The Winter Games Box Set

by Rebecca Sharp

  I felt the heat of him behind me a second before his hands were on my hips and he pulled me back with a gentle firmness until we were flush.

  I tried to pretend like I wasn’t caught, instead focusing on the words in front of me.

  ‘When it finds its prey, the brain sends a signal through the nervous system to open ion channels causing a sudden difference in electric potential and generating an electric current… The shock is extremely unlikely to be deadly however the level of current is enough to cause a brief numbing shock…’

  Electricity running through my veins? Check.

  Numbing shock at his touch? Check.

  Was I reading about eels or Nick Frost? Debatable.

  My breath faltered along with my pulse as I felt the hard length of him pressing into my butt. Tiny sparks traveled to every cell of my body, evenly distributing the disturbance to their calm.

  “And what about when you need to fall apart, Priss?” he rasped into my ear, his lips brushing over my skin. “What about when breaking the rules is the right thing to do? Because fuck if it doesn’t always feel like the right thing to do around you.”

  “I-I don’t know,” my voice cracked as if he didn’t already know what he was doing to me while I stood there, staring at eels.

  “Why did you beg me to break your rules?” he demanded.

  I shivered as heat misted over me before it soaked into my skin and caught fire. “Because I didn’t know that it meant you would be breaking me…” I said so softly, wishing it meant he couldn’t hear it.

  He growled into my ear. His thumbs traced demanding circles against my sweater-covered hips. “Not breaking, Tamsin. Freeing…”

  ‘It’s only a cage when you’re on the inside.’

  His haunting words from that day came back to me. I shivered, letting my mind reach out and touch the other part of me that I’d buried in too deep, the part that still begged to fall—to shatter—and to fly.

  “Dad! Look at this!” Lila’s high-pitched squeal bounced through the hall and the moment was over.

  Just like everything and anything between us—finished before it even got started.

  And then he was gone, leaving me electrified with the eels.

  “Pray, pray be composed, and do not betray what you feel to everybody present.”

  —Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

  LILA’S SOFT SNORE ECHOED FROM the back seat. She’d fallen asleep within the first five minutes that we were in the car headed home from Denver; we’d walked through the entire aquarium, so I wasn’t surprised. I hadn’t expected to get through it all but that girl loved her fish. Mostly the ‘Dories’ and ‘Nemos,’ but by the end of the day, she wasn’t too particular and ‘just keep swimming’ meant we made it to every tank.

  Nick sat silent and brooding as he drove, the carved lines of his tensed muscles making my mouth dry and my panties wet. So, after a few minutes of awkward silence and uncomfortable ogling, I pulled my book out of my purse and began to read, gnawing at my lip as I tried equally as hard to focus on the words on the page and not the way my heart thudded every time I happened to glance over at the driver.

  Something began to buzz. At first, I thought it was his phone, but the arched look he sent me told me that it must be mine. Rummaging through my purse again, I pulled out my cell, seeing my mom’s number on the screen.

  Crap.

  She’d called me last Friday… while I was still at Nick’s watching Finding Dory. And we’d played phone tag all weekend, never really getting a chance to talk. I knew she was calling to see when I was coming home, and with how I’d been feeling I couldn’t say that I didn’t find reasons to delay calling her back. I didn’t want my parents and more so, my siblings to see me like that. I didn’t want them to worry.

  And then she’d called Thursday on my way to the doctor’s. Even though I had tears running down my face—and Jessa glaring at me from the driver’s seat—I’d answered. We spoke long enough for me to tell her that I was on my way to an appointment, which was long enough for her to realize something was wrong.

  Eva Lucas may not be able to get her kids’ names straight all the time, but she always knew when something was wrong.

  Still, I told her I had to go and that I’d talk to her later. It was the first time I’d pulled away from her like that, crushing a little bit of my soul as I did. But that’s what cancer does to you right? Takes bits and pieces of your soul as bribes for a few more moments of delusional normalcy.

  But, I couldn’t keep running. Taking a deep breath, I told myself I’d just answer and tell her that I would call her later because I was out for work.

  My eyes flicked over to Nick. He could see the name on the screen of my phone.

  “You should answer it,” he said gruffly, having no idea why it was really taking my finger so long to slide across the screen and answer.

  “Hello.” Wobbly with a strong finish. Not too bad.

  “Tamsin! Finally! What’s going on? Where have you been?”

  “Sorry, Mom. Just a lot going on… with my new job and all,” I replied calmly, hazarding a look at Nick.

  “That’s not all. I heard you the other day. Since when do you not tell me what’s going on?” Her heartbroken tone broke me, and my nails dug into my palm to stop me from crying.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I half-whispered, my throat thick with guilt. “I’ll explain. I promise.”

  “When? You’re really starting to scare me, Tamsin Elinor Lucas.” I heard her huff and I knew it was because she was trying not to cry with what—I was sure—was a full house. “When are you coming home? Is that it? If you can’t come, you can’t. I understand.”

  “N-no. That’s not it. I can.” Air rushed out of my lungs. “I can come next weekend.”

  I didn’t miss how Nick’s head whipped toward me in the corner of my eye.

  “We can talk then,” I promised quietly.

  The words were met with a moment of silence before she responded, “We better. You may have spread your wings and traded the farm for the mountain, but I’m still your mother and you can’t trade me for anything.”

  I laughed, mostly to trick the sudden tears in the corner of my eyes into staying put.

  “Love you, Mom.” I waited for her return answer before hanging up. Dread immediately crawled up my spine.

  “Where are you going next weekend?” Nick demanded with a low voice.

  Gingerly tucking my phone back into my purse and keeping my eyes from his, I replied, “Back home to visit my family in Wyoming.” Even just saying the words made me feel better. If anything could heal me, they could. “It’s my little brother’s birthday,” I added for no particular reason.

  “I didn’t say that you could go. What if I—Lila needs you?” he asked angrily.

  “You’re not—” I broke off because in this instance, he was the boss of me. “It’s over the weekend. You may be my boss, but I don’t need your permission to live my life.” Was he really going to argue about this?

  “And what if I had plans for all of us next weekend? What if I need you for something with Lila? You agreed to this job and whatever it needs. Plus, you’ve been sick. You shouldn’t go and risk getting worse again.”

  “Did you make plans? Do you need me?” I countered.

  His jaw ticked. “Not the fucking point, Priss. I hired you and I need you to be available when I need you.”

  I couldn’t believe this. It was irrational. He was irrational. What did he think? That I was going to leave and never come back? Looking out the window, I realized that we were almost back to Nick’s house.

  “That wasn’t our agreement. Those aren’t the rules,” I insisted. Rules. Rules. Rules. “If you needed me, I would pick a different time. But you don’t. I know that you—Lila—don’t. But I do need to go see my family.”

  I might be accommodating about a lot of things when it came to Nick but not this. I needed to go because I needed to make peace with what was happening to
my life.

  He was angry. It radiated off of him like hot, thick steam trying to suffocate me with its seemingly innocuous presence.

  And then we turned down his drive and everything changed. As soon as we got close to the main house, I saw a new Mercedes G Wagon parked out front; it had never been there before. When Nick saw it, every emotion crumbled from his face and I felt a coldness spread inside me that I knew had sprung from him.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. My hands itched to reach out for his.

  “Nothing,” he grated.

  And all of a sudden, I wished that he were still poking and prodding me about not being available next weekend. I wished that over this. This scared me. This scared me for him.

  “Nick—”

  “Forget about next weekend. It’s fine. Go,” he spat, throwing the truck in park. He was out of the truck before I could say something—anything.

  Opening the back door, he reached for Lila who was sound asleep, snoring softly. She murmured as he picked her up, holding her tight to him.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” I asked, desperate for more time to find out what was wrong.

  “No.” Harsh eyes sliced through mine. “Stone is here; you need to go.”

  The bottomless pit that opened up in my stomach was the same one I felt in the moments before the cancer diagnosis came out of Dr. Gentz’s mouth. Dread. Fear. But most of all: certainty that what was coming, wasn’t going to be good.

  He didn’t leave me time to protest as he turned with his precious cargo and walked steadily toward the main house, I could see every tight and taut muscle flexing underneath his shirt as he walked. He was preparing for a fight. My heart bled long, slow pulses of dismay as he clutched Lila to him, holding onto the only thing that he would suffer all of this for.

  The house was like a gladiator ring. I walked down the staircase after putting Lila to bed, telling Sofia that I probably would be unavailable tomorrow. She knew what happened when Stone came home. She knew it was better for her if she didn’t really know. The pain of restrained sadness flickered in her eyes as I disappeared back into the arena.

  My fists flexed at my sides. They would be the only weapons I would have; unlike my opponent who could—and would—use whatever suited him. Whatever entertained him.

  I smelled him the second I walked into the house; his cologne was always applied with the generosity that a prostitute gives to perfume. His voice carried through the hall as I made it down to the entryway, sounding like it was being dragged over jagged cliffs as it left his throat. Probably from the three packs a day—or maybe more now—that he smoked. Cancer hadn’t claimed him yet because I just wasn’t that lucky.

  “Frost!” he roared, seeing me standing there.

  I knew better than to try to leave before he found me. I learned that lesson the first time. Two cracked ribs and a face full of asphalt later, I now always waited for him in the house.

  “Stone,” I said calmly, watching as Jane appeared a few steps behind him.

  “Care to tell me why I have to hear from your mother that you are being your degenerate, worthless fucking self to Elizabeth Blackman?” he demanded with an ugly sneer as he began to roll up his sleeves in anticipation.

  There was no point in drawing this out. “You mean besides the fact that she is a conniving, disgusting, self-centered whore?” I asked flippantly.

  His head jerked up so fast, I was kind of hoping it might have snapped; again, I wasn’t that lucky.

  Over the years, I found the most efficient way to end this was to provoke his rage early and let him tire himself out.

  A second later, Stone was in front of me and his fist was connecting with my cheek. I stumbled to the side, unprepared for him to respond that quickly. Usually it took me at least two or three taunts to get him worked up.

  Rubbing my jaw, I looked over at him. His face looked like a furnace about to blow—red, fuming—leaking little balls of hatred-filled sweat. My adrenaline was pumping now—but not enough to stop me from wondering why the fuck his switch had been flipped as soon as I called out Eliza?

  Fuck, I hoped Jackson was on this shit because there was definitely something going on here.

  “You piece of shit. What the fuck makes you think you can say something like that in my house?”

  I wiped my lip where it had started to bleed, smirking to myself, knowing that what I said next was going to seal the deal.

  “Because,” I scoffed. “It’s not your fucking house. It’s mine.”

  “Oh, Nicholas…” I heard my mother murmur from her front-row seat just before she turned and walked away, probably going to convince herself that whatever happened, I was asking for it.

  He hated when I reminded him of that—the fact that when my dad died, he left the house and everything to me in the will instead of my mom; he’d always been the smartest man I’d ever known. He’d left her things, of course. Most of the money. The cars. The vacation home in Florida. Just not this house and everything in it.

  The building, the art, the valuables, the property. It was all mine as soon as my probation ended. And that always pissed Stone off—increasingly so with each day that passed it seemed. Probably why they rarely stayed here. Who the fuck knew?

  His fist against the right side of my face cracked like lightning. I’d been ready for this one, though, standing tall even as my head jerked to the side with the force of his punch.

  Pulling my head up, I saw the arteries pumping through the fat of his neck, angry and engorged. It had been longer than normal since we’d fought and it looked like Stone was going to make up for it.

  “Did you really just say that to me, boy?” he rasped out before he couldn’t help but stop to wheeze a ball of cancer from his lungs.

  A good sign that this would end relatively quickly.

  I cracked my knuckles. “I don’t see anyone else in here,” I replied.

  “You piece of shit,” he growled. “I’m going to beat that mouth of yours until you can’t fucking talk like that to me. And then I’m going to take this fucking house from you. I’m going to take everything from you…”

  He came at me again, enraged by my taunting. And that was strike three; I always gave him three strikes before I decided to hit back. Only this time, I wasn’t hitting back because I hated him or my mother or Eliza or anything that I should have been focused on. Instead, I punched back with the anger I felt that Tammy was going home to visit her family next weekend.

  I hit him because I didn’t want her to leave.

  I hit him because I couldn’t stop myself from wanting her when I’d said that I wouldn’t.

  I hit him because I wanted him to hit me back.

  I wanted him to beat her out of me.

  I stumbled back to the guest house twenty minutes later, spitting blood into the ivy that clung to this house like my past—like Stone—clung onto my future and tried to suck the life out of it. The fight ended like they all did—Stone gassing himself out and telling me to get out before he did something that he would regret. I’m always tempted to push him to keep going—to finally show him that I could beat him within an inch of his life.

  But I never did.

  Because of Lila. Not just because she’s upstairs in that monstrosity of a house, but because attempted murder would definitely land me in jail. Truthfully, I thought that was what he wanted from me—to try to kill him.

  Blood dripped onto the tiled kitchen floor as I grabbed two ice packs from the freezer, then I dragged my stiff muscles upstairs to my bed. Even with the ice, my face was going to swell; I’d really pissed him off tonight.

  Groaning, my muscles revolted as I pulled my shirt over my head. My knuckles were bleeding. Or was that Stone’s blood? Wiping them on my shirt that was already splattered and ruined, I winced, realizing it was a combination of both. Unbuckling the waist of my jeans, I pulled my phone from my pocket and tossed it on the bed, letting my pants fall to the ground to leave me in my briefs. Wi
th painstaking care, I sat on the mattress and slowly rested back against the headboard. I should have washed the blood off my face, but I was too fucking beat to get back up now.

  And the only thing I could think about was her.

  Letting my eyes drift shut—or, more likely, letting them swell shut—I thought of Tammy. The way that, especially over these past few weeks of seeing her every day, I was sucker-punched with her beauty and her heart. It was like the sunset. Mostly ignored because it was always there. But when you were given the opportunity to notice, to stand in awe of its glory, it easily began to take each and every breath away.

  Everything about Tamsin Lucas was hidden in plain sight.

  And I wanted to see it—claim it—all.

  I wanted to know her secrets—especially the one that had driven her into my arms. I wanted to know why she had to go visit her family because the story about the party was just a cover. I wanted to meet her family. A fucking first for me. There was the worst tightening in my chest as I listened to her talk to her mom—filled with love and tenderness. I wondered what her voice was filled with when she spoke of me.

  Regret. Disgust. Disappointment—just a few suggestions that came to mind.

  I wondered what it was like to have that closeness with her, to be let in behind those walls she built high on the foundations of expectations and reinforced with rules.

  For a mind-numbing second, I wondered what it was like to have her love.

  Opening my eyes felt like I was splitting my head open with them. I reached for the second ice pack and put it over my eyes. My phone buzzed, sandwiched between my leg and the comforter. Moving the cold pack away, I blinked twice, wondering if I was seeing things.

  My phone lit with two texts from Tammy; the first looked like it had been sent probably as soon as she got home.

  TAMMY

  I would probably need Friday off to go see my family. If that isn’t okay, I don’t have to go next weekend. I’ll find another time.

  Fuck, I was such a fucking dick.