by Sunniva Dee
Table of Contents
Title Page
0. Dance
1. Life & Death
2. Nightmare
3. Work
4. Kiss
5. Nitty-Gritty
6. Work
7. Goodbye
8. Snow
9. Rush
10. Colors
11. Pain
12. Pasts
13. Corset
14. Company
15. Avalanche
16. Hours
17. Standing
18. Tension
19. Plans
20. Bear Point
21. Bossy
22. Reconvalescent
23. Stress
24. Secrets
25. Again
26. Leaving
27. Getaway
28. Trouble
29. Jealousy
30. Apart
31. Peaks & Ravines
32. Escapes
33. Disappearance
34. Sky
35. Rock Bottom
36. Whipped
37. Concert
Excerpt from Leon’s Way
Excerpt from Pandora Wild Child
Acknowledgments
About Sunniva Dee
Other Books by Sunniva Dee
Copyright © 2014 by Sunniva Dee
Cover design by Clarise Tan of ctcovercreations.com
Editing by Kim Grenfell
Interior book design by Caitlin Greer
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission from the above author of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the various products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
With the rush of extreme sports being so prevalent in this novel, I dedicate it to adrenaline junkies in general, and to the wildest of my friends and family in particular. Kyrre and Tor: I’m talking about you, you crazy boys.
I also dedicate Adrenaline to all who have made it through a heartbreak. To those still struggling: there is light at the end of the tunnel. You’ll see: love will find you again. And when it does, you cannot say “no” to love.
XOXO
Sex is a dance with her. A slow tango where skin flows over skin. It is slick readiness, a quiet welcome. It’s smooth, warm, right, and all wrong.
There’s no move she makes I don’t preempt. When it’s new, I follow. When I’m different, she forms to me. She was the ground I walked on. The air I worshipped. The first years together she was my everything.
With Ingela, sex is love. It is guilt over not giving her what she’s worthy of.
This girl. She deserves so much. And I?
I don’t have it all.
The way she looks at me. It’s knives sharpened and twisting in my gut because the extent of her love is beyond my capacity. I tell her again, for the seventh time in five years, what the answer always must be:
“Ingela, I can’t. You are the best person I know. You deserve someone with the chops to love you hard and forever. I’m not that man.”
Again, I’ve reduced her to this; her body, the one I just took to the skies in ecstasy, wracks with grief. This is why tonight is the last time we break up. I hate myself. I have to accept that I can’t make her happy.
It’s time I quit chickening out, quit running back to her over a bleak fling and whenever I need solace. To me, she’s comfort and familiarity. I’ll never stop loving Inga.
But to her, I’m still everything.
The chase is over. Right here, right now, this is it. Even if it only lasts thirty seconds, the rush of what I’m about to do floods me and makes me feel. It’s so intense, every muscle in my body goes rigid with anticipation.
The air is sharp and early-morning raw. I stare out from my post on an overhang off Firam Peak. Let my eyes judge the steep drop into the ravine on the backside of the mountain. Jagged granite walls form unpredictable patterns that crash to the bottom the way I will soon, and a light dusting of snow contrasts starkly with the somber stone.
I shake my arms. Not to relieve the tension but to make sure I’m nimble and ready. I didn’t invite my friends, Dan and Marek, along today. I’d be better off with someone else around, of course, but nothing compares to the thrill I experience as I step forward alone. I’m on the edge now, in every sense of the word.
I draw in a breath of icy oxygen. Crack my fingers inside my gloves and adjust the strap on my helmet. I’m ready.
It’s so easy to plunge off the cliff. All I do is heave up on my toes and extend my arms. A light bend at the knees and I’m off, flying.
Ah, yes. I fly.
So good.
The wind howls around me. I’m fast—I’ve jumped a dozen times into this ravine so the speed doesn’t surprise me. When we started base jumping, Dan and I would heave ourselves as far out as we could to stay clear of the rock walls during the free-fall. With the velocity you take on, the smallest miscalculation will throw you against the ragged stone, toss you around, and beat you about like a rag doll. It’d be hard to survive.
It gets boring, though, to be careful every time. Which is why, at this point, to get that rush—the woozy bliss inundating my brain for hours afterward—I simply tip off the edge.
The wingsuit I wear is advanced technology. I stretch my arms out to the side, the fabric spanning open at my sides. A familiar sting of disappointment sings through me as I realize I’ll never fly without the squirrel suit. I can’t even begin to imagine the drug it would be to base jump with no security equipment. Straight to death, of course. I chuckle to myself at the thought.
I’m reaching the white ravine floor too quickly. Fuck, I’m lightning fast. The parachute on my back is a click away, but I postpone it, postpone it—
I’m on top of the world!
I’m so fucking alive while I plunge to what could be my last moment on Earth. I curl my body into a somersault and shout my rush out in an echo against the surrounding rock.
“Wooh-hooh!”
The ground shoots up toward me. No one, no one is here to help—or hear—if I hurt myself.
I pull the strap of the parachute. It deploys in the nick of time. Again, I’ve done it. I’ve survived by calculating the fall correctly. The parachute slows my speed so I tumble onto the snowy blanket with minimal impact to my legs. Somehow I’m lame enough to hit the snow with an arm under me, and my ring finger snaps—the same one that gave up in Italy a year back when I raced down a pine tree with my legs on each side like a fucking cartoon character. It’s a miracle my balls are intact.
I squirm and laugh on the ground. Fucking A—what a loser I am, breaking a finger of all things. What a girly thing to do, right?
Once I’m done laughing and groaning in pain, I climb all the way back up again to the car—a goddamn mile and a half up a trail only fit for mountain goats. Note to self: “Park at the bottom the next time and walk up before you jump.” It’s what we usually do anyway—because Dan and Marek are smart and can handle delayed gratification. Me? Not if I can avoid it.
In the car back to my dorm in Deepsilver, I can’t stop grinning. Dan and Marek won’t need me to tell them I flew solo today. No
doubt, my face will give me away. They won’t whine for long, though. It’ll be more of a “Shit, dude,” sort of situation, as in: “You’re nuts,” and “don’t do it again,” and—“I wish it were me.”
My cell just buzzed. It’s four in the morning on a weekday. On an instinctual level, I know who it is. I’m not one to give myself breaks; not once, not once, do I not answer when he calls, so I sit up, adrenaline diluting my blood and telling me to go-go-go.
“Stop missing me, asshole,” I say into the receiver.
Brooding, emotional, feel-sorry-for-himself, wishy-washy, sexy nightmare Bo. He’s the epitome of inconsiderate. I’ve been studying in the US for over two years now, but my ex keeps calling me from home. Not giving a damn about the time difference, he calls right when the hell he needs me.
I fumble for the light. Turn it on. Squint and clutch my phone tighter. “Hej,” I puff out next since he doesn’t respond right away.
“Hej, Inga,” he breathes back. Voice silky, like the damn singer-guitarist he is, he says what I knew he would as if he didn’t hear my initial greeting. “I miss you.”
“You’re horrible, Bo.”
“Come on, Inga—this is hard.”
I know what he means by hard. “Is it?” I ask, sitting up straighter. “Is it, now? Then, why did you break up with me for the fifteenth time in, like, what…”
I don’t want to repeat the number of years out loud. Bo and I were an item on and off between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. All I care about right now is him shutting the hell up. Whenever I’m almost over him, he’s there again. Black-velvety soft voice in my ear, making adrenaline, my worst enemy, course through my body until I tremble.
The man on the phone drove me to the brink a while back. There’s a reason why I’m here and not in Gothenburg where I’d be subject to his erratic moods on a daily basis.
For the millionth time, I wish I didn’t remember the good parts. Me, starting out as the sixteen-year-old groupie of his local band. The parties, the fun. The endless nights in our own little world in the dump he rented with two fellow bandmates. I swallow a lump in my throat. It was supposed to be us always. Not just for a few years. And he wasn’t supposed to be… the way he is.
“Inga, did you hear what I said?” Bo whispers now, like he cares that I should be asleep at this hour.
“No.”
“I call you, and you don’t even listen?”
“Doing my best,” I say. By the displeased huff he makes, I can tell he understands; I’m doing my best at not listening to him.
“I’m accepting a scholarship to a one-year guitar clinic in Los Angeles.”
Even sitting, my knees go weak. Deepsilver, the gorgeous little college town I’ve set new roots in here on the East Coast, must be only hours from Los Angeles by plane. The pull is on my heartstrings already—I’m too close to where Bo will be.
“Why?” I ask. “They can’t teach you anything here that you can’t learn in Gothenburg, I’m sure. And the band—are they replacing you?”
He puffs a snicker. “Naw. I don’t think so.” Bo is aware that he’s the chick magnet of the bunch and the reason they’ve been doing decent as a college band since they moved to the big city.
“I might check in with some labels while I’m in L.A. The band is with me on this. Probably heading over too, if I can scrounge up some gigs for us. Maybe we’ll tour the East Coast. How about that, Inga? We’ll pop by your little town.”
“Uh-huh, whatever.” I hurt. I try not to admit it to myself, but I miss him so much. The need to have him with me under my covers sucker-punches me. No one. No one is like Bo in bed. I feel the ghost of his hands on my skin as he lets out a quiet laugh on the other end.
“You’re so silly, Ingela. Just give it up already. I’ll take a couple of days in Deepsilver on my way there, okay? I’ll treat you well.”
I blush. There’s a reason to his sexy chuckle, to his sudden promise. As soon as I’m the slightest bit turned on, my breathing stops cooperating. Five years of on-and-off dating has Bo tuned in to the smallest changes in me the way he is to his guitar. So yes, he’s completely aware of his effect on me.
“Fuck you,” I mumble.
“Do you swear as much in English as you do in Swedish?” he purrs like he’s describing dirty pleasures.
“None of your—”
“—goddamn business?”
“Yeah, that. Bye, dick.”
I love my job. In addition to my studies—not sure what I’ll be when I grow up yet—I scored a job at the coolest club in town, Smother.
Robin revs up some new tunes at an earsplitting level, nodding to Cameron, who instantly hauls me off the barstool and throws me over a shoulder.
“Dude, put me down!” I squeal as he swings me in a circle as fast as he can. “You’re a wuss.”
“Not the word, darling,” he laughs. “Means ‘coward,’ which I’m not.”
“Fucking idiot. Ah, stop!” I scream.
“My ears,” he says, always complaining that I’m loud.
“See? You are a wuss.” I’m getting dizzy. “Enough or I’ll puke all over you! Put me down, I said!”
“For reals? You want me to let go?” Cameron asks, a trick question for sure. He’s up to no good, but I fall for it and scream, “Yes, goddammit!”
“’Kay.” Cameron drops me.
I take two wobbly steps on the empty dance floor, do a quarter circle, and go down like a rock. Ah, my butt hurts so bad. That was rough. I glare up at him, and he’s not even trying to subdue his grin.
“Better, sugar-love?” He arches a brow at me, light green eyes sparkling with laughter.
“No, you weren’t supposed to drop me completely, douche-pack.”
“Someone needs to teach you proper English. It’s ‘douche bag.’” He enunciates the word slowly, forming tempting pink lips around it. I stick my tongue out.
The music fades, and Robin steps out of the DJ booth. The three of us have a tacit agreement. Whenever he’s got some new songs he wants to test out in the club while it’s empty, he does sort of a sound check an hour or two before we open doors.
“Too much bass on that one?” he murmurs to Cameron, not me. Robin’s a bit of a male chauvinist.
“Pig. Ask me,” I demand. Cameron’s arm goes around my waist and pulls me up from the floor. Dude’s strong. He’s into strange extreme sports in his spare time, and apparently, they require strength.
Robin scrunches his brows. “What?” Even after years of working together and being a part of Cameron’s and my little party group, he understands squat of what I say.
Cameron slides two fingers through the hole in my jeans and wedges them in under one butt cheek. “It’s short for male chauvinist pig,” he explains. I swat his hand away.
“Yeah, Robbie-boy—now, ask the ladies.” I nod.
“Sure, too much bass, Ingela?” Robin specifies, eyes still on Cameron.
I wave in front of his nose. “Here? I’m here. Yeah, the bass sucked ass. Stupid song. Only good for, like, not rocking out.”
Cameron’s face lights up with humor, blazing neat rows of white teeth at me. “I’d rock you either way, gorgeous. Hey, what do you say I rock you outta here and into my bedroom? Hmm?”
“Jesus, at it again,” Robin mutters while I giggle. He plods back up on the podium and dips into his bag for another memory stick full of songs.
“Yeah? How many other chicks do you have in there waiting for us today?” I nudge him in the side. Young Cameron’s obsessed with threesomes. In the two years I’ve worked at Smother, hardly a day has passed by without him handing out not-so-subtle invites to join him in his one-man brand of orgy. According to Christian, our second-in-charge at Smother, despite Cameron’s devotion to the task at hand, he has yet to partake in one.
“A matter of minutes, and I’ll have two, you included. Arriane should be down any second, right?”
“Oh my God! You’re fucking insane,” I squeal out.
>
He covers his ears, snickering. “Talk about the devil…”
I follow his stare. My friend, Arriane, is studying us from the stairs that lead up to the apartment she shares with our boss, Leon. Long, velvety black hair slides over one perfect eyebrow as she purses her mouth at us. “What’s going on down here? You guys woke Lyric.”
She’s kidding. Arria and Leon’s toddler sleeps like a rock to the noise from the bar. So well that his parents commonly postpone his bedtime to hit Robin’s first hour in the DJ booth. Lyric is so accustomed to the loud bass making his surroundings vibrate that it literally lulls him to sleep.
Cameron and I still make a unison, exaggerated gasp of horror. “No. Not the Little Terror?” I say, causing Arriane to laugh.
“Yep, the very one. You guys testing out song danceability?” she asks.
“No, Cameron is just flinging me around being a douche—”
“—bag,” he finishes for me, smiling wide.
“What’s that on your hand, Cam?” my observant friend prods, pointing. I look, and sure enough, one of his fingers is covered in a baby blue bandage.
“Fancy color. Although—did they not have pink?” I ask.
“Sorry, I didn’t wrap it for you, Inga. I’ve got something else for you, though, that you can unwrap.” The dork thrusts his hips at me and waggles his brows. “And I promise you: it’s pink.”
“Ew!” I laugh. “He’s so gross, isn’t he?”
Arriane has the most gorgeous eyes. They’re a deep violet hue, and with her mixed heritage—half Indian, half Honkey as her boyfriend calls her—she takes people’s breath away. Now, those eyes of hers roll upward at our exchange. Something she does a lot.
“Anyways. What’s with the bandage, Cameron?” Arria asks.
“Um, broke a finger yesterday, base jumping. Stupidest injury ever. Should’ve broken my head or something.”
“You can’t break something that’s already broken,” I quip, which makes him grab me by the neck and guide our foreheads together.