The Winter Games Box Set

by Rebecca Sharp

  I’d known he was here the second I walked in—not because I saw him, but because I felt him and the annoying shock that zapped my spine every time he was near. A few steps further and I spotted him, sitting in the corner with a tall, unnamed blonde standing between his legs. Drink in one hand, ass-cheek in the other, he’d been looking out the windows along the back wall as Miss Barbie sucked on his neck like he was the fountain of youth. A second of further inspection told me that she was standing on purpose to hide it—‘it’ being that she was attempting to give him a hand-job through his pants in the middle of the bar.

  Truth: This was not an atypical sight.

  Truth: I was still jealous and I’d given up a long time ago trying to deny it.

  From the moment that we’d met, there’d been a tension between us that was unresolvable; it grew and festered to the point where our only option was to lash out at each other because admitting to those feelings (again) was out of the question.

  We were like yin and yang—darkness and light—good and bad. And we would never admit to it. We were pulled to each other with a gravity that scientists had yet to give name to. And what do you do when the inescapable is impossible? You slowly self-destruct, praying someone will come along and figure out how to change the laws of physics. Or take you to the moon.

  Truth: I’d been counting on Zack to be an astronaut.

  “I told you he was going to leave,” he said with a low voice that was surprisingly strained—like it hurt him to know that I’d hurt myself by not listening to him.

  Jimmy came back over with my drink and I snatched it before Emmett decided to take that away from me, too.

  “And I told you to go away.” I sucked down a huge gulp through the teeny-tiny straw.

  Large, warm fingers gripped mine—and the glass I was holding. “I think that’s enough…” he said gently.

  Fighting him was pointless—he was way stronger than I was. But I let go of the drink mostly because his fingers brushing mine was doing things to my body that the alcohol wouldn’t let me ignore.

  I gave him my best glare as I slumped back into the chair, taking my delightful box of cake with me. As soon as it was gone, I was totally stabbing him with this fork. He took a long sip of my drink. I fought to keep chewing as I watched those sculpted lips pull on the tip of the straw… Remembering how they’d pulled on me.

  “Not quite as sweet as sunshine.” He smirked.

  I hated him. I hated him for knowing what I was thinking about, for calling me out on it like a kid caught with her hand in the candy jar, and for the fact that he was thinking about it, too.

  He moved closer to me, saying matter-of-factly, “You’re not upset because he’s leaving.”

  “Yes, I am.” I shoved a huge bite into my mouth.

  “No. You’re upset because you’re not upset about it. You’re upset because you’ve been trying so hard to convince yourself—and me—that he was your Prince and now you’ve just realized how wasted your efforts were; you didn’t love him. Or really care that much for him at all.”

  He wasn’t wrong. One more thing to add to my list… I really liked Zack, I did. I told myself that I could love him given time. Especially after Chance left, I was grasping at straws to fill the hole inside of me that just seemed to keep growing. Zack had shown up and he’d been nice and funny and seemed like a good straw to grasp on to.

  My tongue burned with lies that I wish I could speak. Instead, I opted for intrigue. “How do you know?”

  “How could you when all you think about is me?” Somehow I missed his face closing in on my ear. Wildfire raced through my body.

  “And how much I hate you?” I was breathless and slurring but I refused to back down.

  “Something like that,” he said lightly, taking the now cake-less box from my hands—fork and all—and setting it far to the other side of him. “I think you’ve had enough and it’s time to go home, Sunshine.”

  I turned to face him, the room spinning like a top before that gorgeous face focused. “Are you drunk? Or high? Or both?”

  He grinned and my panties protested against the flood. “No, not yet.”

  “There is no way I’m leaving with you,” I said simply. Not again.

  The grin disappeared. The indomitable asshole intent on ‘protecting’ me was back. “I will carry you again if I have to, Ally.”

  The room spun. The world spun. Maybe from the alcohol. Maybe because it was crumbling around me. All I knew was that I was on my own two feet and refusing King Asshole’s help.

  I stumbled outside. Belatedly realizing that I forgot my purse, I spun around. He was holding it. Great. And Barbie was standing behind him. What was she doing here still?

  I couldn’t have fled to Channing’s jeep even if I wanted since he had my purse—and therefore, the keys to her car. No wonder Zach had asked me to meet him at the restaurant, necessitating my borrowing the Wrangler, I thought belatedly as I walked over to Emmett’s truck trying to hold my head high—and not vomit.

  He opened the back door motioning for me to get inside. God, this was mortifying. Then Barbie got in the front seat, completing my humiliation. Curling into the corner of the seat, I tried to squeeze into the crack between it and the door, almost wishing the door would fly open so I could escape.

  Click.

  The doors locked because he knew what I was thinking. My head jerked to glare at him, whacking it against the door in the process.

  “You alright there, Sunshine?” he asked, looking over his shoulder back to me like I was a child.

  I hated how he chuckled; it made him look hot and happy, the combination making my sex ache to feel that smile against me.

  “Why are we taking her home again, King?” I snorted when Bimbo Barbie called him by his SnowmassHole nickname. Just another notch in his crown there, doll.

  I watched him give her a look that said if she questioned him again, he’d be asking her the same question. Then her hand reached over to his lap in retaliation for my laugh; I squeezed my eyes shut so hard it hurt. I didn’t need to see her continuing to touch him the way she had in the bar. My mind pictured it vividly enough the entire drive home.

  The click of the doors unlocking was like the gunshot to start the Derby. The door opened and I tripped out of the gate. Stupid snow. Holding onto the door saved my ass from completely wiping out, but not from hearing Emmett’s slew of curses.

  Then I was up in his arms as he carried me over the threshold of the garage.

  “Not smart, Ally. Not fucking smart,” he growled into my ear

  “I can walk on my own,” I insisted, trying to push his hands off of me.

  He laughed, managing to twist the doorknob and kick the door wide enough to get us both inside.

  Each step towards my room was heavy with all the things that were so fucked up between us. The steps as he left would be even worse. The tears were already threatening to fall.

  He didn’t come near my bed. Instead he slowly set me down, letting me use him as a crutch. I didn’t want to, but I needed to. My body slid down the length of his until my feet touched the floor, locking us into place. Breathing was not recommended at this moment. I felt the thick, hard ridge of him pressed into my stomach.

  I didn’t care what Barbie thought her hand was doing to him. This was because of me. I felt it in the way his hands stayed on my waist—he didn’t care if I fell; he held on to make sure that I would take him down with me.

  My fingers dug into the soft cotton of his shirt, knuckles white with how hard I was holding. In contrast, the words, “just go” escaped my lips that were painfully dry.

  “Not until I make sure you’re ok, Sunshine,” he swore softly.

  I laughed for a second until my head revolted. “Of course I’m ok. Why wouldn’t I be? My boyfriend just dumped me but it’s ok because I didn’t really care for him.” Sarcasm slurred my words. “I just got wasted on rum and chocolate like the lamest cliché in the book and now…” I sucked
in a breath, licking my lips even though it would only make them worse. Kind of like caring for Emmett. “Now, after the most humiliating ride home which I hope I won’t remember in the morning,” my voice cracked, “the person who hates me most is the one who had to take care of me.”

  “I don’t hate you.” I stared into his eyes, so dark I couldn’t tell if they were covering his lie or concealing his truth.

  “Then why are you doing this to me?”

  Always the same question. Seconds ticked with no response. I sagged, admitting defeat and wanted to go to bed. Alone. Forever alone.

  “You know why, Ally.” The words were like the first rain drop in the storm. I looked up wondering if I’d felt—if I’d heard what I thought I had. Real or imagined?

  The rum whispered ‘real.’ And who was going to argue with the rum?

  Not me. I let the recklessness freed by the rum and the ragged pieces of my heart run wild.

  What else could I possibly have to lose?

  “Then why don’t you stay?” Our chests fought for the air between us, dragging in deep breaths of the oxygen that was too heavy to process.

  “You know why.”

  I hated him. And I hated all of his reasons that didn’t seem good enough.

  My hands fell away, pushing his with them.

  “Alone…” I slurred, “…just like you wanted me…”

  I turned away from him in bed, wiping the tears from my cheeks in the process. Nausea rolled through me, impatiently waiting for the door to hit him on the way out. “Go to sleep, Sunshine. There’s only danger in my darkness.”

  Good and evil fight inside all of us. The reality is that it’s never just one or the other. More often than not, my good was cloaked in evil and my evil veiled in good.

  Sometimes, they were one and the same.

  I wanted to protect Ally from when I felt about her, cloaking it in a SnowmassHole. I also needed to be near her which I veiled with the excuse of protecting her. It was a vicious cycle.

  Now that Chance was back, I thought the deterrent to keep away from her would be insurmountable. And then I saw her crying alone at the bar from a hurt that I’d tried to protect her from.

  Unlike an hour earlier, I had no desire to fuck Brittany anymore. I brought her along as a back-up—a failsafe. If she hadn’t been in the car, I would be in bed with my broken Sunshine right now.

  I pretended not to notice the pile of artwork—painted sunshines—in the corner of her room before I stormed out of the empty house, trying not to note just how empty it was. Channing was at Wyatt’s preparing to go back to Canada for a few weeks with him and Chance, well, he’d been living at Nick’s place ever since he got back. I didn’t ask. We all had skeletons that it was better weren’t shared.

  “Finally,” Brittany huffed when I got back in my truck. What the fuck was it with girls lately? Had they always been like this? Had I been too high and my dick too hard to notice?

  You left her alone, Emmett. Alone. Everything she didn’t have to tell you she was afraid of.

  Fuck.

  I floored the trusty diesel and pulled a U-turn.

  “What the hell! What are you doing?” she shrieked.

  Guess I could have been subtler, but it probably wouldn’t have gotten her hand off of my lap as efficiently.

  “Taking you home.”

  I could have told her to save the ‘fuck you, asshole’ routine, but I didn’t even want to waste my breath. The truck was in reverse the second the door slammed shut.

  Deja-vu.

  Up their driveway. In the garage. Up the stairs. In her room.

  She was sound asleep, her breathing soft and steady as I walked over to the other side of the bed. Slipping off my shoes, I left every other article of clothing intact; the true last defense.

  I climbed on top of the covers, just to be safe.

  She moaned, her eyes flitting open. “Emmett?” Her soft, wispy voice destroyed me.

  “Just me, Sunshine.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Shh…” I pulled her into my arms, her head sliding perfectly against my chest, the blanket still separating us. My tongue bled as I bit back a groan. The dark side of me raged to take the pleasure that we’d both been feeling—and both been fighting. The other side begged to hold her forever. “Holding you, Sunshine,” I whispered. “Just holding you.”

  Her pillow was wet underneath my arm.

  “I thought—“ her breath quivered, “—you were leaving me, too.”

  Her exhale was like a hammer against the wall I’d built—not just to keep her out, but to keep everyone out.

  She curled tighter against me and I felt her entire body go limp, finally releasing all of the stress and sadness that had been building over the past several hours.

  She was asleep, but I still replied. The words admitting my defeat were more for myself than for her anyway. “I tried…”

  But it was like the night trying to separate itself from the day.

  Impossible.

  10. I hate the way he danced—smoothly gliding one step closer to me followed by a quick shuffle of two steps back.

  IN AND OUT I DRIFTED, like on a warm, breathing, very male wave.

  I sighed and moved closer to it, taking a deep breath. There was no salty ocean smell, only a deep, earthy spice. The blankets bunched between us annoyed me, but I couldn’t seem to get them to go away. I pushed closer though. The heat from the wave pulsed through me straight to my core, making my body feel alive; I wanted it to take me and crush me with its strength.

  And then the wave moved… in the wrong direction.

  “Ally.” The rasp of his voice was even more pronounced in the morning. “I have to go,” Emmett said, the arm I’d been lying on began to slide out from underneath me.

  My eyelids protested as I forced them open. He was looking down at me with his strained expression like he hadn’t slept all night. Now I knew why the covers were bunched; because he’d slept on top of them. As if we needed more things between us.

  “Why?” Protesting was painful. My head felt like an anvil had been dropped on it.

  “Your sister will be home soon. And I have stuff I have to do,” he clipped. The mattress shifted as his weight was removed from it.

  “Why did you come back?” I sat up to see my clothes from last night all askew; my hair probably looked like a rat’s nest.

  Emmett shoved his feet into his shoes. “You looked sick.” Liar, I thought. “Your brother would have my head if something had happened to you.”

  Something like you? I wanted to ask, but didn’t.

  “I thought it was because you didn’t want to leave me alone,” I said bravely. Looking down his body, I could still see how he didn’t want to leave me alone. No wonder he looked like he hadn’t slept well. How it was possible to sleep at all with the size of that was beyond me.

  He strolled towards my door. “I’m leaving you now, aren’t I?”

  “Not because you want to,” I dared to accuse. That’s how things got addressed between us: hard, fast, painful accusations. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, it was the only way to get to the truth. “Not because I want you to…”

  His hand was on the doorknob when he stopped and turned towards me, his eyes dark and heavy with regret, and said, “Well, you’re going to have to find someone else for that. You should know by now one night is more than most get with me.” My body cringed as he crawled back into his cold shell. “The f-word isn’t a part of my vocabulary.”

  I blinked in confusion. “Um… Every other word out of your mouth is the f-word, Emmett.” There was no way he was unaware of that fact.

  He laughed—the one that told me I was wrong and he was going to enjoy explaining to me just how fallible I was in everything that had to do with him.

  “Not that f-word, Sunshine,” he rasped, his smirk like a blade to my chest. “’Forever’ is not in my fucking vocabulary. So don’t expect that you’ll hear it from me ever agai
n.”

  The door didn’t hit him on the way out. Channing didn’t run him over with her Jeep. And an avalanche didn’t descend on his stupid truck as he pulled down the driveway.

  Karma must be hungover this morning, too.

  “Ally!” The sudden yell had me dropping my makeup brush. “You ready?”

  I yanked open my door, peering down the staircase. “Chance?”

  My older brother appeared at the bottom with a ‘who-else-were-you-expecting’ face.

  “I thought Chan was taking me to work.” Really needed to get my own car.

  “Yeah, well, she’s busy,” he said, sounding not too pleased. “She asked me to take you. You almost ready?”

  I nodded and hurried back to my room.

  Ever since he came back, Chance wasn’t like the brother that I’d only just started to get to know again. He didn’t even tell me that he got my voicemail; he just showed up to handle Channing at the X Games. When I saw him standing in our kitchen, I thought he was a ghost. And then he hugged me and I knew I’d been wrong.

  That morning was the last glimpse I had of the old Chance.

  Chan and I had both been shocked when he said he was going to stay at Nick’s—not that the guy didn’t have an incredible house, at least from what I’d heard, but this was Chance’s home.

  So, before I could even relish in the fact that Chance was back, he was gone again. Here, but not. The same, but different. Almost like me.

  “Ok, ready.” I followed him out the door and climbed into the black Cherokee.

  “Channing leaves on Friday so I can take you and whatever. Just let me know.”

  “I’m sure I can work something out with Tammy, don’t worry about it,” I said with a muted voice, keeping my eyes out the window. “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “Fuck. You’re not bothering me, Al.” My brother sounded angry and tortured. Just like he was every time I saw him which was pretty infrequent anyway. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you… I’m sorry I can’t…”