  "Yeah, Jessica Ray. And she's not my girlfriend, Ellie."

  I shot him a skeptical look. "Come on, Cade. I'm not stupid."

  "No, really." He brushed my hair off my forehead. "She's not my girlfriend. It was an arranged thing, our publicists set it up. I have to go to certain events with her so she gets into the celebrity magazines and she, uh, well, I guess she makes me look more stable or something. She's gonna be on the InStyle cover in two months, so I think it worked."

  "You sound really close to her."

  "I am, Ellie. She's one of my closest friends but that's all it is. I'm not going to lie, I haven't been a saint, not by any means, but it's strictly friendship with Jess."

  So Cade wasn't with the beautiful blonde whose photos I'd used to torture myself during the first painful years of his absence. The warm flood of relief I felt at that news was so strong I glanced down, self-conscious about Cade noticing it. He had a cast on one of his wrists, I'd noticed it as soon as I opened the door to him but there hadn't been time to mention it yet.

  "What happened?"

  "Oh, that. It happened in a training session. I'm out for three months."

  "Three months? Is that why you're here?"

  He hesitated as I examined the cast. "Uhh...yeah. I mean, I think so. I dunno, Ellie. I've wanted to come back and see you for so long, but I never had the balls to just do it. I was too afraid you'd tell me to fuck off. It was actually Jess who convinced me to fly out - she's getting sick of listening to me talk about you."

  He lifted his hand up to my face and ran his fingers over my lips so I could kiss them, one by one.

  "Really? You talk about me to her?"

  "Yeah, apparently way too much. She actually called me out on it a few times. "

  We sat there cuddling and chatting and basking in the sheer sweetness of being with each other again for a long time before I thought of Bill. He wasn't going to be home for a few more hours but I knew I had to tell Cade about him.

  "You know," I started, a little awkwardly. "I, uh, I had a relationship, too. I mean, it's kind of on and off but-"

  "Are you with him now?"

  I shrugged and gave the only answer I could think of. "I don't know. He lives here, with me and the boys and his little girl. It's not, I mean, we're not always together but..."

  "Ellie, he lives here?"

  "Yes but, Cade, it's not like a normal situation. I mean, I still don't have a lot of money and I need someone to watch the boys while I work."

  "Are you fucking him?"

  For the first time in maybe ever, I saw a flash of something I didn't like on Cade's face.

  "When we're together, yeah. He actually broke up with me earlier today."

  "So he's not coming back?"

  I stood up and walked into the kitchen to get us glasses of water before answering. When I came back, Cade was hunched over, rubbing his forehead.

  "Cade, we live together. I can't afford to pay anyone to watch the boys and I can't leave them alone, either. And Bill has a daughter. So he usually watches the kids and I work."

  "So this guy lives off you?"

  I looked down at my feet, embarrassed.

  "You know that not everyone has the kind of success you had, right Cade?"

  "What does that mean?"

  I threw my hands up, exasperated.

  "It means just what I said! I can't work without someone to watch the boys. And if I don't work, we don't eat. I know you've never been in a situation like this before but it's not actually that difficult to understand."

  "I wouldn't sleep with someone just so they would babysit for me, Ellie."

  Everything about Cade had seemed the same. Sex with him had been as electric and intimate as it had been five years ago. But I was seeing a side of him I hadn't before, back when we were high school kids. His comment about sleeping with the babysitter made me angry.

  "I'm not sleeping with him so he'll babysit the boys! We were in a relationship before he moved in here, but now he's here this is just how it worked out. Why are you acting like this, Cade? What have I done wrong here? What have I done that you haven't done ten times over in Los Angeles? I've been with one man since you ditched me! How many women have you been with?"

  I could hear my voice rising. What the hell was I being accused of? Why did this mood of Cade's just come out of nowhere like that?

  "Cade, what the hell? Why are you being this way?"

  He stood up slowly, not looking at me, and star
ted to walk towards the front door.

  "What? Cade, are you leaving? You're just going to show up like this out of the blue, fuck me and then leave?"

  I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He opened the front door and turned back to me, although he still wouldn't look me in the eye.

  "Ellie. I think I'm just tired from traveling or something. I'll - what's your number, I'll call you tomorrow?"

  I felt like I was being pranked. The old Cade would never have pulled something like that. Just leaving me upset with no explanation, no reassurances. But here he was, doing it. I could feel a hard, bitter lump rising in my throat, I knew I was going to break down any second.

  "Get out, Cade. Either tell me what the fuck is going on right now or get out."

  He got out. And I stood in the middle of the living room and watched him through the window as he walked to his car and drove away. When the only thing I could see were the tail-lights of his car, I sank down onto the floor and curled up into a ball, sobbing. It had gone badly so fast and so completely that it almost felt deliberate. Was I being punished? That's what it felt like. He just shows up unannounced after five years, makes love to me and then has a meltdown over the fact that I have an on-off relationship with a man? Especially after he's spent years doing anything but remaining celibate in Los Angeles?

  I curled my fists into the rough carpet and sobbed silently. What Cade had just done was crueler than if he hadn't showed up at all. I went to bed that night completely emotionally exhausted after sitting on the sofa for hours, wracking my brain trying to figure out some reason he could have had for acting the way he did. I couldn't do it. There was no good reason. Cade Parker had changed.

  Chapter 14: Cade

  I don't have any kind of excuse for leaving Ellie the way I did that night. She told me later, a long time later, that it felt like I was trying to punish her and the worst part of it is, I think it was. Something had snapped in my mind when she told me about her sometimes-boyfriend and the fact that she was sleeping with him. I thought I was prepared. Ever since leaving North Falls I'd tried to force myself to be OK with the fact that Ellie's life was going to move on. That she was going to have relationships. That some other man was going to experience her hot, breathy sighs in his ear as she gave him the sweet little pussy that no matter how much I tried, I could not convince myself did not belong to me.