On the Edge (Winter Games Book 2) Read online

  “I’m not coming, Ruth. Don’t fucking call to ask me again.” He hung up and spun towards me before I could even think about disappearing.

  He blinked, as surprised to see me as I’d been to find him.

  “What are you doing out here?” He quickly recovered from the surprise, but not from the aggravation that overlay the pain bleeding through his eyes.

  And I ignored his question. “Is everything ok?”

  His phone began to buzz again but he silenced it and shoved it in his pocket, walking towards me. “Did you follow me out here?”

  “No!” I wasn’t that bad. “Of course not. Why would I have followed you?” I scoffed, crossing my arms over my stomach, the cold no longer feeling so therapeutic.

  “Maybe because you’ve been staring at me all night.”

  I hated him. “Well, I was afraid I was going to have to call Big Louie over to throw you out for having sex in the corner of his bar.”

  “Trust me, Sunshine, that wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done in his bar.” His laugh only wound my body tighter. “Why are you out here?” he demanded again, now only a foot in front of me. The proximity of his hardness warmed me as though I were standing in front of a flame.

  “Why are not going to see whomever you were talking about?” I volleyed my question back.

  His jaw ticked. “None of your business, Sunshine.”

  “Right back at you, then.” My chin tipped up defiantly. This brought me back. He made the hole inside not seem so big because he and his attitude, his looks, his scolding, his anger, his desire, completely filled the space. Overfilled, really.

  “Go inside, Ally.” He chuckled my name with a deadly softness to the noise. “Go back to your boyfriend and let him enjoy what it is you’re offering.”

  His presence sewed together the pieces of me, even though the needle stabbed me with every stitch.

  “Oh, so a week ago you were about ready to beat him up, earlier you were about ready to crucify me for my outfit, but now you want me to go back inside to him? Are you on drugs?” I asked with astonished frustration. I laughed nervously as the stupid tequila and his successful attempt to ignore me pulled these taunts from my lips.

  He laughed again, irritating me even further. “You and your sister seem to have your own ideas… your own plans… and I’m no longer going to be responsible for them. I don’t know how the hell Chance did it, but I’m done. I have enough shit to deal with.”

  Whatever that phone call had been about, it had hurt him in a way I didn’t think possible. And I hurt for him in a way I didn’t think myself capable of doing.

  “Emmett, what’s going on?” My anger broke as I put my hand on his chest. It was freezing out, but he was on fire.

  The world spun in front of me. My hiss visible in the cold air as the frigid exterior of the building hit the bare skin on my back in the space between my shirt and skirt as Emmett spun me and pinned me up against it. My hand that had been on his chest now up above my head, my wrist clamped in his grasp.

  “She doesn’t listen to me. Just like you don’t listen to me.” His voice was ragged. Sharp like a sword, but brittle, cracking under emotion that had been held in for too long. “I try to protect you both and neither of you listen.”

  “Emmett…” His name was softer than the wind. I wanted to do something – to kiss him, to touch him – anything to help him. I whimpered, “Let me help you. Please…”

  The laugh resurfaced, turning into a groan as his head slid down against my shoulder, his breath warming the soft skin between my collarbone and neck.

  “Do you know what it’s like when nothing goes your way? When you think you’ve hit rock bottom and you realize that the rock was just another fucking cloud for you to fall through?” he asked, his tortured voice caressing along my neck.

  His teeth nipped my skin and I shivered at the delicious contact just as my heart ached at his words. I did know. I really did. And I wanted to tell him.

  “Well, I’m in fucking freefall, Sunshine. I’m falling and there’s no ground in sight.”

  “I want to help you,” I whispered, his breath ragged against my neck.

  “And I want you.” He groaned, sounding like his confession was tattooed to his chest and he’d just cut off the skin to give it to me. “I want to kiss you until your lips are bruised with my name. This shirt? I want to rip it – and the fucking skirt – off of you and stare at the tits that haunt my every fucking dream. I want to suck on them until you come again and again, like waves on the fucking shore; I want you to feel like the pleasure will never stop crashing over you. I want you to fucking drown in it.” I wasn’t breathing. Oh, God, I wasn’t breathing. I bit my lip to stifle a moan. My thighs clenched together painfully. I wonder if he knew that there was a chance I could come just from his words.

  “And only then, when you have no oxygen left in your lungs, I want to drown in you. When you think you have nothing left to give, that’s when I want to take more. I want those legs of yours wrapped so tightly around my neck that blood and rationality can’t make it to my brain. I want you to come around my tongue again – just like the last time.”

  At the mention of Halloween, the moan I’d been caging broke free. Crap, crap, crap. It was a thousand degrees out here in the snow, but my body was the only thing melting.

  I hated the way he tried to be terrible, the way he tried to shock me with his depravity, and it only made me want him more. I hated the way everything he tried to make me fear was everything I ever wanted.

  “And then, I want to fuck you. And not in the nice way like that shithead skier would – no, not in the considerate, caring way; I want to fuck you in the ‘you can’t tell if it’s pleasure or pain’ way – in the way that would have your brother cutting my dick and then every other limb from my body if he ever knew.”

  He had to know what he was doing to me. He did know what he was doing. I felt the thick ridge of him against the side of my leg, but I was pinned so tightly there was nothing I could do about it. Most days, he said things to taunt the shit of out of me. Tonight, there was no taunting; it was only torture for him and me both.

  His voice was so hoarse that every word felt like it rubbed the skin of my neck raw, but all I wanted was to hear more. “I want to fuck you so hard that it breaks you. That it breaks you from whatever you are running from, whatever is hurting you. I want you to shatter so hard around me that it breaks me and finally breaks my fall. And then, with your body consumed with mine – filled with mine – I just want to lie there and let your warmth melt every fucking frozen piece of me back together again because you’re the only thing that is bright and warm. Because you are my sunshine.”

  My whole body was pulsing with my heart. If he’d let me move against him – even just an inch – I knew I would have come. His words – his wants – ate me up inside because I wanted it, too. I wanted him to shatter me. I came here as a shell. And whatever was left inside was taken when Chance left. And then, the shell turned to stone. There was nothing that could get in or out. Except him.

  Before my mouth could catch up to my mind, the only thing he decided to shatter was the moment, saying, “But, I don’t get what I want – at least what matters.”

  I sagged as he pulled back. The wall behind me was my only support as my body rioted against the sharp change from desire and heat to distance and cold. My fingers gripped the edge of my skirt, subconsciously tugging it down.

  He looked like a statue, the way he stood. His jaw was like granite, his arms marbled with tension, his erection a thick, bulging ridge underneath his jeans.

  A nuclear bomb had just exploded between us, but the only evidence of it was the harsh bursts of air that erupted from his mouth, looking like smoke in the cold. Then again, he had been breathing – and speaking – fire. The proof was in my dripping underwear.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To crash and burn.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked shakily
as concern bubbled in my throat. I stepped towards him, stopping when he turned to me. All the vulnerability that had just been there was gone. Vanished without a trace.

  He turned to me, his smirk laced with anger and self-loathing. “The same thing I do every time I realize that I’ll never get what I want – that I shouldn’t get what I want: to drink another bottle and smoke some weed to forget about my life.” His eyes darkened. “And to fuck someone to try to forget about you.”

  I watched as he yanked open the door to his beat-up truck only then realizing that the brunette had been sitting in the front seat the entire time.

  My mouth was dry. My throat constricted.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” My vocal chords were as rough as the coarsest sandpaper.

  His brutally beautiful face was blank, whereas mine felt like it was being ripped to shreds. “Because one day, I won’t be able to stop myself and I’ll need you to do it for me.”

  I should have known.

  After lightning always comes the crack of thunder.

  Chapter 6

  Emmett

  My body ached every step I took away from her, only worsening as I climbed into my beater. I cranked the key so hard in the ignition, I was surprised when the metal didn’t break off as my reliable old Chevy roared to a start.

  Cassie had her arms crossed over her chest, one leg over the other. She was annoyed. I didn’t care. I shouldn’t have even brought her tonight, but after the other week at Peak’s I’d deterred her hissy fit by promising her one more night with me. Not that I cared about bitching, but she had a big mouth and I didn’t want word getting around that the King of the Mountain had turned down a willing subject because of Pride’s sister.

  Finally, she huffed and spoke, obviously waiting for me give her an apology that wasn’t coming. “What took you so long?”

  “I told you. I had to take a call.”

  She’d been pissed when I left her to bring Ally a drink. She’d been pissed when I abruptly walked out on our make-out session like it was nothing more than a dentist appointment to answer my phone. And she was probably going to be pissed when I dropped her off at her house instead of mine.

  My phone buzzed with another missed call

  They’d become more frequent since Halloween. That night had been a fucking shit show on so many levels.

  Ruth had called tonight though, which meant it was bad. Ruth was my sister. And my cousin. My fingers dug into the steering wheel as I pulled out of the lot.

  I wasn’t like the rest of them – Chance with his perfectly unobtrusive parents and caring siblings or Nick with his absent mom and step-dad, a knack for investing that had him doubling gains just because it was a Tuesday, and more secrets than the fucking CIA.

  I hadn’t come to Hope’s Creek privileged; I’d come as punishment.

  Rose Jameson, my mother, had been beautiful, kind, and free-spirited – until she became addicted to heroin. My father – whoever the hell he was – knocked her up when they were both high. She probably would have aborted me if her sister, Miriam, hadn’t told their parents who’d subsequently put her into a rehab facility for the duration of the pregnancy. She hated them for it, but they weren’t there. So, she hated me. And if heroin can fuck up a fetus, just imagine what hate can do running through your veins.

  She was clean for three days after I was born. Because that’s how long they keep you in the hospital after they cut a living being from your body. I was dropped off with my grandparents and she left to find her old crew as though it had only been nine minutes instead of nine months. By that point, my father had moved on or left or died – who fucking knows? So, she crawled back to her parents pretending to be a changed woman.

  I don’t know the details, except that what followed was like a game of Hot Potato, except with a baby. I lived with her so that she could use me to get money for child support; I lived with her when having a child suited her. Until it didn’t and then back to my grandparents I would go. They weren’t bad people, but they looked at me like I’d done something wrong, like it was my fault that their daughter couldn’t give up drugs even for her only child.

  Maybe I had done something wrong. Fuck if I knew.

  She didn’t want help. She was troubled for reasons that I will never understand, so it was probably for the best that she over-dosed. It probably wasn’t for the best that I was the one who found her; I was seven. Sometimes, I think I remember that moment but then I wonder if I’m just imagining it.

  I lived with my grandparents for a few more years before they passed away which meant the next player to enter the game was CPS and the foster care system. Back and forth I went – one home to the next. Too young to remember the details of how she abused me, but too old for the consequences to not be permanent.

  “Who is she?” The irritated question reminded me of the passenger in the car. Had she been talking this whole time?

  She was my sunshine. “No one.”

  “Didn’t seem like no one the way you were all up over her.” Her snarky comments were pissing me off now; I was definitely taking her home. Again.

  I smirked. “Jealous?”

  She laughed which meant that she was and she was trying not to be. “Of course not.”

  She looked pretty green to me.

  Yeah, this was not a good fucking sign. I was as hard as a goddamn fence post which normally meant that I’d be balls-deep in Miss Snarky Bitch already, only I had absolutely no desire for her. In fact, the only thing I really desired to do was pull the damn car over and let her walk the rest of the way home. But I was already so fucking scattered I didn’t want to add any more problems to my list.

  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded with an attitude that was really starting to piss me off.

  Her head whipped back and forth as I turned into her apartment complex.

  “Home.”

  “Seriously?” Here it comes. “You were the one who invited me out tonight! You were the one who bailed the other week after you saw that blonde little bitch—“

  I slammed on the brakes outside her building, her head smacking against the seat. I levelled her with a stare that could have frozen a fucking White Walker, making her eyes widen and mouth clap blessedly shut. She looked afraid. Good.

  “Talk about her like that again and you’ll wish I was only taking you home.”

  It was no secret that I ruined people who crossed me. I didn’t have time for that shit. Whether it was getting them kicked out of school, kicked off the mountain, or blacklisted from any job they ever wanted in Aspen. Whatever was important to someone, I would find out and I would ruin it.

  Just like my mom’s ability to get drugs even when she didn’t have two fucking pennies to rub together, when I needed something, I found a way to make shit happen in this town.

  With a huff that she couldn’t seriously expect me to acknowledge, she climbed down from my truck and slammed the door.

  “Fuck you, asshole!” she yelled as her heels stomped pitifully in the snow.

  Another reason why it was a good thing that my truck was a beater. If I had a nickel for every time that whole scene happened, well, I’d have enough fucking money to buy a brand-new car, that’s for sure.

  As my eighty-nine Chevy pulled up the unmarked drive to my tiny-ass log cabin, I was reminded why I was exactly where I was.

  The three of us may be the SnowmassHoles, we may rule the town, but I had come from nothing.

  After a brief stint in the system, my mother’s older sister, Miriam, found out what had happened and stepped in to raise me; she’d been estranged from my grandparents – her parents – since before Rose died.

  She was a single-mom and her daughter, my cousin, Ruth, became my sister. Ruth was nine years older than I was so it’s not like we ever became close. Plus, I was too fucked up by that point for it to have been a good idea for her.

  Troubled would have been a misnomer for me and anger would have been a P.C. term for the ass
hole that I was. I hated the world and I wanted it to hate me, so I tried my best to make sure that happened.

  I gave that crazy, croc-wearing woman credit; it took a lot before she finally broke. Actually, she took everything that I threw at her until I came home high at fifteen with track marks in my arms; that’s when she realized I was beyond what she could do for me. A friend of a relative or a relative of a friend – fuck if I remember – was the principal at Pinewood Academy and so, I was sent here – to the mountain.

  She used every last penny of her savings to save me – and she had. Yeah, I smoked weed and I drank, but – believe it or not – I knew my limits and I never touched the hard shit again.

  That’s what the mountain does – it grounds you. It anchored me to something beyond myself and the fucked-up story that I’d been telling myself for years. I met Nick and Chance and the rest was history.

  Miriam had saved me even though she didn’t have to – even though the heartless bastard I was screamed in her face the day that I left that she was a ‘fucking terrible mother’ and that she ‘couldn’t even save her own fucking sister,’ what made her think I would be any different? I’d left with a smile on my face, the last words on my lips, ‘You’ll never fucking hear from me or see me again.’

  Even now, I wanted to punch my fifteen-year-old shithead self in the face until I bloodied the words magically back into my chest.

  I’d had odd jobs to supplement the money I won from competing. Then, my snowboard designs began selling once riders saw just what my personally-crafted boards could do for their game. Engineering and design actually came easy to me and I fucking loved it. Now, I was rolling in it – not that anyone would know. I kept it all in the bank, hardly touching it – for myself at least. I didn’t deserve it; it was that simple.

  I’d thought about Miriam and Ruth a lot over the years – anger and self-loathing a constant companion and incessant reminder that they were better off without me in their lives. I certainly didn’t deserve to come crawling back after what I’d put them through.