Fall.
A season I wasn’t that familiar with.
A season I had mostly seen on TV and in stores when late August rolled around.
Was this what it felt like? A kiss to your skin, the swirl of new beginnings in the air? Stars blinking like precious diamonds and cute wooden cottages tucked into mountains?
I’d been so preoccupied with the place around us I didn’t even notice the reaction to my decree.
It wasn’t a good one.
I shrieked as Daniel bulldozed into the seat of the SUV, locked his arms around my waist, and towed me out. “Daniel Mason Mercer, what the hell are you doing?” I demanded, though it came out more breathless than I intended because the jerk tossed me over his shoulder like I was a freaking sack of potatoes that weighed no more than a feather.
“I’m sorry, but this is for your own good,” he remarked, not even winded.
I pounded on his back, hard enough that my hands stung, but he didn’t even flinch. He didn’t break his long strides across the yard, which was dotted with leaves… How charming.
His shoulder jammed into my stomach, and I lurched. “Ugh,” I groaned. “Put me down!”
“No.”
“I’m going to puke down your back.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“That was one time, and I was drunk!” I hollered.
His shoulders shook with silent laughter. It made my stomach hurt worse.
“You’re going to pay for this.” I vowed.
“I’ll take all the revenge you care to dish out, Brin-brin. As long as you’re here to dish it out, I don’t care.”
The fight drained out of me instantaneously. I stopped struggling. He said the words lightly, but I heard what he didn’t inflect. My brother was not an overreactor. He was not dramatic. He was actually the opposite. So cool that sometimes he came off as emotionless.
I knew better.
And I also knew he was worried.
He stopped walking. The arm holding me tightened just a little. “Brina?”
“I’m here,” I whispered.
He grunted and started walking again. “Should have pretended to pass out. That might have worked.”
“Jerk.”
His chuckle floated behind him as he took the first wooden step leading up onto a deck.
“Wait!” I gasped, lifting my torso just a little.
His foot paused on the second step.
“Just tell me it’s not him.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
I collapsed against him again, feeling all the blood rushing to my head. I was dizzy and off balance, and it wasn’t because I was upside down. “Why would you do this to me?”
He started walking again, and I thought maybe he didn’t hear the whispered words.
The sound of a door being pulled open made my entire body tense so tight I hummed.
Daniel hadn’t even knocked yet. He was still at the top of the stairs.
No one said anything, but the air changed completely.
Gone was the crisp autumn night.
Now the atmosphere was polluted with thick, sticky tension and unnatural foreboding.
I felt Daniel glance over his shoulder toward me, but I didn’t lift my head. I couldn’t. Everything inside me was focused on the person I couldn’t see. The person I knew filled an entire doorway. A person I thought I would never in a million years see again.
“I’m not doing this to you,” my brother said softly. “I’m doing this for you.”
Alex
I felt the disturbance before the SUV even came into view. I was up and at the window when the black ride rolled to a slow stop not far from my place.
No headlights. License plate conveniently obscured by mud.
My fingers tightened on the gun at my side as I stood still, watching. Waiting.
No interior lights came on over whoever was inside. No movement came for a short while. Awareness prickled along my scalp and down my arms insistently, almost as if my own calm were fooling my mind into thinking I wasn’t paying attention.
I was.
Oh, I was.
The best attack always started with stillness.
I knew it could be Mercer. Just days ago, he vowed to find me. It could be whoever Mercer pissed off, too. I wasn’t complacent enough to believe whoever it was wasn’t a threat. Complacency led in one direction: the grave.
In a thrust of movement, someone got out of the driver’s side and stalked around the front of the truck, disappearing momentarily. I crouched low beneath the window, levelling my gun on the windowsill in the direction of the man.
He came into view again, his movements frustrated and a little jerky. All his attention was focused on the inside of the car, but his body language was something else entirely.
He was primed, cognizant of his surroundings, and clearly prepared to pull out the gun I knew was stashed in the back of his jeans.
Familiarity assailed me. I hadn’t seen Mercer in a while, but I knew him instantly. The training in me recognized the training in him, and the unbreakable bond that we would have the rest of our lives settled between my shoulders.
Still, I didn’t lower the gun. I didn’t relent my stance at all.
Mercer wasn’t here for a family reunion. He hadn’t just come by for a beer and a memory.
The passenger door was pulled open, and he all but glared inside.
Oh no…
I shook my head, the first flash of distraction coming over me. I shoved it away violently and refocused.
Mercer’s lips moved. His shoulders tensed. Whoever was in that car was pushing all his buttons.
Oh, hells no…
With a blast of movement, Mercer lunged into the car. When he drew back, he tossed a woman over his shoulder. He slammed the door of the SUV and spun. Long, dark hair whipped around before being shielded by his bulk.
“Fuck.” The curse slipped out of my lips. It was the only reaction I would allow myself to have. At least in that second.
All the others? You know, the immediate gut tightening, quickening of breath, and bunching of every single muscle in my body. I shoved them back.
I shoved them so hard it made my insides ache.
I didn’t focus on Mercer or the woman he was hauling. Instead, I focused around him. To the yard, the familiar shapes and sounds of my home, and the way everything here should be feeling.
It wasn’t until his boots hit the bottom step that I pulled back.
All was clear.
At least for the next, oh, twelve seconds. The second I opened that door and confirmed who that long, silky hair belonged to, shit was going to hit the fan.
Not that I needed confirmation. My body knew exactly what my eyes had yet to verify. I didn’t have to see her face. I felt her. The air nearly crackled with her presence and my reaction to it.
What the fuck was Mercer trying to pull?
Tucking the gun in the waistband of my sweats, I stalked to the door and pulled it open.
Mercer paused at the top, and our eyes met.
We didn’t say anything. Silence rang out like a crack of lightning in the center of a thunderstorm.
This is the job? My eyes belayed the pair.
He gave a curt nod.
He must have been fucking desperate to bring her here.
“No,” I said, the coldness in my tone surprising even me. It had been a while since I’d let out this side of me.
“Ice,” Mercer said, calling me by the name no one had used in years. “Hear me out.”
I started to shake my head, my chest so tight it hurt to breathe. It hurt to stand.
“Alex?”
The whisper cut through me unlike anything else. Slicing me nearly in two and filleting me. I schooled my face into a mask of nothing, something I clearly hadn’t forgotten how to do. I didn’t let him see just how fucking wrecked just a whisper left me.
The softest of sounds. The most tentative of inflecti
on.
My name.
My name on the lips of a woman who was completely off-limits. A woman who goddamn owned me regardless.
“She needs you,” Mercer said, going right for the jugular.
“I do not!” Sabrina rebuked, fury in her tone. I heard the slap of her hand against the back of his legs.
My lips twitched. More of my insides spilled out.
I stepped sideways, motioning with my chin for him to come inside.
Relief flooded his features, and it was as if all the anxiety he’d just let go of was heaped on top of the dose I was already buried under.
“This isn’t an agreement,” I said quietly when he stepped past.
My body was taut, and I pushed back against the door so I didn’t accidently get brushed by her swishing hair. It was hard, so goddamn hard not to look down, not to seek out her hazel gaze.
Instead, I focused on her ass. It was right there on display. Round. Tight.
Not mine.
“You alone?” Mercer asked, going farther into my place.
“You already know I am.”
Mercer probably knew what color underwear I had on. There was no way he brought her here without knowing all about my life first.
The second I spoke, it seemed to break whatever invisible barrier had been between us. She lifted, staring through curtains of deep-brown hair right where I stood.
Our eyes crashed.
The room tilted.
I knew I was a goner.
Sabrina
He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
His body was just as ripped as I remembered, but it didn’t even matter. As mouthwatering and stare-inducing as his abs and chest were, his eyes held me.
Lordy, lordy his eyes.
They were so piercing I was convinced he could see right through me. I couldn’t look away, entranced by the icy-blue shade, which was pale yet somehow still saturated. Sometimes that stare glinted silver and sometimes it looked like a cloudless sky on a bright-blue day. And sometimes it was a mix of both. The color was even more startling against his deep-toned skin, giving him an edge of dark and light.
I was assaulted almost violently with the first collision of our stares. He still affected me so deeply that a rush of anger burned the tops of my ears.
So much for growing out of a “schoolgirl crush.”
“I had no idea he was bringing me here,” I said abruptly, finally able to break the hold he had on me and drop my gaze.
“Well, that makes two of us.” Alex’s voice was gruff. God, just the sound made my knees weak.
Of course, Daniel chose that moment to swing me back onto my feet. My legs dipped beneath me, betraying the strong, sturdy image I wanted to portray.
“Whoa,” my brother said, reaching to steady me.
I smacked his hand away and glared at him. “I’m fine.”
I felt Alex’s eyes watching me. Studying me in the intense way he had. I refused to look at him. Being in his presence was hard enough.
“We’re leaving,” I announced and started past Daniel.
“No, we aren’t. You’re staying.”
“Staying?” Alex queried. I could practically feel the way his brows climbed up his forehead.
“You owe me,” Daniel intoned, stepping toward Alex. “This is the job.”
“I’m not a job. I’m a person.”
“Right now, you’re a pain in the ass,” Daniel snapped. I could tell he was nearing the end of his patience.
Well, so was I! “Allow me to relieve you of said pain,” I mouthed and started for the door.
Alex side-stepped, moving in front of me and using his body as a blockade. I stopped abruptly, teetering on my feet, terrified I might accidentally touch him.
“Where are my shoes?” I asked suddenly, after all this time realizing I wasn’t wearing any.
“Probably with the rest of your clothes,” Alex muttered.
My eyes flashed up. Renewed awareness flowed through me, and my throat tightened. I glanced down my body, fully grasping the state of my dress… or rather undress.
Dear Lord, I was in my pajamas! A tank top, shorts that weren’t exactly intended for the public eye, and… nothing else.
No socks.
No bra.
With a silent yelp, I glanced down at the girls and nearly died where I stood. My nipples were hard. Might has well be flashing neon lights as I stood there in front of Alex.
I started to cross my arms over my chest, totally embarrassed. Then I stopped. Screw that. Screw both of these guys!
“Well, I didn’t have time to put on clothes because people were trying to murder me!”
Alex’s eyes narrowed, and a chill climbed over the room. It spread slowly, methodically, making gooseflesh rise along my arms. Cold like this was ominous. The farther it spread, the scarier it seemed.
“Someone tried to kill you?” he asked, whisper-soft.
I couldn’t speak, so I nodded instead.
Alex’s eyes flashed and then flicked to Daniel.
“I killed them. All four of them.”
“Four!” I gasped. “I only saw three.”
“I know,” Daniel replied, grim.
Alex nodded as if he approved of the murders and then dragged his eyes up my body again. I fidgeted, feeling the caress.
And yes, it was a caress.
I might hate him. He might hate me. But damn. When Alex looked at me, I felt it. I knew my legs were long, but he made me feel like they really were a mile high because it seemed to take forever for him to get to the top.
Something flashed across his face before he looked away. Jaw locked, he stalked out of the room.
Maybe stalked was a bad word to describe how he moved. He didn’t stalk like he was angry, heavy-footed, or took up a lot of space around him.
No. Alex was lithe. He was sort of like a panther in a jungle he’d explored a million times over. Even if he was in a place he’d never been and not his own home, he moved so assuredly, so light-footed no one would ever be the wiser.
When he was gone, a hiss seeped out of me, and I spun to Daniel, giving him an evil, evil glare.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said.
Realizing the path to the door was no longer blocked, I took off, my bare feet slapping over the wood as I rushed.
“Stop.”
The command was low, firm, and it rooted me in place. Pissed off at my body for obeying, I turned to glare over my shoulder.
Alex was back, prowling toward me with something in his hands. It was red, gray, and white. I divided my stare between him and what he was holding. His mouth was drawn in a taut line. His body seemed tight and coiled, as though he expected me to fight.
I wanted to.
I couldn’t. As much as he brought out that hellcat in me, he also tamed it.
When he got close, I tensed and sucked in a breath. Wariness washed over me, and the urge to bolt was back full force.
“Calm down,” he said low, almost as if he were trying to soothe a spooked horse.
The thing in his hands lifted when he pulled apart the two sides. It was a plaid flannel shirt, and it looked worn and soft. That was the best kind of shirt, wasn’t it?
“Here.” He motioned for my arms. He wanted me to put on his shirt?
My thighs clenched together. I shook my head.
“You’re freezing. I can see your goose bumps from across the room.”
I wondered if my goose bumps also included my puckered nipples. That thought made my eyes narrow, and I looked up. He smirked as if he could read my thoughts.
I had a choice here:
1.) Tell him to go to hell and let my nips in all their glory command the room.
Or…
2.) I could put on the shirt, because being half naked in front of my brother and him was majorly embarrassing.
Sighing, I lifted my arms, and he helped me into the flannel like it was a coat. Thank goodness my back was to him because my eyes closed for the briefe
st of moments when the material fell around me and a scent I thought I’d forgotten wafted up to my nose.
He smelled good. So frickin’ good. I didn’t even know how to describe it except it was Alex. No one else smelled like him, and yes, I knew because I might have been a little stalkery back in the day and went to the men’s cologne department and smelled every single thing they had to try and find something that reminded me of him.
There was nothing. Because he was unique.
I felt his palms hover over my shoulders as if he wanted to smooth the shirt over my arms, but he drew back instead.
I grabbed the front of the shirt and turned, tugging it a little farther around me, allowing the fabric to swallow me up. I was cold, and I knew after a few minutes, I wouldn’t be anymore.
Alex hadn’t stepped away, so when I was fully around, his chest blocked my view of everything. He gazed down, intensity dripping from every single pore. His eyes sought mine, but I refused to look up. Instead, I focused really hard on one of the buttons across my chest, trying with trembling fingers to get the little button through the hole.
On the third try, I bit my lip to keep from groaning in frustration. I couldn’t do this while he was standing this close! My hands didn’t work. My brain didn’t work…
Long-fingered, sure hands appeared where I was focused. He went to brush mine out of the way, but I jolted back before he could touch them. He didn’t react to that. Instead, he pulled the shirt around and deftly did up a few buttons, covering my exposed chest.
I swallowed, the action so thick I knew he heard.
The second the shirt was secured, he dropped his hands and pivoted away, giving me a few moments of blessed privacy. I drew in a shuddering breath and glanced up, studying the lines and sinew of his broad, bare back.
God, he looked incredible.
“If I worried I made the wrong call earlier, I sure as hell don’t now.” My brother spoke.
I stiffened and moved forward, giving Alex a wide berth. I could feel the fabric of his shirt brush against my legs and tickle the backs of my thighs.
Subzero (BearPaw Resort Book 4) Page 3
