by Penny Dee
I looked up and she was right. Cade was waiting for me farther along the footpath. Wearing a Kings of Mayhem hoodie with his hands shoved in his jeans, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He looked like hell.
Trinity turned to look at me. “Do you want me to tell him to go away?”
I had never seen Cade look so desperate. He was usually so confident, so self-assured. But not today. He was pale with dark circles under his eyes, and while he was still big and broad, he looked like he had lost weight.
I shook my head and walked toward him, while Trinity took a seat on a park bench a few feet away.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, unable to keep the sharpness out of my voice. A deep, searing pain made me tremble. Seeing him was hard. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Cade shifted with uncertainty. “I had to see you.”
“Why? We’re done.”
“Please don’t say that,” he begged. His Adam’s apple bobbed. His lips were red from the cold. He was desperate. “I can’t breathe without you.”
“Then you should’ve thought about that before . . .you know what, I’m not doing this.” I put my hand up. “I’m not rehashing this. Like I said, we’re done.”
I went to walk past him but he grabbed me and pulled me to his chest, desperately squeezing me to him. His smell and the familiarity of his warmth broke my heart all over again and I longed to melt into his embrace. “I need you. I can’t live without out. Please, Indy, you have to give me another chance.” His arms tightened around me. “Tell me you want me again.”
His words cut through me and I couldn’t stand it, so I pushed him away. “I told you we were done.”
“Please,” he begged. “I made a mistake.”
“You had sex with someone else!”
Images of him and her haunted me every day.
“I didn’t know . . . I thought she was —” He stopped when my eyes widened.
“You thought that skank was me?” I cried. Despite the cold and the rain, my blood boiled and I shoved him in the chest. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Trinity stand up. “You couldn’t tell the difference between the girl you supposedly love and some club whore?”
Later, I would be pleased that there was no one in the park to witness the meltdown that followed.
“I heard you moaning. I heard how much you were enjoying her riding you. At first, I thought someone else was in your room. I mean, there was no way, right? You wouldn’t be in there with another woman. But there you were, mid-orgasm with some MC groupie on top of your . . .” My chin quivered and I had to look away for a moment. “For as long as I live I will never be able to forget or forgive what you have done.” I bit my lip to stop it from trembling. “Go home, Cade. You don’t belong here.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders. “I fucked up. I own it. But it’s killing me, Indy.”
I knocked his hands off me. “It’s killing you? What do you think it’s done to me?”
He looked desperate.
“Indy, please—”
My heartache bubbled up and burst from me.
“How could you be so reckless with my heart!” I yelled. I was in so much pain I was almost doubled over with it. “I gave it to you and you broke it!”
He reached for me but I stepped away from him.
“I know and I’m so sorry—” He breathed brokenheartedly, barely able to contain his tears.
“Sorry doesn’t even begin to make this better!” I rasped. I pushed him away and stood in front of him, my pain wide open for him to see. “You’ve taken everything from me. You broke us and there just aren’t enough pieces left to put us back together again. Go away, Cade.”
“But I love you,” he breathed desperately.
Standing in front of him with my grief so exposed, I felt vulnerable. So I grabbed onto my anger to protect myself.
“Well, I don’t love you,” I cried, knowing my words would slay him. “Not anymore.”
He looked at me as if I’d just pulled his heart from his body.
In that moment, he realized we were done, and a hundred different emotions crossed his face before he finally shook his head. A look of absolute grief crossed his face. And in that last moment we just stared at each other as our future dissipated like mist in the dreary afternoon light. Finally, he walked away and I burst into tears.
That night I wrote him a letter telling him to stay away . . . and he did.
For twelve years.
INDY
Now
It was raining. Of course, it was. Because this was fucking Seattle and not Destiny, Mississippi.
Still feeling grim from the scene with Cade at the airport, I pushed back my heartache as I paid the taxi driver, and reluctantly trudged up the stairs to my apartment.
I closed the front door behind me and leaned against it, feeling my heart break all over again. I could move to another country—another planet—and I was never going to be able to outrun my feelings for Cade.
During my seven-hour flight and the fifty-seven-minute layover in Houston, I had tortured myself with a tangle of confused thoughts. But they all came back to the one conclusion. That I had made a huge mistake walking away from him.
Now I was simply exhausted. I had used the last of my resolve to walk away.
I banged the back of my head against the door and closed my eyes.
“Damn,” I whispered to myself, suddenly feeling very lonely.
Kicking off the door, I threw my keys in the ashtray on the kitchen counter and dumped my overnight bag on the couch. I lit a fire to push away the dreary Seattle chill and put on some coffee. Feeling alone and just plain weird about things, I crossed the room to the huge bay window overlooking the park. I leaned against the windowsill and stared out into the bleak night feeling an overwhelming urge to cry. Outside, glittering ribbons of rain fell from the eves in front of the window, and in the light of the streetlamp they glittered like diamonds.
When I felt the tears prick my eyes I got mad. “Don’t you dare fucking cry. You chose this. You chose Seattle over him. You—”
My phone buzzed in my hand, making me jump.
To my surprise, it was Cade, and seeing his name on the screen filled me with so much warmth I wanted to run out of that apartment and hightail it back to Destiny.
After the scene at the airport, he was the last person I expected to hear from.
Smiling through my sadness I answered it, trying to conceal the emotion in my voice and the tears that had started to fall down my cheeks.
“Stop crying,” he said softly.
God, it was good to hear his voice. “I’m not crying.”
“Yes, you are.”
I smiled. Thinking how typical it was of him to think he knew me so well. “Is that right?”
There was silence for a moment before he spoke again, “Indy?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you answer me one thing?”
Not sure if I should agree or not, I answered quietly, “Sure.”
There was more silence, and then Cade’s voice was husky as he asked, “Are you crying because you’re still in love with me?”
I started to nod and cry harder.
“No,” my voice cracked as a new wave of heartache stiffened my face with emotion.
“Don’t lie to me,” Cade said gently.
“I’m … not.”
“Then why are you nodding?”
“I’m not . . . wait, how—”
My head shot up, and my eyes frantically searched the street outside my window. And there he was, slowly stepping out of the shadows of the chilly Seattle evening and into the streetlight.
Cade.
The love of my life.
The dam broke then and I didn’t need to think, I just ran, not even closing my front door behind me. I flew down the steps and out into the rain, not stopping until I reached the comfort of his arms and the sweet, sweet bliss of his lips against mine.
Rain poured over us,
but neither of us cared. All we knew was each other. All we knew was the emotion between us.
Cade’s palms were strong against my jaw as he held me tight, his mouth moving strong and demanding over mine. A low moan came from deep within him and I could feel his desperation in the way he kissed me.
He pulled away and looked at me desperately.
“Tell me how I let you go without it killing me and I will,” he said, his voice rising over the rain. “Tell me how I live without you without it destroying me.”
I shook my head, my hair saturated with rain. “I don’t want you to let me go.”
Cade pulled back, his brow dug in. “But—”
I reclaimed the space between us and smashed my mouth to his, kissing him fiercely. My palms pressed hard against his face, holding me close to him. Because I couldn’t get close enough to him.
He pulled back to look at me, searching my face for the answers.
“What are you saying?” he asked, rain bouncing off his lips.
“I’m saying you’re right, Cade. You’re right.” I shook my head a little. “I shouldn’t have left you at the airport. We do have something magical, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t outrun it. But that’s the thing—I don’t want to. Not anymore. I don’t want to run away from you or the club, or us.” My voice continued to rise as my emotions did, and I gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “It’s like I’ve been asleep for the last twelve years, and I’ve just woken up.” Tears mingled with rain on my face. “I don’t want this life I have if it’s without you.”
It was true. And it was a relief to finally admit it.
Oh God. It felt so good to finally say it.
“You don’t have to, Indy. Not if you don’t want to.” He pointed to his broad chest. “I’m all yours. All of me. If you want me. And I promise you, on my life, I will never let anything come between us again.”
He kissed me again. Hard and urgent. And I kissed him back
“Tell me you’re mine,” he begged against my mouth.
I kissed him. “Haven’t I always been?”
We barely made it inside my apartment, separating our mouths only long enough to remove our wet clothes. Then Cade lay me down on the plush rug in front of the fireplace and made love to me, exquisitely slow, exquisitely meaningful, every push into my body deliberate and deep. His hands roamed my body and his lips and tongue trailed along my throat, engulfing me in the heat of his kiss, of his lovemaking, of him. And I moved beneath him, slowly, wrapping my legs around his hips and welcoming every deep plunge into my body. Feeling every stroke to my very core, feeling the fierce swell of my orgasm as it moved through me to finally erupt in white light across my brain.
“Cade!” I cried out his name, not once, but over and over as my body and mind were completely and utterly overwhelmed by the potent ecstasy flooding every cell of me.
He drove into me one last time and buried his face into my neck and grasped at the rug beneath us, twisting it in his hands as he came.
Still inside me, he looked down into my face.
“I love you, Indy.” Light from the fire flickered across his handsome face. “Stop running from me.”
I looked up at him. “Don’t give me a reason to run and I won’t.”
The light from the fire reflected in his blue eyes.
“Never again. You have my word.”
And with that, he began to make love to me all over again.
CADE
Now
“So, Indy, are you back for good?” Isaac asked, leaning across the table and digging a handful of peanuts out of the bowl next to a bowl of sugared almonds. My mom was crazy for nuts. Brazil nuts. Peanuts. Chocolate-covered almonds. You name it; there were bowls of the stuff all over the house.
We were sitting at the twelve-seater dining table.
I looked across at Indy who grinned back at my cousin.
“Maybe. Why, you miss me?” She threw a sugared almond at him.
He grinned and nodded at me. “Nah, just sick of his whining is all. I was worried he’d grown a vagina.”
She chuckled. “You know that’s an impossibility, right?”
“I’m serious… the dude was one step away from crying into his fucking Lucky Charms, every day.” He winked at Indy. “If you’re back, then I’m fucking happy. It’s a good thing.”
Indy looked up at me and then turned back to Isaac. “I thought I might hang out for a while… see what happens.”
“What about your job at the hospital? Were they pissed?”
“I applied for a transfer to St Gabriel’s. They have a vacancy coming up in emergency.”
“That’s almost like a sign,” he said with a wink. “It’s good you’re back. ’Bout time you two got your shit together. Don’t think there’s been a finer match made in hell.”
He stood up and stretched, yawning, and then grabbing his cigarettes off the table, put one in his mouth. “I gotta shoot. You bitches play nice.”
When he was gone, I looked at my girl sitting across the table from me.
“You know, we’ve got the house to ourselves for a couple of hours,” I said.
Since returning from Seattle, we alternated living between all three homes: my mom’s, Indy’s mom’s, and the clubhouse.
Indy grinned with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “Best we make the most of it then.”
In my room, I took my time removing her clothes and making love to her. I wanted to make her pregnant. I wanted to fill her with my babies and make her my wife. I wanted to make it so nothing would ever come between us and keep us separated again.
I knew it was crazy wanting all those things so quickly. But I had grown up wanting them with her, so it was only natural for them to resurface with her return to Destiny.
Looking down at her, I looked into her eyes. I had won the lottery. I had everything I wanted. I just hoped she felt the same way.
“I love you,” I said. And I had never meant anything more in that one moment. “Tell me what I need to do to keep you with me.”
“I need to take things one step at a time,” she replied soberly.
“We can work things out together.” I wiped a strand of hair from her cheek. Still inside her, I felt her clench around me. “Promise me that we can. That you won’t run away again.”
She nodded and slid her hand behind my neck, pulling me down to kiss me. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered against my lips.
I rose up on my forearms again. Sliding my turquoise and silver ring from my finger, I reached for her left hand and slipped it over her ring finger. “You’re my girl.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making you mine for good.”
Surprise turned into a big smile. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“I don’t want any other girl, Indy. From the moment I met you, we were meant to be together.”
“This isn’t really taking things one day at a time,” she said with a soft chuckle.
I smiled and curled my hand around the ring and her finger. “This is permanent.”
She gave me one of her serious looks. “I won’t cook for you.”
“You can’t cook anyway.”
She grinned “And I don’t iron.”
“Baby, do I look like the kind of guy who gives a fuck about ironing?”
I was hard as fuck now, and when I started to move inside her again, an involuntary moan escaped her parted lips.
“In fact, I won’t wash, clean, or run after you in any way, shape, or form,” she said. She was trying to keep focused on her argument, but the fact that I was slowly fucking her was becoming a distraction.
“And I won’t be at your beck and call, like the other old ladies.” She tried to sound tough, but she was close to whimpering as my cock moved in and out of her. I pressed in deep and hard against her pelvis with mine.
“Aha,” I said, running my tongue along her neck.
“And don’t expect me to wait at home for y
ou to come home. I’m an independent woman.”
I pressed harder into her. “Indy…”
“Yes?”
“Are you always going to be such a pain in the ass?”
I felt her grin against my shoulder. “You can count on it, Cade. I ain’t one of your club bunnies.”
I looked down at her. “Club bunnies?” God, I was in love with her.
“Like Sandy or Candy, or whatever the fuck their names are.”
The beginnings of another orgasm began to swell in me.
“I think I got it. You ain’t no cooking, cleaning, ironing, wait-at-home, club bunny.”
“Exactly.”
When she gasped at my sudden thrust, I knew it wasn’t going to take me long to make her come, and I was right. After moving deep and slow into her, she came beneath me in tiny shudders, pressing her fingers deep into my shoulders and squeezing her thighs tight around my hips. It was enough to set me off. My second orgasm was long and drawn out, sinking into my brain and dragging me away on a hazy wave of bliss.
That’s when I made a silent vow to myself. I would only ever do right by this amazing woman. No matter what it took.
CADE—Aged 23
Then
The room smelled like old timber and aged leather. I glanced around me, taking in the rows and rows of old books in the wall-to-ceiling bookcase, and the old desk in front of me that seemed too big for the room. Outside, rain fell like nails from a grey sky.
“This is very generous of you, Mr. Calley,” said the man behind the desk. He was a good-looking man in a suit. African American and big, he smiled at me as he joined his hands together.
“She deserves it,” I said.
“Yes. It is a shame her scholarship fell through. But your generosity will ensure she gets to complete her education and earn her doctorate.”
I nodded. When Lady told me about Indy’s scholarship falling through, I knew I had to do something. Bolt’s illness had drained money from Indy’s college fund and more. Hefty loans meant Lady and Jackie didn’t have the money to spare. And unless they could find the money for her to finish med school, Indy would have to drop out. The club would help out. There was a lot of money in the club because of their lucrative businesses. They would pay for her to finish, Bull had assured them. But I stopped the club from stepping in because I wanted to pay for it.
