The Journey Home(19)
Author: Kelly Elliott

“Oh, Andre,” I moaned.

I heard what sounded like someone saying excuse me.

“Bella, are you still wet for me?” Andre asked.

“Um…Maddie?”

Cale? I was hearing Cale’s voice. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since that kiss on his deck over a month ago.

Andre quickly pulled my shirt down and eased me back onto my feet.

I attempted to compose myself. Why I cared that he’d caught me making out with another man, I had no clue. Zoey had texted me just yesterday to tell me that Cale had asked her to marry him. It was official: He’d never be mine.

“Cale? Is everything all right?” I asked. “Is Zoey okay?”

Cale and Andre glared at each other. As if they were both trying to lay claim to me.

“Cale? Why are you here?” I said, more sternly this time.

Keeping his eyes on Andre, Cale said, “I needed to talk to you.”

Andre smiled, “Well sorry, signore. You’re going to have to talk to her tomorrow. We were in the middle of something.”

My heart dropped to the floor when Cale turned his gaze to me. He shook his head, disappointed. “Some guy you picked up for the evening?”

My mouth dropped open and Andre grabbed Cale by the shirt. “Don’t you ever talk to her like that again, you prick!”

Cale looked at me with something in his eyes I’d never seen before. “Answer me, Maddie,” he said.

Andre pushed Cale back and slammed him into the side of my house. “Her name is Maddison.”

Cale broke Andre’s grip with a few quick moves. I didn’t even have time to let out a scream before Cale had Andre pinned up against the house. “Her name is Maddie.”

I approached Cale to pull him away, and that’s when I smelled the alcohol. “Stop this,” I said. “Now.”

“I just wanted to talk to you,” Cale said.

I nodded. “Let go of him, Cale. If you let go of him, I’ll talk to you.”

“What?” Andre said. “The hell you will, Bella.”

I turned to Andre. “I know him, Andre. He’s an old friend and I’m close with his fiancée who is going to have a baby soon. Let me just talk to him. He’s clearly upset.”

Andre’s eyes flicked back and forth between me and Cale. He shook his head and said, “Bella, he interrupted us.”

I could feel my cheeks burning as Cale rolled his eyes and walked up to my door.

I walked Andre back out to the curb. His driver always waited for him, no matter how long he stayed with me. “I promise to make it up to you. I swear,” I whispered against Andre’s ear as I kissed him goodbye. He looked pissed, but kissed me again before getting into the BMW and driving off. I rushed back to check on Cale.

I unlocked my door and pulled Cale inside. “If Zoey sees you here, she’s going to freak.” I said as he stumbled over to my sofa.

“She lied.”

“Who?” I asked as I took off my jacket. My nipples were still hard from all of Andre’s foreplay.

Cale checked out my breasts. “Does he turn you on, Bella?”

I shot Cale a dirty look. “Stop it. You have no right to judge me.”

He held up his hands in surrender.

I sat down and took off my heels. “Now, who lied to you?”

“Zoey,” he sighed. “I found out today from the doctor that she’s not as far along as she’d claimed to be.”

I leaned back into the sofa. “What do you mean?”

He laughed and shook his head. “I mean, she wasn’t fucking pregnant when she told me she was. She lied because she knew I was going to break up with her.”

I sat up, leaning closer to him. “Well, do you know for sure, Cale? I mean these dates aren’t always completely accurate, you know?”

Cale stood up and walked into my kitchen. “Do you have a beer?”

I let out a long, deep breath. He wasn’t going to be able to make it back home at this rate. The last thing he needed was beer.

“Cale, why don’t I make you a cup of coffee? Do you want me to call Zoey to come pick you up?”

“No!” He shook his head. “Maddie, I confronted her this afternoon. She broke down and told me she overheard Jack and me talking about how I wasn’t feeling it with her. She said she panicked and that’s when she told me she was sick. When it still seemed like I was going to break up with her, she lied about being pregnant.”

I covered my mouth in shock. “What? She admitted this to you?”

He stumbled, and I ran over and caught him before he could fall.

“Yep,” he said. “And I just fucking asked her to marry me because her fucking mother and my fucking mother both guilted me with all this ‘Zoey is sick and deserves to be properly married’ bullshit,” he said. Then he laughed. “Nothing like being forced into a fucking fake marriage.”

I stood there, stunned. None of this made any sense.

He leaned against the kitchen counter and grabbed my arms. “Don’t you see, Maddie? She lied. If she hadn’t lied, I’d have found you. We would be together, and that would be me holding you like that and me sucking on your nipples. It would be me asking if I turned you on…not some asshole.”

The heat between my legs was unreal. Cale just talking about touching me turned me on more than anything. I fought back the urge to tell him to touch me. I stepped away and he smiled at me.

“You feel it, don’t ya, Maddie? Tell me you feel it.”

I wanted to tell him I felt it. I wanted to run into his arms and beg him to make love to me. But I knew he was drunk. I knew that, sober, he’d be thinking about Zoey and the baby. Even if he was angry, he wouldn’t have run to me if he weren’t intoxicated.

“Cale, you need to go home.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “You’re doing it again. You’re pushing me away. I’m tired of it, Maddie. I’m so tired of it.”

I swallowed hard and turned to find my phone. I needed Jack to come pick up Cale.

I was about to dial my phone when Cale grabbed me. He turned me around and backed me up until I hit the living room wall.

His eyes were filled with lust. That look had my panties soaked in seconds.

He lifted up my dress and, in one quick movement, he ripped my panties from my body. I wanted to cry out yes. I wanted to let him take me, but I couldn’t.

“Cale,” I said. “Don’t do this.”

He kissed my neck and I started to give in. When his hand touched my inner thigh, I startled. His lips moved to mine and I moaned, desperately, into his mouth. He brushed his fingers against my lips. Slowly, he pulled up my leg and sank his fingers inside me.