Melt

Melt

Copyright © January 2013 by
Cari
Quinn

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eISBN
9781623000790

Editor: Jana J. Hanson

Cover Artist: Dar Albert

Printed in the United States of America

Published by

Loose Id LLC

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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might
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characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

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His nuts were going to freeze. Considering how long it had
been since he’d required their services, the possibility was damn well worth
going for a ride on the coldest night of the year.

Justin Norton slipped on his goggles and grinned at the
snowy landscape. Even in the moonlit dark, the white blinded him, sparkling on
the evergreens, glistening on the low-hanging branches he shoved out of his
way. This trail was bumpier than some, but the exhilaration of flying through
the night—silent but for the buzz-saw whir of his snowmobile—was worth every
risk. Especially tonight.

He’d had a shitty day, complete with tears from his mother,
cranky students, and a pisser of a headache that still throbbed at the base of
his skull. But in a minute, none of that would matter anymore. He zipped his
jacket and tugged on his thin lambskin leather gloves, anticipation already
humming in his blood. Now it was all about snow and speed and wind. Out here,
no one intruded.

Being alone had never felt so damn good.

He rolled his shoulders and started the engine. As he gripped
the handlebars, he breathed deep. Fine shards of ice coated his throat, and he
exhaled puffs of frosty air in front of his face. Both soothed him
immeasurably. This was what he’d waited for all fucking day long. He didn’t
have to watch the clock here, didn’t have to wonder what reaction he’d get from
his mother the next time he phoned home.

Would she be happy to hear from him? Indifferent? Or would
today finally be the day she didn’t answer the phone at all?

Shaking off the worry, he glanced up the trail. The dark
swallowed it whole like a hungry mouth. Then he kicked the snowmobile into gear
and roared into the deep woods.

Snow flew back into his face as he pressed the snowmobile
into the first looping turn, but that was part of the thrill. Wind-whipped
cheeks, chapped lips, stinging eyes—he craved the burn that came with doing
battle with the elements and never knowing who might win. There was a symmetry
to the chase. A rightness he’d never felt anywhere else.

He pushed for more speed as the trail opened up, his gaze
alternating between the ice-encrusted, snowy ground and the pink-hued horizon.
Nothing was quite as breathtaking as the winter sky in this neck of the woods.
When the stars came out to twinkle amid the cotton-candy clouds, the rest of
the world faded away. It was just past five, and already dusk was imminent.
Judging from the streaked sky, so was a hell of a lot more snow. For once the
forecasters weren’t blowing smoke out their asses. Late November in Taunton,
New York, usually didn’t yield this much accumulation, but he’d gotten lucky
this year. Good thing, because he hadn’t gotten lucky in any other, more vital
ways for months now. And his frozen balls were feeling the strain.

His fingers tingled as he tightened his grip and whipped
around a curve too fast. His skis shimmied on the ice before he backed off on
the torque and adjusted his stance. Figured. Thoughts about his pathetic sex
life were a sure path to ending up on his ass in a
snowbank
.

He squinted into the darkness. The light flurries had
increased at a steady clip, and now he couldn’t see the gloves in front of his
face. He’d yet to see another snowmobiler on the trail, so obviously people
were taking the severe weather predictions seriously. Smart money told him to
turn back and head home. Thanks to the teachers who took pity on him every
holiday, he had a basket with a loaf of crusty bread, a couple of kinds of
fancy cheese, and a nice, chilled rosé waiting.

Somehow getting drunk on wine two nights before
Thanksgiving—a holiday he’d long ago become accustomed to spending
sans
turkey and relatives—didn’t seem
quite as lame as loading up on a twelve-pack of beer.

Right.

Shaking off the sudden tension in his shoulders, he
decelerated and swung around slowly to keep from losing traction. He skidded
again on a patch of ice, this time hard enough he nearly did a header over the
handlebars.
Fuck
. Obviously he’d
waited too damn long. He rode out the spin, and finally the machine shuddered
to a stop.

He sucked in a sharp breath. Clearly tonight wasn’t the
night for a nocturnal ride.

Just as he was about to turn around to head home to his
cabin, he felt the vibration of his phone against his chest. How he felt it
over the noise from the snowmobile, he had no clue. A weird sort of sixth
sense, maybe, born from years of expecting a phone call about his mother.

He stopped and shut off the engine before digging out his
cell, managing to grab the call before it went to voice mail. As usual, he
forgot to look at the readout first. “Yeah?” he barked.

Unless it involved blood or death, now was not the time for
someone to be bothering him.

“Justin.”

The soft plea, barely audible over the wind, hit him deep in
the gut and made him wrap his fingers around the handlebars.

Kylie. Her image sprung into his mind so fast his breath
caught. Sunny, shoulder-length hair, wide, expressive eyes the clearest blue
he’d ever seen. She grinned while she mopped the bar, sang while she polished
glasses. Invariably she dripped beer on her tight beige Rough and Ready tank top,
and every so often, the liquid would soak onto the nipples that always seemed
as hard as stones under his gaze.

They’d been friends in college and lovers for one brief,
unforgettable night. At least to him. Then they’d fallen out of contact, until
the day more than six months ago he’d walked into Rough and Ready and found her
smiling at him across the bar. He’d come back almost every day since.

“Justin?” Anguish was plain in her tone. “I need you.”

His pulse skipped. How many times had he dreamed of hearing
her saying those words? She’d said them once, on the night they’d slept
together.

He’d hoped that night would lead to something more. Wrong
answer. By graduation they’d barely been acquaintances and she’d been dating
some burly guy who drove a classic car and wore leather like most guys sported
denim.

“What’s wrong?” She didn’t answer, so he asked again.
“Kylie? What is it?”

“I’m near your house. I went riding and”—wind swallowed her
words—“and then I crashed. Stupid.
Shoulda
went when I
wasn’t mad. So…dumb.”

Her broken speech caused the twisting in his gut to
intensify. “Where are you?”

Oh yeah, brilliant question. If she went snowmobiling near
his house, the trails were surrounded by lots of landmarks. Like trees.
Leafless branches that looked like dancing skeletons when caught in the breeze.
But if there wasn’t something to identify her location, how else would he find
her? He needed something to go on.

She didn’t answer.

“Kylie? Sweetheart, can you hear me?”

“Not far from your house. I could see the lights.
Pretended…I could see the lights.”

The line went dead.

Cursing under his breath, he kicked the snowmobile back into
motion. He didn’t have time to waste. She couldn’t be too far if she’d seen the
lights of his cabin, though how she knew which was his, he didn’t know. She’d
never been to his house. Never called him before right now, though he’d given
her the number. She’d also never given him
her
number, which he understood. Hated but understood.

“Fuck.” He tightened his fingers around the handlebars as he
ducked his head to avoid a snowy branch that grasped for his eyes. So much for
paying attention. If anything could make him forget what the hell he was doing,
it was Kylie Fisher.

God, she was fucking gorgeous. And funny. And she knew what
the hell she was talking about when she called out the plays during the games
he’d become addicted to watching with her. He’d become addicted to her, period.
He didn’t know why she’d be in such a hurry to get to him that she’d risk her
safety, but he’d be damned if he didn’t ride to her rescue anyway.

She wasn’t easy to read, on any level. Sure, she smiled and
flirted and laughed as freely as anyone he’d ever met, but something dark
lurked in her eyes that hadn’t been there in college. He didn’t know what her
deal was or why her habit of standing on the sides of her battered tennis shoes
while she watched the basketball games on the TV behind the bar was so damned
irresistible.

One thing he did know, however, was that she was taken.
“Live-in boyfriend and commitment ring on her fourth finger” taken. Which meant
paws off.

He’d find her. Somehow. Even if he had to comb these damn
trails all night.

He pushed down on the gas, pausing as he noticed a bright
pink glove up ahead poking out of the snow like a talisman. Or a warning. The
only place he’d seen quite that shade of pink before was Kylie’s gloves and
matching coat, though in the dark the color didn’t match his memory. But still.

Shit, what if she was badly hurt? She couldn’t be. What the
hell had she been thinking, coming out for a ride on a night like this? Her
boyfriend was the snowmobiler, not her. She’d expressed a little interest when
Justin had mentioned going out on the trails, but she seemed much more keen on
talking basketball or trying to ply him with mixed drinks, the
girlier
the better. Strangely enough, he always enjoyed her
concoctions too. She added grenadine to everything, and if there was one cherry
he wouldn’t mind a taste of, it was hers.

Justin continued up the trail, going a little faster than he
should have considering the driving snow. The canopy of naked tree branches
laden with ice blocked most of the light of the emerging moon, so he traveled
deeper into the woods mostly from memory, following a path he’d covered many
times before. He knew this trail, and the brutally cold air scraping his throat
barely stole his attention from the flavor of fear coating his tongue. He had
one worry, and it sure as hell wasn’t for himself.