The Winter Games Box Set

by Rebecca Sharp

  The next time I slid back into her, there was no more slowness. Steadily I moved, my hands sliding over her hips, her stomach, and then back onto her clit. I said her name over and over again because it was the only thing that stopped me from telling her how much I loved her.

  How much I loved her strength. Her calm. Her caring. Her patience. Her heart. And her body.

  And fuck, did I love her body. Every fucking inch of it.

  But I couldn’t tell her that. So I called her name and told her that she was mine. All the while, she moaned and whimpered so overwhelmed with everything that I was doing to her that she probably had never even contemplated. She trembled underneath me and my tee began to stick to her back with sweat.

  I couldn’t think. All I knew was that she was just as crazed as I was and I was obsessed with the need to make her come while I took her ass.

  This was chaos.

  She thought I… my life… was the mess. She was wrong.

  Chaos disturbs and derails you, but chaos also forces your heart and soul to roar in a way that can only be described as quietly magnificent.

  She was my chaos.

  My fingers set relentlessly on her swollen clit. Fuck, I was so close. I pinched her and it was like a lightning bolt of pleasure from her body straight through to mine. My arms tightened as her knees buckled and she almost toppled. I rolled my fingers, pressing the pad of my finger and circling it hard and fast over her clit, and she went under, crying out as her ass jerked back against my hip, sinking me all the way inside of her.

  I didn’t just push her over the edge, I strapped rockets to her and launched her from it, shooting us both into space.

  I was lost. I was lost to anything other than the need to claim this woman, to mark her in the most primitive and the basest way possible, even though I couldn’t keep her.

  I felt it coming. The rumbling like an avalanche coming behind me, only it wasn’t off in the distance. It was right here.

  Wordless, incoherent moans tore from her chest as I slammed into her so hard and fast I couldn’t even breathe. God, her ass was so damn hot and tight. Everything was squeezing me, gripping me, pulling me deeper. And then chaos took me.

  I roared her name like I’d been shot—like I was dying. And part of me was.

  And with my dying breath, I fell, too. Erupting inside of her convulsing heat, I came in long thick spurts until black spots crowded my vision. In a daze, I pulled out, yanking her shirt up and letting the last few jets of cum mark her back and hips, running down her sides and ass.

  She was my moon and I was the universe of stars exploding around her.

  “I have been too much at my ease, too happy, too frank. I have erred against every common-place notion of decorum; I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been reserved, spiritless, dull, and deceitful…”

  —Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

  THE PAIN WAS BACK—AND it was worse. Actually, it had never left—only temporarily subsided to the point where I’d assumed it was just cramps from my period; I should have mentioned it at my doctor’s appointment on Thursday.

  I shuddered as another gripping white-hot stab shot through from my lower abdomen. My arm cinched around my waist in an attempt not to double over in front of Lila; she, thankfully, was obliviously watching the DVD of Madeline—one of my favorite shows when I was younger.

  Focus on something else. Focus on him.

  My butt was still tender after what happened in the bathroom the last week. Shivers went off like firecrackers up my spine at the memory. It had hurt so good. What had not hurt so good was how our conversation about Lila’s mother had ended. Trying to bring it up later had been met with equal stoniness and ambiguity.

  The girls told me at our lunch date over the weekend that this was how men worked: they try to solve the problem all on their own in all the wrong ways before they finally ask for help. It must be what’s contained on the Y-chromosome. I didn’t realize that Ally had gone through this with Emmett and his stepmother. She counseled me with a mix of patience and time. And Jessa, well, Jessa had counseled me with more frequent butt-sex because… that was Jessa.

  I winced as another pain stabbed me in the abdomen—not as bad as earlier, but still not something I wanted to be around Lila with. I sagged with relief when Sophia knocked on the door a few minutes earlier than scheduled.

  “Mammy,” Lila walked over to me and motioned for my ear; she wanted to whisper to me. “Are you going to be my mommy?”

  This time, the searing pain came from my heart. I wanted nothing more. But it wasn’t my decision.

  “I… I don’t know, sweetheart,” I stuttered. “Do you think you need a mommy? You have a great daddy who loves you, you have Sofia who loves you, and I’ll always be your friend.”

  “No.” She shook her head, but I had no idea which question she was answering. “My daddy wants you to be my mommy. He loves you.”

  My heart tripped and fell as elegantly as Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars.

  “Why do you say that?” I whispered with a strangled voice.

  “Because,” she replied simply, staring down at the stuffed Dory in her hands, “he looks at you like you’re home.”

  My brow furrowed with confusion. “What are you talking about sweetheart?” I asked, brushing her hair from her face.

  “My daddy looks like how Dory looked at Nemo.” She held the fluffy fish out to me. “When she didn’t remember who she was. She said,” and then with a roll of her eyes (because clearly, everyone should have Finding Nemo memorized like she did) quoted, “‘When I look at you, I feel it. When I look at you, I’m home.’ That’s how he looks at you. And if you are home, then that must mean that you’re my mommy because mommies and daddies are home.”

  I wasn’t sure how accurate a comparison a six-year-old could make, let alone between a human and an animated fish, and yet, my lip still quivered with the fierce desire to burst into tears.

  I pulled her in for a tight hug—one that she readily returned—before kissing the top of her head and murmuring that I’d have to talk to her daddy.

  And I did.

  I had to tell Nick that I loved him. I thought it had been the cancer that was weighing on my chest. It wasn’t; he needed to know that I was in love with him, come what may.

  I’d hoped Nick was back already, but if that were the case, he would have been upstairs by now to see Lila and walk with me back over to the guest house. Quietly, my black booties tapped lightly down the stairwell. I didn’t know who was home right now, but I didn’t really want to find out.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Guess I wasn’t going to have a choice.

  Turning, I saw a man stalking from the hallway. Bald. Big belly. Handlebar mustache. He looked like one of those guys who you’d think was nice when you met him, but when you saw his mugshot on the TV for murder or rape, you wouldn’t be surprised—especially if he was wearing the sneer that currently corrupted his face and turned my blood to ice.

  “I-I’m Lila’s teacher, Tamsin Lucas,” I offered quickly.

  “Ahh… the teacher,” his voice dripped sourly. “I’ve been wondering what the teacher looked like.”

  I didn’t wonder if, only how he knew about Nick and me. I could feel each strand of hair on my body stand on end, my skin crawling with an invisible army of uncomfortable ants as his eyes assessed every inch. I was frozen at the bottom of the stairs as he preyed closer to me.

  I had nowhere to run; I didn’t want to run. I wanted to stay calm and not give away any more information—or cause any more problems for Nick.

  Steady, Heart.

  “Stone?”

  Air rushed into my lungs as I heard Nick’s mom’s voice from the hallway. My head felt light as she made an appearance and my hand gripped onto the banister even harder. I knew she wasn’t on my side, but at least I was no longer alone with this… man.

  “Oh. Miss Lucas,” she said sharply. “I didn’t realize you
were still working here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Stone’s horrendously bejeweled cowboy boots clanked obnoxiously on the marble until he was so close I was suffocating in his tobacco-infused breath.

  “Do you want to tell her, Jane, or should I?” he asked with a cruel smile, his grubby fingers gripping my chin, forcing my head up for a second mumbling under his breath to me, “Nick usually does a better job picking them,” and then let my chin go.

  I didn’t have thick skin, especially when it came to Nick. Stone’s barb hit close to home—various mental images of the girls he’d dated before easily tormenting me.

  “Miss Lucas. You know how inconsiderate my son can be. It’s very likely that he won’t be needing your services for much longer as Lila’s mother is back in town,” Jane spoke calmly.

  She should have stopped there because that’s where my heart did. Nick never said she was back. He never said she was here. All of my worst fears exploded in my mind; she must be here for Lila. And for him. He didn’t want to talk to me about it because he didn’t know what to do with me—this was the mother of his child after all.

  Mommies and daddies are home.

  The cold hard truth was like shock paddles on my chest, restarting my crumbling heart: even if he didn’t want to be with her, he would because of Lila—because having her grow up with her mother was the right thing to do.

  I knew that’s what he’d choose because he’d told me. He’d sworn to me that his daughter would always come first.

  Mrs. Stone, oblivious to my current suffering, continued to twist the knife, saying, “Obviously, Nick will want his daughter to be spending this time with her mother. I’m sorry that he hasn’t informed you yet. I told you, he can be very inconsiderate, especially where Eliza is concerned. Her presence tends to consume him.”

  It was moments like this that my years of training in compartmentalization produced an effortless response. I would only fall apart later after the suppressed emotions had eaten a hole right through me.

  “I want what is best for Lila, of course,” I said numbly.

  The truth hurts.

  I fled through the halls, my practical shoes barely making any noise on the marble for how quickly they moved.

  Where was Nick?

  I stumbled on the cobblestone path that led to the guest house, seeing his truck parked in the drive along with a small, red convertible that I didn’t recognize.

  Living in Colorado—or anywhere that it snows—presents you with the fascinating and frightening necessity to need to be able to drive in that snow. Four-wheel drive. Snow tires. Chains. There are various levels of preparedness, but inevitably at some point, you will be turning the steering wheel, trying to stay in your appropriate lane, but you won’t. The car will slide out of control, almost weightlessly into sudden danger.

  That was how I felt in this moment. I felt like I was sliding out of my lane—out of my mind—into oncoming traffic and a situation that certainly had a great potential to destroy me. My heart was hot and beating heavily as though a ten-ton anvil sat on my chest.

  The door to the guest house was cracked open and I could hear raised voices coming from inside even before my fingers touched the doorknob.

  And then everything inside me stopped.

  I pushed the door open and stepped inside, not bothering to even close it behind me as my eyes scanned for him.

  Like Where’s Waldo in a sea of wealth, my eyes were only halted by his frozen stare; the intensity of it sucked from my body whatever breath I had left. Like two bright lights, they stared into my soul. And then I blinked and saw the woman he was kissing and heartbreak hit me like a head-on collision.

  Eliza. Lila’s mother. A blonde whose body was shoved into an hourglass.

  There was no one else it could be.

  We stood frozen like that for as long as it took to make sure that my heart was well-and-truly cracked in half: me staring at him in disbelief and him staring at me while kissing another woman, almost like that night he’d taunted me, telling me to pick the next woman he was going to sleep with.

  “Tamsin,” he said with a cold, hard voice, pulling back from her.

  He looked pained. Trapped. I wanted to go to him. I wanted to hold him.

  “Nick…” I said, strangled, taking a small step before I stopped, knowing I couldn’t get any closer, not without an explanation.

  I saw his eyes flick to the blonde who must have mouthed something to him because his mouth thinned and then he stalked over to me. I saw Lila’s mother for the first time as she half-turned to look at me with a satisfied smile on her face.

  She’d won.

  It was my last thought before Nick’s body blocked her from my view.

  “I don’t…” I whispered, already feeling a tear escape down my cheek.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Tamsin. You should never have been here,” he bit out, fracturing my heart even further.

  They say in those moments right before you think you are going to die that your life flashes before your eyes. I don’t think it’s life that you see, rather truth—because it’s truth that will make you free.

  So here I stood, at a loss for any and all other words except the truth because it was the only thing that I could see.

  “I broke my rules for you, Nick,” I said softly. “I love you.”

  It only made him angrier, the way his face tightened and fists clenched. I had to take a step back from the tension that was vibrating off every muscle in his body.

  With quiet coldness, he replied, “I told you I couldn’t promise you anything. You never should have come here. Lila needs her mother and her father. I owe her that.”

  I nodded because my throat had closed shut, wishing it would have locked up the words I could no longer take back.

  I began to turn when he spoke again. “And,” he rasped as two more tears slipped from my eyes, his voice sounding like it belonged to someone on death row about to get the needle. “I want Lila to have siblings; I want to have more kids.”

  In those near-death moments, everything moves in slow-motion—even the breaking of a heart.

  I jerked back with the impact of his words, stumbling toward the door to the house and out into the now-raining skies. I didn’t understand anything anymore. I’d thought… I’d hoped… At least shock and pain blinded me to the memory so that I didn’t have to hear the words over and over again or see the look on his face when he said them.

  For so long, I’d hated the part of my body that was affected by the cancer—the part of my body that was weak. Now, I realized that the only part of me that was weak was my heart. And now, it lay in a pile of ashes in my chest, covered over with a cold, impenetrable layer of frost.

  I was wrong. I’d been wrong this whole time.

  I should have listened to my sense from the start. I should have looked both ways before I let Nick Frost cross my mind.

  “She was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable as with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.”

  —Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

  I THOUGHT I’D SHAPED MY life perfectly. Now, I realized that my choices had only built it up like a Jenga tower and now, piece by piece, it was slowly and carefully being pulled out from underneath me. Each one an attempt to weaken but not crumble me.

  I should have known that at some point, it would all fall down.

  Stumbling into my apartment that it felt like I hadn’t seen in weeks, and even worse no longer felt like home, I went into the kitchen and reached for the top cabinet where Jessa kept the wine for when she and Ally came over. As soon as the bottle touched the counter, I broke into tears.

  I didn’t want it. I didn’t want anything.

  Sobbing, I made it over to the couch, careful to move the pillows to either side so that I could lie down. This stupid semblance of order and control wa
s the only thing I had, and I would cling to it with every sharp, heartbreaking breath.

  I curled up into the corner, bringing my knees into my chest, finally aware of the fact that the pains in my stomach were a lot worse than earlier—than ever. They’d been muted when I saw… after I realized… but now that I was here alone, my body screamed at me that something else was wrong.

  Too bad, said my heart. Everything else is horribly wrong and I was too hurt to care.

  It could have been minutes or hours later when I heard Jessa’s voice.

  “Oh my God, Tammy, are you okay?” She dropped down onto her knees beside me.

  I’d called and left her a very incoherent voicemail on my drive home. I was hurting, but I wasn’t stupid. I needed to not be alone right now. Not this week.

  There was the part of me that heard her speak, the part that felt her hands shaking my shoulders, the part that saw that she was crying, too. But there was also the part of me that hurt so much that it felt like my soul had fled my body. It fled the cage of despair that tried to trap it.

  I wasn’t really sobbing anymore. Some things are just too painful for tears—like when you break a limb or get shot (not that I knew what either of those felt like) and it’s such a shock to your body that your senses can’t even register the pain. That was me in this moment. Soon, I would feel the pain and wish that there was such a thing as a cast for a broken heart.

  “I don’t want to be here,” I mumbled quietly.

  “Of… of course.” Jessa nodded frantically with a thick swallow. “Let me go grab a small bag of your clothes and you can come stay with me. Absolutely.”

  What clothes did I even have here? I’d taken so many to Nick’s.

  “Come on, hun. Let’s get you back to my place,” Jessa said, next to me again.

  Time happened in snippets where I was present. I knew she’d gotten my clothes. I heard her on the phone with Chance telling him that she was bringing me. I heard her come back in. But all of these things I could only remember looking back. As they were happening, my mind was lost somewhere else where the pain was less.