Warriors,Winners & Wicked Lies: 13 Book Excite Spice Military, Sports & Secret Baby Mega Bundle (Excite Spice Boxed Sets)

by Selena Kitt

  I looked up at her, absurdly hopeful that she might be about to ask me to meet her regularly for cupcakes and girl talk and the mothering I so completely lacked.

  "It's best if you don't talk to Cade about this. I'm trying to keep it all separate from him so he can concentrate on his hockey. How does that sound to you?"

  "I won't say anything." I said, so eager to please a person who had no interest in my well-being that just thinking of it years later was enough to make me cry.

  "That's good to hear. I trust you."

  I was naive at eighteen. More naive than most other eighteen year olds. But I wasn't stupid. I fell for Mrs. Parker's concerned mom act, yeah, but at the same time I understood that she was basically right. I was a distraction for Cade. He was going to leave soon, for another city and another life and I was going to stay in North Falls to look after the three little boys who had literally no one else to do it for them. It wasn't going to be temporary, either. Baby Ben was only two years old and it was going to be a very long time until he was able to look after himself.

  I fixed dinner for the boys and sat down with them as they ate. They didn't have anyone except me. I had to stay with them, nothing else was possible. David looked up at one point as he shoveled another spoonful of soup into his mouth.

  "Are you sad, Ellie? Your face looks funny."

  "No," I lied, "I'm not sad. I'm just thinking about how much I love all of you."

  The last part wasn't a lie. It was a truth that couldn't be ignored or put aside or downplayed. Cade was going to leave North Falls. And I was going to stay.

  Cade

  My parents started watching me like hawks after the incident with the credit card bill. It took a few days to find the opportunity to get away but I took it one night after practice, slipping out early and driving to Ellie's trailer as the sun set over the ugly, treeless landscape. There was a light on inside and I knew she was probably going to be angry at me for showing up, but I was starting to go crazy with missing her. I was also almost constantly torturing myself with the possible reasons as to why she hadn't come back to school yet or made any attempt to contact me.

  I knocked on the flimsy front door lightly and it opened a few seconds later. One of her brothers - David, I think - was standing there. He looked up at me for a few seconds and then disappeared silently into the living room. Three little boys in that household and there was never a sound.

  Then Ellie appeared and I felt a huge smile spreading across my face. She opened the door and stepped outside, closing it behind her before saying anything.

  "Cade! Why are you-"

  She stopped talking when I wrapped my arms around her small, warm body. I felt her melt against me when she gave up trying to resist. We stood there for a long time, holding each other close.

  "Ellie," I said, finally, "why aren't you at school? Are you OK? I've been going nuts worrying about you."

  She lay her pale cheek against my chest, being careful not to bump her broken nose, and sighed.

  "I didn't feel like going to school, Cade."

  I was a little taken aback. That was it? She didn't feel like going to school?

  "Well...OK. Did you feel like seeing me?"

  She looked up at me through her long, dark eyelashes and a little jolt of electricity ran through my body.

  "I - Cade, yes, of course I wanted to see you. But I also didn't."

  "Why? Why wouldn't you want to see me? The only thing I've been thinking about all week is you, Ellie."

  She slumped against me. "You don't understand, Cade. I was embarrassed. I am embarrassed. I didn't want anyone at school to see me like this. Don't you know how much everyone hates me? Haven't you noticed? And they hate me even more now everyone knows I'm...with you."

  I caught the little moment of hesitation before she said 'with you.'

  "Yeah, Ellie, you're with me. You can say it, because it's true. And I don't give a fuck who knows it."

  It wasn't entirely true. I gave a fuck if my parents knew it, if only because I was still living with them for however much longer it would be until I got drafted.

  "It's easy for you to say that, Cade. Everyone worships you. You can do whatever you want-"

  I cut her off. "Ellie, come on. That isn't true."

  She looked up at me sharply. "What? Cade, are you joking?"

  "No, I'm not joking. If I could do whatever I wanted things would be a lot easier."

  Ellie slipped her cold hands up under my shirt suddenly, running them lightly over my torso. Already half-hard just from the feeling of her body against mine, I was instantly, completely erect.

  "I missed you, Cade."

  Her voice was so soft and sad, somehow. The pit of anger that had been in my stomach almost since I met her, the uncontrollable urge to protect her from everything in her life that could cause her pain and my rage at the knowledge that I wasn't going to be able to do that, rose up inside me. I wanted to kill Katy Grebling. I wanted to pick Ellie's useless parents up by their necks and force them to tell me why they'd failed their own child so thoroughly. I wanted to take away all of her cares and responsibilities and see who she was without them suffocating her. But I couldn't do any of those things. All of that aggression had to go somewhere. When I slid my hand down her hip and clamped it tightly onto her ass she gasped, but she didn't pull away.

  What Ellie did was understand me. She knew where my frustration was coming from - she felt it, too. She took my rough, hard kisses, meeting them with her own soft lips and her pliant body until we were both breathing hard.

  "Is your mom home?" I asked when we finally came up for air and my cock was throbbing for her.

  "Yes. Can we - can we go for a drive somewhere?"

  Ellie's voice was breathless. I kept my hand on her thigh as I drove to some random, deserted parking lot, barely managing to keep the car on the road as the sweet warmth of her sex drew my fingers upward.

  We were both desperate. Did we know, on some level, that it would be the last time? I don't think we could have, but there was a frenzy to things between us that in hindsight reminds me of the desperate clinches you see couples giving each other at airports, born of the knowledge that it's going to be a very long time, if ever, until you have that person in your arms again.

  Ellie whimpered as she lowered herself onto my cock, her hot breath against my cheek.

  "Does it hurt?"

  She shook her head as she pushed herself down the entire length of me and my breath caught in my throat at the feeling of her slippery wetness surrounding me.

  "No, Cade. No, it doesn't hurt."

  She pulled her t-shirt off over her head and removed her bra as she rode me, leaning her head back and sighing loudly as I cupped her breasts in my hands and ran my thumbs over her hard little nipples.

  "Oh my God, Cade..."

  I watched her work herself up, bewitched by all the little details of her arousal. The way the pink bow of her mouth hung open as she got closer and the way she put her good hand flat on my chest, digging her fingernails helplessly into my flesh as I felt her thighs stiffen around me. I almost didn't manage to hold off but then she came and I let myself go, groaning and straining my hips upwards as her body took me.

  She stayed on my lap afterwards, her head nestled into my chest, giggling and asking me if there was any kleenex in the car when my cum began to run down one of her thighs. Ellie was the first girl I ever wanted to stay with when it was over. Usually it was a grim rush to get out of there as soon as my balls were empty but with Ellie sex just made me want to be with her even more.

  Eventually she crawled off and started pulling her clothes back on, throwing me little smiles every few seconds that made me want to pull her right back onto my lap and go at it again.

  "We're going to have to find somewhere to do this that isn't my dad's car," I commented, balling up the tissues that Ellie used to clean herself up with and shoving them into my backpack.

  "I don't mind," Ellie replied, i
ntertwining her fingers with mine, "it's better than-"

  Bright light suddenly filled the car and we both looked up, shielding our eyes.

  "Who the hell...?" I asked, reaching for the door handle and pissed off at being interrupted.

  "Cade. Get out of the car."

  Me and Ellie both looked at each other at the same time, eyes wide. It was my father's voice.

  "Oh fuck, Ellie. It's my dad."

  She scrambled to get her shoes on as I made sure my jeans were zipped back up and ran a hand ineffectively through my hair.

  "Shit, shit, shit. Just-"

  I was about to ask Ellie to tell my dad nothing was going on when he yanked my door open and grabbed me by the ear, a move I remembered him using a few times when I was a child but one that was so unexpected it shocked me into compliance. For a little while.

  "Get out, Cade."

  I got out of the car, waiting to see how my dad was going to handle the situation and then saw my mom step out of the Lexus and walk over to us, shaking her head.

  "Oh, Cade. This is so disappointing."

  That made me angry and my anger made me flustered.

  "Why are you here? This isn't your business."

  My father, still holding me by the ear like I was a naughty child, leaned in and snarled.

  "This is most definitely our business, Cade. Whose car is this? Who paid for that girl's treatment at the hospital?"

  "What does that have to do with-"

  "GET IN THE CAR, CADE!" My dad bellowed. "Right now. That little tramp can find her own way h-"

  My parents and I rarely fought. I'd had a few spankings as a kid and there were arguments, sure, but I'd never seen either of them as infuriated as they were that night. I didn't think about what I did before I did it. The word "tramp" came out of my dad's mouth and the next thing I knew he was on the ground and I was standing over him, fist-raised as my mom screamed at me to stop and Ellie watched silently.

  My dad got back to his feet at once and I could feel something had changed between us, something enormous and unspoken. His voice was different, less angry. He almost sounded like he was afraid of me.

  "Get in the car, Cade. Get in the car or I am calling the police. That was assault."

  Suddenly, Ellie spoke up, her voice distraught.

  "Cade, I'm going home. I'll see you in school. Go with your parents."

  "Ellie!"

  I started to run after her but she turned around and shook her head slightly.

  "Just go with them, Cade. Don't make this worse for yourself than it already is."

  I watched her walk quickly away, hunching her shoulders up against the cold wind and not looking back. It was the last time I saw her for five years.

  Ellie

  The next time I saw Cade Parker after his parents caught us that night in the parking lot, it was on Youtube as I sat in front of a grimy computer in North Falls' only public library. His hair was different, cut short and trendily styled, and he was pulling a Los Angeles Kings jersey over his head as camera flashes popped and people cheered. It was six months since I'd seen him and it felt like ten years. I watched the clip over and over again, knowing it probably wasn't a good idea but unable to tear my eyes away from that thousand watt smile and those broad, strong shoulders. I looked at the faces of the people in the crowd and spotted his parents looking happy and proud. I listened to the commentators talking about his abilities and speculating about how he would do with the L.A. Kings. It all made me feel strangely, fiercely proprietary.

  Did I miss Cade? More than anything. When he left I didn't even have an e-mail address, let alone a phone, but nothing arrived in the mail, either and by the time it was common knowledge that he'd left town with his parents I was resigned to his absence. It was a defensive measure. I already knew damn well that if you didn't hope for things, you were never disappointed when you didn't get them. If you never stood up for yourself, you never had to feel terrible when someone challenged you. I think I knew those statements were lies, but I clung to them the way a drowning person clings to a piece of debris even as they know it won't float.

  There was simply no time to be depressed. Jacob, David and Baby Ben still needed to be looked after every day. Jacob and David had to have someone making sure they got to school every day. All three of them needed to be fed and washed and tucked in at night. It was during this last task, sometime in the early summer of 2005 after high school was finished for good, that David looked up at me as I bent down to kiss him goodnight and asked me a question.

  "Are you sad that your boyfriend left, Ellie?"

  "Yes, David. But he had to go to another city to play hockey."

  "Is that why you were crying in the shed today?"

  I hung my head, not having realized that I'd been seen when I'd retreated to the shed during a particularly acute moment of missing Cade. I nodded back at my brother and replied in a whisper so he wouldn't hear the emotion in my voice.

  "Yeah, David. It's OK to miss people. Now get to sleep, you have school tomorrow."

  He reached up and wrapped his skinny arms around my neck.

  "Good-night, Ellie. Don't be sad. He'll come back when he's finished playing hockey."

  I closed the door quietly behind myself and went to sit in the living room, feeling hopeless. I told myself to get it together, to be grateful for what I once had instead of hurt that I no longer had it.

  Months passed, then years. I started working at the salon full-time when David and Jacob could look after Baby Ben and took a job at the grocery store on weekday evenings. The pay was minimal but it was enough to keep the boys fed and clothed, even if it was only in thrift-store clothes, and it gave me a sense of control over my life that I'd never had before.

  The only thing missing was Cade. Sometimes I stopped at the library and looked for clips of his games online, or news coverage. Once, a story in some Californian newspaper had a picture of him standing shirtless outside the locker room and I spotted a small tattoo on his chest, along with a few others I didn't recognize. It was the one on his chest that interested me, though. It looked at first like the letters 'E' and 'H' but the photo was too blurry to really tell. When he showed up in Sports Illustrated a few months later the tattoo was gone and I berated myself for being so stupid as to think he would have had my initials inked on his chest in the first place.

  There was a woman with him in the Sports Illustrated photo. She was young, pretty and blonde and she was gazing up at Cade with an adoring look on her face. I read the caption underneath the photo:

  "Cade Parker and his girlfriend, actress Jessica Ray, at a fundraiser in Los Angeles, February 2007."

  I shouldn't have spent the next two hours Googling Jessica Ray but I did. She was twenty-one and had a small part in some night-time soap opera I had never heard of. She was also gorgeous. There were a few more photos of the two of them together.

  When I left the library that night it was with a veil of despair over my heart. I made a promise to myself to never go back, to never seek out news on Cade Parker again. I kept the promise, too, but the images of him with Jessica Ray were already burned into my consciousness and they would pop up every now and again at inopportune moments, making my shoulders sag as I thought about the two of them together.

  Cade

  I shouldn't have listened to my parents. I know it now, but at the time I was a dumb kid. When they told me my career was at stake, that Ellie would wait for me if she loved me, that life was about establishing yourself first and finding love second, I believed them. They're not bad people, but they're not infallible either and I was still young enough to believe they were. They wanted the best for me, but they also had no ability to understand that what I wanted for myself and what they wanted for me weren't the same thing. Ellie was just some girl to them. Some girl from the wrong side of town with an alcoholic mother and no prospects. There would be others, they said. Other girls, better girls. After Ellie ignored the letters I sent every week for t
en months I started to think that maybe, my parents were right. Not about who Ellie was, but about the hopelessness of trying to hold onto her.

  But you know what? There weren't any other girls like Ellie Hesketh. There were a lot of girls, sure, I won't deny that. Just none like Ellie. I was young, newly rich and famous and living in a large city famed for its glut of willing, beautiful women. I tried to hold out, but when all my letters went unanswered I just forced myself to accept the fact that Ellie wasn't going to be part of my life and threw myself into a lifestyle that would have been the envy of most men my age. For a while, it seemed to work.

  Glitzy parties, fawning media and fan attention, fast cars and faster women. A few of the guys from the team and I ended up in a tattoo parlor one Saturday night after a particularly big playoff win and drunkenly agreed to get team tattoos. When my turn came, though, I held my hand up at the last minute and told the heavily inked woman who was going to do mine that I wanted something different.