by Ella James
Oh my God. His boots are still on!
“Dammit,” I hiss. My eyes flicker to his. “I forgot to do your boots.”
I try not to look at his body—at his washboard abs or muscle-corded thighs or what is outlined through the damp, thin cotton boxer-briefs—as I crawl over his lower legs.
By the time I’m settled at his feet, his teeth are audibly chattering, and his chest is moving up and down as if he’s breathing hard.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur, forcing my eyes to stay on his face. “I just wasn’t thinking.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He looks furious as his eyes open. “It’s my fault for falling through the fucking ice.”
His eyes close again, and I think he shifts his hips. I can see his bulky arms move again underneath the blanket.
You will not find him attractive, Elise.
God, his voice sounds just the same. Maybe half an octave deeper.
I push the ankle of one pants leg up, startled at how cold his tall, wool socks are. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t think about this sooner.”
His eyes crack open again, narrowing as his mouth thins. “Thought I told you don’t say sorry.”
He looks miserable as I unzip his boot at the side, and then untie the thick, black laces. I swallow and try to breathe more evenly. This is no big deal. Soon he’ll be in warm clothes. I can go.
I pull the boot off, shocked when water splashes onto the floor. “Wow,” I murmur, hurrying with his sock. I can feel his eyes on me as I start at the sock’s top, peeling it down. I catch a quick glimpse of his leg hair—darker and a little thicker than it was before. Then I’m pulling the sock off his freezing foot, revealing perfect arches that I used to tease him for; jealousy, he liked to say, since I’m flat-footed. Somehow, the thick sock gets hung up on the contour of his heel. When I yank it off, he makes a soft sound. I watch as he curls his toes, which look alarmingly pale. When I look up, he’s wincing.
“Is your foot okay?”
“Yeah.” He schools his features back into a poker face, and I make quick work of the other boot and sock. When I’m finished, I dry his feet with another blanket, wrapping it around his ankles before realizing his pants still have to come off.
Good grief, Elise.
“I’m not thinking sequentially.”
He lifts his head. “Mm?”
“Nothing.” I move so I’m straddling just one of his legs, taking care to keep my rear end well above it. “I’ll just pull these off now.” Before I do, though, I realize I should lay the bottle of hot water against his chest, or maybe nestle it at his side. Before it cools.
I move off his leg, carefully chaste, grab the bottle, and, because he’s still got his arms folded underneath the blanket, I lift it up at the side, down near his hip, thinking that I’ll nestle the warm bottle there—thereby avoiding touching his chest or abs.
When my fingers brush his side, though, his whole body flinches. I pull my hand back, looking at his face. His mouth is twisted downward. My heart hammers. “Did that hurt?”
“No,” he starts, as my hand brushes the spot. It’s that hard, ridged V-thing men have when they’re in good shape; I think I’ve heard it called an Adonis belt.
I pull up the blanket as he growls, “Stop”—but it’s too late. I can see the thick pink scar up close…can see how big it is. It reaches around the front of his hip, where I glimpsed it earlier, but it’s mostly covering his side and lower back. Holy hell. It looks like something burned him.
“Ouch, that must have hurt.” And must have been recent, because it’s still so fresh and pink.
His hand shoves at mine—and I guess that’s what does it. The blanket over his hips tents, then falls away, revealing thin gray fabric, stretched over a huge erection.
With no ado, he lurches to his feet, holding onto the couch’s back and moving toward the bedroom. Actually the bathroom. The door shuts hard, and I swear I can hear him breathing into his hands.
“Luca?” I say into the door’s crack.
“You can go now.”
“Are you okay? I didn’t mean to…” I shut my eyes and blow my breath out, then step back. Because I’m going to be leaving now. A wave of devastation hits me, so intense I feel it like a knot in the pit of my stomach.
“Go.” It’s a growl.
I stand there for a long time, belly breathing as tears sting my eyes. I keep them squeezed shut. I am not going to cry about this. I’m a district attorney, for Christ’s sake. Luca is…a bad habit. He’s that thing I crave, even though I know it will kill me.
I should leave now. I can leave and sort through all this later. Questions like why he’s here, and if he bought this place from—
The shower starts. I can hear him pull the curtain back. I step closer to the door, feeling like a freak as I hear him murmur or grunt. Then something shatters.
13
Elise
Blood whooshes in my ears as I try the doorknob. “Luca? Are you okay?”
“I said go!”
I rise on my tiptoes, reaching for the nail above the door jamb in the spot where my cabin has one. When my fingertips brush the little key, I let them clamp around it. There’s no reason for me to try the lock. No reason but trouble.
I tell myself I want to check on him, but I know I’m a liar as I push the key in and twist, as I turn the doorknob and it gives. I nudge the door open and find him standing at the sink, his boxer-briefs still tented by a big, long bulge, one of his hands raised in a fist. The fist is bleeding.
“Oh my God.” I gape at the broken mirror and then at his dripping hand. I think he punched the mirror.
“What do you want?” His shoulders rise and fall—he’s breathing fast—and his face is a mask of fury.
“To check on you,” I whisper.
He waves his fist. “Well now you checked.” His eyes are hard, his lips a thin line. When I don’t turn and go, I see his nostrils flare again. “Why don’t you go now?”
My eyes move around the small, wallpapered bathroom. “Why are you here?”
“Cabin’s mine.”
“You bought it from my father?”
His eyes shift to the sink, where blood is dripping toward the drain in tiny, crimson rivulets. Then his gaze snaps back up. “Yes.”
“You know my dad.”
“What do you think?”
“I know.” And of course, that’s when the tears come for me. Thinking of my dad’s deception. Thinking Dad and Luca both knew…all of this—these details of my life—and I didn’t. I take a deep breath and blink quickly. “I just found out. But I know now.”
“Upset?”
“Do you care?”
“What do you think?” His face softens.
“I think you don’t.” I give a bitter laugh. “I fucking know you don’t.”
His lips twitch like he’s trying not to smile, which makes my cheeks and neck feel flushed. “What’s so funny?”
“Never heard you say the f-word before.”
I look down at my feet. Mostly because that little smile on his lips makes him look so…Luca. When I look back up, I feel more controlled. “Why are you here? Why’d you punch your mirror?”
“Why do you think?”
“Stop turning my questions back around on me.”
He moves the fingers of his bloody hand. “It’s a distraction,” he says thickly. “Because you won’t fucking go.”
“Why are you here this weekend?” I try again.
His eyes shut. He turns his body fully toward the sink. From this side angle, I can see his cock pushing at the elastic band of his boxer-briefs. I can’t help a swell of messed up pride—that he’s hard for me.
He runs the water over his hand, then hisses and snatches it back.
“Does it hurt?” I step closer. “Because of frostbite?”
He steps into the steaming shower without a glance in my direction. I should go now. I should really, really go—right now.
When I p
eek around the curtain, I find him sitting in the tub with his back to the shower’s faucet and his knees drawn partway up. I can see his hand between his thighs, his fingers closed around his thick tip.
We lock eyes, and he strokes himself. “You like?” His eyelids drop so low, his eyes are almost closed. Shower water drips all down his big, hard body like rain sluicing down a marble statue.
“I’m checking on you.” I can barely get my lie out at a whisper.
His head tips back, so the water’s dripping off his hard jaw. “Gonna come in with me?”
His voice is rough, and his blue eyes bore into me. I can tell he’s goading me because his hand drags down to his base, revealing his long, thick length.
I swallow as I feel a swell of warmth between my own legs. “I just wanted to be sure you were okay.”
I stand there looking at him, realizing that the hand between his legs is the one with bloody knuckles, and also that his underwear are gone now. Realizing how messed up this is. He must realize, too, because he shifts so that the hand is on his knee.
I fix my eyes on that hand, then his face. “I should go,” I whisper.
“Yes, you should.” His voice is gruff.
I lean in slightly, so the steam is warm on my face. “Are you sure you’re okay? Were you here to skate this weekend?”
He lowers one of his legs, giving me a twitch of a smile. His eyes shut. “Fuck, it’s so warm in here.”
“Too warm? Do you need to get out?”
His hand covers his eyes, and he rubs his temples. “Nah.”
“How did you fall through?” I’m killing time now, and I know it.
His eyes crack open. The smile he gives me is a soft one. “How do you think?”
“You were going too fast?”
His cheek twitches. “Showing off. For the celebrity on the shore.”
My throat constricts. I swallow to loosen it up. “Why would you say that?”
He tilts his head. “Aren’t you?”
“No, of course not. I’m a public servant.”
“Showing off, then, for the public servant.”
His eyes hang onto mine, hypnotizing. My head feels as if it’s filled with steam.
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Do what?” His lips curve. Always with that twitchy little smile, that half reluctant smile. Like he’s not planning to be amused by anything, but then I go and make him.
“You just…took up skating?”
His hand pushes into his hair. “Elise. I just fucked my hand up trying to calm down. You’ve gotta go.” His voice sounds tortured.
My heart starts to hammer faster.
“Why?” Thin whisper, doesn’t even sound like my voice.
“Because…if you don’t,” he says, getting slowly to his feet, his blue eyes holding mine. “I’m gonna pull you in here.”
I can’t breathe, can’t even swallow. Time is flying past me, through me—me in this inertia.
“You don’t want that, do you?” He steps closer, and desire unfurls as I feel my pulse thump at my jugular.
Then he’s right before me in his naked, muscled glory.
“You don’t want to do this,” he says, peering at me with his dazed eyes under heavy eyelids. “You don’t want to get all…twisted up with me.”
I can see him breathing heavy, chest and shoulders moving. There’s a new scar on his left shoulder—a thin, horizontal line.
“Did you hurt your shoulder?”
“Surgery.” His fist is wrapping around his erection. He’s so close that if I reached out, I could touch it.
“I saw you,” I whisper.
I’m going to do this. I know right then, but I keep speaking, just above a whisper, like it’s just a conversation.
“You were being wheeled out…that day. I could see your shoulder wrapped in white. And Isa pushing the chair. It was at the outpatient center. I had an appointment. Just a check up.”
Once again, I get that falling feeling, like the floor is shifting out from under me as I hold his gaze. “Isa said she saw you,” he says quietly.
“Did she?”
He nods, his eyes almost shutting as he strokes himself and my blood pulses.
“I was sorry I had missed it,” he says.
“Why, though?”
“Why what?” God, his voice is deep. It vibrates.
“Why’d you want to see me?”
His mouth softens and his eyes bleed things that make me feel as if this can’t be real. “Don’t ask that.” I can see his arm and shoulder moving as he pumps himself, but I won’t look down again.
“What would you say if I did?” I ask him.
I’ve lost my mind. I know that.
“I’d say things I can’t take back. And you’d regret it.” He inhales and blows it slowly out as he looks at his hand around his perfect Luca cock, the one that haunts my dreams and wakes me in a pool of slick want when I least expect it.
“Oh, I think regret is our thing, don’t you?”
His eyes shut. “Maybe it is.”
His breaths are coming faster. I can’t hear them, but I see how hard he’s breathing. What would he do if I touched him?
I close my eyes. The room feels as if it’s spinning. Then I open them and let them find his. And I reach out and touch that little white line on his shoulder.
I trace the scar and then his collarbone, as his face twists and he lets out a soft groan. I touch his throat—oh God, this throat I used to suck and lick—and run my fingertip along one of his pecs. And his whole body trembles.
I look up at him, into the blue eyes that are always in my heart’s kaleidoscope. Then I lean in closer…kiss the hollow of his throat. It’s just a brush of my lips. Then a soft lick.
His body bucks like he just grabbed a power line. I bite his wet skin, and he moans like he might come from just that. Then he snatches me up roughly, tossing me over his shoulder. The world trembles as he carries me to his room.
14
Luca
I toss her on the bed and take a step back. “Go home! Fucking shit, Elise, I gave you an out!”
She sits up—her face going from shocked to hurt, and then to angry. “Yes, I didn’t want one! If I did, I wouldn’t be here!”
I sink my hand into my wet hair, tugging as my heart pounds. “What do you want?”
She looks like a righteous angel, with her brown eyes flashing and her fuck-me lips pursed, her shoulders rising and falling as she stares at the dresser in front of the bed. Then she pulls the tie out of her hair, letting it fall like a dark cape around her shoulders. Her face is unreadable.
“I want you to get in bed, under the blankets,” she says softly. “Let me lie beside you.” Her gaze comes home to mine, a touch of fire before she fixates on that dresser again. “I can smell you. And you smell the same. Isn’t that weird?” She makes a strangled laugh sound, her eyes still glued to the dresser.
It’s not weird, I want to say; it’s fucking crazy. I don’t even know if crazy is a good enough word for how it feels to be in the same room as her. I look at la mia rosa, sitting on my bed in her long, wine red coat and plaid sleep pants. Straight out of a dream—or nightmare. All she has to do is slap me around, and it’ll be a little bit of both.
I turn my back to her, stepping over to an old-ass corduroy armchair. I unzip the black bag in it and rifle for some boxer-briefs as I war with myself. Inhale…exhale. Do the right thing—for once. I grit my molars, shut my eyes, and force myself to say it. “You need to go.”
I make sure my tone’s a warning, even as my balls ache and my dick is standing at attention.
“Oh, is that right? You’re saying you don’t want me here?”
I close my hand around a pair of boxer-briefs and picture her standing up. I can barely breathe for waiting for a glimpse of her in my periphery—dark hair trailing as she flies out the bedroom door, then out the back door, over the snow…
I release the breath I’m h
olding, squeeze my eyes shut until I see spots. “Not what I said.”
“So what is it you’re saying?” she chirps. “Are you trying to tell me what I need?”
There is nothing hotter than adult Elise in prosecutor mode. I’m so hard I don’t know how I’ll stuff myself into these underwear. I do, though—because I have to put a stop to this shit. Every second that she’s in here is a second I’m losing restraint.
I squeeze my cock until it fucking hurts, but it won’t go down. When I hear her shifting around—getting off the bed, I bet—I cast a glance over my shoulder. She’s not getting up, though. I find her pulling her coat off her shoulders. I turn fully around. She just asked me if I’m trying to tell her what she needs. “I’m trying to tell you if you get that thing all the way off, you’re going to be tempting fucking fate.”
“Oh…so you don’t like me in my sweater?” She runs her hand along the neckline of the thick, cream garment, and I grit my molars.
“The sweater is fine.”
“Good, because it’s feeling very hot in here.” She lifts the bottom of the sweater, acting like she’s scratching an itch near her hip, and goddammit, I can read her face. She’s got that fuck-me face I still remember. I’m all too happy to oblige.
“It was surprisingly tiring, this last half hour.” She lies on her back, her hair fanned out around her shoulders as she blinks up at the ceiling. “Anyway, I’m so hot now. I need to cool down. Just a second, and I’ll be on my way.”
She arches her back, gathering her hair in one hand, spreading it upward, toward my pillows. “Pardon the lack of bra.” She glances down. “When I went out, I didn’t think I’d take my coat off. Didn’t figure I’d see someone I knew here, of all places. It’s practically the wilderness.”
I grip my dick, squeezing hard—almost as hard as I’m clenching my fucking molars.
“Anyway, what are you doing up here?” She rolls over onto her side, showing off the curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts under the sweater.