The Stillness Of You (2 page)

I was all of
that and more.

And Ben
Lancaster was off limits.

“
Okay,” I
said again as I set my tools back onto the easel. “I’d better get
dressed.”

Georgia

My cell
phone buzzed and I glanced down.
There was a text from Matt.
‘Shit, I’m
sorry I forgot. Home in fifteen.’

He would
be at least another half an hour, if not longer.
I was betting on the longer, because it
was too close to rush hour and everyone and their freaking mother
would be heading somewhere with the Fourth of July two days
away.

I glanced
in the mirror and tucked a long strand of inky black hair behind my
ear. Unlike my older brother Matt, who’d inherited our mother’s
coloring, I was more like my dad. My hair was dark, my eyes a super
light greenish-bluish color that some people found freaky, and my
skin was pale. I was winter while Matt with his warm blue eyes and
blond hair was summer, and go figure, summer was the one thing I
always wanted to be.

For a moment
the picture of me in the mirror blurred.

I have a vivid
memory of my mother brushing out her long, blond hair, the strokes
even and precise. It’s one I usually keep locked away but
sometimes, I open that box, the one loaded down with memories, and
I sit back and remember.

In my
mind she sits at her vanity, hidden inside the large walk-in closet
of our million dollar Cherry Hill home, and stares at herself in
the mirror, her delicate hands holding the large brush.
She would start at the top of
her head near the crown and pull the brush down slowly, once,
twice, and then a third time before she would move on to the next
piece.

She would
sit there for long periods of time and I, as a little girl, would
bring my dolls into the closet and watch her until I got bored. I’d
play with my dolls, sometimes for hours, while she stared at
herself and brushed her hair.

Sometimes
she would cry and sometimes she would sing. Sometimes she would say
nothing at all, not even when the shadows crept in from her
bedroom. Matt never came into our secret room, it was always just
me and Mom. On those nights my dad would come home from work, his
eyes tired, and his smile sad. He’d pull me from her side and take
me downstairs to eat.

Not even then
would she say a word.

Funny the
things you remember.

With a
sigh I tossed my cell back onto the dresser and decided I couldn’t
hide in my room any longer.

Ben was
standing in front of the floor to ceiling windows that ran the
length of my brother’s loft, gazing down onto the street below. My
brother’s place was in the heart of Old City and everything we
needed was within walking distance. Shops, pubs, parks. It was
beautiful and trendy. It was everything a guy like Ben Lancaster
would be looking for and I’m sure he would end up buying some
swanky bachelor pad. They all did.

I noticed
a large duffel bag near the door, along with a knapsack and a soft
shell computer case. He turned around, hands shoved into the front
pockets of his jeans.

“
Hey,” he
said softly. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Georgia,” I
answered.

“Georgia.”

I nodded. It
was a summer name ironically.

“
Yep. As
in the peach. As in the state. As in my mom must have been on drugs
when I was born because Georgia is just…”

He arched
an eyebrow. “Is just?”

I shrugged.
“Not me.”

He nodded
toward the canvases propped along the wall to his right. Unlike the
one on the easel, these ones weren’t empty. They were filled with
dark images, open mouths and wide eyes. They were good, but they
weren’t for the faint of heart.

“Those
yours?”

I nodded.

“
So is
that what you do? You’re an artist?”

I wasn’t
about to tell Ben Lancaster that I wasn’t much of anything. Art was
just something I did to fill in the holes that blanketed my life
like shrapnel. Sometimes it worked but other times I was left
leaking all over place. An injured soul back from some war that no
one would ever understand unless you’ve been there.

“It’s just a
hobby.”

“
A
hobby,” he repeated, his dark eyes never leaving mine. “It looks
like more than a hobby to me. You’re really good.”

I moved
away because the guy was too intense. Too fucking
intense.

“
Matt
sent me a text. He’ll be home soon.”

“
Good.”
He paused. “So, are you a hockey fan?”

“
It’s
kind of hard not to be.” I was a big fan of the game and there had
been a time when I had been a big fan of several of the
hockey
players—
they were always around. Again, not information I was
willing to share.

Silence fell
into the loft and for a few seconds it was an uncomfortable
silence, broken by a cleared throat—me—and a shifting of
feet—Ben.

A few
heartbeats passed and then the door flew open, thank God.

My
brother Matt strolled into the loft, a wide grin on his face when
he spied Ben across the room. “Lancaster,” he said. “Man, I’m
sorry. Totally slipped my mind that you’d be hanging here for a few
days until you get settled.”

I watched as
they greeted each other and it was obvious they had more than a
passing acquaintance. Not surprising, at thirty-two, Matt was one
of the youngest coaches in the league and he knew a lot of players
from when he’d started out as a scout.

There was
the shaking of hands, the slaps on the back and the general
‘guy-greeting’ I’d seen a million times before. It was like they
wanted to hug each other silly, but it didn’t pass the ‘guy code,’
so the shaking and slapping sufficed.

Matt
glanced back at me, his smile in place, but I saw the worry in his
eyes. I’d been living with him for three months now and I hadn’t
spent much time with anyone other than him and my therapist,
Seamus. I had certainly steered clear of anyone male and
hot.

Now, I’m
sure if our houseguest was the little old lady on the first
floor—the one who hoarded magazines like they were gold—he wouldn’t
think twice. But this was a guy. This was a hot guy. And this was a
hot guy who happened to be one of the brightest hockey players in
the league.

I saw the
worry in Matt’s eyes and he had every right to be. I’d done a lot
of stupid things in the last few years but I was better now. He
knew I was better. They’d figured things out. I was taking my meds
and my life was a bowl of sunshine and roses.

Okay,
that was a huge exaggeration. I was a twenty year old orphaned,
college dropout, who had spent six months in what everyone liked to
call a hospital, but what was in fact, a fancy, expensive mental
institution. I’d been poked, prodded, observed and had been
analyzed and talked to death. I’d been diagnosed.

I’d done my
therapy, I’d taken my meds like a good girl and now I was out.

So, yeah,
it wasn’t sunshine and roses but I wasn’t locked up. I wasn’t
looking at life through a cloud of confusion and so what if
sometimes things felt fuzzy. So what if fuzzy was only marginally
better than the dark, chaotic mess I’d been before.

At least the
fuzziness wasn’t always there, seeping into my brain and stifling
anything that was expressive.

For now
things were good enough. Though there was always the chance I could
derail at any time and take a fuck-ton of people down with me and
Matt knew it.

So, I saw the
worry, but I also saw the warning.

Stay away, G. He’s mine
.

Ben glanced
between the two of us. “I was just talking to your girlfriend about
her art.”

Wait. What?

“
She’s
not my girlfriend,” Matt murmured turning back to Ben. “She’s my
sister.”

“
Oh.” Ben
dark gaze rested on me for a second. Or maybe it was two. However
long it was, it was enough time to kick start my heart and that
delicious, warm, feeling flooded my stomach, settling low in my
belly. That delicious, warm feeling that had abandoned me ages
ago.

Wow. He
was pretty damn potent to wring that kind of reaction from poor old
medicated me. Though I supposed a physical reaction to someone like
Ben Lancaster was a good thing. It meant that there were parts of
me that weren’t dead.

I glanced at
Matt—who was frowning in my direction—and sighed.

It was
those parts of me that he was afraid of, and if I’d learned
anything from the last year and a half, I should be more than a
little scared of it myself. When I went off, the sky was the
limit.

No, that
wasn’t true either. When I went off, there was no limit and when
there was no ceiling above you, there sure as hell wasn’t anything
soft to catch you when you fell.

“
Yes,
she’s my little sister,” Matt said again—emphasizing the little
part—before moving toward the kitchen. “She’s off limits,
Lancaster.”

Ben
laughed, as if he thought Matt was kidding, but he’d have to be an
idiot not to catch the underlying warning in my brother’s
words.

“
She
doesn’t look so little to me, but I get where you’re coming from.
I’ve got a couple sisters of my own.”

I glanced away,
biting my lip.

I bet they’re not as fucked up as I
am
.

Ben

There was
something about Matt’s sister.
I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly, but it was
there. Some invisible ‘thing’ she had, an energy or state of
being.

Whatever
it was, it had my interest and—as I watched her take a sip of iced
tea—I realized that whatever the hell that invisible thing was I
wanted it. I wanted her.

Simple as
that. I. Wanted. Her.

Georgia
King. Sister to one of my coaches. How fucking
inconvenient.

The fact
that I was even considering the possibility of Georgia was insane.
Matt had already lifted his leg and pissed all over that idea. He
didn’t want his sister involved with one of his guys. I got that.
He probably thought it could problems and he was probably
right.

But that
didn’t mean I couldn’t look. And maybe fantasize a bit.

She
swallowed the iced tea and her tongue darted out to slide along the
inside corner of her mouth. Fucking Hell. Okay, I could fantasize a
lot.

For a
second I let my mind wander to what I’d seen when I had first
walked into Matt’s place. She had been in front of the window, her
back to me, and her perfect ass on display in a pair of panties
that cupped those sweet cheeks like a treasure.

Her body
rocked in a way I hadn’t seen in a while because most of the women
I met were hard bodies. All they did was workout and pretend to eat
while filling up on protein shakes, plates of greens and not much
else.

Playing
professional hockey didn’t leave a hell of a lot of time for
relationships—not that I was looking—and most of the women I met
during the season were nothing but high end puck bunnies. I’d spent
the first three years of my professional hockey career in LA
playing for the Kings. Trust me, most of the girls who hung around
the team were there for one reason only—they wanted to have sex
with a hockey player and if they were really lucky, they might even
get to date the guy for a while.

They were
usually blonde and stacked. Stacked with overly large, overly fake
tits that while I could appreciate on some level (who the hell
didn’t enjoy those things bouncing in their face as some blonde
rode you like it was an Olympic sport,) at the end of the day they
weren’t real. And neither were the hookups. They were about
gratification and a good time.

But this
girl with her sweet ass, petite build and breasts that were
definitely real, had my mind going south and my dick hard. And that
was a problem because she was Matt’s sister. There was a code. A
guy code and he’d already thrown down.

I glanced
at her again. But what a problem.

Her eyes
were amazing. They reminded me of that famous picture of the girl
from the cover of Time Magazine or maybe it was National
Geographic. The exotic girl with the light eyes. My grandmother
kept it on the table near her fireplace and though I’d seen the
thing a hundred times, I’d never really given the picture much
thought until now.

Because
her eyes reminded me of Georgia’s. They were exotic. They were
fantastic.

And they’d been
avoiding me since Matt walked through the door.

“
So,
Lancaster,” Matt said as he relaxed in his chair and took another
swig of his beer. He’d ordered Thai from a restaurant and we had
just finished eating. “What are you looking to buy? You’re gonna be
here a while so you don’t want to rush things.” His grin was
contagious.

Damn
straight. I’d just inked a ten year contract that was going to pay
me a shit-ton of cash to do what I loved the most. Play
hockey.

The truth
of it was, the Flyers had always been my team. And this is from a
kid who grew up near Toronto, where if you weren’t a Leaf fan, you
were nothing. I’d been drafted in the first round by LA, third pick
overall, and while the Kings were a fine team, the Flyers had
always been my dream. When my contract expired it had been a no
brainer and I had my agent push for a trade. Luckily, the Kings
were in need of a goalie and some defensemen and we’d been able to
broker a deal.