Cold Hearted: Bad Boy Romance

by Amy Faye

  "Yeah—I guess we all are, aren't we? Or, most of us, anyway. I just—well, I was behind you in the ski rental, and I'm sorry how those guys treated you."

  "Yeah, well." Erin could hear how bitchy her voice sounded, but with Britney Spears pumping quietly in her ears she was starting to feel better, so she really hadn't planned on being any ruder than normal. "Sometimes you have to deal with it."

  "Well, maybe someone should give them a talking-to."

  Erin liked the sound of that. Maybe they would like talking to her. She was good at talking, when she wanted to be. She was especially good at talking when there was something on the line. And she was an exceptional talker when the guy was across a metal table, handcuffed down and she could smell the scumbag on him.

  Well, the handcuffs would be difficult, but the rest—they sounded perfect for it, frankly. The man behind her pulled his scarf down and his hat off, then held out his hand.

  "I'm Roy."

  Erin took it, still trying to turn as little as possible.

  "Erin."

  "Well, Erin, it looks like we're up."

  Sure enough, the last remaining teenagers had found their seats and were starting to slowly move up and away to the top of the mountain. Erin moved over to get into the lift, and Roy moved up beside her.

  She still couldn't see much of him, but from what she could see, she wanted to see more. The man had a military-looking haircut and the jaw to match it, with pretty eyes and a thin smile. She'd never used the word 'dreamy' before, but then again, she'd never seen someone who looked like Roy did.

  Two

  The way up the mountain wasn't as quiet as she'd wanted it to be before. Roy seemed to have taken her manners as permission to talk to her most of the way up, but somehow she wasn't as frustrated by it as she thought she would be. The man kept himself to the usual topics. How much skiing had she done, did she watch any sports, see any good movies lately. She noticed that he hadn't talked about work, though. Not even one word.

  Maybe he was like those teenagers. He didn't look like it. Pressed in close, she could feel that it wasn't his coat that made him look bulky. He had broad shoulders and the feeling of his muscles under the coat made her wonder what he looked like in regular clothes.

  Living in California had certain advantages, or perhaps disadvantages. Bodybuilding gorillas came through the station more often than was likely represented by their actual numbers, and a man who spent twenty hours a week in the gym wasn't likely to impress compared to some of them.

  That didn't change how she felt about a man who looked like he took care of himself, though. The difference was subtle, but she could tell it with one glance. Well, normally she could. Most of the folks on the mountain had on a heavy down coat over their sweaters over their shirts, and it tended to make everyone look like a little roly-poly.

  As much as she hated to admit it, the effect on her was the same. She was trim, even small, but with two coats on to keep the cold out she looked like a completely different person. Like a teenager, she thought, and not in a good way. Not an "energy to fuck all night, experienced enough to know what she was doing" kind of way; more like a "wearing mom's makeup and clothes don't fit" kind of way.

  If it weren't for their coincidental timing, looking like this, a guy like Roy wouldn't have looked at her twice. But that was no reason to blow him off, not with the way he looked.

  She let him talk. His voice was soothing. More soothing than music that had aged like milk. She fished the phone out of her pocket, her gloves making it hard to get a grip that she was sure of before she pulled it out. Then she changed the playlist. The soft guitar kicked in a moment after the piano, and when the trumpet melody hit she was already feeling better than she had for the entirety of Britney's first three songs.

  They jumped one right after the other, and made it out of the landing zone double-quick. The skis felt strange on her feet, but the minute she started moving she was already feeling that familiarity that she'd left behind a little more than ten years ago.

  When a familiar jacket lined up next to her on the intermediate slope, she found herself raising an eyebrow at him. He shouted to be heard over the ear-buds he'd watched her fit into her ears, but she could have heard him if he spoke softer.

  "I'll race you. If I win, let me buy you a cup of coffee."

  She laughed, exaggerating the motion, and then took off suddenly. It took him a moment to react. By that point she already had a good lead on him, and she was going to use every bit of it to beat him down as best she could.

  He might be good-looking, but she had a decade of experience to work off. It was just that she hadn't had that experience in a long time. And what was more, this place was new to her. She'd never seen these slopes in her life, but as she started moving, starting with practicing shifting her weight left and right.

  Roy was going to catch her if she kept up like this. She ducked her head a little and worked her way up to a good speed. There wasn't going to be much challenge, not compared to what she remembered with her head, but she hadn't been doing this in a long time, and her reflexes weren't what they should have been for anything more advanced than this.

  She dodged around a bump that would have slowed her down. Still, Roy was catching her. If she wasn't lucky, he'd make it before she got down the hill. She wouldn't mind a cup of coffee, and she would mind the company less. But that didn't mean that she didn't want to win, neither.

  He came up alongside and made a quick, informal salute as he passed. Then he was gone, and picking his way further down the mountain, at first only a few inches ahead and then a few yards. Erin cursed and crouched lower, trying to minimize the resistance she was catching on the air.

  Comfort be damned. At some point her reflexes would take over or she'd flip head-over-heels into the snow, but losing wasn't an option. There was no way in hell she was going to accept that. But she could already see the end of the trail coming up.

  She tried to will herself faster, started catching Roy up ahead. He looked over his shoulder at her, checking to see if she was closing the gap, and then suddenly one of his feet slipped sideways and he took a tumble.

  Erin turned her skis and let herself slide along the snow. It was cold and it was wet, but even if she was off-duty and a thousand miles away she was still a cop and still had a responsibility to make sure that he was okay. To her relative pleasure, Erin found Roy already straightening himself up. He pulled his scarf down and barked out a laugh.

  She reached over to help him up, waiting for him to get steady. Then, as soon as he looked even remotely upright, he shot off again. The surprise was too much to catch up with, only a few hundred feet from the finish. She pulled up thirty seconds after him.

  "That's my win," she said, letting her competitive edge touch her voice a little more than she might have wanted.

  "Nope. I got down first, and you have to take me up on my offer."

  "No way, Jose. I won that. You fell down, automatic disqualification."

  "Well, that doesn't sound right to me, and pretty girls don't always get their way."

  The grin on his face told her how pleased he was with himself, and she couldn't bring herself to refuse.

  "Neither do pretty guys, Roy. But we'll compromise. I'll buy yours, you buy mine. How's that?"

  "You better watch out, I get a double-shot with extra whipped cream. It'll be like, fifteen dollars."

  Erin rolled her eyes beneath the ski goggles. "How will I ever afford such extravagant coffee?"

  Three

  Erin had never taken twenty minutes to get dressed before, not even when she had put on her work clothes that morning. But now it seemed like impressing was exactly what she was hoping to do, and now she was realizing that all she had were clothes that were perfect for relaxing and nothing else, or winter clothes she was going to wear on the mountain.

  Then it came to a choice between something that almost approximated reasonably casual, or figure out a way to explain wear
ing a jacket and slacks to a casual coffee date.

  She forced herself to choose the casual clothes, in spite of her mind immediately latching onto the chance to wear the usual suit. Something about it was alluring to her, even if it took her already decidedly average-at-best breasts and minimized them further until she looked like a man. The comfort, or the repeated self-assurance that she had brought it specifically to impress someone if the chance had arisen.

  Now that it had, she realized how stupid that idea had been. She'd wasted space in her luggage by bringing it. Still, that was, at the very least, a good lesson if she ever took a second vacation. Leave work clothes at home, because no matter how much you like wearing them you're not going to wear them.

  She made her way back downstairs, decidedly unhappy with her clothes. They made her look like a slob. Like the beach-bum kids who wore pajamas everywhere, and thought that was an appropriate look in public. She didn't think that, but she hadn't expected to go out much at all. Room service, nothing more.

  Roy, on the other hand, looked every bit as good as she thought he would. Naturally broad shoulders and just enough muscle to look like he wouldn't run into trouble. He moved with a slow, easy grace now that he was off the skis. His clothes, on the other hand, weren't much better than hers. A sweater proclaiming his presumable graduation from University of Virginia that looked like he only wore it in the cold when he was at home sipping on hot chocolate, and well-worn blue jeans. The look seemed to fit him, though.

  His face split into a grin when he saw that her coming out of the elevator.

  "Hey, you all set?"

  She hefted her purse in one hand to show that she had it, and he halfway-turned toward the resort restaurant, watching to see if she came along. They went through the fifteen-foot-wide door side-by-side. The sign said 'seat yourself,' so they did, settling into a table that would hopefully be visible enough for the waitress to see. Roy gave a small wave the minute she turned in their direction anyways.

  "So, what brought you out here?"

  Erin rolled her eyes. "Boss told me he was giving me a week's vacation whether I wanted it or not, so—"

  "So you thought you'd come out here and take advantage of the season?"

  "More or less. My parents used to live out East, right by a ski resort, so we'd go out every winter. Then my dad got a transfer, and a promotion to go with it, but he was too busy to take us out. By the time things slowed down, I was in college, and too busy for vacations."

  "You sure we aren't related?" He laughed. "I have about the same story, only the other way 'round. We started in Colorado, then moved down to Alabama just in time for High School, so I could stick out like a sore thumb."

  The waitress came up, and they gave their orders. Erin got herself a hot chocolate. Too much caffeine this late, and she'd never get to sleep. She didn't need an early morning, but that didn't mean that she was going to wreck her sleep schedule just because it was a vacation.

  Roy raised his eyebrows when she suggested it, then gave a considering nod and changed his order from a plain coffee with cream to a hot chocolate as well.

  He turned back. "You ever had sweet tea?"

  "I don't think so. Nobody ever called it that, anyway."

  "I'm sorry—I meant sweet-tea." He said it again, so that it sounded almost like it was one word, just running all together. "It's the state drink down there." He made a face and then used a mocking voice. "'You don't drink sweet-tea? Why, what on Earth—…' So I got into U Virginia, and didn't look back."

  She nodded, smiled at the waitress who brought the mugs of hot chocolate over for them, and took a sip. Definitely hot, definitely chocolate.

  "I'm sorry, I guess I should have asked. What did you study?"

  "Oh, this and that." An avoidance. She hadn't read him wrong on the way up the mountain. Whatever he did for work, he sure as hell didn't want to talk about it.

  "Were you good at this and that?"

  "Graduated top of my class."

  "And you still had time to get into the gym?" Erin pinched her lips to keep them twisting into a grin.

  "Well, thank you for noticing, at least. Everyone I know is, aw, I dunno. Twice this big. Half of them, anyway. I'm the little guy."

  "I know how you feel. I'm living in L.A. and it seems like any time you want to go to the beach, you see these guys with chests larger than mine."

  "Oh, I'm sure you do alright for yourself." He smiled. "Don't be so hard on yourself."

  "I'm not," she growled, her mind now stuck on the differences between them. Here she was, looking nothing like the ideal bimbo bodies who the gorillas usually had on their arms. And there he was, looking like he'd been the star quarterback in high school, and then in college, and then stayed in that shape ever since.

  "Well—don't take this the wrong way, but I think you look great."

  She wanted to tell him that he was either wrong or lying. She knew all about this act, since she heard it about once a month whenever someone thought they could get out of an interrogation by buttering her up.

  But Roy wasn't a suspect, and he seemed for all the world like a nice enough guy. She needed to stop thinking about work, but it seemed as if it was the only way she could think about much of anything.

  The waitress came around asking if they needed a refill, and Roy told her that they just needed a check. Erin pushed herself up, ostensibly to go to the bathroom, with every intention of catching the waitress and paying for the whole thing herself.

  She took a step away, and Roy called after her to put it all on his room bill, after all. The dirty rotten scoundrel had beaten her at her own game! Erin couldn't help noticing that his room was on her floor. In fact, more than that, he was only a few doors down. The idea that he had been there, maybe grabbing a shower to warm up after the tumble he took on the mountain… only a few short and easy doors down…

  Erin blushed. No. Down, girl.

  She let her frustration play out in exaggerated strokes across her face as she sat back down.

  "I knew it," Roy said, another smile twisting across his face. "You were planning on trying to take my win away from me, after all."

  "And then you had to go and rain on my parade."

  "How about I let you treat me if you can beat me tomorrow?"

  Erin let a triumphant smile show. "Oh, sure. But this time, we'll be taking the big boy slopes."

  Roy returned her smile. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

  Four

  She didn't like thinking this way. It wasn't love, but she sure didn't like whatever it was. Whatever she was feeling, it was going straight to her head. More worryingly, it was going other places, as well. Places that didn't usually get too excited when she saw a moderately attractive guy.

  None of this was normal, but then again, maybe it was that she wasn't going to see him again after she went back to L.A. on Monday. She wasn't opposed to it, per se, but he was in Virginia, she was in California. They couldn't get further apart without having planned it.

  She opened the blinds. Still dark, but not too dark to see the heavy snow pouring down. Not enough to see the four solid inches that had accumulated just on the windowsill.

  So much for beating Roy down the mountain. She put on another sweater. She had more than one, after all. The chances were slim that he'd see her, slimmer still that he would judge her for wearing the same sweater twice. Most people didn't rise at five in the morning, after all. And sweaters were re-wearable.

  Neither of those things, though, helped her not to worry about it. In fact, they didn't even help a little bit. Erin put her wallet into the pocket of her leggings again. She was looking more and more like she wore pajamas all the time every day. The vacation had been interesting so far, and she still had four more days to go before she had to get back on a plane, but she couldn't afford another one. By the time she came back from a second trip, if she sat down on the curb a minute, people would start dropping change in her lap.

  She pulled
the door open and stepped into the hall, turning to check that the door was pulled shut. She was already moving before she turned her head back, and that was how she managed to bump hard into Roy. The liquid covering him looked damn hot, and he certainly reacted that way.

  "Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry. Shit. Um." She fished the key to her room out of her wallet and opened the door. "Come on. We'll get you cleaned up."

  She helped him up from the ground, bending down past him to pick up the now-crumpled paper cup that had been full of hot coffee.

  "Hop in the shower, I'll… um… I can go grab some clothes from your room if you want."

  "I'll be fine," he said, already closing the shower curtain up, still fully-clothed. A moment later, a shirt came popping up over the rail, and then sweatpants, and by that point Erin decided it was better that she left. She called from outside the bathroom. "Jeez, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you, and—"

  "I'm fine, Erin. Don't worry about it. I assume you've seen the alert."

  She hadn't. "Alert?"

  "Blizzard advisory. They're closing down the mountain until it clears up. Could be done tonight, or it could be days. No way to be sure."

  "That's a let-down," she said, as much to herself as to him.

  "I know you were looking forward to getting spanked out there, but it'll be okay."

  She heard the water turn off, heard the curtain going. She imagined what it must have looked like, and then a moment she had most of her question answered when the door opened inches to her right, followed by a brief puff of steam.

  "Are you okay? No burns or anything? We can get a medic if—"

  She turned to look at him while she talked, and only then did she notice that he wasn't wearing anything but a towel held up by his left hand. She had to take back her earlier assessment. He didn't look natural at all.

  Roy looked like he could have been carved out of marble, if Michelangelo had needed a model. He smiled at her. "I'll just borrow this, and then I'll have to go replace my coffee."