Present
HE SPUN THE RADIO VOLUME down to silent. “Not gonna say anything?”
I didn’t need to look at him; I could hear the stupid smirk in his sexy, grating voice.
I reached over and turned Blake Tyler’s latest hit, Love Struck, back up on full blast, the ability of her music to express and consequently ease my troubles being put to the test in this very moment. (She sang like she knew what it was like to want something that you shouldn’t.) My eyes slid back over to the window as Emmett’s truck sped towards my house, the miles not moving fast enough.
The volume dropped again. “I’m giving you a ride home,” only because Channing made you, “it would be rude to ignore me.”
Oh, would it? Would it be rude? He was unbelievable. With an eye roll that was meant to piss off his stupidly beautiful face, I continued to sit in silence.
I was going to have to talk to my sister later. She couldn’t just dump me on Emmett—or Emmett on me—like that without a discussion. This wasn’t acceptable. I couldn’t be in the same place as him nor did I want to.
I plastered a smart-ass smile on my face. “I hate you.” My scathing coated with sweet voice was my specialty when it came to him.
I mentally went through my calculations again of how many more paychecks I would need before I was able to afford some sort of beater so that I wouldn’t have to rely on everyone else for rides. It was more than I wanted to admit to. Who knew that warm clothes could be so expensive?
He laughed and said, “I’m always grateful how frequently you choose to reassure me of that fact, sunshine.”
I stayed silent, trying to put his presence from my mind. The house was only another minute or so up the road.
Which is why he purposely slowed. Asshole.
“I was thinking,” he continued blithely.
“With your head or with your dick?” I couldn’t stop myself from interjecting. “Oh, wait, that’s right. I don’t care what either have to say.”
He floored it up our driveway and then hit the brakes hard, the truck sliding a few inches in the layer of snow. I caught my head just before it smacked against the back of the seat. “Ass,” I grumbled with a low voice as I threw the door open and hopped down, slamming it shut as hard as I could behind me. I hoped it broke something inside his stupid old truck.
I’d hoped it was an echo, but it was the driver’s door shutting; he was coming after me. Racing towards the front door was foolish, I thought in retrospect, both because I almost slipped and fell on my ass but also because I still found myself with my back pressed up against it in the split second before I could get inside.
My heart raced as Emmett’s hands planted on either side of my face. He smelled like wax—subtle and strong at the same time.
“Look, Little Miss,” he bit out, “we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot—“
“Wrong foot!” I scoffed incredulously. “Emmett, saying we got started on the wrong foot is like saying a tsunami is just a wave. No. There was no wrong foot. We didn’t even get off on a foot, let alone the wrong one. Hell, I doubt that the leg that should be attached to the non-existent foot even exists for us.”
“Fine.” His jaw muscle ticked at my tirade. “Whatever you want to call it, sunshine. I think we need to put the past behind us and try to at least be civil to each other. For your sister’s sake.”
Yeah, ok. Civil. Fine.
I just needed to not be so close to him because what he did to my body was definitely not civil.
“Fine,” I shrugged, “just stay away from me and we won’t have a problem.”
“Yeah, not going to happen.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I begged softly, watching as his eyes darkened at the familiar question that haunted our past.
“I’m trying to look out for you.” His body didn’t touch mine, but I felt the tension radiating off of it—both in frustration and desire. My mind fought against my body’s response and its memory of a few months ago. “Somebody has to since Chance is gone and it doesn’t look like the fucker has any plans of coming back. I don’t care what you think of me, but I’m not ok with you getting rides home from random people; I’m not ok with you going on dates with guys that you barely know. And I’m not ok with you acting fucking reckless. I refuse to let anything happen to you. You’re Pride’s baby sister; you’re too goddamn important.”
I hated the way my heart jumped and skipped at those last words.
I also hated his every reminder that I’d been left again—so soon after Dylan and this time by my brother. I didn’t want to be angry and blame him like Channing did, but I couldn’t stop the hurt.
Chance had been injured on the mountain and the doctors told him that he wouldn’t be able to compete again; competing in the X Games and eventually the Olympics had been his goal—his dream. And as heartbreaking as it was to see his dream shatter, I was, once again, left behind and devastated when he disappeared without a word to anyone—not even Channing.
“He’s been gone for months and I’ve survived. Try again,” I moved on from the thoughts that would only bring back tears I’d already cried. I knew exactly where this was coming from and it had nothing to do with Chance, but I wanted to hear Emmett admit it.
I pressed against the door, trying not to melt under the heat from his gaze as he leaned in closer; I hated how my breath caught as his lips brushed by my cheek waiting for more of his touch.
“He’s bad news and I don’t want you fucking near him,” he warned with a low voice.
Emmett didn’t have to say his name; I knew he was referring to Zack Olsen—the younger brother of the world’s best snowboarder, Wyatt Olsen, who was in town for the next several weeks because of the Winter X Games.
I’d only just met Zack. Maybe screwing women the day he met them was how Emmett rolled—ok, not maybe, it was how he rolled—but that was not me. Zack was nice, he was funny, and I found that I enjoyed his presence, a hard feeling to come by after Dylan and Chance…
“I don’t care what you want.” My voice was hoarse because my body was traitorously aroused. Thankfully, I’d discovered that one of the many benefits of having to layer clothes was that it successfully hid the way my breasts swelled and nipples peaked every time I got remotely close to this asshole. “And you’ve certainly never cared about what I wanted,” I couldn’t resist adding.
His fist pounded against the door next to me as he cursed. Good. Get mad and leave. I wasn’t that lucky. I shivered as calloused fingers came up to grasp my chin, turning my head so that his mouth was on my ear.
“Liar.”
I felt the word on my skin as he licked down along the edge of my ear. No layers of clothing could conceal the shudder that racked my body. I liked to think I’d become invincible and immune to his charms—that his actions made me so—but then, his barest touch was like kryptonite, bringing me to my knees. “Do you want to rethink your statement?” he rasped.
Yes. “No.” I fought to keep my strength from seeping out of me.
“I think that you do. I think you know just how good I was at giving you what you wanted. I think you distinctly remember,” he bit down on my ear lobe, “when I had my tongue so far up inside of you—“
I gasped, locking my thighs together. “Stop!” I pleaded, biting down on my cheek to stop the rerun of my favorite dream from playing in my head—the one where he called me ‘sunshine’ and I believed that I was the center of his universe.
He smiled against my cheek. Asshole.
I hated how he talked to my thoughts, knowing that they would give in to him, instead of responding to my words that would fight him with every last syllable.
“Why are you doing this, Emmett?” I didn’t want to be involved in another one of his games—the game where he made me want him and then he left
His coal-black eyes bored into mine as he ground out, “I told you; I’m trying to protect you.”
My hand discreetly reached behind me, finding the f
ront door knob a few inches from my side.
“Zack is a nice guy—not that you would be able to recognize that.” I provoked him so that I could turn the knob slowly, preparing myself for my next maneuver that countless viewings of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ had equipped me with. “Unfortunately,” I continued sweetly, leaning my face closer to his, our lips a breath from touching, “the only person I need protecting from, is you.”
Click. Slam. Click.
I’d opened the door, throwing Emmett off balance because he’d been pushing against it, darted inside, and slammed the solid wood in his face. Just like the night we met. He wouldn’t have followed me inside; the lock was just my way of rubbing it in his face.
Goodbye, Gaston.
I had won another battle—but those were becoming fewer and farther between. Pulling out my phone, I texted Channing that I was home and then texted Tammy and told her to come over when she was done with work. My phone buzzed back immediately and I opened the message before I realized who it was.
EMMETT
Cute, sunshine. But it changes nothing. I won’t let anything happen to you.
My heart stopped for a few casual seconds, rereading the words. I hated how he did that. I hated how he talked to me like I was a child who needed protecting. I hated how he talked to me like I was the only thing valuable in the world to him—so valuable he couldn’t decide whether to pull me close or push me away.
Scratch that.
He had decided. An asshole-arm’s distance away. Far enough to tempt me to forget, close enough to make sure I couldn’t.
ALLY
He’s a nice guy. He’s nice to me. He makes me smile and laugh. Something you couldn’t do if you tried.
EMMETT
Is he the one you see when you touch yourself at night?
Is his the name you moan when you come?
I cinched my lips together to stop myself from screaming. He shouldn’t be able to say that so confidently to me like he knew it was the truth. Even though it was. I clicked my phone off and angrily tossed it on my bed. Heading for the shower, my body reminded me that I was still losing the war.
“He said he was protecting you?” Tammy swirled the glass of red wine that I’d just handed her. She wasn’t a big drinker most nights, but she readily accepted the offer of a glass after seeing how upset I was. Moral support merlot.
Since I’d moved back here, she’d become one of my best friends—she and Jessa. Jessa Madison went to high school with us. She’d been a year ahead of Tammy, who had been a year ahead of me. We hadn’t been friends with her back then; my brother and sister and their friends put Tammy and me in the more popular crowd. Jessa had been super nice, but she’d been more of a free-spirit wanderer with her long purple hair that was now a bright pink. Probably why they got along so well—balance. She was beautiful with long tan legs, boobs that put mine to shame, and a self-confidence that held her calmly above most other girls who snickered jealously about her ‘weirdness.’
Jessa was the complete opposite of Tammy who was super structured—always a plan, always on track. And me? Well, I usually tripped along somewhere in between, smiling so that no one would notice as I fell.
At one point, I vaguely remembered she and Chance having some sort of thing, but I couldn’t tell you what happened. I didn’t get the impression that it ended amicably since she never wanted to talk about it. After graduation, she moved back to Texas for college and only returned to Aspen a month or so ago, running into Tammy when she applied for a part-time job at Open Hearts Daycare; she was a physical therapist and was studying to take her Colorado state boards. She’d invited Tammy out for a drink and Tam had told me to tag alone. It had been karaoke night at Big Louie’s and, after a long night of singing throwbacks like Brittney Spears and the Spice Girls, it was basically impossible for us not to come away as best friends.
We’d taken one night and a whole bottle of Jack—it was the only time I’ve ever seen Tammy really drink—and we got plastered, revealing parts of the secrets that were never to be spoken of again.
Dylan. Deceit. Disease.
And then we turned on ‘Friends’ and let the episodes keep rolling until we had no choice but to laugh.
I tried to get Channing involved with our circle and she’d been a good sport about it the first month or two that I’d been back, but then Chance left and she closed off. I knew it was because he was gone, but I didn’t say anything. She was trying to be strong for me—and for herself.
I didn’t blame her, I was trying to do the exact same thing.
She was already working a lot, picking up extra shifts, and then the mountain had opened for the season so any spare moment she had was spent snowboarding. I thought about asking her to teach me, but snowboarding meant being in the company of the one person in this town that I couldn’t stand—Emmett ‘King’ Jameson. And then she got this hair-brained idea to take Chance’s spot in the X Games. It was a crazy idea and I told her that to her face.
She ignored me, like most sisters tend to do.
But, as I well knew, heartbreak made you do crazy, desperate things. Like move across the country away from your friends, family, and sun into the cold that you hate.
Or like asking the one person you can’t stand to help you forget your pain just for one night…
Back to Channing—I had no sway over her though, as much as I tried. I just hoped that she would give it up before it got her in trouble. Especially when trouble was a tall, dark, and handsome snowboarder named Wyatt Olsen.
Yup. Zack Olsen was here because his older brother was competing in the X Games and I’d only met him because the older Olsen couldn’t seem to let my sister out of his sights.
“Well, with your brother gone, I can see why he would want to do that. Maybe he knows this other guy from somewhere?” I shook my head both in response to her question and her hopefulness.
There are people on this planet who are so filled with goodness is seems unreal; that’s why they usually work quietly in the background making the world around them a better place with no recognition and no notice; they were the ones who would save the world—one simple smile at a time. Tammy was one of those people, the only one of us who couldn’t see fault in even the SnowmassHoles of Aspen.
Even in Emmett.
Even after what he’d done.
However, I hadn’t told her about Halloween—at least all of it. She’d given me her take on him a day or so after the pizza incident. He was cold and harsh, but life had been that way to him. She told me the rumors that went around the school before he started fighting anyone who dared talk about his past—drug-addict mom, foster homes… I’d felt my heart tug at the thought, until I remembered that he was my enemy.
“Not that he’s going about it the right way… obviously,” she added when I didn’t respond. “But I think he’s trying to do a good thing. What did Channing say?”
I swallowed my guilt and refilled my glass that I’d polished off just as Tammy got here. “I haven’t had a chance to tell her.” My sister, in fact, had no idea. I couldn’t bring myself to explain what was going on between Emmett and me. Mostly because I didn’t even know. Partially because he was her friend… I was her sister… I’d brought this on myself and she had warned me.
“Well, she could probably give you better advice than I, Al. She certainly knows him better. I really think you should talk to her.”
“Thanks, mom,” I teased. She really was the mom of the group—listening to our problems, cleaning up after our get-togethers, the DD when we went out for a drink. Totally fit her personality to a ‘T.’
“What should we watch?” Tammy flipped through the Netflix options. “Is Jessa coming?”
Jessa had movie rules, so if she were here, it had to be something action or drama; no romance for that one.
“No, she said she had a hot date.” It was unusual for Jess to bail on us, but I had texted them last minute. Plus, she didn’t like hanging out at my hous
e. I think because it was Chance’s house, too, even though he obviously wasn’t here.
“Let’s do a ‘Friends’ marathon.” The ocean might not be able to cure everything, but a ‘Friends’ binge certainly could.
“So, who is this other guy that Emmett has a problem with?” She took another small sip of her wine. Even moral support couldn’t tempt her into letting loose. But I didn’t judge.
“His name is Zack,” I grinned, “and you’ll love him because he’s a skier.” She would have loved him either way because that was just who she was.
Randomly choosing ‘The One With Mrs. Bing,’ I dropped onto the couch and recounted my meeting with the sexy skier who’d adorably asked if he could buy me a coffee after my shift tomorrow, a dark part of me hoping that Emmett would be there to see.
King Asshole had come into Cup of Joe—the coffee shop where I worked—every day since I’d been hired which was coincidentally, every day since he’d gotten me fired from my last job waitressing at Big Louie’s.
4. I hated the way he got me fired, only for me to wind up with a job that I enjoyed so much more.
I’d been building a list of grievances for some time now, writing them in my diary each night that he’d done something offensive—which was most nights. Although, I did tend to blame him for invading my dreams when the fault was solely my own. I wonder how many wrongs it would take for it to finally sink in how wrong it was to want him?
Even though the show was playing, we continued to talk about my morning at work… about Zack.
“So, is he cute? What happened? What did you talk about?” Tammy was great at prying information about guys from Jessa and me—mostly Jessa. This was the first time I’d given anyone the time of day since I moved.
Except Emmett.
“Oh, my God, yes! Baby blue eyes. Dirty-blonde, scruffy hair. I think a little on the skinnier side, but it was hard to tell with all the snow gear. And taller than you.”
The Winter Games Page 43
