Shattered: An Extreme Risk Novel (19 page)

I’m not sure how I feel about that.

“It wasn’t that close,” I tell her after a minute, in a voice that all but screams for her to back off.

“That’s not what the ski patrol said. Or Z. Or Luc.”

Luc again. Like I somehow missed them cozied up at the table for half the damn night? “Yeah, well, they weren’t there, were they?”

“No, but—”

“Look, can we drop it?” It comes out harsher than I intend, but fuck, I’m not going to be able to hold it together if she keeps pushing. My head is just too big of a mess.

“Sure. Of course.” Tansy’s voice breaks and I can practically hear her confidence crumble. It makes me feel like a douche, but there’s nothing I can do about that right now, either. “But I do want to say that I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”

“That’s not true. I’m the one who pushed you into coming here, who practically forced you out onto that mountain—”

“I went out onto that mountain for Timmy.” And for me. I wanted that ride so bad I could taste it and I nearly fucked everything up because of it.

“No, Ash.” Tansy reaches for me then, her hand grabbing onto my bicep. Heat tears through me at the touch, turning my whole body into one raw, electrified nerve. Not that that surprises me anymore. It’s like this every time our bodies come into contact, accidentally or otherwise. “I’m really—”

“I get it!” I all but shout at her. I need her to back off, need her to walk away before I do something even more stupid than I already have. “You feel bad. You’re sorry. I told you, there’s nothing to be sorry for, so can we just fucking drop it?”

She peers up at me for long seconds, mouth open, face pale. I feel like I’ve just kicked a puppy and I hate it. Almost as much as I hate the way being close to her makes me ache. I’ve
spent too long trying not to feel anything and being near her—smelling her, feeling her, seeing her—makes that impossible. There’s something about Tansy that makes me feel way too much.

“Yeah, sure,” she finally says, but she doesn’t let go of my arm. Doesn’t move away, doesn’t
run away
, like I figured she would. Instead, she just stares up at me, lips trembling, and she looks so fragile, so vulnerable, so goddamn beautiful that I can barely think. Barely breathe.

She’s dropped the hipster look today, in favor of the apres-ski look. Tight leggings that show off her amazing legs, a big, soft cashmere sweater that’s way too touchable, a pretty scarf, knee-high boots. Except for the slicked-back purple hair, she looks like any other snowbunny. That is, as long as I don’t look too closely at those big hazel eyes of hers. Though I know she tries to hide it, her vulnerability is way too obvious when our gazes lock.

Damn it.

“Look, you should go in,” I tell her, turning back toward the resort grounds. “It’s cold and you’re shivering.”

“You’re shivering, too.”

“No, I’m—” But damn it, I am shaking. It’s not from the cold, though. It’s reaction, pure and simple, the truth of what almost happened today catching up with me in a way I can no longer avoid.

“You are.” She steps even closer, puts an arm around my waist. Cuddles into me. Again I try to ignore the electric shock that tears through me. Again, I fail. “You know, Ash, it’s okay to be upset. Anybody would be in similar circumstances.”

“I already told you, I’m fine.”

“I know. Of course. I just meant that if you
were
upset and you needed to talk to someone who wasn’t a boarder, someone who isn’t as close to the situation or who doesn’t know you as well as the others … maybe you could … talk to me? I mean, I’m not very good at this, obviously, but I feel like, if you would just—”

Her words—her earnestness—breaks me, and my resolve. I grab her arms, spin her to face me and then haul her against my chest. But, Jesus, can you blame me? She’s making me crazy.

Tansy gasps the second my mouth slams down onto hers, her hands coming up to push against my chest a little. But I’m not letting go, not when I’ve only just finally gotten a taste of her sweetness. And fuck, is she sweet. Not that that’s exactly a surprise. She tastes just like she smells—like sugar and vanilla and the underlying honey of the wine she was drinking earlier.

I nip at her lower lip, relishing the little squeak she makes. I do it again, then run my tongue along the edge of it to soothe the sting. She moans a little, opens wider. Curls her fingers into my shirt and clings. It’s an invitation I don’t even think about refusing. How can I when I’ve been wanting this from the moment she walked into that damn rental shop at the resort?

Need rips through me at the thought and I grind our lips together, my tongue delving inside to taste, stroke, explore. She whimpers in response, and this time when she moves her hands, it’s to pull me closer, to hold me tighter. Her fingers tangle in the edges of my hair and her head tilts back, her mouth opening wider so that I can taste every part of her.

The bumpiness of the roof of her mouth.

The slickness of the inside of her cheek.

The warm tangle of her tongue.

God, this girl feels amazing. She
is
amazing and though I kissed her at first just to shut her up, now I’m kissing her because I can’t
not
kiss her. I can’t let go, not when she’s so hot and eager and sweet. So goddamned sweet.

We kiss for minutes, for hours, for what feels like seconds, my mouth devouring every inch of hers, our tongues stroking and tangling and melting against each other.

We kiss until her lips puff up against mine, until her chest rises and falls rapidly, until her breath stutters against my own.

Then we kiss some more.

When there really is no more oxygen and she’s making low, needy sounds deep in her throat, I force myself to pull back. Tansy moans, clings to me, her lips desperately seeking to connect with mine again.

It’s all the invitation I need.

I slam my mouth down on hers again for one last taste, then—panting—skim my lips across her cheek, down her jaw. I lick a little at the sensitive skin just beneath her ear, press soft, warm kisses down her neck until I find myself at the delicate hollow of her throat.

She tilts her head back, gives me better access, and I nudge the soft cashmere of her sweater out of the way so that I can lick and taste and explore the creaminess of her skin. How the fuck can she taste this good, this sweet, I wonder, right before I drown in the feel and smell and sound of her. Right before I drown in her.

Desire rips through me, claws at my insides until I’m raw. Until there’s nothing I want more—nothing I need more—than Tansy.

Desperate for her, for everything she has to give, I press against her, moving her backward until she’s pressed against the rock wall of the resort. We’re in the shadows now, away from the twinkling lights that weave through the iron bars of the balcony, and no one can see us. What we’re doing or how crazy she makes me.

I press even harder into her. I want to feel her curves against me, her hard little nipples pressed to my chest, her pussy pressed to my cock. But she’s tiny, delicate, and our bodies don’t quite match up the way I want them to.

She moans a little, moves restlessly against me, and whatever small amount of control
I’ve managed to hang on to buckles like a cornice under pressure. I slide my hands down, cup her ass and then lift her up so that her body lines up perfectly with my own.

Tansy gasps, and her arms tighten around my neck at the same time her legs wrap around my waist. I pull back a little, try to get a glimpse of her face in the dim light.

Fuck. She looks … amazing. Sultry, hot, and so goddamn fuckable it’s all I can do to keep my dick in my jeans. Her skin is flushed a soft pink—partly from her arousal, I think, and partly from the three days’ worth of stubble I’ve got on my chin. Her lips are red and wet and swollen from our kisses. And her eyes … shit, her eyes. She’s looking at me, her eyes wide with a desire she doesn’t even try to hide.

Suddenly, I’m terrified. Because I don’t want to just kiss her, don’t want to just fuck her. I want to wreck her. The thought slams through me like an avalanche. I want to get inside her, to watch her unravel at the seams. To pull her apart from the inside out and watch her drown in pleasure. Watch it absolutely ruin her.

And I can do it. Right here, right now.

She wants me. I know it. I can hear it in the ragged breaths she struggles to take, feel it in every anxious shimmy of her hips against my own. See it in those crazy eyes of hers, their pupils blown out with the same need that’s clawing through me.

But she’s been drinking. She’s not sloppy with it, not even drunk, I don’t think. But she
is
relaxed, warm and soft and compliant with it, and that means I can’t take her the way I want to. Can’t plunge inside of her and feel her come completely undone around my dick. Not when I don’t know how much of this wild ride is coming from her and how much is because of the fucking booze.

“Ash, please,” she whimpers, her legs tightening around my waist as her hips move against mine.

I almost say fuck it, almost rip my jeans open, pull down her leggings and plunge inside of her. Right here, right now, and to hell with the consequences.

But I’m not that guy. Never have been, never will be. Oh, I’ve taken a hell of a lot of snowbunnies up on their invitations in the last six months—for no other reason than because it stops me from thinking for a few minutes—but Tansy isn’t like those other girls, who wanted to sleep with Ash Lewis just to say they had. She’s different. She deserves more than a quick rut up against the side of the resort.

“Ash!” she says again, and this time she sounds more desperate, her hips moving against mine like she’s in pain.

Like she really does need this as much as I do. Maybe even more.

I want to come against her, inside her, want to plunge into her mouth and have her suck me to oblivion. Want to slam into her body and ride her all the way to ecstasy.

But that’s not in the cards for tonight, not when I lean in to kiss her and can still taste the wine on her tongue.

The thought sends a new wave of heat spiraling through me and when she grinds herself against me, her pussy so hot and wet that I can feel it through both of our clothes, I know I can’t leave her like this.

I take a deep, shuddering breath, reach for a control that I’m not sure I have. I press into her—once, twice, then again and again—until she’s writhing against me, her breath coming in broken pants that make me impossibly harder.

Her nipples scrape against my chest and I’m dying to see them, to taste them. But it’s cold out here, too cold to pull her sweater off, so I content myself with snaking a hand between our bodies and beneath her sweater to roll first one nipple between my fingers, then the other.

“Oh, God,” she whispers, her head falling back against the rough stone wall even as her back arches and she presses into my touch.

I do it again, squeezing a little harder this time, and nearly come in my pants at the sudden rush of heat I feel against my cock.

Fuck, Tansy’s hot. So, so, so hot.

I slide my hand lower, slip it inside her leggings this time. Find her clit—hard and small and wet—and stroke it once, twice.

“Ash!” This time my name is almost a scream on her lips and I slam my mouth down on hers in a belated effort to strangle the sound—not because I don’t like it, but because I want to see this through, want to make sure she comes and I won’t be able to do that if some nosy hotel employee comes to investigate.

She latches on to me the second our mouths connect and suddenly she’s biting at my lips, sucking my tongue deep inside her mouth. At this point I’m so desperate to be inside her—anywhere, everywhere—that I let her. For long seconds, I know nothing but the feel of her tongue twisting and tangling around my own, the feel of her
body
twisting and tangling around my own.

“Ash!” She pulls her mouth away, and this time she’s the one kissing my jaw, the one sliding her mouth down to my throat to lick and suck and bite at my collarbone. “I need—”

“I know, baby.” I let her kiss me one more time—because how can I not when it feels so fucking good—then slide her body gently down the wall.

She moans a protest, her hands clutching at me like she’s afraid I’m going to disappear. But I’m not going anywhere. Not now. Not yet.

Her legs are a little unsteady as her feet touch the ground, and I hold her up even as I drop to my knees in front of her.

“Ash?” For the first time since this started, she sounds young and uncertain.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I murmur, my hands already pushing her leggings down to the middle of her thighs. “I just want to make you feel good. That’s all.”

She moans at my words, and the sound shoots straight through me. I’m on fire, so hard that it hurts, and I know—I know—if I don’t get my mouth on her soon that I’m going to explode.

Pushing her sweater up just a little—just enough for me to see what I need to—I lean forward and blow a long, slow, steady stream of air right against her clit.

Oh my God. Ohmygod. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Ash is—

His mouth—

His tongue—

His lips—

He—

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Ash’s mouth is everywhere—everywhere—and I don’t know what to do. Don’t know how to deal with the feelings, the pleasure, rushing through me like a waterfall. I feel like I’m drowning, all these sensations welling up inside of me, pulling me under. Taking me over.

It’s terrifying and exhilarating and fascinating, all at the same time. I mean, I understand the concept of what’s going on here—I’m not an idiot. Plus, I’ve read thousands of young adult and romance novels in the years I spent sitting in the hospital, waiting to die—or for the chance to live. But feeling it, living it, is a million times different than reading about it in a book. It’s powerful and overwhelming and just more, so much more than I ever anticipated.

My hands reach for him of their own volition, tangling in the cool, silky strands of his hair as he kisses his way across my concave stomach, pausing to lick and suck at the sharpness of my hip bone.