The Winter Games Box Set

by Rebecca Sharp

  My eyes darted to him. He was still looking at the TV like he hadn’t heard me. I resigned myself to the fact that one answer was all I was getting tonight.

  “No,” he rasped, and his eyes finally met mine. With a devious glint in them, he let his legs fall a little bit wider which had his thigh brushing against mine.

  The price I paid for answers.

  The movie was playing in the background, but all I could hear was the tension cracking between us, fracturing under the weight of want.

  Taking a sip of my water, I asked, “What happened?”

  “We were cool. Then my dad died and she ‘met’ Stone right after. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t right. And when she only cared about him, we weren’t cool anymore.”

  “What changed?”

  His jaw could have kept time the way it ticked every time his mother’s new husband was mentioned. Lila giggled in the momentary break in the conversation. I wasn’t sure it was even going to continue.

  “You know in high school how I would show up after the weekend fu—messed up from the Winter Games?” he asked.

  The Winter Games were the snowboarding competitions that the SnowmassHoles held on Friday nights after dark—after the resort closed down. I don’t know how they did it—and how they didn’t get in trouble for it—but they happened every week without issue. Those weekends during the season of junior and senior years they competed for who was ‘King of the Mountain.’ Without ski patrol—or any sort of regulatory body—the Games were noted for many things in addition to riding on the terrain park… things like alcohol, and drugs, and hooking up, and fights.

  Although it had always seemed to be Nick who was getting in fights and coming into school on Monday tie-dyed black and blue. Then again, he was the one who would sleep with so-and-so’s girlfriend without a second thought.

  He continued, “Yeah. That wasn’t from the Games.”

  It took a second for the implication of what he said to register. My hand covered my mouth as I coughed, trying to shake off the wave of nausea that crashed in my system.

  He’d been abused. By his stepfather. And his mother had done nothing.

  Minutes ticked by when I couldn’t think—couldn’t process—let alone speak. Of course I knew that such things happened. I knew that I’d been blessed with the large and loving family that I had. But to actually hear it from the mouth of someone that you thought you knew… How many times had I told myself in high school that he deserved the bruises if he’d slept with someone else’s girlfriend? How many times had the rest of the world thought the same? And the reality was that the boy who had lost his father was being beaten for struggling to cope with his grief.

  “Why?” My voice cracked out. “The drugs? The girls?” I needed to understand even though no explanation could afford such a thing.

  “No. Not that I didn’t deserve a beating for that though. They were an excuse. But even when I stopped the illegal shit, nothing changed. Same with Lila when she showed up,” he replied, clearing his throat when he realized that he’d said too much.

  “Oh, God.” My head whipped to his. “Does he hurt—“

  “No.” Razor sharp white irises met my gaze. “He’d be dead by now if he ever touched her.”

  I could breathe again, knowing that at least Lila had been spared.

  He growled, “For someone who makes ‘no questions’ the only commandment, you sure do like to break it.”

  I swallowed over the lump in my throat that was filled with tears. This was a Nick Frost that I’d seen but hadn’t seen. Strangely similar to how I’d been in high school… there but still invisible.

  “Why didn’t you say something? Or ask for help?” Pointless questions spilled angrily from my lips. I knew that they would do no good, but I couldn’t stop.

  “I could handle it.”

  I wanted to scream. Wiping tears from my cheeks, I knotted my hands together, the rebellious digits begging to touch… hold… him in some way.

  “Just because you could handle it doesn’t mean you should’ve had to or that you had to handle it alone,” I responded as my heart continued to bleed.

  To think how a mother could look past doing something like that to her child when I sat here unable to have kids… I swallowed a sob at how unfair life was.

  “Mammy!” Lila exclaimed climbing over Nick onto my lap. “Did you love Dory?”

  “I did,” I answered with a smile. Nick looked at me and I knew the discussion about his past was over.

  She began to ramble lines from the movie before asking a slew of questions about the ocean and fish. We hardly got an answer in before she hopped down off the couch and ran to the bathroom.

  “Can you… take her somewhere?” I wondered, unsure of how the whole house arrest thing worked. Obviously, he could leave the house. He could go to the mountain. He’d even gone to Denver with Chance.

  “What do you mean?” he said as he bent forward and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Could you take her to the aquarium in Denver? She would absolutely love it.” The girl loved anything and everything about fish.

  “Yeah,” he answered and stood, his thigh sliding slowly along mine, leaving a burning trail in its wake. “I just can’t take her and myself away for good. Not yet.”

  “Has she been there? Would you want to?” I choked out now that I was basically eye-level with his crotch. I should have felt pleased to know that I wasn’t the only one so affected by just sitting next to him, except I felt anxious because I was the only one who didn’t know what to do when wanting him was too much to ignore.

  “No.” He shook his head, regret blanching his face, thinking how his life affected Lila’s.

  “I think it would be really good for the two of you,” I offered quietly. It was a small thing, but it would be so good.

  “We could take her next weekend.” He looked to me as though he needed my permission to take his daughter somewhere.

  My face brightened, the thought of Lila’s excitement outshining the dark discussion about his past. “Absolutely. She will be so excited—beyond excited to see Dory in real life.”

  “Well, you better be, too, because you just earned yourself a day of overtime,” he smirked.

  My mouth gaped as Lila came tearing back around the corner.

  Me? He wanted me to go?

  A few hours ago, staying for a movie was a stretch and only allowed because of Lila and now, he was inviting me to go out on their father-daughter outing. My heart thudded in a way that it shouldn’t have.

  “Time for bed,” Nick said sternly. Her little shoulders fell because she knew arguing was futile.

  “I’ll see you next week, Miss Lila. Thanks for watching a movie with me,” I said to her.

  With a long face, she walked up to me and wrapped me in a hug. Squeezing her tiny frame, I whispered goodnight.

  “Can I stay here tonight?” she asked quietly, looking to Nick.

  He couldn’t hide his surprise—and given what he’d just told me, I couldn’t blame him. My chest tightened for what he must be feeling right now.

  “Of course, Princess,” he said thickly. “I told you that you have your own room here whenever you want to stay.”

  With a smile, she grabbed her stuffed Dory and made for the stairs, her little bare feet pitter-pattering up to the second floor.

  Wringing my hands, I stood and glanced at Nick. “I should go.”

  “So, you’ll go with us?” he rasped behind me on our way to the door—and the world outside that made more sense than what I was feeling right now.

  “It didn’t seem like I had a choice,” I stammered with my hand on the knob.

  “You don’t,” he replied. “I just wanted to see what you would say if you did.”

  A small breathy laugh escaped me. That didn’t surprise me.

  “I’d love to go, yes,” I murmured, even as my body felt more and more as though it would like to stay.

  He stepped closer to me,
our bodies almost touching. I sucked in a deep breath at his overwhelming closeness, and in the process, brushed my hardened nipples against his chest.

  Reaching out, he tucked a flyaway behind my ear. “You know, you should really leave your hair down more often. It’s so fucking beautiful.”

  Is that how my braid came out last Friday? Flashbacks from that night warmed every inch of me.

  His fingers kept moving. They trailed lazily along the edge of my jaw, down the side of my neck, purposely along the artery that pumped frantically in time with my heart.

  This can’t happen. I needed to leave.

  I tried to swallow, but my mouth was like a desert that was desperate for a taste of him.

  With just a fingertip, he made my body forget its tiredness—its sickness. His touch destroyed me in a completely different way.

  His eyes were heavy with the white fog of desire.

  “I should go,” I whispered, licking my lips as I stared at his. Maybe if I spoke it, it would come true.

  Just like the stupid donuts, why did his mouth have to look so good? Why did it have to taste so good? Why did it have to be so bad for me?

  “Then why aren’t you leaving?” he rasped, his knuckles grazing along the top of my breast, sending shivers right down between my thighs.

  Warmth flooded from me and I shifted, fruitlessly trying to squeeze my legs together to stop the ache

  “I-I don’t know,” I whispered over the golf-ball that felt like it was lodged in my throat. “I’m afraid…”

  Afraid of so many things. Cancer. My surgery. My future. My life.

  Him. Mostly him.

  None of those secrets came out though. Instead, my admission flipped a switch and the apathetic mask melted away from his features that were hot and hardened with desire.

  I watched his face drift to mine like you watch an accident that’s about to happen. I couldn’t look away. I was locked in the moment, the sense of impending danger holding you hostage because you have to know what happens next.

  His hands sunk into my hips and hauled me against him. I didn’t need encouragement to give in to his brand of disaster. Life was wearing my body down and lust was wearing away at my heart. My hands came up to his chest, curling into his shirt when they should have been pushing him away.

  Wrong. So wrong, whispered every cell of rationality.

  Please don’t take us away, begged my heart.

  I didn’t know if he was going to kiss me or not, but I didn’t wait to find out. I crushed my fumbling lips to his. I didn’t know how to do this. Slanting my lips over his I tried to coax them open, but he stayed impossibly still. Every inch of his harsh restraint pressed unflinchingly against me, fueling the doubt in my mind, and I whimpered. I just wanted a taste of his warmth—of his consuming fire. My tongue darted out to trace the seam of his lip.

  It flipped the switch.

  His hard lips became soft, yielding only for a second before he took control and demanded more than I knew how to give. His kiss was a force of nature on my body—like cancer. There was nothing that I could do to stop it except hope that sacrificing bits and pieces of me would satisfy its hunger and let me come out alive.

  His hips ground against mine and I kissed him greedily. We punished each other for breaking the rules for wanting what was too good—or too bad—but definitely something that we shouldn’t. Our tongues slid together, trying to find their way in the web we’d woven. His fingers dug into my skin to the point of discomfort. I pulled on his shirt so hard I thought I might rip it, frantic to get closer to the thing that might pleasurably kill me.

  We ravaged each other through that kiss because we both knew that it was all that could happen. Even forgetting everything else that stood between us, we couldn’t forget Lila.

  He bit into my lip so hard it forced my mouth open with a gasp. Releasing the injured flesh, he rasped dangerously against my cheek, “If you don’t leave, Priss, I won’t stop until I’ve taken more than that perfect virgin cunt of yours. If you don’t go now,” he growled. “I won’t stop fucking you until you have my cum coursing through your veins.”

  Choking on my attempt to swallow his deliciously dirty words, I stumbled backward out of the door as he released the punishing grip on my waist. It wasn’t right—it wasn’t real—how even just his words could make me fall apart. I walked so quickly back to my car that I should have just all-out run; at least then it would have looked less awkward.

  I heard his low chuckle stalk me in the night’s silence, only diminishing into the whisper of my memory as I reached my car door. I hadn’t even put on my jacket; it was cold out, but I wasn’t cold at all.

  My head tipped back against the headrest as I tried to slow the pounding of my heart and the strangled gasps from my lungs.

  One lone tear broke free. Tossing my bag onto the passenger seat, it caught the shifter and dumped the contents everywhere. Of course, more tears brought a small whimper out to keep them company.

  Through a break in my water-logged vision, I picked up my book off the seat.

  How ironic, Heart.

  Sense and Sensibility stared back at me and I’d never felt their struggle more than at that moment. I was only and always sense except around him. Then, sensibility reigned like the Romans—conquering everything in sight.

  There was no escaping it. It built an empire of emotions that I’d ignored for too long and now, there was no hope for sense being able to hold out in battle.

  I should’ve heeded his promise to make me senseless because there was no other word for what I was becoming.

  “THANKS FOR COMING.” I SET a cup of coffee down in front of Pride. Even though King had been the one to refer me to Jackson Pyle, Chance was the one I’d called when Jackson reported he had some information.

  There really was no reason for him to be here except for the fact that Tammy’s words had haunted me all week: “Just because you can handle it doesn’t mean you have to handle it alone.”

  Chance knew my whole story; it wasn’t even a story. My life was like the expanded version of Murphy’s Law. If it can go wrong for Nick Frost, it will. But the world looked at me and saw a troubled boy that grew up into a conceited man. It wasn’t all a lie, but the few who knew the whole fucking truth were in the single digits. And until I was free from that goddamn gilded cage, I’d continue to play into the persona that kept me and my daughter safe.

  Pride knew most since he let me blame most of my injuries on him and our ‘fights’ at the Winter Games. After high school, I didn’t have to explain them—the drug addiction did that for me. But Chance… he’d basically kept me alive at the countless parties I’d ‘hosted’—a very loose definition in my case considering all I’d done was sit on the couch smoking or snorting whatever I could get my hands on. And letting whoever could manage to roll a condom on me sit on my dick.

  Until I was too high and Eliza was too careless to think about the one time we didn’t. And somehow, those two wrongs made a right and Lila was born.

  “Of course. You know I have your back.” He reached for the cup. “Especially after you so patiently and generously let me stay with you. Although, I have to wonder if you were just glad for the free entertainment, seeing me be led around by my dick.”

  I smirked. It had been entertaining as shit to see him get all worked up over Jessa the past few months. I knew the second that she came back he wasn’t going to be able to stay away. “Sometimes, I like to give you just enough rope to hang yourself with.”

  He laughed and took a drink of the Americano that I’d ordered for him.

  “So, what’s going on?”

  “Pyle wanted to meet. Said he has some information… some things he wants to talk about. Figured it was best you were here in case what he has to say makes me want to murder someone.” My fingers strummed on the table, a drumroll anticipating the arrival of our last guest.

  “And what about with Tammy?” He grinned again, resting back against the chair wi
th his hands folded in his lap.

  Fucker. I never should have called him and I should’ve known that he wouldn’t let this go.

  My fingers tightened around my cup, tempted to punch those perfect white teeth of his as I said with a blunt callousness, “I’m not fucking her. Sorry to disappoint.”

  I took a long drink of my coffee hoping he’d accept my casual truth and not wonder about how fucking badly I wished it were a lie.

  “The great Nick Frost… turned down by the preschool teacher. Who would have thought that there actually was one woman in the world that you couldn’t tempt?”

  Seeing Jackson enter Cup of Joe, I quickly replied with a grin, “I have no problem not winning over every woman; if I did, my name would be Pride.”

  “Dick,” he shot back just as we both stood to greet our guest.

  After several phone conversations, I could safely say that Jackson Pyle sounded nothing like he appeared. He always spoke with such a deep calm and quietly confident perceptiveness in his voice that I expected to see a lanky man with shrewd eyes, narrow glasses, and a bowler hat.

  Yeah, basically Sherlock-fucking-Holmes. Because that’s what all PIs look like, right?

  Instead, the man who walked up to the table looked like he’d just walked away from a SEAL team operation with his high-and-tight cut and rigid posture. Instead of a trench coat, he had on a black motorcycle jacket and instead of a bowler hat, he carried a helmet. He was huge and the leather of his coat strained against his chest; fuck, I wouldn’t want to mess with this guy. It’s always the quiet ones that are the most dangerous.

  I would know; I was one of the fucking quiet ones.

  “Mr. Frost.” He stuck his hand out to me—even though he knew neither of us.

  Now I knew that my money was well spent.

  “Mr. Pyle.” A firm grip returned my own.

  “Just Jackson.”

  I nodded. “This is my friend, Chance Ryder. He’s… aware of my situation.”

  Jackson nodded and we all took a seat. Clasping his hands on the table in front of him, he looked between the two of us before he began.

  “I’m going to tell you right now that I don’t have all of the information, but I will. Soon. First” —a fist rose to cover his mouth as he cleared his throat—“let’s begin with Eliza Blackman—the original focus of my investigation.”