Frozen

by Meljean Brook

  “Olivia.” Another kiss burned my nape. “You taste so good.”

  A shiver ripped through me when he licked the spot he’d kissed, then the blunt pressure of his cock lodged at my entrance. Last time he’d simply taken me. Not this time.

  “More?”

  “Yes.” Moaning my answer, I spread my knees wider. “Yes.”

  For a long moment, there was only the harsh sound of his breathing behind me. Then an icy claw skimmed down my spine, not painful, only unexpected, but even as my body tightened with surprise his cock pushed deep inside me. Oh, my God. He’d felt big before but the sensation of his thick shaft pushing past the clenching resistance of my inner muscles detonated within me, ecstasy colliding with frenzied need. I cried out as he withdrew slightly, my hips thrusting back against him, trying to force him deeper. He caught my waist, one hand sliding around to cup my breast. Ice slipped over my nipple and he slammed into me, a harsh groan ripping from his chest as my pussy clamped down on his cock again.

  With a strangled moan, I pushed back against him. I was losing myself again, until there nothing but desire and the feel of him inside me. He was supposed to be the one with no control, yet here I was, utterly helpless to this need. No curse necessary—or maybe love was the same thing.

  Then ice scraped over my clit, he shoved deep, and I was gone.

  * * *

  “Olivia?”

  Erik. My eyelids were too heavy to lift, my throat raw, so I only sighed. He was so warm. Naked. Pulling me closer.

  “Tell me you’re all right, Olivia.”

  I couldn’t ignore the concern in his voice. “Mmm-hmmm. Just sleepy.”

  “Thank God.” His arms tightened around me. His chest hitched against my back. “I used you so hard.”

  “Yeah.” Yawning, I turned in his embrace and kissed the hollow of his throat before lazily winding my arms around his neck. My fingers tangled in his short hair. “It was nice.”

  This was, too. Lying against him with a mound of blankets pulled over us—he must have done that. Or maybe I did. The past few hours were pretty hazy. The last thing I remembered for certain was coming my brains out.

  Now the curse no longer had a hold on him…yet he was still holding me. All at once, everything that I’d told myself not to hope for came rushing back.

  I slitted my eyes open and my heart stopped. In the gray, pre-dawn light, Erik was gazing down at me, and I recognized the agonized need in his eyes. I’d probably looked at him like that all night.

  “Erik,” I whispered, then his mouth was on mine, sweet and warm. No fever. No ice. But there was still hunger.

  Moaning, I parted my lips and welcomed the thrust of his tongue, my heart blooming with a wonderful, unbearable ache. For so long, I’d held onto the memory of a single moment, when he’d kissed me as if he needed me. As if he already loved me. A kiss that told me he was the one.

  With a tortured groan, Erik swept his hand down my body, hooking my thigh over his hip. “One more, Olivia.” Lifting his head, he spoke the hoarse plea against my swollen lips. “One more. God, please. Let me have this once and I swear I’ll never touch you again.”

  I didn’t want him to swear that. But I only had time to nod before his mouth captured mine again, stealing the rest of my response and my heart was full, so full, because Erik was kissing me as if he never wanted to let me go.

  Just as he’d kissed me before.

  * * *

  Erik was gone when I woke. His absence wasn’t too surprising. The clock told me that it was past noon. Sunlight streamed through the windows. I couldn’t imagine him lying around when there were things to be done.

  I wasn’t sorry that he wouldn’t see me roll over and groan as the full effect of last night hit me. Every inch of my body was stiff and sore. God. I exercised regularly, but I was going to have to adopt a serious workout regimen to prepare for next year. Slowly, I stretched out the worst aches and dragged myself to the shower, where I stood under the hot pulse of the massager until the skin on my fingertips shriveled.

  The scent of coffee greeted me when I emerged, hair wet and wrapped in a robe. I followed the fragrance to the kitchen, where Erik was setting a take-out tray with two coffee cups and a paper bag on the counter. Either he kept a change of clothes in his truck or he’d driven to his loft here in the city, because he hadn’t been wearing those jeans and that flannel shirt when he’d come through my door last night.

  For an endless moment I just looked at him, unable to say a word. My chest was tight, my heart so full. The sex had been amazing, but a million orgasms were nothing compared to the sweet joy of knowing that he was here or the memory of the way he’d kissed me earlier.

  As if he needed me. Not just needed to fuck me, but needed me.

  But I’d been so exhausted. Even as he’d made love to me, it had felt like a dream. Now the reality of it all finally swelled over me. Erik was here.

  And I was desperately in love with him.

  With emotion clogging my throat, I softly greeted him. “Hey.”

  He glanced up and everything inside me froze. His eyes were cold. Glacial. Just the same pale blue that they’d always been, but I’d seen warmth in that blue gaze before. I’d seen heat and need and more.

  Now there was only ice.

  He regarded me from across the room with the same cold indifference that I’d seen in him for months. “You’re awake.”

  I wished that I wasn’t. Nodding blindly, trying to conceal the painful hitch of my breath, I looked at my hands and tightened the belt of my robe. My fingers were shaking.

  “You’re all right?”

  “I’m not hurt,” I said.

  His jaw hardened. Abruptly he turned toward the window overlooking the yard, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Do you want to go to the police so that you can press charges?”

  Disbelief held me silent for a second. “Against you?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” I couldn’t stop my laugh and it felt like a razor in my throat. “God, if I were going to do that, I’d report your father. You should, too. But I don’t think it would go over too well when we told them he sent me to your house knowing you suffered from a curse. So I’ll just settle for quitting and letting him deal with that fallout.”

  He glanced at me. “You’re leaving the firm?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes.” His gaze searched my face. “I’ll make sure you have a recommendation. Or get it from Douglas, if you don’t want it from me. You worked for him long enough.”

  My old boss. “I will.”

  “Let me know if you have trouble. I’ll make calls. But you probably won’t need it. There are more than a few local firms that would love to have you on board.” His mouth twisted a little. “I’d have tried to bring you in even before my father did, if not for…”

  The curse. Right. And I desperately wanted him to go now. Last night hadn’t changed anything. This morning hadn’t changed anything.

  Maybe I’d just dreamed it, after all.

  So I simply nodded, my insides filled with brittle ice that was ready to shatter into sharp edges and rip me to shreds.

  Expression suddenly haggard, he pushed his hand through his hair and turned away again. “My dad brought D&E into the firm because he realized you’d triggered the curse. He thought if you were always around, you might warm up to me. That I wouldn’t have been able to resist pursuing you. But I’d never have risked you like that, Olivia.”

  I knew. But it was cold comfort, because I wanted him enough to take that risk. Yet obviously Erik didn’t feel the same. God, I’d been so stupid. Reading so much into the curse after looking at a single photo of his grandparents. Hoping that it all meant he loved me. My instincts had screamed that he was the one and I’d foolishly listened.

  But it had all just been hormones and wishful thinking. Again.

  “Thanks for trying anyway,” I said.

  “I should kill him.”r />
  His dad? “If you do, you’ll probably have a really shitty Christmas.”

  A short, hollow laugh broke from him. “That’s already a given.”

  Here, too. Then he looked to me, and I prayed that he couldn’t see how I was shaking from the tension of holding myself together. Slowly he crossed the kitchen, his gaze intense—and the blue was warmer now, but it didn’t matter. I already knew what was coming next. He might use different words, but it would all mean the same thing.

  Good-bye, Olivia.

  He stopped close enough to touch, but my arms were wrapped around my middle. His throat worked before he spoke. “I think you’re amazing, Olivia. So incredible. I’m sorry you were caught in this. I should have done a better job protecting you.”

  It wasn’t his fault any more than it was mine. But I couldn’t take any more of this. Every apology was a knife in my chest, a reminder of how much he regretted all of this—and of how he’d wished that he’d never met me.

  Jaw tight, I glanced toward the window. Outside, his truck sat in the drive, and remembering the state of my own rig was like spotting a raft of practicality in an ocean of rioting emotion. I jumped onto it before the pain drowned me. “I’ll need to make a police report about my Jeep. For the insurance.”

  A long moment passed before he answered. “Right.”

  “I’m just going to stick as close to the truth as I can. I’ll say I walked up your drive so that you could sign papers and when we came back my rig had been ripped apart. We didn’t see anyone do it. Then I was stranded at your lodge until the storm passed.”

  “All right. I’ll say the same.” He stepped back and turned away, his gaze dropping to his hands. When he looked up again, the ice had returned. “I arranged to have a car sent here for you. It should arrive this afternoon.”

  “Thanks.” Go now. Please.

  “And if you need anything else…I’ll send you my lawyer’s contact info.”

  “Your lawyer,” I echoed numbly.

  “I don’t know where I’ll be. I’m going to try distance. Maybe Europe. Anywhere that’s far enough I can’t get to you in one night.”

  But he didn’t have to go. I hadn’t been hurt. Maybe he didn’t want to be with me but he didn’t have to move half the world away. Next year, I could just open my doors again.

  I could have Erik for one night. One night a year for the rest of my life.

  Knowing he only came because he had no other choice.

  Eyes burning, I looked away from him. The Ironwood witch’s curse had really, really missed its mark. The frost giant wasn’t the one being torn apart here.

  Agitated all at once, he raked his hand through his hair again and stalked back across the kitchen. “We didn’t use protection. If you’re pregnant—”

  “I’m on birth control,” I interrupted before he could say more. Whatever his suggestion, I suspected that I couldn’t bear hearing it.

  His body suddenly still, Erik nodded. His voice was flat. “That will make it simpler, then.”

  Simpler. God, was he trying to hurt me now? “So that’s everything, right? You didn’t leave your spear under the bed?”

  His shuttered gaze shot to my face, then away. “That’s everything.”

  “Great,” I said. “Thanks.”

  He nodded, chest lifting on a ragged breath. For an instant he seemed lost, his pale eyes blindly scanning the kitchen until they lit on me, standing in the doorway with my arms wrapped tight around my stomach. Torment filled his gaze.

  Desolation lined his face. “I’m so sorry, Olivia.”

  His regret was a spear of ice through my chest, but there was nothing left to hurt. I was numb now. Frozen.

  “Just go,” I said and stood unmoving as he went. I stood unmoving as I heard the door close behind him. A long time seemed to pass before I heard his engine start, and when his truck pulled out of the drive, I finally forced myself to the window and watched him go, so that I couldn’t pretend later that his leaving had been a dream. Because the reality was right there in my empty driveway. It was right here in my empty kitchen.

  He was gone.

  Stiffly I moved to the coffee and takeout bag he’d left on the counter—the only remaining sign that he’d been here. I dumped the coffee in the sink. Both cups. He’d bought one for himself, as if he’d intended to eat breakfast with me. Except he’d apparently changed his mind on the way, because his cold indifference had returned before I’d said a word to him. I glanced into the bag and my legs sank out from beneath me.

  He’d brought biscuits. Maybe even fluffy ones.

  But now they were salty, because the ice inside me shattered, melting into tears and I was nothing but a crying heap on the cold kitchen floor, desperately trying to hold in each harsh sob that ripped from my chest. But they only came harder, no matter how I pressed my hands against my mouth to stop them.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. I should have known this was coming. My mom had warned me. I should have been prepared.

  But there was never any way to prepare for a broken heart.

  Chapter Eleven

  Erik hadn’t just arranged for a car. He’d outright bought one for me. Less than two hours after he’d gone, a representative from the dealership arrived. He carefully avoided glancing at my puffy face and reddened eyes while I signed the paperwork, and by the time he left, I was in possession of a new Jeep.

  Maybe I’d pay Erik back. Maybe I wouldn’t. After all, I didn’t have a job now, and my mortgage payments weren’t going to disappear. My savings would last a while but not forever. And it didn’t matter what kind of recommendation my boss wrote—construction was always slow in winter, which meant money was tight. A lot of smaller firms would hold off on hiring anyone until the spring.

  So I didn’t know what was coming in the next few months. But the arrival of the Jeep forced me to stop crying, and I knew what I had to do over the next few hours.

  I emailed John Gulbrandr, resigning effective immediately. After contacting my insurance company, I called the sheriff’s office in the town closest to Erik’s lodge and reported what had happened to my Jeep, then arranged to call in when I arrived on site so a deputy could meet me there. Finally I texted my mom and let her know that I’d be arriving late.

  All of this necessary. Practical. But none of it was as important as the last thing on my list: seeing Erik again. Because I owed him something. Not money. Not a thanks for the Jeep.

  I needed to apologize for not shooting him.

  It would probably be the most messed-up reason a woman ever apologized to a man. But it needed to be done.

  As soon as I packed up the Jeep, I was on the road again. Doubts assaulted me every mile. Emotionally I was a wreck. Chances were that I’d start bawling the second I saw him. I should just meet up with the deputy and drive on. The apology could wait.

  Except it couldn’t. Not if he was leaving. It wouldn’t be the same sending a message through his lawyer.

  My chest was a numb, hollow ache by the time I left the highway and started up the road to his place. I slowed as I came upon a snowplow idling farther up—and beyond it, the blacktop was completely cleared of snow.

  So this was where Erik had fought the Hound. Trying not to picture the werewolf’s terrifying transformation, I carefully eased around the unmoving snowplow.

  I passed the big shovel at the front of the plow. Horror clutched my throat and I slammed to a stop.

  A frozen pile of blood and fur and flesh lay against the snowbank. I stared at it, fear scraping icy fingers down my spine. Erik had said something about Odin’s ravens carrying the body away at dawn, but he hadn’t just left it lying in the road. I’d seen him toss it into the snowbank and then cover it. There’d still been some blood visible, but not the body.

  The snowplow driver was standing over the frozen mass, shaking his head. When I stopped, he turned to wave me down and began coming my way. I rolled down the window and freezing air blasted in. The storm was over, but the
day was clear and the wind had a knife’s edge. The plow driver wore a black stocking cap and a heavy coat, but his cheeks and nose were red from the biting cold.

  “It’s all right!” the driver called over the noise of his diesel engine, then his voice lowered as he made it to the window of my Jeep. “My plow scraped it out of the snowbank. It looks bad—I about had a heart attack when it tumbled out in front of me—but it’s not a person.”

  What about a werewolf? Uneasy, I studied the bloodied heap. “What is it?”

  “A couple of wolves. They’ve been torn up some, but…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what got ’em. Bear or something, maybe come out of hibernation. I heard there was a car farther up the road that was ripped apart during the storm. Maybe if a bear was hungry enough and looking for food, one might do something like that. Maybe it smelled something inside.”

  “It was my Jeep,” I said faintly.

  “True?”

  I nodded.

  “Then you were probably lucky you weren’t in it.” He huffed out a breath and glanced toward his plow. “I won’t keep you. I called this in and now I’m waiting for the sheriff, but I’d rather wait in the cab than in this cold.”

  “Of course. Watch out for bears,” I suggested with a weak smile.

  He snorted and stepped back, offering a little salute. I waved and drove on, my heart thundering.

  Wolves. Not just the one wolf that had been lying dead on the snowbank, but wolves. Buried where Erik had buried the Hound. If Erik had driven this way earlier, it would have still been buried. He might not have realized that Odin’s ravens hadn’t picked it up, after all.

  And last night, when Erik had been fighting, he hadn’t just been fighting the Hound. He’d been fighting himself, fighting the curse. Could a trickster’s illusion be so effective?

  Maybe it could if Erik was tearing apart something that smelled like wolf, bled like wolf—and looked half-human. Why would Erik question it if he’d had blood steaming on his shirt? That hadn’t been faked.