The Winter Games

by Sharp, Dr. Rebecca

  “The longer they were together, the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard, and sometimes for a few painful minutes she believed it to be no more than friendship.”

  —Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

  “IS SOMETHING WRONG?” I ASKED as soon as the massive, gilded front door swung open, revealing the harsh irritated lines of Nick’s face. It was one p.m.—the exact time I’d told him I would be coming; one to five was the agreement that we came to. I glanced down at myself, afraid that I’d forgotten to put pants on or something the way that he stared, but no, my trusty black leggings that sprung out of my plain, brown leather boots clung to my skin and then disappeared underneath the long white sweater that I had on.

  The sad part was that it had taken me thirty minutes to decide on this indisputably drab outfit. There was a rainbow of colors in my closet—only it was a rainbow of neutrals. I wished I could dress like Jessa with her passion-pink hair, vibrantly colored tops, and intricate (almost to the point of distraction) patterned leggings. But I couldn’t; I couldn’t handle the attention. I just wanted to blend in and live my calm, organized life.

  Maybe then disaster wouldn’t find me so easily. Like cancer. And like this job.

  “No,” he said. My very own beast stepped back and let me into his castle, silently grim and still painfully gorgeous.

  As I stepped inside, my body revolted against the decision that I’d made—the one I’d informed my friends meant no more Frosting. Instead, it begged to fly apart at the handles over and over and over again until the bliss eradicated my disease.

  The pain had been worse lately and, on top of it, the medicine the doctor gave me made me feel groggy and out of sorts.

  “Lila’s upstairs,” he said quietly before adding, “She’s excited to see you.”

  That brought the biggest smile to my face and I forgot all about the pain for a moment. “Well, I’m very excited to see her—”

  “Nicholas, who is that?” a stern voice queried as the sound of heels tapped quickly closer on the marble.

  Nick froze. I could see his muscle twitch underneath his t-shirt—still too fitted for my thoughts to stay focused. He looked like each click of the mystery shoes was one more tick closer to a bomb going off.

  A smaller woman with hair and eyes the same color as Nick appeared from the far hall. It must be his mother—the one who’d spared him from jail but was never home.

  “Jane,” he said tersely, turning to her. “This is Lila’s new tutor, Tamsin Lucas.”

  “Oh, hello.” Her smile was tight. “I’m Nick’s moth—”

  “Jane Stone,” he cut her off, like a trapped tiger snarling at its captor.

  It could have been a scene from Game of Thrones—child who has more power than he lets on, acerbically revolting against his mother and evil stepfather who retained control by holding him captive.

  Maybe not. I didn’t watch the show, but I’d heard the stories.

  What have I involved myself in?

  “Nicholas!”

  “She has a job to do, Jane.” He drew out her name. “If you’ll excuse us.”

  The woman’s cheeks flared as Nick turned, leaving me no choice but to smile weakly and follow. I didn’t look back, afraid of what I’d see. Marble steps led to a navy patterned carpet, so thick it felt like I was walking on midnight clouds. Then, more mirrors, sconces, and paintings graced the upstairs just as ornately as the entryway.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I asked quietly, “Why did you talk to your mom like that?”

  “Priss, we have only one rule.” He made another turn and down a different hallway we went. “I would have assumed that you of all people could keep track of it.”

  My head turned side to side wondering how he knew where he was going without a map or GPS of some sort. I looked over my shoulder, anxious for a few hours from now when I would have to find my way back out.

  “I said I wouldn’t ask questions about who is out for you and why. I only asked about your mom; she seemed really hurt by your words,” I murmured as we turned down the last hallway of doors; one of them had to be where Lila was because we’d finally come to a dead end.

  Like a gust of arctic air, the laugh that left those beautiful lips was both deadly and cold.

  Before I could recover from it, he spun to face me, sending me crashing into his chest. Yup, still hot and hard—in case anyone was wondering. My hands coming up to push myself back was also a giant mistake, feeling the way he vibrated with raw emotions. But it was his heartbeat under my fingertips that tapped out a message in melancholy-Morse that only my heart could interpret.

  He didn’t let me step back though. Instead, his hands dug into my waist and spun my back to the door.

  “Nick!” I gasped as his cheek pressed to mine. I could feel his jaw muscle tensing against the side of my face and the thick ridge of his arousal grinding into my stomach. Heat seeped between my thighs. The dull ache that had been simmering for days now returned in full force. He didn’t give me room to breathe, let alone room for rationality to stand a chance against his presence.

  I felt the shadow of his lips against my ear and registered his low laugh as my hips rocked uncontrollably against his, wanting more of his blissful chaos.

  “Who said that she isn’t one of the ones out to get me?” he rasped darkly.

  I gasped, his words devastating and shocking me. I swallowed hard, wishing I could see his face. Did he really believe his own mother was out to get him?

  “I know the concept of being two-faced doesn’t exist in your world, Priss, but Jane Stone is only hurt when she wants to be. And you can sure as shit believe that she never hurts for me.”

  As he spoke, his hips rolled against me, pinning me between the door and his arousal. My lip caught between my teeth as need overwhelmed me. I shivered because it was these moments where I felt all woman and none of my cancer. In these moments, Nick Frost was my disease, invading every cell, rewriting my DNA and desires; he was the disease and his touch was the cure.

  “But you hurt for me, don’t you, Priss?” he demanded raggedly.

  I was pinned against him and the truth, well, it was held hostage between our bodies, trapped between the hard and soft, the hot and cold, the need and the forbidden.

  “And I hurt for you…” he continued in a low voice, his lips scraping the side of my cheek.

  I swallowed a moan, squeezing my thighs together at the onslaught of desire. We could meet in the middle—in this place—but go no further; our lives tethering us to the point where we could have only this taste of what could never be fully ours.

  “I hurt to be inside of you every fucking second that I breathe. I hurt to take your body in ways that will have you screaming and cursing my name. I hurt to break all of your rules because that’s who I am: the man who wants you broken like me… for me.”

  And then I was stumbling back into the room, the support of the door gone from behind me as Nick opened it. I gasped in air like it was a chaser to the bitter shot of his words.

  My soul reached out and clung to him, instantly recognizing a part of itself in his pain—the pain that came from being responsible and being alone; my soul wanted to be with his, together in loneliness.

  “Mammy!” I held his gaze as Lila rushed me and wrapped her insufficient but exuberant arms around my legs.

  “Hey, Miss Lila,” I murmured, rubbing the baby-soft blonde hair on her head. I wondered if it would ever darken to dirty like her father’s.

  Sofia chuckled as she walked around us toward the door, saying softly, “I’m off then, Miss Lila. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Miss Sofia,” Lila said.

  I smiled at the older woman who, today, looked relieved to see me. “Thank you, Tammy.”

  Why did she sound like she was thanking me for more than what I was doing for our little charge?

  “Are you staying with us, Daddy?” Lila asked as soon as Sofia disappeared into the hallway.

>   Like night to day, his whole demeanor changed. “No, Princess.” He smiled. “I’m not a good student. I’d only cause trouble for Miss Tammy.”

  Well, that was the PG version of the truth.

  She giggled and a smile crept onto my face.

  “I’ll see you later, Princess,” he said, and then looking back to me, gave me a tight nod and disappeared, shutting the door behind him.

  The Beast had locked me in the tower with his Beauty.

  “Alright, Miss Lila,” I said cheerfully, diverting all of my focus onto the little girl who needed me. “I have a whole bunch of fun things for us to do today.”

  Prying her off of me, I set down my bag and got out her favorite apple tree game where we could work on shapes and numbers.

  “Why would my dad cause trouble?” she asked innocently, picking up one of the pieces.

  I chuckled. “I think he just means he would be distracting and I would get mad at him.”

  “But he likes you,” she said bluntly, handing me the card.

  Startled, I stared for a moment, slowly reaching out to take it from her. “I don’t know about that, Lila.”

  “He only lets me meet people he likes,” she insisted, and I sighed at her naiveté. “And he asked you to stay.”

  “I think he knows how much you like me and that’s why he asked me to stay,” I offered instead, struggling to believe that I was having this conversation with a six-year-old.

  “I ask for a lot of things. Mostly popsicles because they’re really yummy and I’d eat them all the time if I could because they’re my favorite thing in the whole world. But he doesn’t always give them to me,” she rambled on, putting the shapes in the proper spaces while she spoke.

  “That’s because he’s smart and he cares about you and your teeth,” I replied, making sure the cards all lined up.

  “Can we watch a movie?” And the limit of her attention span was finally reached.

  “Maybe you can watch one with your dad later, but right now I have other stuff for us to do.” I patted the floor. “Take a seat, missy.”

  She scrunched her face, rocking back and forth on her heels before finally plopping down next to me; she’d never really been the defiant type.

  “Mammy,” she said, her little hands already beginning to move the cards into the correct piles. “My dad looks at you like you’re a popsicle.”

  I choked. Who knew a popsicle could be so philosophical?

  It was a good thing she was focused on the cards, so she missed the redness in my face and my lack of response.

  Was it because he wanted to lick me? Taste me?

  Was it because he wanted to see me melt?

  Or was it because I was something that he couldn’t have?

  Secluding myself in the guest house while Tammy was here was my only shot at respecting her wishes. Not kissing her would be like walking into a bank, vault open, a security guard handing you a bag saying ’take it,’ and instead, you just turn around and walk away.

  The worst part was that it didn’t matter that I had a thousand other fucking things on my plate—she was the one thing I couldn’t get off my mind.

  I wanted to take her in the hallway. Up against the door. On the stairwell. I wanted her underneath me, around me, screaming my name as I wreaked havoc on her body. I adjusted my pants for the fourth time since I shut the door to Lila’s playroom.

  The phone rang once before King picked up. “Yeah?”

  Also known as Emmett Jameson, ‘King’ was a member of the original SnowmassHole crew from high school, along with Chance Ryder and myself. King knew everyone and anyone in this town which is why I’d called him a few weeks ago when I realized that Eliza was back. I needed someone who would find out what the hell she was doing here and what she wanted with our daughter and me.

  My fist clenched and released. My body was strung the fuck out over Tammy, and my mind was seething about Eliza. I needed to get to the bottom of both of these problems before one of them ended up killing me.

  “I hired the guy—Jackson—that you recommended,” I said, grabbing a water from the fridge and opening my laptop to check on Bitcoin and my other portfolio investments—all of which were kept under false names and accessed when my computer was attached to the Hotspot that I’d made Pride buy for me.

  There could be no tying me back to the amount of cash I was making—not until I was free and clear of the Stone dungeon.

  “He’s the best,” my friend replied curtly, adding, “I found him a few years ago when I was keeping an eye on Miriam after she started really getting sick.”

  Miriam was King’s aunt, but also basically his mom. Miriam’s younger sister had been a drug addict and had ended up dying when King was young. After several years, Miriam found out that he was in the foster system and immediately took him in. He’d been a fucked-up kid—understandable, given what he’d been through—and so they hadn’t spoken for many years. But when Miriam got sick, he’d gone to see her—with Ally—in the hospital. I honestly don’t know what the fuck he would have done if Ally hadn’t been there for him.

  “Glad I asked.” I needed an excellent and effective private investigator—and one that couldn’t be bought off in case Jane or Stone got wind of it. I needed to know what the fuck Eliza was doing here and what she was after. I mean, I had a good fucking idea, but I wanted proof; I needed motive.

  I’d found one company that seemed legit, but when I mentioned them to King the other week, he’d cautioned me against it, saying that he had a guy that I should use. I should have just gone to him in the first place, but I fucking hated advertising the pile of shit that I was dealing with and asking around for help.

  It was bad enough the day that I had to bring Lila over to Pride’s place because Stone was stopping at the house, and the whole goddamn world was let in on my secrets.

  “Yeah, Cunninghaven Investigations might as well change their fucking name to Cunnilingus because the only thing they know how to run is their mouth,” he sneered. “They’re shady fuckers; you want Jackson if you want the job to get done.”

  I cleared my throat, distracted by the graphs on my screen for a second. Fuck. Bitcoin had jumped twenty percent today. Not bad. God, if I could just hold everything together for a little longer.

  “Frost. You still there or did you get distracted playing with your dick?”

  “Fuck you, yeah, I’m still here.” I didn’t justify the dick comment with a response since my dick was still throbbing angrily. “I’m meeting with Jackson next week to see what he’s come up with.” I pulled at my hair. “I’m telling you, King, there’s something more going on here… the way Eliza fucking shows up searching for me, finds out that I’m still living at home right around the time when my mom and Stone reappear. And the way the two of them are all buddy-buddy. I don’t fucking care that she gave birth to Lila, she’s no goddamn mother.”

  King exhaled heavily on the other end of the line. “He’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “Yeah.” I fucking hoped so.

  Pulling my phone away from my face, I realized Pride was calling me.

  “I gotta run.”

  “Yeah, me too. Sunshine is home.”

  “Pussy—” I only got half the word out before he hung up on me. Fucker did it on purpose, saying sweet shit like that about Ally to me. He didn’t give two fucks about what it made him look like and that was what made it all the more fun for him. I gave him shit for it because I’d never have that—at least not in the near future.

  “I was about to call you,” I said, picking up the call.

  “Did you hire Tammy?”

  My lips thinned. “What’s it to you?”

  My question was met with laughter—the kind of laughter that comes when you finish smoking a joint and you think you can hear colors, laughter. Only I knew Pride wasn’t high. He hadn’t come to me for any of that—completely legal—shit since he’d moved in with Jessa.

  I always had a joint with me w
hen I went out—appearances and all—but I, too, rarely had the time for it even though I could probably use a second to relax. Truth was that I’d rather spend the time with Lila; her laughter was better than any high.

  “You know I’m about to hang up on you?” I drawled, clicking through a few more screens of my portfolio before opening my email.

  “You are so fucked,” he replied with a smile in his voice.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I replied, opening up an investment newsletter to read as soon as I could get this asshole off the phone. Buy and sell prices, stop losses, and price-to-earnings ratios should put an end to my painful hard-on.

  “You turned down my suggestion and I figured you had other plans because you always do. But then, I saw the way you looked at her the other day—and it looked familiar. It looked familiar because it was the same fucking face that I wore for weeks trying to convince myself that I wanted to just fuck Jessa and then fuck her over.” A chuckle escaped him again and I really debated whether or not I wanted to hear the rest of his point. “And now, you’ve hired her. To be your daughter’s nanny—”

  “Tutor,” I corrected. “For the short term.”

  “What the fuck ever. Fine, so you want the tutor. You want to fuck Tammy.”

  “I want to fuck a lot of things, Pride. I’m not so sure why you’re surprised by this,” I said casually. “Don’t worry. I think I can manage to keep my dick in someone else’s pants for a few weeks until this shit blows over. I mean, I have known her since high school… not sure how I would have managed the past decade plus if she was that irresistible.”

  It had only taken pieces of my soul. Small pieces. The ones I told myself I wouldn’t miss.

  Until now when I realized the entire thing might be gone and she was the only one who had all of the pieces to make it whole again.

  But for all Pride knew about me and my daughter and my situation, he didn’t need to know that. Because, out of all of the girls, Tamsin Lucas, who stood quiet and meek in the background, was the only one who possessed an army of fortitude and a well of self-restraint that would have rivaled Mother Teresa.