Chapter 3

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 should’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.