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 the sky, sighing to myself and then walked back into the salon. One of my co-workers, Ashley, was eyeballing me.

  "What?"

  She smiled, one of those smiles people give you when they know something you don't.

  "Guess who's back in town, Ellie?"

  I grabbed a broom and started sweeping up hair clippings, uninterested in Ashley's love life.

  "Ellie, seriously, guess who's back?"

  "I have no idea," I replied flatly.

  "That hockey player, from the Kings? The one you dated in high school. Cade Parker?"

  Ashley's words rang in my ears. The name she'd mentioned. Cade Parker. Had I heard her correctly? I kept my eyes on the floor but I could feel heat rising in my face and the sudden pounding in my chest. Cade was back?

  "What? How do you know?"

  "My cousin's wife works at the hotel - she said he checked in this morning. "

  I could feel my co-workers watching me, waiting for a reaction. They knew all about me and Cade Parker back in high school - everyone in North Falls did. I'd almost ruined his career. His parents had to pull him out of school to get him away from me. I got pregnant with his baby and had an abortion against his wishes, breaking his heart. That last part was a complete lie, but it didn't stop anyone from believing it.

  "Oh," I said, still refusing to look up because I didn't want to give the busybodies at the salon the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.

  Cade was back in North Falls? Why? Mary, the fifty-something woman who owned the salon, had the same question.

  "I wonder why he's back in North Falls? Come back to rescue his one true love?"

  There were a few mean titters of laughter at that comment, laughter that no one even bothered to try and stifle. That's how unlikely it was deemed that anyone - let alone Cade Parker - would want to come to North Falls to rescue me.

  Things were different. Different than they had been in high school. But they were still, in their own deflating way, exactly the same. I didn't get beat-up any more, but I still didn't get any respect. I was still the lowest person on anyone's totem pole. That's why my co-workers didn't try to hide their laughter. The idea of Cade Parker being interested in me was literally laughable.

  Still. Why was he back? Was he even back? Was Ashley messing with me? I couldn't ask. To ask would have been to reveal that I cared, and I refused to do that. When my shift was over I gathered my things and left almost immediately, knowing the boys and Kaylee, Bill's daughter, were all home waiting for me.

  The whole drive home I kept expecting to just see him - walking along the side of the road or in another car beside me at a red light. When I walked into my trailer, located in the same park as my mom's but crucially separate from my hers, my heart still hadn't resumed its normal rhythm. But by nine o'clock, when the kids were finally in bed and I was tidying the mess they'd created, I'd pretty much decided that Ashley's cousin had been mistaken. Cade couldn't be back in North Falls. It seemed impossible.

  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 lean
ed 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 list
ening 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.