Be strong, Heart. Tonight, you can have what you want.
“Oh?” he sneered. “And what do you want to do, Miss Priss? Tell me exactly because I don’t think you have any idea.”
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. The seconds of silence feeling like the moments of the noose tightening around my neck just before the fall that would break me.
“I want to make you fall apart, too, Nick,” I whispered honestly. “I want to give you what you’ve given me. Please.”
“I shouldn’t let you,” he rasped even as his hand went slack and released mine.
He was so beautiful lying there. The tension in every one of his defined muscles was highlighted by the light sheen of sweat. Even with the swelling and bruising, he looked like a fallen warrior—a fallen god. And I wanted to be the one to make him forget his pain.
I wanted to care for him—and not in the way I always tried to care for everyone else in my life. I wanted to heal him. I wanted to protect him from what life had dealt him. I wanted to let him consume and destroy me if that’s what it took to make him whole.
He might not want to sleep with me anymore because I was a virgin, but he wanted me, and I wasn’t going to leave again without knowing just what I could do about it.
I slid the sheet down his thighs, heat radiating off of his body in waves. I felt him tense as I hooked my fingers under the waist of his too-tight briefs. Even though I tried to be careful, I winced as Nick let out a tortured groan.
“Tammy…” I heard my name, but I couldn’t look at him. All I could stare at was what I had uncovered. So long and thick, his reddish-purple cock lay poised above his stomach, twitching in my direction.
I wanted to taste him. No. I wanted to swallow him whole. Me. Miss Priss. Innocent, modest, always-does-the-right-thing Tamsin Lucas. I wanted to choke myself on his length and swallow every ounce of cum that came out of him.
A delicious shiver went up my spine. Maybe I shouldn’t have these thoughts; I rarely ever did. But right now? Right here? That’s what they were: Right.
Cautiously, my hand wrapped around his swollen length and Nick let out another muttered curse, smacking his head back against the headboard. He felt so hard yet so softly smooth at the same time.
“Tighter,” he growled.
My fingers squeezed and I felt the engorged muscle thicken to fill my hand. I had no idea what I was doing, but I must have been doing something right because Nick let out the same groan of pleasure that I’d heard as he watched me touch myself. Up and down my hand moved, rocking along his cock that throbbed with approval.
“Oh, fuck,” he swore, and I watched as a drop of liquid escaped from the tip.
No rules, Heart.
My left hand came to rest on the bed between his legs as I bent over, my tongue darting out to slowly lick away the drop of moisture that had beaded.
“Fucking hell, Tam!” His hips jerked his cock against the seam of my lips and the only natural thing to do it seemed was to open and take him inside.
He was velvet-covered-steel, soft and firm and hot. So hot. My jaw stretched wide so I could feel the blunt head of him rub against the roof of my mouth.
He let out a pained groan that I felt all the way down to my toes. I was doing this to him. Me. The virgin. I was the one he dreamt of. I was the one he desired.
His fingers speared through my hair as I sunk further down. My hand moved out of the way of my mouth, gently cupping the soft weight of his balls. His fingers tightened roughly in my hair as he thrust himself further into my throat. My tongue explored the length of him, rubbing over the ridges, trailing along the blunt rim of the tip. And every curse and moan fueled me—and the heat that pooled between my thighs.
I was making him lose control.
“Fuck, Tam. Christ, I never fucking knew your mouth would feel this perfect sucking my cock. I should have. Perfect Miss Priss would be perfect at this, too.”
I moved up and down faster with each word, following the slight instruction from his fingers tangled in my hair. I loved the way he swore and jerked every time I bumped his tip against the back of my throat, making me swallow around him in reflex.
“Tam,” he rasped. “I’m going to come… You shouldn’t…”
I ignored him, cinching my lips tighter around his cock and sucking him deeper. Whatever he was going to say was lost as his hips pulled back and thrust himself as far in as my mouth would let him. I couldn’t breathe. But then I felt it. I saw it.
His hips jolted and his stomach muscles jumped right out of their neatly organized pack.
Nick roared my name as warm jets of his semen rushed down the back of my throat. I swallowed down every drop of the delicate richness that seemed like it wasn’t going to stop.
I tasted Nick. I tasted every raw piece of him that was laced with his desire for me.
This was what I imagined being drunk felt like: Calm. Comfortable. Carefree. Or maybe that’s just what normal people allowed themselves to feel.
“Christ, Tammy,” he finally said, letting go of my hair slightly to that I could breathe again. “What the hell were you thinking? Why…”
He couldn’t finish as I slid my mouth up and off of him, making sure to catch any lingering trace of his release.
I looked over to him and licked him off my lips.
“Are you okay?” I asked, wondering if I’d hurt him the way he looked so pained.
He laughed the way that sounded like an ‘if you only knew…’
“Priss, you’ve never given a blow job before,” he began and then paused, waiting for me to contradict him. I couldn’t. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’ve never sucked cock before in your life and I just came all over your mouth like I’ve never had my dick sucked before.” He groaned. “And since you know that that isn’t the case. I’d say that I’m pretty fucking more than okay. That mouth of yours is like a goddamn miracle hidden between the most perfect lips I’ve ever seen.”
Blood rushed to my head.
How was it that he could remind me just how much of a man-whore he’d been and yet make my heart race and the butterflies in my stomach awaken?
He made me feel special, when the past should caution me that I was anything but. I bit my lip trying to tug back in the giddy, girlish smile that wanted to creep out over them.
He pulled his boxer briefs back over his hips with a wince.
I wondered how long it would take for that to go away now…
“You should go,” he said hoarsely, his fingers gripping into the covers. “And you should take the whole week off.”
I sucked in a breath, reality freezing the fire of the moment. “I don’t understand.”
Coldness crept over my body as I reached for my clothes, tugging them back on over myself.
What were you expecting, Heart? A confession of love right after he praised your blow job? A marriage proposal because you’d let his face in your pussy?
“Take the week and go see your family. I’m not going to have you here while Stone is home. It will be paid vacation time, of course,” he added as though the money made any difference to me right now when really all it did was make everything sting more painfully.
“I don’t care about that. I’m not taking the week off,” I said quietly with a thread of steel. Just because he didn’t need a hospital didn’t mean that he didn’t need someone here to help him, to make sure that he was ok every night. What if he had internal bleeding? What if that man decided to come over here and finish the job?
“What?” he demanded. “This isn’t a discussion, Tamsin. This is my decision. You are off for the week. Go see them or not—you aren’t coming here. It’s not safe.”
“I’m not leaving you like this.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I’m not giving you a choice,” he answered tightly. “I’m not risking you.”
My heart tripped over itself for the second time in the past few minutes. My heart was so clumsy around Nick Frost—especi
ally when he said things that made it seem like he cared about me.
“Please, Tammy,” he whispered. “As your boss… and your friend… I just want you to be safe. It’s my fault that you are here. I won’t put you in any more danger.”
My body warmed. How was I supposed to argue with that?
“What about Lila?” Was she safe? Dread came over me. I felt like neither of them were safe here and there was nothing I could do about it except run away.
He shook his head. “They won’t hurt her. She is the only thing that they have to control me. As much as I hate leaving her in that house with them, they won’t even bother her or Sofia.”
“I’ll take the week off from work,” I agreed softly. I believed him when he said it wasn’t safe for me to go over there and I hated to think that I could put him or Lila in even more danger.
“Thank you,” he said.
I felt him watch as I slid off the other side of the bed, picking up my clothes and promptly covering myself back up before he added roughly, “He should be gone by the beginning of next week. I’ll have Sofia tell Lila you are sick.”
Her head flicked to mine. “I said I would stay away from there, Nick—from work. But, I didn’t agree to stay away from you.”
“Tamsin—”
I put my hand up. “You’re hurt, Nick, and if you think I’m just going to leave here and see you in a week and hope that you’re fine until then or better by then, you don’t know me at all,” I insisted, ignoring the sharp pain at the thought that there were still huge parts of me that he didn’t know.
There was at least a minute of intense stare-down between the two of us, but neither was caving. And since he was the one stranded in his bed, bruised from almost head to toe, he was really in no position to stop me.
“I’ll be back tomorrow night to check on you,” I continued stubbornly. “I’m not just going to leave and hope you survive because from what I can see, you have an uncanny ability to almost get yourself killed.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, my chin ticked up a notch, I dared him to contradict me, just like I treated any misbehaving child at the daycare. Just because he could handle this on his own didn’t mean that he should—didn’t mean that I wanted him to.
“Goodnight,” I said sweetly and headed for the door.
I shivered when I heard a growl as I turned the knob and I looked back to see him reach for his laptop that sat on the nightstand.
“Pretty sure the only person I have to worry about killing me is you,” he mumbled, and I stifled my laugh all the way to the bottom of the stairs when I finally let it free.
TAMMY
You guys busy?
ALLY
Never for you! Just making a grocery list for the week. What’s up?
TAMMY
I need to talk to you guys.
About Nick.
ALLY
Oh. My. God. What happened? Did he take your V-card? Pop your cherry? Deflower you?
JESSA
Jeez, Al. How many euphemisms do you have saved up there? #Weirdo
ALLY
Whatever, Jess. Seriously, Tam? OMG I can’t believe you slept with Nick!
TAMMY
I didn’t sleep with him!
ALLY
Oh.
TAMMY
I did… other things…
ALLY
One row of *shocked emoji face*
*One row of question marks*
JESSA
Holy shit!!!! Ok, I was just grabbing coffee. Getting back in line for donuts. Meet you at Ally and Emmett’s. Chance, Chan, and Wyatt are having a school meeting at our place.
ALLY
OMGGGG. Dicks and Donuts. Get your butts over here, I’m kicking Emmett out right now!
TAMMY
I may already be regretting this…
ALLY
You love us.
Fifteen minutes later, I was knocking on the door to Emmett’s mountain lodge that looked a whole lot less impressive from the outside than it did once Ally let me in through the door.
“Wow, this is beautiful,” I gushed
We hardly got together up here. Jess and Chance’s house was in the middle of everyone, so that was the first choice. My apartment came up next because there we didn’t have to worry about any boys.
The mountain cabin that Emmett had built wasn’t exactly the easiest place to get to, especially in the winter. And with how busy he’d been working on his new line of custom snowboards for the school, we’d kept girls’ nights to Jessa’s or my place.
Huge windows lined the back wall letting in tons of sunlight during midday. They were broken up by a large stone gas fireplace that sat directly in the center currently burning with a low flame.
“Emmett designed it all himself,” she said with a smile, pride blossoming in her eyes.
We both jumped at the loud crash from below that was followed by an even louder curse. Ally immediately darted to the open door on my right that I hadn’t even noticed.
“You okay, babe?”
“Fuck. Yeah. I just dropped the fucking board on my toe. Son of a fucking bitch.”
Ally and I looked at each other and tried to stifle our laughter.
“Men,” she mouthed to me before yelling back down the stairwell, “I’ll kiss it later. I’m going to shut the door for now though; Tammy is here.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to hear about Frost’s fucking dick.” I blushed and glared at Ally who cringed sheepishly. “I’ve had to see that thing more times in my life than I’d rather remember.”
“Sorry. He picked up my phone earlier and it opened to our text.”
Shaking my head, I slipped off my plain, black ankle boots and walked over to the couch. Not even five seconds later, Jessa burst through the front door—donuts and a coffee carrier in hand, as promised.
“You better not have started without me!” she exclaimed, kicking off her shoes.
A few rushed pleasantries allowed the coffee to be served and the treats to be disbursed and once again, I was the center of attention—everyone waiting for my story about a boy.
Who would have thought this day would come?
“Alright, lady. Spill,” Jessa demanded, taking a sip of her coffee.
“I… I can’t go into details about why, but I left Nick’s yesterday after we took Lila to the aquarium,” I began. Surprisingly, the details—even the naughty ones—slipped out easily as I relived for the thousandth time the events of last night. Guess I’d heard their stories for so long it made it easy for me to want to share my own.
“Oh my God, Tam!” Ally squealed when I finally finished.
Immediately, I shrunk back in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“Don’t you dare apologize!” Jessa cut me off staunchly. “We are beyond excited for you. I mean, not that we don’t have concerns because this is Nick Frost you are talking about. But for you, this is amazing, hun.”
“Yeah—what she said!” Ally chimed in. “I just can’t believe he tried to turn you away again.”
“That’s definitely not like Frost. At all. I mean, the Frost that we knew. Then again, I’m starting to wonder if he was ever really the asshole that he let everyone believe after high school,” Jessa mused. “Whatever he is feeling for you, isn’t his norm.”
“I just don’t understand why he keeps pushing me away after I basically throw myself at him. Granted, I don’t do this… ever… so I’m sure that I’m not excelling in seductiveness,” I said softly, fidgeting my hands in my lap. “Plus, Nick is nothing like I thought that he was. Well, he is and he isn’t—it’s hard to explain. I just think that when I’m with him, even though we are drifting on a sea of secrets, we are the only things keeping each other afloat.”
My best friends looked knowingly at each other and fear spread through my veins like a weed. Fear of what I felt for him. Fear of what he felt for me. Fear of what my future was going to hold.
“Tam,” J
essa said softly. “Are you sure about this? Are you sure that you aren’t just… lashing out… because of the cancer? I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I stifled a small groan as the first twinge of insult quickly faded because deep down I was afraid of the same. “Honestly, I have no idea. I went there that first night because I was running from the doctors, from my life; and I wanted to run to the furthest thing from everything that no longer felt safe. Is it weird to think that maybe I ran to him because he is the only one who knows how to calmly survive chaos?”
“Of course not, babe,” Ally said reassuringly as she scooted over next to me on the couch. “I mean, I was attracted to Emmett when I thought he was everything I’d never want. Heck, when he was everything that I basically hated. Even then, I still couldn’t keep my mind or hands off of him.”
“With the cancer, sometimes I don’t know up from down. I mean, I know I’m going to be okay, that I’m lucky it’s not going to affect my life—my ability to live, I mean. It’s just going to drastically affect what I thought my life would be. And I’ve noticed that when I’m around Nick, I don’t worry about that anymore.” I let out a strangled laugh. “I worry about other things—like getting in too deep. Way too deep.”
“It’s never too deep, Tam, if it’s where you want to be,” Jessa said with a small smile, brushing a strand of pink hair back from her face. “I’d offer to read your cards if you want, but I somehow don’t think that’s going to help you; you seem to know what you are facing.”
“Thanks, Jess.” I ate the last bite of my donut. “Out of all the things that I should be worrying about, I just can’t stop thinking that the Nick Frost that I knew—or knew of, really…” I didn’t need to finish.
“Went through women faster than McDonald’s could serve you a happy meal?”
“Ally!” Jessa groaned.
I couldn’t help but laugh because it was the sad truth. And I was the one who had willingly… desperately… gotten involved with this man.
The Winter Games Page 129