Cade: Fire And Ice: A Second Chance Hockey Romance (4 page)

"Does it still hurt, Ellie? Do you like it?"

I couldn't tell if I liked it, the sensations were too new for me to be able to consciously sort pleasure from pain. I knew I wanted him deeper, closer to that spot inside that seemed to need more and more of what he was giving me.

"Oh!" I said, surprised, as the feeling of the pain didn't fade away so much as get pushed into the background as something else took precedence. Something insistent and brand new.

"Ellie? What? Does it feel good?"

Cade's hands were on my breasts again and my body was moving itself, rushing ahead of my mind, aware of what it needed.

"Oh my God, Cade."

He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. "Does that feel good? Do you like the way my cock feels inside you?"

"Yeah, Cade. Yes." I breathed, my hips quickening.

"Oh, fuck, Ellie. Are you going to come? Baby, I want you to come. I want to feel you come..."

The way Cade talks to me when he's inside me - and the effect it has on me - was there from the very start. His deep, ragged voice pushed me right up to the edge and I stayed there for a few seconds, looking into his eyes as the first few sweet twitches of pleasure in my sex sent them rolling back into his head.

I screamed when I came, helplessly, my body seized with sweetness and the pain of my freshly taken virginity. My muscles clenched themselves tightly around Cade over and over until my mind was completely blank and I wasn't conscious of anything but him and the feeling of him inside me.

As soon as he realized what was happening, Cade came too, thrusting his hips up hard and burying himself into me, groaning and gripping my body. I took him, every inch and drop of him as my traitor body forced me down further, harder, until my eyes were tearing up and I was starting to come to my senses again.

I tried to pull myself off Cade but he held me there for a few more seconds as his hips jerked up one more time and his quick, hot breath on my neck finally started to slow. When I knew he was finished, I lifted my body up gingerly, whimpering slightly as we parted. A sudden, extreme tiredness came over me and I collapsed against Cade's chest, sweaty and breathless and just starting to be aware of the cold night air filtering in through the steamed-up car windows.

"Ellie," he whispered, kissing the top of my head, then my cheek, then lifting my fingers to his mouth and kissing the tips of them one by one. "You're so beautiful."

On the Monday morning after the weekend that had started with me taking Ellie Hesketh's virginity, I went to school with a package in my backpack for her, wrapped in shiny pink wrapping paper I'd found in my mother's gift-wrapping supplies closet. I hadn't seen or spoken to her all weekend, because she didn't have a cell phone or a computer. What she did have was three little brothers who needed to be taken care of and a complete lack of free time. Unable to wait for history class, I decided to go and wait for her at her locker, eager to give her the brand new Motorola RAZR phone I'd bought.

When I got to the block of lockers that contained hers, I saw something that made me so angry I almost put my fist through a wall, right then and there. Scratched into the metallic door of her locker was a single word: SLUT.

I stared at the word for a few minutes as a small, curious crowd gathered around me and my mind narrowed down on one thing: Ellie couldn't be allowed to see it. I could have gone to the main office and told someone about it, but they wouldn't remove it in time for Ellie not to see it - it would involve sanding or painting over or some other thing that was going to take time. She was going to be there any minute so I did the only thing I could think of and picked out one of the students in the crowd, a girl in one of the grades below me.

"Go get Mr. Russell. Tell him to bring the - the whatever it is he uses to cut locks."

She didn't immediately react and I had to repeat myself before she gave me a little shrug and walked off to get the Mr. Russell, the janitor. Then I curled one of my hands into a tight fist and slammed it into the locker door as hard as I could, warping it enough to allow me to tear it off the hinges. It dangled there from the lock and I flipped it around so the word was no longer visible. Then I waited for the janitor to show up as the knuckles in my hand throbbed.

When Ellie got there, breaking into a huge smile as soon as she saw me waiting for her and before noticing her now-doorless locker, I just about melted with relief. Mr. Russell had objected to cutting the lock at first but I knew he knew who I was and I knew that meant he was probably going to do what I'd asked him to.

"What the-?"

Ellie was staring at her locker, the smile disappearing evenly from her face. It occurred to me just then that I hadn't thought of an explanation.

"What happened?"

"I, uh..." I stalled, willing my brain to come up with something. It refused. "I don't know - I just got here."

I expected Ellie to be angry but if anything she seemed to immediately accept the fact that someone had ripped the door off her locker. I didn't understand her reaction.

"Aren't you - I mean, do you want to go the office or something?"

She shrugged. "Cade, no one's going to care. Can you take some of my stuff? If I leave it like this it's just going to get stolen."

I transferred the contents of her locker into my backpack, still baffled at her total lack of emotion.

"Is someone pissed at you?"

"Dunno. Probably one of Katy Grebling's friends. Could be anyone, really. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not the most popular girl at school."

Truthfully? I hadn't noticed. It wasn't until later that day, standing in the emergency room with my bleeding, stoic girlfriend that it even started to dawn on me how much I had never noticed social dynamics. As far as I was concerned high school was one long social event and even though certain people tended to hang out with certain others, there didn't seem to be very much actual hostility. I was completely wrong.

I bent down to try to kiss Ellie before we both headed off to our first class but she ducked away, furtively glancing around to see if anyone had noticed.

"Cade. Don't."

Not a single one of my girlfriends had ever been anything other than enthused about my public displays of affection. Most of them had seemed to view it as a badge of honor.

"What? Why?"

Ellie looked impatient. "I have to go. Are you walking me home today? I'll tell you then. OK?"

I really wanted to kiss her. I wanted to feel her little body against mine again. It was the only thing I'd thought about all weekend. But she obviously wasn't having any of it.

When history class finally rolled around, she still seemed on edge.

"Listen, Cade. Can you meet me at the convenience store after class? I need to - um, I need to get something there."

"Why don't we just go together?"

"I have talk to, uh...Cade, I have to take care of something. Can you just meet me at the store? Please?"

Ellie's voice was exasperated and I had some idea that she was lying but I couldn't figure out why so I just agreed to meet her at the store. When the final bell for class rung she shot up out of her seat and practically ran out of the room without a word to me. What the hell was she up to?

The convenience store was located behind the school, in the opposite direction to Ellie's house, so I took a shortcut across one of the football fields. She'd obviously had the same idea, because as soon as I rounded the first bend in the track that ran through the small forest at the back of the field, I saw her.

She was bent over at a strange angle. At first, I thought she was laughing. I was just about to shout her name when I spotted Katy Grebling and three other girls standing in front of Ellie in a semi-circle. When one of them reached out and took a handful of Ellie's thick, dark hair in her hands, yanking it forward hard enough to send my girlfriend sprawling onto the snowy ground, I lost my mind.

If the path had been ice and I'd been on my skates, I wouldn't have gotten to her faster than I did that afternoon. None of the girls even saw me until I was right there, the blood pounding hard in my head and my throat so tight with anger I could barely get the words out.

"What the... fuck are you... doing?" I panted.

The urge to punch the girl I'd seen pulling Ellie's hair was so extreme I actually raised my clenched fist, only realizing what I was about to do when Ellie reached up and scrabbled at my torso with one hand.

"Don't, Cade. Don't do it."

Her other hand was cupping her lower face. When she looked up at me I watched two bright red streams of blood ooze out between her fingers and start to run down her wrist.

"Jesus Christ! Ellie? What the fuck?" I whirled around to face Katy and the other girls, shouting now. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?"

I could see the fear in all of their eyes. It was Katy who managed to get herself together first and offer a simpering little smile.

"Your girlfriend is a stupid little bitch, Cade."

"Cade, Cade...!"

Ellie choked as she pleaded with me, moving her hand aside to spit blood onto the snow. She was my priority. All that blood. She needed to get to a hospital. And I knew I needed to keep my hands off the other girls, even as the desire to send them all flying boiled up inside me so strongly it almost made me lightheaded. I looked Katy right in the eye.

"You're going to be charged for this. You're all going to be charged. This is assault. So go home and tell your worthless parents to call their lawyers."

Two of the girls took off at once, one of them in tears, but Katy and the other one stayed put.

"Good luck with that, Cade. My father is the best lawyer in town and he's best friends with the judge. Nothing's gonna happen. It never does."

I took a step towards her as Ellie snatched at the back of my jacket, weakly trying to hold me back. Katy Grebling wasn't stupid. She knew if she hung around my ability to control myself was going to slip, so she flipped a lock of her long, blonde hair over her shoulder and spun around.

"Come on, Macey. Let's leave these two losers to their loser shit." She turned to look at me. "I hope you used a condom, Cade. The last thing North Falls needs is more white trash bitches like this one."

They walked away. They didn't run, they walked. When they were far enough away to feel safe, I actually heard Katy giggling and a fresh, searing wave of anger washed over my body.

"Cade."

I knelt down in the bloodstained snow in front of Ellie, almost crying at the sight of her.

"Ellie. We have to go the hospital. Can you walk?"

Slowly, she straightened up, still holding her hand over her nose and mouth.

"Show me."

She pulled her hand away from her face and I saw at once that her nose was broken and two of her teeth had been knocked out. The fact that she needed help, and that I was the only one to help her get it was the only thing that kept me from breaking down right there.

"Ellie, oh...Ellie, what happened? Why did they do this? What-?"

"It hurts to talk, Cade. Can you help me find my teeth?"

Tears overflowed and ran copiously down her cheeks. All I wanted to do was hold her but as soon as I reached out she shook her head.

"No, it hurts. My mouth hurts. Don't touch me."

"OK, Ellie. OK, baby. Let me find your teeth and then we'll go to the ER. Just...just give me a minute."

It took me five goddamned minutes to find her teeth in the dirty, bloody snow as she stood over me whimpering in pain and clutching my shoulder for support.

"Can you walk? I can carry you?"

She put her arm out to hold me off, a gesture I recognized well from hockey games when someone gets badly hurt and doesn't quite know how bad it is.

"No, Cade. Please, let me walk. I think my wrist might be broken."

So we walked back down the path and across the field to the parking lot where my car was parked. She lowered herself gingerly into the passenger seat, still dripping blood everywhere, and I closed the door as gently as I could. We didn't say much on the drive to the hospital, mostly because she was in too much pain and my brain was too occupied with murderous thoughts about what I wanted to do to Katy Grebling and her friends.

When we got into the ER and up to the front desk, I noticed a distinct lack of urgency on the part of the staff. The receptionist was actually eyeballing Ellie with something that looked a lot like suspicion.

"Do you have insurance?"

"No," Ellie replied, gagging slightly on the blood collecting in her broken mouth. I tried to cut in.

"I can pay. Just - just get a doctor."

The receptionist didn't even look at me.

"Miss, you understand that you need to pay for any injuries we treat here?"

I couldn't take another second of it.

"GET A DOCTOR RIGHT NOW!" I bellowed, slamming my fist - the same one I'd used to punch Ellie's locker door - down on the counter, which cracked loudly under the blow.

Everyone in the waiting room looked up at me - including the receptionist. I watched the recognition of who I was dawn in her eyes.

"Oh! Cade Parker!"

Her tone was absurdly flirtatious. Did she not see the bleeding girl standing next to me? I leaned over the desk and looked her right in the eyes.

"If you don't get a doctor down here right now - and I mean
right now
- there is going to be trouble. Get a doctor. NOW!"

Realizing her tidy waiting room was about to get wrecked, the receptionist immediately summoned a doctor. Two doctors, in fact. I started to follow them into one of the examination rooms but one of them put his hand up:

"Sir, you're going to have to wait outside."

I didn't go back to the waiting room. I sat down right outside the room where Ellie was being examined until the receptionist came tip-toeing up to me.

"Cade Parker? Ellie Hesketh isn't going to be able to afford treatment here. I need to know how you two plan on paying for this. I also need to know how you plan on paying for the damage you just caused to the front desk."

Without speaking or even looking at her, I pulled out my wallet and handed her my credit card, the one linked to my parent's bank account.

"Put it on this."

As she walked away I slumped down against the wall as the adrenaline started to leech out of my body and my heart finally started to slow down slightly. The image of the girl in the woods pulling Ellie onto the snow would not leave my mind. I wanted to hurt her, as badly as she had hurt Ellie. Worse. I wanted to hurt all of them.

The things I witnessed that day changed me. I already knew, on some level, that Ellie didn't live the same kind of life I did. I knew she didn't have a lot of money or parents who cared about her the way I was used to parents caring about their children. What shocked me was everyone else. The casual violence of Katy Grebling and her friends and their total dismissal of Ellie as a human being, their open amusement at her suffering. The complete lack of concern from the receptionist at the ER, who had to be yelled at before she was able to truly see the injured, bleeding girl in front of her. I lay in bed for hours that night before falling asleep, my body rigid with helpless anger at how Ellie had been treated. And almost worse than the treatment itself was Ellie's lack of surprise, her resignation and acceptance of the day's events. It was like she
expected
it. I couldn't accept that. It made me want to crawl out of my skin. I had to show her. I had to convince her that she was worthy of concern, of love.