The Winter Games

by Sharp, Dr. Rebecca

  He took one more puff of the blunt—on purpose—raising an eyebrow at me. “Give me something better to put in my mouth and I will.”

  Good Lord.

  I glared at him even as the suggestion brought heat to my cheeks—and some other parts much further south. He knew what I was thinking—the comment I was waiting for about my taco dip. The dirtiest part inside of me had been rolling with anticipation for more sexual banter that would turn into exactly this.

  Actually, the dirtiest parts of my mind had been chugging full steam ahead after last night and the slow-sinking-in reality that Chance—the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen and the man whose orgasms could realign every constellation in my body—was now my roommate. Oh, also the man who happened to be my ex who I cheated on.

  Part of me never considered that kiss cheating; it had been a necessary evil and con. There had only ever been one man in my heart and in my mind. And it hadn’t been Nick Frost.

  He took another puff. Daring me.

  Damn him.

  I stepped towards him, arms still over my chest even though at this point I was only fighting myself for giving in to him—and everything that I craved. Bending down, I put my face in front of his, waiting until he lowered the blunt before I bent in and pressed my lips to his.

  He sat unmoving under my mouth for a second before his tongue demanded entrance. I kissed him, giving him the drug that he craved more than the marijuana hanging limply from his hand. My hands dug into the arm rest behind his head as the kiss deepened like the snow that was falling outside—quickly and heavily with no chance of escaping its uninhibited inundation.

  I gasped into his mouth feeling his other hand close firmly over my breast, kneading—demanding—pleasure from my flesh.

  “As much as I love your mouth, J-bird,” he rasped, pulling away and leaning back against the couch. “I’m craving something a little more addictive… something that will let me give you a little bit of a high.” He took another puff while his eyes slid down my body, stopping decisively right between my thighs.

  I stood back up. Moment of fucking truth. Our eyes met and he blew out smoke slowly in my direction, the oddly sweet smell sticking in my nose.

  Here I was giving him shit for doing recreational drugs when I was the one completely addicted to the hard stuff; I was completely addicted to him.

  Hooking my thumb in the elastic waist of the black yoga pants, I licked my lips. “What do you want, Chance?”

  “Your pussy. Fucking my mouth.”

  With one motion, I slipped the leggings to the floor. I blamed my rush to leave this house this morning, too surprised by his offer to help me, as the reason I wasn’t wearing anything underneath them.

  “Fuck,” he growled, staring at my bare and swollen sex that peeked out from beneath the sweatshirt that I was wearing

  He dropped the blunt on a coaster on the coffee table. Finally tearing his eyes upwards, he glared at me, waiting for his replacement drug.

  “Top off.” My tits perked up as he licked his lips, and I wiggled out of the layers that I had on.

  Now, he had a fully-illuminated view of my tattoos. Again, I kept my elbow tucked in at my side, hiding the only one I couldn’t explain right now.

  I bit back a curse, taking notice of the huge bulge in his pants as I climbed over him on the couch.

  Strangely, we were both in the same situation—wanting each other with a need that wasn’t able to be suppressed. It pulled us together in spite of our past. It pushed us to admit things that had the power to destroy us. And worst of all, it brought to the surface feelings that I was afraid I’d never feel again.

  What we had was a force of nature—something that neither of us could stop or outrun.

  And, if I was honest, my heart stopped wanting to protect itself from the moment it felt him again.

  Bending over him, my hands clasped the armrest that was just past his head. Before I could begin to scoot up, his head reached up and bit my nipple.

  “That,” I gasped, feeling my sex clench all the way up into my stomach, “was not what you asked for…”

  The moan that punctuated my statement must have been really convincing to how upset I was. His response? He bit my tit before pulling it hard into his mouth. Small fireworks went off in my brain—the kind that would give me a stroke and yet I could care less. And then I felt the first touch of his fingers in my folds, slipping easily between them to find my clit, the tiny, tight bundle of nerves.

  I hated how he could be so calm, lying under me while his mouth and his hand systematically pulled my body apart piece by piece.

  “Why the Fool?” His voice was raspy and guttural. He didn’t want to ask. He wanted to have his mouth on me, but he needed to know. A conversation for another time when my body didn’t feel like there was a time-bomb ticking down.

  “B-because I’m searching,” I said, my whole body shaking over him. “I’m searching for my future in my past.”

  “On my face, J-bird. Now.” My eyes flew open, meeting his fevered gaze. His calm was a veneer that was holding back a barely restrained desire. “This is my drug,” his fingers pinched my clit and I choked as desire shot through me, “and I want you to fuck my tongue until I overdose.”

  Gulp.

  Muscles quaking with need, I awkwardly slid up his body, knees on either side of his head, I lowered my sex onto his waiting mouth.

  I felt him suck in the air between us, overwhelming himself with my scent. His groan overpowered mine at the first touch of his tongue on my bare pussy. His fingers found the grooves that they made in my hips last night, holding me steady as his tongue swept along the length of my slit—from my clit to my sopping entrance that was aching for him.

  With a hungry growl, he latched onto me and sucked. I moaned as my lower body bowed against him, the tiny bud desperate for more. My body was running on high from last night and the suction of his mouth was too much. Oh God. I shook uncontrollably.

  Vaguely I heard but definitely felt him murmur things into my sex—like how good I tasted, how I belonged to him, and how I was so perfectly tight and wet for him all the time.

  And like oil that has been left on a hot flame for too long, I exploded into flames. My head tipped back as I lost control over my body, rolling and grinding my pussy over his mouth. My needy actions spurred him on as his tongue rained down on my clit.

  Were those my moans?

  I think they were his. His strong fingers dug into my ass, pulling me tighter against him. He drank from me like I was the fucking fountain of youth.

  He tugged on my sex with his teeth, branding the tender flesh. And then my entire pussy was in his greedy mouth as he licked, nibbled, and ate every inch. And somewhere in the midst of all of that, he drank down every drop of cum that gushed from my body.

  But that was only the foreplay. Then his tongue was inside me, cramming through my entrance and curling against the muscles inside. The pleasure was so intense it stung. But in a very, very good way. Between the demanding thrusts of his tongue and the lashing it gave my clit, I began to black out from the pleasure and my climax pushed my heartrate past what was humanly possible.

  “Chance!” I gasped as I came hard into his mouth. His name was a chant that I felt in every cell of my body as it fractured into one million tiny pieces. He held me there, greedily lapping up the juices that rushed from my body as my body continued to shudder against his tongue.

  On shaking legs, I held onto the edge of the couch like a freaking crutch and slid off of his face. If I could feel any muscle, I might have winced seeing the widening smirk on his face, his mouth—and freaking beard—shimmering and sticky with his success.

  “Best fucking high, J-bird—“ He grimaced as I brushed over his dick by accident.

  Oops.

  “You going to leave me like this?” His raised eyebrow matched the erection in his pants.

  Even if this had been a movie, the timing couldn’t have been better as the oven let
off an obnoxiously loud beep, screaming that our lunch was done—and obnoxiously implying that the answer to his question was ‘yes.’

  “You said you needed something in your mouth. You didn’t say anything about mine,” I retorted with a smile, picking the blunt up off the table.

  If he thought I was going to be flustered into forgetting that he hadn’t actually thrown it away, he had another thing coming.

  With a smirk of my own, I held it out for a second and then crushed it in my fist, enjoying the twitch of his jaw.

  “You know I have more where that came from, right?”

  I glared at him. “You know if I see you with one of these again in here while you are trying to recover, you won’t be touching… or tasting me again.”

  “Like you could stop yourself from letting me.” Pride.

  “I could—and I would.” Yeah, wasn’t even convincing myself there.

  Walking over to the trash in the kitchen, I tossed the remains of the joint before opening up the oven to pull out our late lunch. Turning to set the dish on the counter, I found myself looking at Chance, one elbow resting on the countertop, his other hand down his pants, as he quirked an eyebrow up at me.

  “You better wash your hands before you reach into this taco dip,” I said saucily.

  Behind the counter though, I squeezed my legs together, prepared for another response that should gross me out and make me roll my eyes, but instead only served to roll my insides over another wave of desire.

  He must have been too hungry, instead walking obligingly over to the sink to wash.

  “I’m still waiting for you to tell me about your other options besides helping your sister and Wyatt—and yourself.” I scooped several spoonfuls of the dip onto his plate, dumping some chips on the side

  “And I’m still waiting for you to leave it alone, Jessa.” He jabbed a chip into the gooey mixture of meat, cheese, tomatoes… and more cheese before shoving the whole thing in his mouth. “Holy shit, this is delicious,” he exclaimed a few seconds later with a shock that should have been insulting—instead the warm sizzle of pride rushed through me.

  Don’t get me wrong—I loved when he went crazy over my body; it made me go crazy. But things like this, or when he’d opened up in the car a little this morning, these things made me feel just as good yet somehow in a completely different way.

  When I noticed his grin was when I realized that my mouth had dropped at some point from his compliment.

  I was getting better at downplaying how much he affected my body. I wasn’t practiced enough yet at hiding how much compliments and sincerity from the man hell-bent on destroying me affected my heart.

  Recovering quickly, I replied, “I told you it was the best.” Taking a bite myself, I pressed him further. “But flattery can’t get you everywhere—and it can’t get you away from my question. I’m not going to leave it, Chance; this is an awesome opportunity.” He glared, gulping down some of my La Croix. “You can ride, you can teach. You can make such an impact.”

  “I don’t know if I can ride.” The words were hard and soft. Angry and despondent at the same time. I ached for the man too proud to pick himself up from his fall.

  “Bullshit. Seriously, everyone falls, Chance. Everyone takes a hit to their pride. I’m sorry you aren’t going to be the best snowboarder in the world anymore, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be the best something else.”

  “Like I said, I don’t even know that I can ride anymore so this whole conversation could be moot.”

  “What if we went?”

  His head whipped up. “Excuse me?”

  “W-what if I took you to the mountain at the end of next week?” Where it all began. “It will be your last week of PT so we can just take it slow and see how it goes.”

  He scraped up the last bits of the food onto half of a chip, not saying a word.

  “Then, you’ll see that you can still ride—that this isn’t the end of the world. It’s just one door closing and there are a thousand other ones that you can open.”

  He chuckled. “Did one of your cards tell you that?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms and I watched those perfect breasts rise and tighten. “I don’t need cards to read you, Chance.”

  “No? What am I thinking?”

  “First off, my cards don’t tell me what you are thinking. And second, who needs cards when your body is pretty good at pointing out just what’s on your mind?”

  He burst out laughing, reaching for my empty plate and taking them both over to the sink.

  “Touché, J-bird, but my dick isn’t the only thing pointing right now…” His gaze dropped markedly to my tits where my nipples, I knew, were staring him down.

  “Ugh!” I huffed and spun away from him. “Do you want to go to the mountain or not? Last chance.”

  “What are we going to do there? I can’t go on the park.” He sounded like I was asking him to jump off a bridge—only it was one he would willingly step off from.

  Unfortunately, the mountain was like an incurable disease—once it was in your blood, it was impossible to get rid of.

  “The park is like three trails. How many other trails are on Snowmass?” Honestly, I didn’t remember, but it was a lot. “We are going to go and snowboard. We are going to go and just enjoy the ride.”

  “Will you give me head on the lift again?”

  I rolled my eyes. There were so many other memories and possibilities that he could have said… ‘Will you let me eat snow out of your pussy?’ Or ‘Will you let me fuck you on your board and underneath the stars?’

  “Forget it.”

  “Fine.” He replied tightly, pulling out his phone; it must have been ringing in his pocket because he answered, “Yeah?”

  I waited, trying to see if I could discern from his facial expression who he was talking to.

  “Fucking hell.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth and then as if just remembering that I was in the room said, “Let me call you back in five.”

  “Who was that?” I hated the split second that I thought it might be Monroe.

  “Frost.”

  My text with the girls immediately came to mind and the question came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  “What happened with him? Is he ok?”

  He froze, looking at me darkly over the can of water he held. “Nothing. And he’s Frost.” I guess that meant Nick was as ok as he gets. Chance’s expression on the other hand was pure ice. If I knew what was good for me, I would have left it at that.

  I didn’t know. With Chance this instantly angry, the only thing I needed to know was more.

  “How can it be nothing if you missed your appointment? How can it be nothing when he kicked you out of his house?”

  “Why would you assume that he kicked me out?” He crushed the empty water can in his fist and I forcibly stopped myself from wincing.

  “Because why else would you be here?” His lip twitched because I knew him too well. Neither of us had wanted to be in this house if we had another option.

  “Drop it, Jessa. It’s none of your business.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone, Chance, but if something is going on maybe I can help. Maybe he needs help.” My first thought was that something happened with drugs—that he’d been caught with them and didn’t want Chance to be involved.

  Ok, there were a wide range of scenarios that were fueled by the far too many Law & Order marathons that I’d watched at Tammy’s.

  “I’m helping him.”

  “Chance.” Suddenly, the fear that he was going to do something for his friend that could jeopardize his new career flared inside of me. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to be careful about getting involved with Frost—“

  “Oh, yeah? Like how careful you were?”

  I choked on my own saliva that’s how much the vehemence in his words sliced through me.

  “I…” My voice was only a whisper—caught off-guard and weak.

 
; “I am handling this and I’ll be damned if I let you within ten fucking feet of him again.”

  I finally blinked when the basement door slammed shut, Chance’s heavy footsteps marching down to his domain. Back then, I’d known what I’d had to do to help him. Now, I didn’t know if knowing the truth would make things better… or worse.

  The Hanged Man: The card of ultimate sacrifice and surrender to the greater good.

  Eight years ago—Chance and Nick’s Graduation Party

  THERE COMES A POINT IN life where you have to make a sacrifice. I’m not talking about a small kind of sacrifice, like giving up cookies for a diet, but the kind of sacrifice that feels akin to the martyrdom of your happiness for the sake of someone else’s. There comes a point where you have to make a real sacrifice—the kind that costs, the kind that hurts, and the kind that empties everything inside of you—because the love you have for someone else outweighs the love you have for yourself.

  This was that point for me. I never thought it would come at only eighteen.

  I never thought a lot of things would come at eighteen, but they did.

  Someone in the room dropped a glass, the sound of the cup hitting the floor and the stifled screams of those splattered with its piss-colored contents breaking my daze.

  There was a good chance that I was going to throw up; actually, I was pretty sure of it.

  You know how you know? Weightlessness—when everything around you seems to be floating. Muffled silence—noises drift off into the distance, locking you in a widening bubble of quiet. Heat—I was burning up all over.

  I’d felt like this the day I’d emailed my college applications. I’d felt like this the day I told Chance that I would be his if he gave up his pride on the mountain for me. I’d felt like this the moment after I’d agreed that what we had was the forever kind love which was the moment before he’d taken my virginity—with a painful carefulness and tenderness in his bed that had made me want to cry, and then with a pleasure that made me demand that we do it again—but harder.