The Winter Games Box Set

by Rebecca Sharp

  “You always do this,” she panted.

  “You always dream of me,” I returned, kissing up to her begging tit. “Can’t help it if I’m jealous of dream me, J-bird.”

  “You can’t be jealous of yourself,” she whimpered as I sucked the hard peak into my mouth. Her hips ground in the same rhythm of the pulls of my mouth.

  “I don’t want you coming with dream me. And my mouth had its turn last night. There are other parts of me that are in line for your pussy.” I couldn’t stop my growl as her leg shifted up and rubbed over my dick making it jump in anticipation.

  “You might be too late for that,” she said, her eyes glinting humorously.

  I scowled, annoyed that I really was starting to feel a little jealous of dream me.

  “What was I doing? In your dream…”

  She continued to just smile at me until my teeth clamped down on her nipple and she arched up into me with a yelp of pain and a rush of pleasure on my leg.

  “I-I was kidding,” she cried. “I was kidding, Chance. Please… I need you…”

  Not getting away that easily, J-bird.

  “Tell me what I was doing.” I laved over the bud again, enticing her to obey me while I remember what my cock looked like smashed between the two perfect globes as I came all over her chest.

  “I… I told you that you couldn’t s-stop yourself from coming inside me when I come around you…” she began, her eyes drifting closer to shut. “You said that you could…”

  “And…?” I asked through gritted teeth, my dick already imagining the feel of having to hold back an orgasm through hers.

  “Y-you couldn’t…” She whimpered again, thrusting her nipple against my lips.

  I sucked hard, giving her what she needed as my hand cupped the other mound, kneading it firmly.

  I moved over her, my face in front of hers with a grin, as I positioned myself between her thighs. “Looks like I’ll have to show you why real me is so much better than dream me.”

  Her legs locked around me as I pushed inside her. Hot, blinding heat locked around me. She arched against me until I was completely inside her.

  Fuck.

  A sweat broke out on my forehead, wondering if I was going to be able to out-do dream me…

  With a grunt I began to ram inside her, hooking one of her legs up under my chest so I could hit the deepest part inside her. At least dream me—and my mouth—had brought her to the brink. It only took a few punishing thrusts before her muscles exploded around me.

  My teeth locked into her shoulder as I felt my eyes bulge from my head. The tight flexing around my cock made my heart pound with the restraint needed to not explode inside her.

  “Fuck,” I swore as I pulled out of her, my cock dripping with her orgasm.

  “You survived,” she said breathlessly, with a grin as those dancing, magical eyes stared up at me.

  Still seeing stars, I pulled her up roughly by her arm, planting a punishing kiss on her mouth before I had her on all fours on the bed, facing the mirror I’d installed at the base.

  My face was hard and determined as I positioned my hips and my dick behind her. Her face, framed by tousled pink waves, was a mix of sated pleasure and an even hungrier desire.

  “Mine.” I slammed back into her and she jerked forward at the invasion.

  My body was shaking, sweating, with the need to let go. Not yet.

  I pulled her up so that we were both on our knees, with my cock buried inside her. My hands snaked around to her tits as I commanded, “Touch yourself. Make yourself come.”

  Her head rolled back onto my shoulder as I saw and felt her fingers work their way between her folds.

  I didn’t move. Moving would have me lose it. Instead, I stayed still, focused solely on surviving the clench of her core as she played with her clit. I watched in the mirror. I watched my hands knead her swollen breasts. I watched my fingers play with her pink nipples, how pulling and tugging on them made her hand move faster. I watched the way her mouth dropped as her fingers moved faster and faster. I felt her body tighten, her chest not really breathing until she crashed around me again.

  It was only sheer will that held me back the way her body milked me with strong, sure pulls.

  “Real me is better, right, J-bird?” I growled.

  “Only if real you comes inside me now,” she cried.

  Oh, fuck.

  I felt the waves of my release coming.

  I let her fall forward onto her hands, one of mine holding her hip steady, the other reaching around for her swollen clit. Pinching and rolling, I brought her right back up the slope from where she’d just fallen. Her ass rocked back against me as she approached another orgasm. Meanwhile, I was sweating with exertion, my whole body slick as I dragged her back to the level that I was at. And when she got there, I began to move.

  I pulled almost all the way out before ramming back inside her. Her scream of pleasure brought me closer. This was what I wanted: her pleasure that came both from my fingers and from my dick hitting that sweet spot inside her. Her body began to vibrate against me and I knew she was about to crumble. I couldn’t even see anything, the last time I pushed all the way inside her before she came I was so far gone. Thank God, she screamed my name as her body fractured into a million pieces around me

  My head threw back, my neck bulged out as I roared my release. I pumped into her as the strength of her orgasm not only pulled it from me, but clenched so hard that our cum sputtered and squirted out from between us.

  She sagged back against me and I gently laid us back onto the bed, pulling her tight against my chest.

  “I love you,” she said breathlessly.

  “Real me or Dream me?” I teased.

  “Mmm… still deciding…” she taunted.

  I gripped her stomach possessively. “Dream me can’t do that,” I replied. “Dream me also can’t bring you dinner. Or rub your feet.”

  She giggled and pulled my hand up over her heart.

  “Dream me can’t propose to you. Dream me can’t marry you.” Her laughter stopped. “Dream me can’t put a baby inside you.”

  “Chance…” Her breath always caught when I talked about the future like this.

  “I want it all with you, J-bird,” I said as I kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ve wanted it all for a long time… and I never thought I’d be able to have it.”

  I swallowed hard, my chest squeezing with suffocating strength to think about how I would have continued to live if she hadn’t come back into my life. No… I would have been alive, but I don’t think I would have called it living.

  “I want it all, too, Chance.” Her smile was watery and brave.

  And that’s what life is about. Not fairytales and perfects. It’s about falls and mistakes. It’s about rising up and overcoming. It’s about being better than what brought you down. And mostly, it’s about the people you find along the way who make the ride worthwhile. Who pick you up and tell you that you aren’t alone.

  It’s about the woman who loved me in spite of all my pride and all my imperfections.

  I kissed the shell of her ear with a smile. “So, you tell Dream me to enjoy it while it lasts, because all those things are coming, J-bird. Every. Single. One.”

  “I love you,” she whispered and I could hear the tears in her voice. “The real you.”

  “I love you, Jessa. Only, ever, always.”

  She tipped her head towards mine, staring up at me with a look that I’d break a knee or pull the fucking moon down for.

  “Only, ever, always.”

  “YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO come up with a new term,” Ally said with a laugh as she hugged me.

  My face was already red and flustered as I’d rushed to Cup of Joe to meet her and Tammy. Chance had made me late. He’d made me a lot of things… the results of which were my tardiness and the color in my cheeks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Instead of the donut look,” she teased as I greeted Tammy.
“Because your face is all endorphin and no regret.”

  I broke out into a laugh as I settled in at the table they’d claimed for us in the corner. I hadn’t seen them since Chance and I made up. I mean, I’d told them that everything was good—better than good—but I hadn’t seen them.

  I didn’t really feel guilty—there were eight years that he and I wanted… needed… to make up.

  I did feel guilty though about one thing. Lila. My gaze flicked to Ally and then over to Tam.

  My heart crushed inside because I knew what not knowing about Lila had done to her, but Nick had made us swear not to tell anyone. Even Tammy. I valued my friendship with Tammy far more than I valued his—and if it was only that on the line, I would have gone and told her the following day for her peace of mind.

  But it wasn’t only that.

  He didn’t go into details, but I believed him and Chance when they said it was for Lila’s safety that the fewer people who knew where she was and who she was related to, the better.

  So now, it felt like a betrayal to be in my best friend’s company. My only consolation was that Nick had promised—sworn—to me that he would tell her everything about Lila as soon as his parole hearing was over in a few months.

  “I give it a month,” Ally spoke again with a smile.

  “What?” I asked dumbly.

  “Until my brother proposes.”

  If possible, my face turned even redder. But I wouldn’t disagree with her.

  Some things in life were worth waiting for, but when you finally found them, this wasn’t one of them.

  “Well,” I sighed with a grin, “I currently have a bet going with one of my previous patients. Betty says that it’s going to happen in two months. I’m happy to cut you in to the wager.”

  “What!” she exclaimed and both she and Tammy began to laugh. “Why two months?”

  “I… ahh… Well,” I huffed with an eye roll, “she seems to think he’ll be too… distracted… until then to even be able to make it to a jewelry store.”

  Her nose wrinkled up. “Ugh, gross.”

  “Seriously!” I exclaimed on a laugh. “Now is the time you get grossed out about the fact we’re talking about your brother?”

  It took a few seconds before we realized that we were the only ones laughing.

  “Tammy?” I turned to her, ice-cold worry freezing over my bones. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to mention Lila; I prayed it wasn’t that.

  And then my prayers were answered in the very worst way.

  “I-I’m sorry,” she said with a shake of her head. “I just… the doctor’s office called this morning. M-my tests came back. It’s nothing.”

  “You’re as white as a ghost, Tam,” I said, reaching for her hand. “It’s not nothing.”

  “I know. I don’t want to ruin this.” Her forced smile looked like it hurt. “I don’t want to drag everything down.”

  “Don’t you dare think like that,” I bit out. “Plus, look at Ally, she’s practically green with the way I was talking about Chance. We are done talking about him. We want to hear about you; we want to know what’s going on. Let us be here for you.”

  I begged because she’d never come this close before. Ally and I watched as the strongest woman we’d ever known began to crumble.

  Her head ducked even as she spoke. “T-the results weren’t normal,” she continued with a voice that in many ways was softer than silence.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, immediately trying to think about everything I knew about biology and blood. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a doctor and my training wasn’t even remotely enough to make me qualified to guess at what was happening. “What is not normal?”

  “I-I don’t know. T-they are sending my samples to a lab in Denver now t-to see if they come back any different… to see if they come back not normal.” She wasn’t even looking at us.

  Ally sat there in silence, her hand over her mouth in shock, but also in fear. There was a specter in the room, calmly creeping closer and closer to us.

  “Tammy,” I said with a steady, low voice. “If they come back not normal again… what is not normal? What is the other option?”

  She shuddered. “Cancer. Not normal would mean cancer.”

  I grabbed Tammy and pulled her in for a hug just as I saw Ally’s shoulders shake in her seat.

  “You’re going to be fine, you hear me?” I whispered thickly into her ear.

  How was she the only one not crying?

  “I’m sure it’s going to be ok, Tam,” Ally whispered, now alongside both of us.

  Tammy didn’t cry. She didn’t shake. She didn’t even quiver while the two of us were about to break down.

  “I know.” Her voice was steady even if it was quiet. “I’m sure it’s all going to work out.”

  That was the thing about Tamsin Lucas. She would never falter, never bend. When it came right to it, she would be the strongest out of all us until she just broke. Without warning or recourse.

  And if that happened, I was afraid there wasn’t anyone she’d let in deep enough to help her pick up the pieces.

  I was going through hell.

  Normally, I would just keep on going; it wasn’t like the rest of my life hadn’t prepared me well for surviving it.

  Normally, if it were just me along for the ride, I’d have no problem fucking torching the whole goddamn place and watching my world burn down around me… with me… Honestly, I didn’t even care anymore.

  But it wasn’t just me.

  I stared down at the little girl who’d fallen asleep on the couch next to me watching Finding Nemo for about the fifteenth time. She was perfect. And she deserved none of the imperfections that made up my life.

  She deserved someone like Tammy. My jaw ticked. That thought alone did fucked up things to my insides.

  Lila asked about Tammy every day since I’d pulled her from Open Hearts. Every. Goddamn. Day. Even when she saw her almost every day at the preschool, I hadn’t heard so much about Tammy-fucking-Lucas.

  And every day, I was reminded by the one perfect female in my life of the only other perfect woman I’d ever come across—the only one smart enough to know that I was only going to be bad news for her. And the only one who’d never had a problem turning me down. I laughed bitterly. Tammy was the only one who’d never even blinked before turning me down. Like being asked to put her hand on a hot stove—no thought, no hesitation needed before she said no and walked away.

  No, I wasn’t good enough for Miss Priss.

  But now, as if my days weren’t bad enough trying to make right what my past had done wrong, I had to be reminded, innocently yet incessantly, by my own daughter of just one more thing that Nick Frost would never be good enough for.

  Maybe that was why she was the only one I’d ever wanted, because it was the eleventh commandment, carved in stone: Thou shalt not have Tamsin Lucas.

  Queen of Pentacles: The nurturing mother.

  One year later

  I CHECKED THE CLOCK ON the dash again before hopping down from my truck. Chance would be home with dinner in fifteen minutes which didn’t leave me a ton of time if I was going to do this before he got here.

  Grabbing the pharmacy bag, I left the rest of my stuff in the car as I went inside and made for the upstairs bathroom.

  There was a part of me that had known for weeks now. Sure, I attributed the nausea at my morning workout in the gym to pushing myself too hard. Sure, I told myself that my boobs had gotten a little bit bigger but sometimes they did that before my period. And yeah, I found myself craving La Croix even more because the effervescent liquid seemed to settle my stomach that had become a much pickier eater.

  There were a lot of stories that perfectly explained each piece. But the truth was that all the pieces put together only formed one picture—one that I couldn’t stand wondering about any longer.

  Pulling the pregnancy test out of the bag, my shaking hands undid t
he packing and pulled out the stick.

  This time, the nausea that overwhelmed me wasn’t from whatever changes were happening in my body, but from the memory of the last time I went through this process.

  This time was nothing like last time. This time, my life was completely different.

  I’d been promoted, along with Kyle, to Managing Therapist at the Center. I was living my dream, helping people in their journey to recovery. And Chance? Well, Channing and Wyatt had made him the third partner at their school a few months ago. The look on his face when he came home every day after teaching those kids… I don’t think I’d ever seen such satisfaction from winning any snowboarding competition.

  And us?

  I turned my left hand over to look at the giant pink ring that sat on my finger, a tremulous smile spreading over my face.

  He’d proposed a few weeks after Wyatt and Channing’s wedding this past winter. Tears pricked in the corner of my eyes. We’d gone to spend the weekend at Park City. I was too busy blabbing about the makeover we were giving the master suite at the house to realize as we went up the lift the last time that we were the only ones on it. And when we got to the top of the slopes, the lift came to a stop after we got off it.

  It was dusk; the mountain was closing, so I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t uncommon to grab the very last run in after all the lifts had shut down. But when I pulled up at the top of the run and turned, confusion set in when I saw Chance walking towards me, his snowboard staked in the snow several feet behind him.

  Confusion reigned until he made it over to me and then, at the top of the mountain with snow painted warm oranges and yellows from the sun setting on the horizon, Chance dropped down onto one knee and if my feet hadn’t been rooted on a board for support, I might have toppled over.

  “Last time, I gave up my pride so you’d be my girlfriend, Jess. Today, I’d give up everything if you’ll say that you’ll be my wife, because everything means nothing without you. So, Jessa Lynn Madison, will you do me the honor of going on this ride called life with me by my side as my wife? Will you marry me, J-bird?”