Slashes in the Snow: A Baum Squad novel

by Never , M.

  I’m stuck.

  I ride into the night, letting the wind steal my fanatical thoughts,

  racing straight for my greatest weakness and my most frustrating obstacle.

  9

  Kira

  I run the bathwater until the tub is full.

  I need to escape.

  I need silence.

  I need the whole world to disappear.

  I discard my clothes and climb into the marble whirlpool tub large enough to fit six. It’s situated right in front of a huge picture window, so I have a million-dollar view of the Pacific Ocean and a never-ending supply of its magnificent sunsets. The reflection off the water turns the stark-white bathroom pink and gold as the sun descends over the horizon. I breathe it in. I admire it, I appreciate it, then I sink down into the water and say goodbye to the world around me.

  I find peace below the surface, holding my breath as the seconds tick by. My lungs slowly constrict, deprived of oxygen, but I don’t come up for air. Not yet. I’m not ready. I close my eyes and concentrate, wanting to see nothing. Wanting to hear nothing, but even under the water, he’s there. Invading my subconscious. Niggling his way into my tranquility. Into my escape.

  He hates you, I remind myself. He leads you on, talks to you like you’re a piece of shit, and disrespects the house your father and mother made your home. Yes, I call Gerard my father, because he is the first man besides my grandfather who treats my mother and me like true family. He loves us. Loves us like a husband and a father should, and Ky hates him for it.

  He hates me because of my very existence, yet I can’t stop myself from being drawn to him. From wanting him.

  The night of the blackout haunts me. What would have happened if he kissed me? What would our relationship be like, then? I hiccup from the lack of air, but I still don’t surface. Not yet, just a little longer. My lungs are burning now, but it’s a sensation I crave.

  I drift deeper into my thoughts, reliving being in Ky’s arms. Reliving every touch we’ve shared. Reliving how enlivened my body became with each teasing caress.

  I try not to let my thoughts wander there. Wander to him. To fantasize about him, but my attraction is uncontrollable. It’s a speeding bullet, and my arousal is the bullseye. That annoying ache creeps up on me. I want to ignore it. Fight it. Beat it away with a bat. But I don’t. I give in to it. I let it wrap itself around me, and I know then I’m a goner.

  I come up for air sooner than I wanted. I’m pissed at myself, but I’m also so fucking needy. Needy for him. I slide my hand down my torso and find the apex of my thighs. The first touch makes me tremble even though I am submerged in warm water. I rub at the jarring throb hoping to subside the discomfort, but it only strengthens the sensations. My muscles tighten as I massage away the misery, my body responds in a mollifying way. Small, anguished moans escape from me as I climb each tormenting peak, coming closer and closer to the reprieve I’m dying for. I picture Ky; I feel him stroking me. His strong hands and commanding touch. It’s him I want. Want on top of me, want inside me. I rub faster, breathe harder. My core constricting from the fantasy. It’s him I want, it’s him I want, I chant silently to myself.

  “Fuck, fuck,” I mewl out loud as I reach the pivotal edge. With the first caress of my orgasm — blissful and glorious — I allow myself to fall, but my pleasure is robbed as I’m startled to death by an ear-piercing sound. “Shit.” I scurry out of the tub, dripping wet, frustrated as hell, and on a warpath. Wrapping myself in a towel, I rush downstairs to silence the alarm. Motherfucking thing.

  Ky is covering his ears next to the keypad by the time I make it to the front door.

  I punch in the four-digit code, and the blaring siren stops. I’m going to need an eardrum replacement if this shit keeps up.

  “This fucking thing needs to be ripped out of the wall.” Ky goes to do just that, and I stop him.

  “Please don’t. I’ll call the company tomorrow. They’ll send someone out . . . again.”

  “You don’t need a tech. You need a fucking priest to perform an exorcism.”

  “If I thought it would work, I’d do it,” I smirk.

  Ky crosses his arms and shakes his head, annoyed like usual. Miserable seems to be his perpetual mood.

  Ky takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He’s so hostile at times. “Do you mind if I call one of my guys over to take a look? Maybe he can pinpoint what’s wrong.”

  “You’re asking my permission?” I try not to drop my jaw. Lately with Ky, it’s an order. Like it or not.

  Ky gazes down at me, as if he’s noticing me for the very first time since the alarm glitched. Like I was invisible until just a second ago.

  “It’s not my house. Not my shit.” He steals a glimpse at what I’m wearing. A towel and nothing else. I swear he likes what he sees. More than likes, but he’s fighting his feelings to the death. Beating them down and kicking them out. If I was more of a woman, I would try to seduce him. Drop my towel right here in the foyer. Hand myself over to the domineering man I can’t stop thinking about. Dreaming about. It’s becoming a constant state of agony having him under the same roof. And what just happened in the bathtub didn’t do anything but add fuel to my already raging fire.

  Awkward. That’s what we are. That’s what we’ve become. There’s no middle ground anymore. Not that there was much of one to begin with, but now it’s like we are just drifting around each other. No connection at all except for the contempt crackling on his end. It makes me sad. Apart from my arresting physical attraction to Ky Parish, there is a part of me that really wants to get to know him. Who wants to know the man Gerard spoke so highly of. It’s like he’s two different people, and I can’t decipher who the real one is.

  “You should go get dressed.” Ky clears his throat, crosses his arms, and walks away. “I’ll make that phone call.” His voice is so hard and cold I crumble a bit. Disheartened by the way he brushes me off. I wish I could hate him. I wish I could just put up a wall the way he does. Pretend he’s nothing, like the way he sees me. But I can’t. Something inside won’t let me. I feel . . . sorry for him. And it’s not out of pity; it’s out of empathy. He’s hurting so much, and there’s nothing I can do. I’m helpless, and I despise that feeling. It's how my father used to make us feel. It’s how he used to manipulate us.

  I stare at Ky’s back as he leans on the kitchen island. He’s wearing a faded black T-shirt, blue jeans, and a backwards baseball cap with a logo of a round bomb sporting an angry face glaring directly at me. The stupidest idea pops into my head. I want to hug him. Just wrap my arms snuggly around him and let him have all my warmth. Maybe that’s what he needs, a little compassion. Some affection. Someone he can relax around. I can be that person. If he’d let me. I take a step forward and inhale a deep, daring breath. Here goes nothing.

  I take two more steps before Ky turns around.

  “Why the fuck are you just standing there, Kira? Go get dressed,” he snarls, and my plan is thwarted right on the spot.

  Spoiled right to the fucking core.

  I turn and head back upstairs, not wanting to agitate the beast any further.

  This plan is going to take a bit more strategizing.

  Straight back to the drawing board it is.

  10

  Ky

  I pick apart another pistachio, eating the nut and tossing the shell onto the floor. There’s a pile at my feet.

  Pistachios are my father’s favorite snack, so it’s no surprise I found a boatload of them in the kitchen pantry. I’m eating them purely out of spite. My plan is to eat them all and leave a mountain of shells for him to find.

  I flip through Netflix searching for something else to watch. Three weeks holed up in this house, and I have seriously depleted my options. It’s gotten so bad I was reduced to stalking Kira’s playlist. A bunch of sappy love stories and teenage dramas are definitely not my thing.

  I crack apart another nut and toss the shell onto the floor with the rest of
them. The mess brings me a twisted satisfaction.

  “You can at least use a garbage can.” Kira places a small waste basket next to me, dressed in nothing but a white string bikini. I freeze in place, trying not to choke on the pistachio currently residing in my mouth.

  I try to restart my motor functions as I ogle her half-naked body. Her perfect, sexy, seductive, spellbinding, vexing, half-naked fucking body that I want to slide my tongue all over and fuck until the desire is completely out of my system. Until it’s fucking eradicated and I never have to think about Kira Kendrick ever again.

  Out of pure vindictiveness, I lift up the toe of my shoe and crush a pistachio shell right into the floor. It crunches so loudly it echoes through the cavernous room. Fuck, that felt good.

  Kira just stands there and watches me, barely bothered at all. Which, of course, only pisses me off more.

  “Are you finished now?” She places a hand on her hip, seeming to pose like a supermodel. She’s so fucking gorgeous she could be one. I hate myself for how fucking attracted I am to her, and if she takes one step closer, I might not be able to stop myself from grabbing her and pinning her to this couch.

  A devilish thought of us defiling the white leather invades my thoughts. I’d come all over it, just because I could.

  “No,” I answer, crushing another shell into the stupidly expensive floor.

  Kira rolls her eyes. “How ’bout now?”

  “Maybe. What do you want?” I’m curt. I can’t remember the last time I was truly nice to Kira. I’m such a dick.

  “I want to go for a swim.”

  “Who’s stopping you?” I crack open another pistachio and pop it into my mouth.

  “No one’s stopping me. I want to go for a swim with you,” she clarifies.

  Again, I pause all movement. “With me?”

  “That’s what I said,” she confirms.

  “Why?” I curl my lip.

  “Why not? Maybe a little fun in the sun will do us both some good,” she attempts to convince me.

  “I don’t have a bathing suit,” I shut her down.

  “You have underwear, don’t you? I would offer you one of Gerard’s bathing suits, but I don’t want to send you off the deep end.”

  Smart girl.

  I eye Kira speculatively. What game is she playing?

  “All of a sudden you want to hang out with me?” I question.

  Kira bites her bottom lip adorably before she answers. “It’s not all of a sudden. We’ve both been under a lot of stress, and it’s a beautiful day out. I thought we could take advantage of our pristine geographical location.”

  I crack a smile powerlessly. “Our pristine geographical location?”

  “Is it not?” Kira motions to the back of the house, where a huge pool is situated and the Pacific Ocean waits just beyond the backyard perimeter.

  She has a point. This place is as close as it gets to a Californian paradise.

  “So, what do you say?” She juts her hip out, tempting me like a fucking siren.

  I want to say hell yes. I want to live out every single wet dream in the pool, in the ocean, on the sand, under the sun. Take her every single way she’d let me, make her cry, make her scream, make her never want another man besides me again.

  Rewind.

  I’m getting way ahead of myself here. I calm my raging hormones before they reach the point of no return. There’s no guarantee she’d let me put my hands on her if I agree. And wouldn’t that totally suck?

  But I can be persuasive when I want to be. I’ve even been called charming a time or two. Maybe I can turn on the Mr. Nice Guy act for just a little while if it’s going to get me what I want — which is to get fucking laid.

  I’ve been avoiding getting close to Kira at all costs. What happened during the blackout completely spooked me, but it’s time to stop being a pussy and act like the red-blooded American man I am.

  I have fucked a dozen-and-a-half women with no strings attached, and Kira doesn’t have to be any different.

  I let her get in my head that night, but I’m better prepared now. I know what to expect. I know how to control it. Purely physical. That’s all I need and all I want. She can try to charm me all she wants. It ain’t gonna happen.

  I’m going to fuck Kira straight out of my system and then move right along with my life.

  I stand up, towering over her petite frame. “Okay, Snow.” I place my hands on her hips and drag her a little closer to me. “Let’s go for a swim,” I rasp in her ear.

  Her breathing picks up as she places her hands on my forearms for support. This is going to be too easy. I look into her dark eyes, and they are bright with something . . . excitement, uncertainty, arousal, perhaps? I notice her nipples poking through the thin material of her bathing suit top. I am going to suck the shit out of those two little points.

  “Pool or ocean?” she asks a tad bit shakily. I definitely affect her.

  “Whichever. Wet is wet.” I let go of her and pull my T-shirt over my head, tossing it onto the couch.

  The expression on Kira’s face is priceless. It’s clear she enjoys looking at me as much as I enjoy looking at her.

  “I was thinking the beach, but now I’m reconsidering.” She’s staring straight at the tattoos on my chest.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “The pool is closer.”

  I beam. “Faster for me to get you wet?”

  Yup, that statement was littered with innuendos.

  The exhilaration that flares in Kira’s eyes hits me straight in the gut. Her gaze is so penetrable, I swear to God I can feel it everywhere. Slithering all throughout me like a savage serpent.

  “Ky.” She places a hand on my chest, right where the writing dips below my collar bone.

  “Kira.” I grab her arms, locking her close to me. “Don’t say anything.” I lean in to kiss her, unable to escape the avalanche of attraction burying me alive. But the second before her lips touch mine, a ringing sound breaks the spell. It tears our moment apart, and we trip over reality.

  “That’s mine.” Kira looks at where the sound is coming from. The charging station set up on the kitchen countertop next to the refrigerator. “I should check that.” She steps away, and I reluctantly let her go. My heart is pounding, and my head is light, and my dick is on fire. I need a minute.

  I never take my eyes off Kira as she scurries across the palatial room and grabs for her phone. She is ball-breakingly beautiful in that barely there bikini. This phone call better be fast. I’m tuned up now, impatient, and ready for more.

  I saunter over to where she’s standing, unbuckling my pants as I go. No sense wasting time.

  I eavesdrop on Kira as she answers the phone. “Mom? Hello?” Her voice elevates excitedly. In the three weeks I’ve been here, I don’t recall Kira ever talking to her mother. “Oh? Gerard? Hi, how are you?” Kira turns to look at me, and my blood runs cold. My father is calling her.

  Kira continues with her conversation while I shoot laser beams at her and the phone. “No, everything is good. How is Paris? Is everything okay with my mom?”

  I watch her intently as her facial expressions change. I’m not close enough to hear exactly what he’s saying to her, but I am close enough to hear his deep timbre. “Yeah, the alarm has been giving me some problems. I called the company again. I’ll figure it out,” she assures him.

  Yeah, the problem is that alarm system is an expensive piece of shit. I had Hawk come over and take a look at it while Kira was at school. He did all kinds of tests and diagnostics and came to the same conclusion as the company. Nothing is friggin’ wrong.

  “I know, I miss you. Both of you.” She looks right into my eyes as she tells him that, and my blood races from negative one degree to a thousand degrees in a nanosecond. “I love you, too.” There’s so much reverie in her voice my head nearly explodes.

  I love you, too . . .

  Those four words rock me to the very core. Rage, resentment, and jealousy claw up my
throat like a deranged demon hunting for blood.

  Kira hangs up, and I can barely stomach being in the same room as her. That one phone call reminded me of everything I lost and everything she gained. Everything she and her mother took from me. The one person I loved most, needed most, depended on most. My father. My real father. Not hers.

  Illogical anger alters my existence. It rings in my ears and pulls at my fingernails.

  “Ky?” Kira hums my name, and it is the softest, sweetest sound, but it does nothing to vanquish my beastly temper.

  “What?” I hiss maliciously.

  “Are you okay?”

  Am I okay? Am I fucking okay?

  “No, Kira,” I spit out her name. “I am not fucking okay.” I storm off. I need air. I need space. I need to go fucking beat the shit out of something.

  “Where are you going?” She trails after me.

  “Away.” I continue through the house.

  “Away, where? What about our swim?”

  I stop dead in my tracks. I cannot fucking deal with this right now. With her. Slowly turning on my heel, I step toward Kira, towering ominously over her small frame. “You want to go swimming, Kira? Do us all a fucking favor and go drown yourself.” My words drip with disdain, and Kira’s eyes instantly well with tears. The tiniest little pang of guilt hits me in my heart, but it’s not enough to apologize, or atone, or even want to take it back. At this very moment, I truly mean it.

  I stalk off, leaving Kira visibly heartbroken in the kitchen. It’s so wrong, but I’m glad she’s in pain. At least now, I’m not the only one.

  Misery sure as shit loves company.

  * * *

  I hide out in the spare bedroom I’ve taken up residence in. It’s huge, obnoxiously white, and sterilely decorated, like the rest of the house. The only thing tolerable about it is the dark green bedding and the sick terrace off the back that overlooks the pool and vast, turquoise blue ocean. I stalk by the doorway and spy Kira standing at the edge of the massive pool. She’s just staring down at the water, arms wrapped around her waist, hair blowing in the breeze. That small pang of guilt is now a heated sword, stabbing me over and over straight through the heart. I can be a mean motherfucker sometimes, but what I said to her was downright cruel. Of course, I regret it now. And of course, I hate apologies, but my words definitely warrant one.