Frosty Blues: A Westbrook Blues Novella

by Thandiwe Mpofu

  “I don’t what?” she prompts softly, watching me like a wild, yet wounded, animal.

  “You told the asshole we’d be home for Christmas,” I say, my voice low and hard and she visibly shivers. I’m trying to piece it all together.

  The shadows in her eyes.

  The distance I’m sensing from her.

  The way she avoids the topic of marriage.

  Maybe it’s finally happened. Maybe she’s grown sick and tired of me but doesn’t know how to leave me, so she wants the boys here to ease the sting of rejection… but for who? For my benefit?

  What the fuck? That can’t be it. Star loves me, I fucking know that, but I can’t shake this feeling…

  There’s the way she clings to me during the night and sometimes, she still wakes up screaming, tears running down her pale face from nightmares she never wants to talk about.

  Now that I think of it, the last time she had a nightmare that curdled my blood, the next morning she went out and bought all these shitty Christmas decs, lights blinking everywhere like it’s a fucking carnival.

  “I just don’t want the boys to be alone this time of year.”

  “The boys? Does that include the twin brother you’ve practically ignored and abandoned since the day you left Westbrook Blues, Astraea?”

  She grows still, her lips forming a firm line.

  “I didn’t abandon him.”

  “Sure, I’ll just pencil that in as you’re just ignoring him, right under my asshole behavior from sunup to sundown.”

  Her face falls, as her eyes fill with sadness, intermixing with the shadows of trauma.

  That too, is all my fault.

  Maybe Noah’s right. Maybe I am one to talk… after all, how many times do I jerk awake in a cold sweat at odd hours of the night with the stench of devastation and loss clinging to me?

  “That’s not fair, Ace. You know the thing with me and George is different,” she whispers brokenly. “And anyway, he has his own family to take care of now. His baby and…” His baby. “Ugh, why are we fighting over this?”

  I grab on to the change of topic. Honestly, talking about George or even referencing that bastard makes both of us insane with emotions that have both of us feeling angry and devastated.

  But now, I know better, and I can’t have fucking George mess up my future, he already did enough in the past when I almost lost her. I actually did too, damned if I let that happen ever again.

  “I was just wondering about that. He’s not worth it.”

  She winces, looking away.

  I want to step closer to her. To hold her in my arms for a bit, just to remind myself that this is too precious to fuck up.

  That she’s too important to let our pasts win, but I stay put, not knowing what to do with myself and this topic.

  We stare at each other.

  I know she’s trying to hold herself together, hugging her frame like she’s trying not to break. I fucking hate that.

  “Well, back to Noah,” she blurts, clearing her throat. “He asked to come, Ace, what did you want me to do about that?”

  Her sweet voice dips low, her eyes wide with concern and disbelief.

  “You could’ve lied to him, it’s pretty simple really,” I mutter, still watching her squirm under my heated gaze.

  She looks away, leaning against the doorjamb, but not for long. She’s just as addicted to getting her fill of me as I am with her. But I think I’m worse.

  It’s those damn stars in her eyes…

  “Lying to Noah would be cruel at this point, and an invite for insults that sting,” she whispers, her gaze now looking faraway. “He’s developed this…” she trails off, then sighs. “He’s developed this toxic trait of fishing for lies in almost anything anyone says to him these days, it’s pretty extreme. And don’t get me started on how he flips people’s words just to hurt them. It’s like he wants the rest of the world to be in pain with him.”

  Reminds me of someone else, but I’m frozen, stuck on something else she just said.

  “What do you mean by insults that sting?” I demand. Did that asshole say something to upset her? Is that it?

  She senses the sudden flip in my mood. Before I know it, she’s right there in front of me.

  I stand with my arms folded, leaning on the edge of my desk, watching her without a damn clue what to make of her.

  She steps between my legs and practically climbs me like a tree; her latest favorite thing to do that drives me insane with lust.

  I have no choice but to pick her up, holding her ass in my hands as she wraps her legs around me. And because she’s fucking horny, she settles her greedy pussy over my hard dick making us both suck in a sharp breath.

  “It’s not what you think,” she breathes, our faces so close, we’re literally breathing in and out in sync. “Noah didn’t insult or hurt me in any way. I promise.”

  I squeeze her ass through her yoga pants, then grind her over my hard dick and she moans.

  “I fucking hope so, Star. I’m a flight away from getting it on with him already, so your explanation of his assholery better be quick and it better be good.”

  Because I want to fuck you all the way into next week before facing the rest of this shit world.

  “Noah, well,” she starts, her voice sultry, grinding against my dick, dry humping and using me. She’ll go off in a few seconds if I let her, her arms wound around my neck as she looks into my eyes. “He’s going through a lot right now.”

  “We established that already or is your brain frying?” I counter, allowing her to have her fun, using me, her moans getting louder. “A lot of people go through a lot of shit all the time, baby, but they don’t impede on other people’s alone time.”

  “Ace, stop,” she says, planting kisses all over my neck, moving up and down, rolling her hips in a sexy hip roll, undulating over my dick.

  I suck in a harsh breath, my self-control ready to snap.

  “Star…” I whisper harshly but she cuts me off, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

  “He’s your best friend,” she whispers sultrily.

  “With the best defense attorney seducing me, fees-free, apparently.”

  The bond between Noah and Astraea is one I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand. If the guy was a fucking werewolf, I’d say he imprinted on her. Even in that mystical world shit, I’d have crushed his skull to keep Star to myself.

  “You want this,” she whispers in my ear. “You want me.”

  “Star, that bastard…” I groan but she cuts me off.

  “You also want to support your friend in this time, like he was there for you when…”

  “When you left me broken and bleeding on that tarmac?”

  She stills in my arms almost immediately, turning into rock. I want to bang my head against a ceramic bloke.

  What kind of an asshole am I? I just told Noah off for bringing up the past and now, I just threw my pain in her face.

  “Star, I’m sorry, I just…” Don’t know why I’m still hurt by that?

  “Ace,” she starts, her voice now a low whisper of anguish and regret.

  “No, don’t apologize. You were right to do what you did. The decisions you made for your well-being, your peace of mind and all that.”

  And it’s true. I seriously believe that she was right to leave. We needed that time.

  Westbrook Blues brought nothing but pain and torture for Star and me. The fact that she left, that’s great.

  It’s the other side of that rusty old coin that still kills me to this day…

  The side where she left me high, dry, and broken on that tarmac.

  Because if she could do that, leave me like that, then there’s a high chance it could happen again. She has all the power here and she doesn’t even know it.

  “Ace,” she whispers, palming my face in her warm hands but I can’t look at her right now. I reach up for her hands as gently as I can, trying to rein in my self-loathing until I’m away from her. />
  How do I make sure that she never leaves me?

  She agreed to marry me but each time I bring up wedding dates or anything remotely linked to that shit, she clams up, but fuck that. I’m going to tie her to me in a way that she will never ever think of leaving me, let alone be apart from me.

  Grabbing her hand, I press a kiss in the middle of each of her palms, unable to look her in the eye. I straighten and put her down gently, her body sliding down from mine, her eyes on me.

  “Ace, baby, what…” she starts, but I cut her off.

  “I need a shower and you haven’t had dinner yet,” I say, my voice low. “Why don’t you call that little restaurant you love so much and have them deliver for two? I’ll be right out.”

  I press another kiss on her forehead, lingering there as I take a whiff of her soothing, strawberry scent, with hints of her arousal.

  Then with the heaviness of our messed up past weighing down on my shoulders, I leave, putting as much distance as I can between the girl who sets me on fire and me—a charred carcass, still doused in gasoline, but even with all that, I’d rather die than be without her.

  She should know that by now.

  I need to fucking remind her.

  What was that?

  I watch Ace’s broad shoulders flexing as he disappears down the hall, removing his sweatshirt as he goes, heading straight for the master bedroom.

  There’s a sinking suspicion in my gut, like acid gnawing at my insides as confusion swims in my mind.

  Honestly, what was that?

  It doesn’t take much to put Ace in a bad mood, I know that much, but that wasn’t a ‘mood’.

  I’ve known him and been in love with him all my life to notice the beginnings of a storm brewing.

  My stomach flips as my heart starts racing.

  What brought this on? I know he was talking to Noah. I know words were exchanged but it’s what he said to me just now that has my mind in a twist.

  “When you left me broken and bleeding on that tarmac?”

  Is he still thinking of that? Does that still hurt him as much as it devastated me?

  But wait, we healed… didn’t we? We got over everything that happened to us in Westbrook Blues, all that we lost… we put it behind us, didn’t we?

  Heartbeat.

  Heartbeat.

  Heartbeat.

  I can feel my heart racing, beating even harder against my ribcage.

  The only time it ever beats this hard is when Ace does something deliciously wicked to me up on a random wall, in a dark club, in our bed, on the kitchen counters, or in the hidden crannies at the university… it’s been an amazing, wonderful year of just us…

  I love how he makes my blood rush with adrenaline and arousal.

  I love how we’ve been in our own cocoon, our own world where nothing else really exists but our peace, our healing, and our love, but was all that a fucked up lie?

  We’ve been trying to ignore the chilly draft of our fucked-up past, but it’s been catching up, wafting in through the open window of my nightmarish dreams, where I dream of this beautiful baby with blue eyes just like Ace’s…

  I suck in a sharp breath, my throat working hard to keep the ball of anguish buried deep down.

  When will this pain go away? When will I be able to breathe easier on my own and not have to depend on Ace to settle my shattered, longing heart over our loss?

  Will we ever forget the past?

  Maybe we didn’t heal after all.

  Maybe the frenetic flow and bright lights of New York City blinded us into believing that we were going to be all right; that our traumas wouldn’t attack us when we least expect it, paralyzing us until we start… well, lashing out at each other.

  And that too—the lashing out—has been happening more often.

  Standing in Ace’s home office that smells so much like his rich masculine scent that lulls me into safety each night, I can’t help my racing mind or the fact that I’m jumping—no—leaping to conclusions.

  Did we make a mistake in getting back to each other when I barely crawled my way through each day without him?

  Does he regret choosing me?

  Maybe he doesn’t love me anymore?

  Fear, hot and sudden, starts seeping into my bones. This is what happens to me sometimes.

  I’ve been so incredibly happy since Ace called me out of the blue on the anniversary of my mother’s death—the same day we lost our baby. It’s like we both jumped into a new chapter headfirst, desperate for happiness, for peace, for love that we lost over the years, that we didn’t care about anything else.

  Now we’re engaged, living together, happy as fuck. Or are we?

  And now, the other shoe is about to drop. But not if I have anything to say about it.

  With renewed determination, I leave his office and flip the light switch off as I go.

  I follow the sound of rushing water. Ace and I bought this apartment just three months ago with our own money that we’ve been saving.

  My father has been a pain in the ass, refusing for us to move in together, but fuck him. I mean, I lived in a building he owned since leaving Westbrook Blues, with a bunch of people on his payroll, his weird Phoenix Corps, spying on me—or maybe it’s because my twin brother, George, knew where I lived—it made me feel suffocated.

  When I told him so, he just laughed and told me to suck it up. It didn’t take long for Ace to say fuck it and hatch a plan that has led us to this beautiful apartment, five minutes away from Columbia University, with a coveted view overlooking Central Park, which looks stunning in winter with all the thousand twinkling lights, the snow, and the horse drawn carriages.

  When I open the master bedroom door, the lights are muted with only the scented candles around the room that I lit ten minutes ago when I arrived still burning, casting a warm glow in the room, betraying the chill in my bones.

  I start stripping just as Ace did. His clothes are strewn all the way to the bathroom door.

  I don’t bother picking them up as I shimmy out of my yoga pants and socks.

  My phone falls out. I can see I have a number of texts and missed calls, but I ignore them.

  For me, Ace comes first. Above everything and everyone, he comes first.

  My phone starts buzzing with an incoming call, but I don’t bother checking who it is.

  I take my shirt off, holding my breath as I reach for the closed bathroom door.

  When I push it open, the sight that greets me is so visceral, so sinful and wicked, that my mouth waters.

  In the foggy large shower, my gaze latches on to him.

  He’s standing under the hot spray of the shower jets, water spraying down on him relentlessly, angry and unforgiving from the cleverly embedded jets in the walls around him.

  One arm is resting on the stone wall in front of him, his forehead resting just under his arm. His eyes are closed tight, his lips slightly open, his cheeks flushed as his other hand pumps his beautiful, thickly veined, hard cock.

  God…

  The way he looks right now, an angry and bothered king, pleasuring himself, punishing himself for sins I committed, it makes my heart race and my pussy clench with sharp arousal.

  I want him. I want him so bad.

  It used to bother me, the way he turned me on with just a simple touch at a time when being touched was the last thing I wanted but Ace’s touch, it erased the past and started an inferno in me, back then and worse now.

  “I want to do that,” I whisper, snapping my lace bra off, the same one he chose for me to wear after he fucked me to two screaming orgasms this morning. “I want to make you come.”

  Not daring to take my eyes off him, I shimmy out of my panties, not sparing a glance at where they lie beside his boxer-briefs. I open the glass door and step into the steamy shower.

  At the sound of my voice, he starts pumping even faster, the veins in his neck popping angrily. I want to lick them, drive him insane as he’s driving me to my insecuritie
s.

  He knew I was there all along, watching him.

  Well, then.

  “Will you let me?” I question, keeping my voice low and sultry, laced with the arousal I can’t hide, and something else, something that tastes like panic and fear…

  Trying my best to ignore that panic, I focus on the stimulating visual in front of me, too sexy to look away from.

  “Am I allowed to make you come?” I ask, knowing better than to just touch him without permission. Not with our kind of past but even so, I’m so turned on that I can hardly breathe.

  My nipples are hard as diamonds, swollen and in need of his touch. My pussy clenches and unclenches, hungry for him because it too knows, no one can satisfy it but him.

  “I’ll take your silence as a maybe,” I whisper. I wrap myself around his back, licking the expanse of skin on his neck. “Maybe I can convince you that I’m the only one suitable and most qualified for the position of pleasuring you for the rest of my life.”

  My diamond ring gleams in the light of the bathroom, but I ignore that, the steam making my body slippery.

  I take advantage of that and start gliding my nipples up and down his hard, muscular back, enjoying it when his back flexes, the muscles there rippling at my touch.

  Ace is more in shape now than he’s ever been and that’s saying something. I love his broad shoulders, love his muscular arms that pick me up and toss me around like I weigh nothing.

  “I did something to make you angry, didn’t I?”

  “Why do you have to ask, then?” he grunts, pumping faster, the lust and anger in his voice so damn wicked, it’s everything.

  I run my fingers slowly down his side, planting open-mouthed kisses at the back of his neck as my fingers reach his hip bone and then trace the sexy V dip, the tight and toned sinew that drives me wild with lust.

  I don’t stop until I reach his hand fisted around his hard, thick cock.

  He grunts and I smirk.

  He’s hard as steel and so damn angry, it’s radiating off of him in waves. That awakens my insecurities even more.

  “Do I get to touch you, Ace?” I whisper in his ear. “Please.”

  I bite down on the lobe as I trace a finger on a thick, angry vein that runs on the underside of his thick cock.