by Tracy Wolff
I hear murmuring from where Ash is talking to Logan, but the words aren’t clear and I deliberately don’t try to listen. None of this is my business, I remind myself, no matter how much my heart goes out to both of them.
Ash comes back in a couple minutes later, looking more relaxed than he did when he left. “Logan will be in in a little while to apologize,” he tells me.
“He doesn’t need to apologize. I get what he was doing.”
“Do you mind sharing it with me, then?” Ash asks, shaking his head. “Because I really don’t get it.”
I don’t know how to respond to him. Oh, a million answers spring to my mind, but I don’t know which one to give him. Which one is just enough information and which one is way too much. He’s the only person I’ve talked to, really talked to, in forever who doesn’t treat me like a victim. Like I’m one harsh word away from death.
I like it. And I don’t want it to change.
“He just wants things to be normal again. Just wants your whole world to stop revolving around him. Think about it. It’s got to be weird to have your brother hovering over you every second, waiting for something terrible to happen.” I know. I’ve been there, done that.
Ash’s shoulders slump at my words, his blue eyes going even darker and cloudier than they were before. It upsets me, knowing that I’ve upset him.
Crossing to him, I put my hand on his shoulder. Duck my head until he has no choice but to look me in the eye.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he tells me, his voice harsh and aching.
“You’re doing just fine,” I say. “That’s what you’re doing.”
He laughs sadly, shakes his head. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I’m fucking everything up.”
“I’d say that’s pretty normal.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I tell him with an encouraging smile. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be worried—and that’s when you’d be”—I hesitate over the word “fucking up.”
“You know, I’ve never heard anyone sound quite so proper when using the word fucking before.” He grins at me then, and it’s so open, so clear, that a zing of electricity sizzles through me.
Which is so not what should be happening right now, especially since he pretty much just called me a prude. I fight to keep the smile on my face, fight the urge to look away. To hide. Instead, I force myself to brazen it out. To give as good as I’m getting. That’s what the punk-rock persona I put on this morning would do and I kind of feel like I haven’t given her much of a chance.
Determined to hold my own, I raise a brow at him and say, “Amazingly enough, I can sound all kinds of different ways when I say fuck.”
“Oh, yeah?” This time when Ash’s eyes darken, it has nothing to do with anger or sadness, at least not if the way he’s looking at me means anything. “So, am I going to get a chance to, uh, hear you say fuck in any other context? Because I would totally be up for that.”
“Yeah, from what I can tell, you’re always up for that.” Holy shit, did I really just say that?
I must have because Ash’s eyes widen and his grin goes just a shade or two darker when he answers, “Hard not to be with a mouth like yours around.”
My mouth? He likes my mouth? Does he mean my actual mouth—I fight the urge to bring my hand to my lips—or does he mean the words coming out of it? I’m confused, but it’s not in a bad way. In fact, I’m kind of liking this attitude I’m throwing around, and really liking the attitude Ash is giving back.
But there are other things going on here, other things that need to be taken care of, I remind myself. So, drawing a deep breath for courage, I tell him, “Yeah, well, if you like my mouth so much, maybe you won’t mind if I use it for more pressing things.”
Chapter 7
Ash
Her words hang in the air between us and there’s a part of me that wants to call her on them, right here, right now. God knows—even with all the shit going on—I’ve been hard since she started talking. Started giving me attitude. Something about the way her lush, pink lips look when she talks gets to me, big time.
Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s trying so hard to be a badass, which—for the record—she clearly isn’t. Oh, she’s talking tough—surprisingly tough, considering the fact that I’m pretty sure she’s a cream puff—but I can see the uncertainty in her eyes as the words tumble out. The glee and the disbelief mixing in a way that’s getting me all worked up.
Which is ridiculous. Tansy is a Goody Two-shoes if ever I’ve seen one and that is so not the kind of girl I go for. At least not anymore. Maybe, before my parents—before Logan—I might have been interested. Might have had something to offer her. But not here, not now. And sure as hell not when she’s trying to convince me to do something that will never, never happen.
With that in mind, I decide the best way to handle this is to force her hand. To lay things on so thick that she’ll run away and never come back. Maybe then I can get back to my less-than-peaceful existence.
“I thought that was the whole point of fucking.” I respond to her earlier comment, leaning forward just a little so that I can trail a finger down the inside of her wrist. Her pulse is beating triple-time here and I’d probably be more willing to celebrate my success if I wasn’t painfully aware of how soft her skin is. How delicate and sweet smelling. Like brown sugar and vanilla. “Pressing and—”
“Whoa there, snowboy.” She slams a hand on the center of my chest. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself.”
Yeah, so do I. Which is a problem … and still I can’t stop myself from leaning forward and running a finger along her plump lower lip. Just to scare her away, I tell myself even as my dick fucking twitches like I’m a twelve-year-old with his first girl. Just to send her running.
I figure it’s working, too—her breathing is way too shallow and ragged for the badass she’s pretending to be—right up until the moment she opens her mouth. And catches my finger between her teeth.
She bites down, not hard enough to hurt but definitely hard enough to make sure I feel it. And shit, do I. All the way to my cock. Jesus Christ, what is it about this girl that gets to me like this? That makes me want to forget everything but what it would feel like to fuck her?
To shove my dick between those porn-star lips and watch as she sucks me off?
To bury my face in her pussy and hear her scream my name?
For a second the image is right there, so real I can almost taste her. Almost—shit. I need to stop thinking like this or I’m going to end up coming in my pants like a complete and total loser.
I tug on my finger, try to pull it back. She holds on for one, long second, her teeth digging into the soft pad at the bottom of my index finger. Then, just when I’ve decided to hell with it, I’ll make an exception to my good-girl rule, she lets go.
I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or relieved and that knowledge just fucks with my head even more.
“I should probably go check on Logan,” I tell her, clearing my throat. Backing away.
“Running away already?” she taunts softly.
Maybe, but I’ll be damned if I let her know that. “Being a responsible brother.”
“Oh, right.” She lifts her chin, and those crazy, hazel eyes of hers are gleaming darkly at me. “Hey, Logan!”
Her sudden shout echoes down the hallway.
“Yeah?” he answers after a second.
“You doing okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” A pause. “Thanks for the tea.”
“No problem. You need anything else?”
“Nope. Just watching a movie.”
“Cool. Call if you need anything.”
She’s good, this girl. In more ways than one. And that scares the hell out of me. Fucks with my head and my body because as she stands there, arms crossed and lips curved in a small but triumphant smile, something stirs inside of me. Something that has nothing to do with want
ing to get off and everything to do with her. Just her.
I take another guarded step back, ignore the fact that I’m running away from something, someone, for the first time in my life. It’s not my typical modus operandi—I’m usually more of a take everything, head-on kind of guy—but Tansy makes me cautious even as she makes me want.
“I should still check,” I told her. “He’s been known to lie about shit before.”
“I think that’s pretty obvious, considering I’m standing here in your kitchen right now.”
Fuck. I walked right into that one. “Look, I can’t—”
She holds up a hand to stop me. “I know why you think this is a bad idea now. I get that you can’t be away from Logan for longer than a day. I never would have asked it of you if I’d known.”
I study her suspiciously. She seems sincere, like she really gets where I’m coming from, and I feel myself relax just a little. Maybe getting rid of her is going to be easier than I thought.
“It’s fine,” I tell her, feeling magnanimous now that she finally understands. “I should have told you why I can’t do it.”
“But you can!” she says, and she sounds both excited and determined. “The anonymous donor who provided the package included a lot of incidental money. Certainly enough to bring Logan and a nurse along, plus any medication or equipment he might need. So you don’t have to leave him here. He can come with you.”
Then again, maybe she doesn’t understand anything. Does she really think I’m going to drag my brother—my paralyzed brother—halfway across the world, just to snowboard in South America? For the second time tonight, I curse Z with everything in me. Because I know that “anonymous donor” is him. I know it with everything in me and it makes me want to hit something all over again. Preferably his face, but another wall might do.
I want to give Timmy his wish, I really do. But not at the expense of Logan. I know he’s the one who set this whole mess in motion, but I don’t think he’s thinking clearly. Not about how a trip like this will affect him—he’s still recovering from major surgery, after all—and not about how he’ll feel seeing me on the slopes again. Boarding, when he’ll never be able to do it the way he wants to again.
It’s my fault he’s in that chair, my fault he’ll never be able to do what he loves again. There’s no way I’m going to rub that in by dragging him to Chile and snowboarding right in front of him. And no way I’m going to leave him here, either.
My hand is actually clenching into a fist before I force myself to relax. To take a couple deep breaths and focus on what needs to be done. Which, namely, is chasing Tansy out of my kitchen and out of my house.
“What is with you?” I demand, stalking toward her. “I’m speaking English, right? And you do understand what the word no means?”
I’m pissed now and I know my anger is written all over my face. I expect her to flinch, to back away. After all, I’m at least a foot taller than her and probably weigh a hundred pounds more than she does. She should be intimidated. She should be worried.
Instead, she just tips her chin up and stares at me, eyebrows raised sardonically. It’s a challenge if I’ve ever seen one and while part of me wants nothing more than to yank her against me and kiss her into submission, there’s another part that loves the fact that she’s standing toe-to-toe with me. That she’s giving as good as she gets.
“Can we just talk about this?” she says as I tower over her, giving her the nastiest glare I can muster.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“There’s always something to talk about.” She steps forward, places a hand over mine and something cracks inside of me—I feel it. Actually feel it, and I know it’s the wall I put up months ago. The one that kept all this shit, all the confusion and pain and fear and horror, at bay. It chills me like nothing has since I got that phone call six months ago. Since I stood outside the OR and listened to a doctor tell me my brother would never walk again.
I can feel myself start to shake, and I know I have to stop this, now, before it’s too late. Before I remember what it’s like to feel something other than rage.
Before I break.
I can’t help remembering when I met her the other day. How she went all quiet and trembly and scared in the storage room when I kissed her. It’s how I know what to do next, even though it will make me a total asshole. This tough girl, punk-rock persona of hers will shatter if I put just a little more pressure on it.
“I’ll do it,” I tell her suddenly, and there’s a part of me that can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth even as I’m saying them.
“You will?” Her eyes go wide, hopeful, and she’s smiling like I hung the fucking sun.
The cracks deep inside me get worse, and I shore them up. Concentrate on being a total douche. It isn’t as hard as it should be, but I don’t stop to think about why that might be. “Sure. On one condition.”
“Anything!” She’s beaming, actually beaming. If I could feel lower, I’m not sure how. And still I know I’m going to go through with it, even as she asks, “What is it? What do you want?”
I force myself to smile at her and say the words that I’m certain will send her running for the hills. “I want you to have sex with me.”
For long seconds, Tansy doesn’t say anything. Instead, she just stands there staring at me with her brows furrowed and her mouth gaping open. Every once in a while she closes it, like she’s getting ready to speak, but then it just falls back open again.
Objectively, I know I shouldn’t find it anywhere near as adorable as I do. And yet …
“Say that again?” she finally asks.
“I’ll do it. I’ll go to Chile, as long as you sleep with me first.”
I feel like a total skeeze as I cross my arms over my chest and wait for her to run screaming into the night like the good little girl she is.
Except … she doesn’t. She just stands there, watching me with those wide, innocent eyes of hers, until I feel even skeevier. Even grosser.
Awesome. Nice to know just how far I’ve fallen. My parents would be so proud.
“You want me to—” Her voice breaks.
Great. She can’t even say the words. I’m about to speak up, to tell her to forget the whole thing, when Tansy whispers, “Okay.”
Now it’s my jaw that hits the floor. “Okay?” I demand. “What does that mean?”
She shrugs, and the innocent girl is gone again. In her place is the badass rocker chick. The one who doesn’t take any shit from me. I swear, I can’t keep up. Her split personalities are giving me whiplash. “It means okay. Let’s do it.”
There’s a ringing in my ears and for a second I think my head might actually have exploded. But nope, it’s still there. I reach a hand up, run it over the back of my hair, just to be sure. Yep, everything is still in place. Which means I’m not having a stroke. And probably not having aural hallucinations, either. Which means … “You’re saying … yes?” I ask, my voice sounding strangled to my own ears.
“Sure.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal. Like she didn’t stand against me in that storage room and tremble from just my lips brushing over her skin. “But I didn’t bring condoms, so I hope you have some. I figure you must, right? Considering your extracurricular activities in the storage room. But where do you want to do it? I mean, Logan’s right down the hall and I don’t want him to hear us. So, maybe after he goes to bed? How do you usually—”
She steps forward and I take a step back. A few steps back, if I’m honest. But holy shit. I just levered the most insulting thing I could think of at her and she just said … yes? I can’t wrap my brain around it. Too bad my dick isn’t having the same problem. It’s more than ready to take her answer and run with it.
But my cock doesn’t make my decisions for me. Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I struggle with what I’m supposed to do now. Of all the scenarios I’d envisioned—Tansy slapping me, Tansy screaming at me, Tansy running away—i
t never once occurred to me that she’d say yes.
“What’s wrong?” she breaks off, looking confused. I guess my shock is finally translating.
“I just, didn’t think you’d be so …”
“So what?”
So not angry at me. But I can’t actually say that. Right? Because that would be weird. Not like this whole thing isn’t weird, because it is. But that would be really weird. I cast around for something to say, settle finally on, “So helpful about the whole thing?”
“Why wouldn’t I be helpful? This way, we both get what we want, right? And it’s an equal exchange of services.”
Equal exchange of—Jesus Christ, who is this girl? Ten minutes ago she could barely say the word fuck and now she’s talking about prostituting herself to help some kid she barely knows get his Make-A-Wish. My mind is boggling. Actually boggling. I don’t even know if that’s a verb, but I swear that’s what’s happening to me right now.
And that’s before she starts talking again.
“Now that I think about it, I get that you might not want to do it here, because of your brother. But I’m not really up for the storage closet, so is there another choice? I still live at home, so my place is out. But maybe, we could get a hotel room or something? Just for a couple hours? I mean, maybe it won’t take that long, but still. I kind of prefer a bed. I’m free tomorrow, but what does your schedule look like? Because I can be—”
I lift up a hand, afraid my ears might actually start bleeding from the sheer number of words tumbling out of her mouth at a truly alarming rate. “Stop!” It comes out sounding harsher than I planned, but then, what about this whole fucking night has gone according to plan?
The harshness works, at least for a couple of seconds. She stands there, gaping at me, while I try to get my jaw up off the floor and blank out the images of her and me rolling around, naked, on some anonymous hotel bed. It’s a lot harder than it should be.
“Stop what?” she finally asks.
“Stop talking. Stop thinking. Just … stop.”