My heart skips a beat and I feel just sick inside.
My little bookstore.
Hot Reads for Cold Winters.
I'd borrowed the start-up money from my grandma, made a business plan, bought a building … I did everything by the book and yet … I'd finally had to admit it was over, called a realtor, and left her with the keys when I skipped town yesterday. Now my only hope was that somebody would buy the store—and all the overstocked inventory—before the bank came and took it.
“Hunter Markham,” Miranda says, dragging me up to a group of men in expensive sweaters and khakis, drinks in their hands, warm smiles clearly fueled by said drinks in their hands. “This is my daughter Cyan Fallon,” she says, presenting me … and drawing all eyes to my bright red crotch.
Fuck.
I'd forgotten about the red hot cocoa stain!
“Hunter's the newest hire at our firm and he's single,” my mom says with a bright smile, raising her brows at me. Hunter, on the other hand, is still gaping at my stained leggings.
“Whoa, Cyan …” my brother, Atticus, says as he sneaks up alongside me and points very obviously in the direction of my pelvic region. “You might want to go upstairs and take care of that.”
Sometimes … I hate my life.
“Hot cocoa incident,” I explain with a smile, turning away from Hunter the Douchebag who I wouldn't have an interest in dating anyway—even if he hadn't been staring at my crotch.
Hurrying back through the kitchen and into the foyer, I find the whole of Inked Pages and their crew standing near the front door, waiting for Frost as he comes down the curving staircase.
Damn and fuck.
“Thank you for letting us use your bathrooms,” Aspen says gruffly as Crispin nods his chin, Vale continues sucking on his candy cane, and Frost grumbles something under his breath. But I still have his number in my purse … I still have his fucking number.
“Anytime,” I say, and then it just gets awkward and quiet.
At least none of these people are looking at the truly unfortunate hot cocoa stain.
“Thanks for the ride,” I add, feeling a strange sense of detachment as Crispin lifts his hand up in a slight wave, Vale gestures with his candy cane, and Donner scowls at me.
“Once again, I apologize for what I did in the stall,” Aspen says, looking at me like he wishes he could get to know me better which, like, totally can't be right because he's a famous singer with the voice of an angel and I … walk around in white leggings with gold stars and red hot cocoa stains that look like period blood.
“Nice knowing you,” Frost whispers, cupping my ass he walks by and giving it a squeeze. On impulse, my hand shoots and grabs his dick through his jeans. Nobody sees him touch me, but everybody sees me touch him—including my mom, dad, and brother as they come into the foyer.
Great.
“Nice knowing you, too,” I whisper back, letting go of Frost's crotch and running up the stairs before I can get myself into anymore awkward conversations tonight.
At least … not until I change out of my red spattered leggings …
CHAPTER FOUR
A knock at my door wakes me up around five-thirty in the morning.
Squinting at my cell phone for the time, I curl my lip and stomp to the door, ready to murder whoever it is that's lurking on the other side. I just automatically assume that it's one of my siblings—I have four older ones after all, and even though they range in ages from twenty-four to thirty-two, they have nothing better to do than harass me.
“What?!” I snarl, flinging the door open to the warm glow of Christmas lights and that backlit Mother Mary in a party dress holding baby Jesus in a Christmas onesie oil painting that my mom keeps around because—and I quote—the controversy makes for good, intelligent debates between friends.
It's fucking Vale Kesselring.
“What … are you doing here?” I ask, my scowl falling away as I blink stupidly at him. “I thought … didn't you guys leave last night?”
Vale steps forward and I don't reflectively step back, so he's just all of a sudden up in my face and looking slightly surprised by it.
“Oh?” he says, like he isn't sure what to make of me, looking up into his face, my palms suddenly on his chest. He's wearing a pale blue t-shirt with the words Inked Pages, Saint Paul Christmas Concert Headliners on the front, white snowflakes dancing behind the logo. “I just wanted to talk to you for a minute,” he says, his voice slow and lazy and warm.
“What are you still doing here?” I ask again and Vale takes a step back, dressed in pj pants and slippers … like he's been sleeping here. Admittedly, I only sneaked out of my room once last night to steal spiked eggnog from downstairs, so I wouldn't know.
After my humiliating reintroduction to the Fallon family, I'd hidden in my room with the door locked and binge-watched my way through A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, and Elf before I passed out in the sea of pillows on my bed.
As per usual, my father decorated my room before I arrived—gold and white comforter covered in stars (stars are a big thing in my family), matching sheets and pillow cases, a horde of decorative pillows covered in beads and bits that I've tossed all over the floor because they're uncomfortable as hell, and lights, lights, lights.
A fire crackles in my fireplace (yes, I get one of the house's three fireplaces because I'm the baby of the family and everyone treats me like shit), giving the room this homey feel that makes being away from the bookstore just a little bit easier.
“We were snowed in last night,” Vale says, leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, his beautiful blonde-blue-silver hair falling over his forehead. The colors remind me of a morning sunrise over a snow drenched landscape, the golden beams of sunshine bouncing off the white powder, the sky a soft but brilliant blue.
“Snowed in?” I ask, blinking at him and wondering why in the fuck he's standing at my door at five-thirty in the morning to tell me this. “There are only six days until Christmas,” I add, as if the drummer for Inked Pages doesn't know his own concert schedule.
“Terrible, isn't it?” he says softly, his golden eyes boring into mine. Vale Kesselring has a quiet intensity to him that makes my skin feel tight and hot, like I'm trapped inside my own flesh. The only way to escape the feeling … is to let somebody else in.“Your parents offered to let us stay in the house for a night or two until the storm clears.”
“And you woke me up to tell me this … why?” I ask, and Vale smiles softly, his face this angelic little mask that I don't buy for a second. His quiet sweetness, the furtive glances, the soft smiles, it's all part of his man-whore package.
“Screwing random girls is Vale's thing, not mine; I don't want this getting out.”
Frost's words aren't far from the forefront of my mind as I put my palm out against the doorjamb, right next to Vale's shoulder. In his blue t-shirt, I can see that he's got some ink, too, just one tat on his right hand and a few across both knuckles, but it's quality work for sure. It draws my attention away from his sickeningly handsome face and those gold eyes of his … I mean, they're not really gold, just a pale, pale brown flecked with hazel, but they look like stars in a night sky. So pretty.
“I was thinking,” Vale says softly, fluttering his lashes. Like, holy motherflipping Christmas star, he seriously bats his freaking eyelashes at me, “if you were interested in pursuing those strong feelings we had on the bus …”
“Strong feelings?!” I squeak, and then a harsh laugh escapes my throat. “Are you fucking serious right now? Thought because I screwed Frost that I was easy?”
Vale smiles softly and shakes his head, using his tattooed hand to brush through his thick, blonde hair.
“I'd never presume something like that,” he says, but I'm already slamming the door in his face and flicking the lock.
“Asshole,” I mutter, ignoring the gentle knocks on my door and climbing back into bed. The warm orange-gold of the flames in my fireplace remind me too much of
Vale's eyes so I pull a pillow over my head to cover my eyes and try to pretend that I'm not at all tempted by that offer.
But …
A booty call at five-thirty in the morning is just fucking rude. And like, what does he think? That he can have any girl he wants whenever he wants? How arrogant.
It takes me about thirty seconds to chuck the pillow onto the floor and climb out of bed, tiptoeing to the door and throwing it open.
Unsurprisingly, Vale is still out there, staring at my mother's controversial painting. He glances over his shoulder at me, a slight look of confusion on his face.
“Fine,” I whisper, jerking my head in the direction of my bed, “get in here.”
Vale turns around slowly, so slowly that it makes my heart thump like crazy. I feel like he's doing it on purpose, dragging this whole encounter out. He watches me for a moment and then takes a few steps forward, putting his bare toes up against my own.
“I was going to say,” he continues, the bulging biceps in his arms drawing my attention. Like, holy shit. I knew being a drummer was hard work, but wow … just … wow.His biceps are rounded and firm, straining at the sleeves of his t-shirt. “If you wanted to pursue that love of writing …”
“Writing?” I ask, and then remember one of the random side conversations I'd had with Aspen while we'd driven, about how Vale wrote most of the band's lyrics. I'd been interested in knowing more because I'd always had a passion for writing myself, but the bastard had been tight-lipped, slouching in his corner of the couch and smiling at me like a satisfied kitty cat.
“I'd be happy to give you whatever advice you want.” Vale leans in close to me, so close that I can smell him. He's both sweet and musky, like sugar cookies and coffee. Yet another memory that reminds me of my grandmother. She always had a nice fresh, hot pot of coffee on when I went over to bake with her.
I miss her so badly it hurts. She gave me the seed money for my business, a business that I'd failed to keep afloat …
“The reason I woke you up so early in the morning,” Vale says, exhaling against the side of my neck and making me shiver, “is because your father suggested you were the early to bed, early to rise type, and that if I wanted coffee I should come up and ask for it. He said the kitchen could be hard to navigate for guests. Besides,” Vale adds, pulling away from me as my heart thunders and a bead of sweat trails down my temple. He reaches out and catches it with his fingertip, letting the clear drop jiggle on the edge of a finger marked with the letter T tattooed on the knuckle in black. “I do my best writing in the early morning.”
He turns and walks away from me, leaving me feeling flustered and turned-on all at once.
Fucker.
With a sigh, I grab the white and gold robe—my family's into matching colors and themes as much as they are stars—toss it over my shoulders and head down the hallway behind him.
The coffee maker is this big, hulking beast that costs too much money and requires a frigging master's degree to operate. I manage to wrangle both Vale and myself some coffee and end up in the sunroom at the back of the house.
The blizzard has so thoroughly coated the windows that it feels like we're trapped in here together, but … not in a bad way.
Sitting across one of the many bistro tables in the fancifully decorated room (my parents focus every aspect of their holiday decorating on parties thus the reason for lots of small tables instead of one big table), I watch as Vale sips his coffee with one hand writes with the other.
His handwriting is smooth and easy, curvy and beautiful, a hell of a lot neater and more legible than my own. He alternates scribbling things in a notebook and typing out a few sentences on his MacBook. But he never puts down his coffee. Nope. Just types one-handed.
My own computer sits next to me, but sitting there and staring at the blank page is making me nervous. Who am I kidding? I couldn't even keep my little indie bookstore afloat. How the hell am I supposed to craft a fucking novel?
“If you don't start writing something then you'll never write anything,” Vale says softly, his voice as soft as the angel wing art piece above his head. All real feathers, of course, decorated with white Christmas lights, the wingspan—carved of solid wood beneath the white downy outer layer—stretches from one side of the room to the other. That's my dad for ya. Can't just put an angel tree topper on. Nooooo. He has to literally have a realistically sized spread of angel wings, as wide as they'd need to be for a human to fly (assuming we had hollowbones like a bird). I'm not even kidding—he paid a company to run some tests and determine this information for him.
Ridiculous.
And this is how your family uses money, like it's disposable, like it's fucking toilet paper. Yet, when you need it the most, when you come crawling on hands and knees … they won't lend you any.
I grit my teeth and turn my attention to my laptop, trying not to think how weird it is that my family is filthy rich and I'm dirt poor. It's not like I've ever asked for handouts from my parents, siblings, or anyone else for that matter. Yes,I took a loan from my grandmother, but before she passed away, I paid it all back.
Putting my fingers on the keys, I look out at the storm. Well, I try to anyway. But the ice that's coated the windows obscures my view, giving me an entire wall of glass speckled with the spiderweb fingers of frost, almost like snowflakes plastered against the panes. Licking my lips, I start to type.
I grew up with nothing, found myself thrust into everything, and ended up right back where I started.
Alone.
Penniless.
Surrounded by wealth and success, but not a part of it.
I pause for a moment, staring at the words that've just flown out my fucking fingertips. Wow. Now that is a dark start to a story. To be fair, my real-life story really isn't all that dark to begin with, but … sometimes it feels that way.
One day, a cold, awful day in December, the eco-friendly graduation present my parents gifted to me, breaks down on the side of the road.
And along comes a tour bus.
And on that tour bus, a veritable sex god.
“Writing about Frost?” Vale asks, snapping me out of the moment. I look up and meet his eyes, their color this vibrant gold-gray that I've never seen on another human before. It's fucking breathtaking.
“Why would I be writing about Frost?” I ask with a harsh, nervous laugh. Vale just stares at me, smiles softly, and then looks down at his notebook, scribbling a few more notes. I wait for him to reply to my question, but I guess that's just not his style. Instead, he reaches out and takes his coffee mug—this pale blue ceramic masterpiece with a hand-painted Christmas star—and lifts it to the soft, beautiful curve of his mouth.
The only sounds are the whisper of the wind outside the window, and the sip of liquid as he drinks the sweet bitterness of his coffee.
It's a small movement, but … I catch Vale flicking his eyes up to me and then dropping them back to the page. He scribbles some more, and I look down to see that my nipples are hard as rocks beneath the thin white tank that goes with my matching gold and white Christmas pj pants.
Yep.
My father has my outfits for the entire week lined up and ready for me.
And this is what I've come home to.
The house is nice … but it feels like a luxurious prison.
“It's okay to be sad,” Vale tells me, like he knows me, like we didn't just meet yesterday. “Even if you think you've got it too good to complain. Sometimes, that's true. Sometimes, the most difficult prisons to break out of are the ones made of glass; they shatter.”
I just stare at him for a moment, the sound of male voices coming from the living room.
“Is that from a song?” I ask, because nobody says beautiful things off the cuff like that. Vale glances up, blinks his pretty eyes at me, and winks. A nice, long, slow sort of wink.
My throat tightens up, and I rise from my seat so quickly that my chair almost topples over.
“Need a refill?”
I ask as Vale hums something under his breath, hits a key on his laptop, and hums a little louder. From where I'm standing, it looks like he's using a recording program?
“Yes, please,” he says after he hits that same key and glances back at me, this sweet-but-sinful smile stretching across his face. “I'd love one.”
A refill … I think as I grab his mug and retreat through the double doors into the kitchen … or me.Because despite what Vale said earlier, I'm pretty sure he's hitting on me.
I'm so busy thinking about Vale that I don't notice Aspen Carver standing in front of my parents' fancy … espresso machine? Is that what it is? Whatever. Let's just call it a coffee maker and be done with it.
I crash into his back, stumbling back and dropping both expensive mugs to the floor.
“Oh, fuck,” I curse as Aspen turns slowly around, glancing down at the shattered glass bits near his bare feet. My eyes lift up from the mess and find … a pair of white and red sweatpants, the legs decorated with twisting stripes, like a candy cane. It'd have been funny if the lead singer of Inked Pages was wearing a matching shirt.
Instead, I get a big face full of pecs, nipples, and abs. See, that's the thing about being a short chick around tall men—a lot of the best stuff is right at eye level, tantalizingly hard and smooth …
“Are you okay?” he asks me, grabbing a roll of paper towels from the counter and bending down to help me clean up the mess. I kneel, too, but the first thing that I do as Aspen scoops a big pile of ceramic into a paper towel, is knick my finger.
“Shit,” I curse, starting to pull my hand back to my chest. Aspen drops the wadded up shards of mug and grabs my hand before I can stick my finger in my mouth. Blood wells like up like of the shiny bulbs on the small Christmas tree in the corner of the kitchen (we have one in every room). “I'm fine,” I start to say, but Aspen's already pulling my finger dangerously close to his lips, like he plans on sucking the blood off the tip.
Billionaires, Boarders, and Bastards: A Limited-Time Collection of Reverse Harem Romance Novellas Page 5
