Shredded (22 page)

Harvey grabs the counter to stop himself from actually falling into the sink, just as a couple of busboys turn the corner with huge trays of dishes. “Hey,” one of them says when they catch sight of the look on Harvey’s face. “Everything okay back here?”

“I don’t know.” I look at him questioningly. “Everything okay, Harvey?”

He glares at me, and for a second I think I’m going to have to deliver a more forceful warning. But finally he nods, tugging at his collar all the while. I can see the red marks the tight fabric left there, know that they’ll be turning to bruises before much longer. He’ll have a nice black-and-blue circle around his neck, kind of like the ring of bruises Ophelia has around her upper arms.

Just the reminder has me wanting to pound him some more. This asshole really did get off way too easy.

“Everything’s fine,” he says in a raspy voice. “Z was just checking on me after my fall.” He gestures to the bruises on his face and arms. So that’s what he told people went down. Better than telling them he attacked the new girl, I guess.

Fucking coward.

I shoot an insolent smile at the busboys, who still seem uneasy with my presence. Then I give Harvey a two-fingered wave that’s as much threat as it is promise. “I’ll see you around, Harvey.”

“No, you won’t,” he says snidely, a lot braver now that he’s got backup. “You’ll be too busy treating women
right
—fucking them, using them, and then dropping them—to have time for me. Or Ophelia. Isn’t that how it works with you, Z?”

For long seconds all I can think about is launching myself at him and wiping that smug look off his face once and for all. A few missing teeth ought to do the trick. But we’ve started attracting a crowd—three waitresses and a chef’s assistant have joined the busboys—and I don’t want to give Harvey the satisfaction of watching my ass get hauled to jail if I start a fight in the lodge’s kitchen. Even if it would totally be worth it.

Besides, there’s more than one way to make my point. And, more important, to protect Ophelia.

I move forward, get in his face one more time. None of the chickenshit busboys try to stop me—big surprise—and I’m close enough to see it register on Harvey.

Close enough that I can smell the panic on him.

More than close enough that he knows I’m not going to walk away from this. From Ophelia and what he tried to do to her.

“Hurt her again—
touch
her again—and you’ll find out
exactly
how it works. Because the
next time you go near her, I’ll chop your dick off and feed it to you. Then there won’t be a woman alive who has to worry about you trying to rape her ever again.”

I make sure the last sentence is loud enough to carry through the kitchen. Then, as the whispers start up all around us, I turn and walk away.

Mission. Fucking. Accomplished.

Chapter 16

Ophelia

I wake up to the sound of my alarm blaring. I wait for a second, cuddled deep into the blankets, hoping Z will turn it off.

No such luck.

Finally I reach for it, slap it off, then sit up and push the heavy fall of my hair back from my face. That’s when I get the first real glimpse of my room and it hits me: Z isn’t here. He didn’t just crawl out of bed before me. He actually left before I woke up.

The jerk.

Even as the thought occurs to me, I push it away. After all, I knew what I was getting into when I slept with him. Neither of us pretended it was anything but what it was. No reason to blame him now just because he did exactly what I knew he would. It isn’t like I wasn’t warned.

Except … except last night felt like something more to me. It sounds stupid, especially considering I’m lying here alone and Z went God only knows where without even saying good-bye—but it’s still true. Which proves what an idiot I am.

I settle back in bed, think about going back to sleep—it is my day off, after all—but I’m awake now, my mind whirling in circles as it tries to assimilate this new reality.

I slept with someone.

I slept with someone who wasn’t Remi.

I slept with someone. No, not someone.

I slept with Z.

It’s strange to be thinking this, stranger still for it to be true. Up until now, Remi—my high school boyfriend and the love of my life—was the only guy I’d ever been with. For the most part, I liked it like that. It made it easier for me to point at our relationship and know that it was right and good and pure, despite what people have said since the accident. It also made it easier to accept that those years with Remi were all I was ever going to have.

Now that acceptance is gone and I don’t have a clue what anything means.

Not anymore.

The old familiar sorrow weighs me down, the pain I’m so familiar with that it feels like an extension of my own body. An extra limb I carry around all the time. Yet it’s different, too.
More regret, less devastation. A softening of all those jumbled feelings inside me.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe time—and great sex—really do heal all wounds.

Just the thought, sarcastic though it was, has guilt crashing through me. I lock it away, shove it down deep, just like I do with everything I don’t want to deal with. Then I climb out of bed and head for the shower. No use sitting around here all day, moping, when I don’t have to work. Maybe I’ll take the bus into town and do some sightseeing. Catch a movie. There’s got to be something to do in this town that doesn’t involve snow.

On my way to the bathroom, I plug my phone into my stereo and hit some random playlist, and by the time the chorus for Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” comes on, I’m feeling pretty good. After all, there’s no reason to be upset. I wanted to sleep with Z to feel something and to get rid of the whole pressure that came with Remi being the only guy I’d ever slept with. I did that, and had a really good time, too. I have nothing to complain about.

And if I repeat those words often enough, I might actually believe them.

Refusing to go there again, I focus on exfoliating my skin. Shaving my currently nonexistent leg hair. Conditioning the hell out of my curls. Anything and everything but what it felt like to be held and kissed and loved by Z.

My eyes are closed, my head bent back under the water to rinse the last of the conditioner from my hair, when I hear the shower curtain being pulled back. I scream loud and long even as I reach for the only weapon I have—a bottle of conditioner—and prepare to brain the intruder with it.

“Whoa! Hey!” Z throws his hands up in front of him to protect himself from my imminent attack. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Z?” The conditioner falls from my hand into the tub with a thump. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought you breakfast. I thought we could eat together.”

“Oh. Right. Breakfast.” I stare at him for long seconds, trying to assimilate this very unexpected development. “You went out to get breakfast.”

He looks confused for a second, but then the smile fades from his face. “You thought I left.”

“You did leave.” I state the obvious, even as I turn the water off and reach for the towel I draped over the curtain rod.

“I told you I’d be back in a little while.”

He steps back into my room as I climb out of the tub. The bathroom’s about the size of a postage stamp and the only way for two of us to be in it at the same time—if one of us isn’t in the shower—requires us to be a lot closer than we currently are.

“I must have been out of it. I don’t remember you saying anything.”

He nods, his face blank even as his eyes search mine. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No!” The answer comes out fast, before I even have a chance to think about it. It’s a little bit embarrassing how fast, considering all that crap I was just telling myself in the shower. “I mean, breakfast sounds good. I’m hungry.”

Z’s smile is back and for the first time I realize it’s not the smile I’m used to. Not the little half smirk, half grin he gives the world. No, this smile lights up his face. It creases his cheeks and the skin around his eyes. It’s a real smile, I realize with a mixture of discomfort and delight. For the first time since I met him—other than in bed last night—I think I’m getting to see the real Z. The one only Luc and Ash and Cam ever get to see.

“Good. You get dressed and I’ll make coffee.” He drops a quick kiss on my forehead before turning away.

I watch him walk away, my eyes glued to his very fine ass even as I wonder who actually looks that good in a pair of thick snowboarding pants. The answer is no one. No one, that is, except Z Michaels.

Though I dragged out my shower forever, I race through getting ready. I don’t know how long Z is planning on staying—probably not long—and I don’t want to miss a minute of the time I can spend with him. I know it’s a bad idea, know I’ll be disappointed if I put any hope at all into this thing between Z and me.

Which is stupid, I tell myself as I scramble into a pair of leggings and a fluffy green oversized sweater. It’s not like I want anything from him except breakfast. It’s just that it might be kind of nice to be his friend. I don’t have any, and he doesn’t have many.…

I don’t know. It’s just that there seems to be a lot more to him than what he lets people see. I want to know what’s there.

By the time I get a little bit of makeup on and my hair dried with a diffuser—which takes forever—Z has breakfast laid out on my tiny table. Chocolate croissants; breakfast sandwiches with egg, cheese, and bacon; fresh winter fruit salad.

“That’s a lot of food,” I tell him, eyes wide.

“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I got a few different things. Plus, I eat a lot, so …” He ends with a shrug.

“Right.” Sudden comprehension dawns. “The snowboarding thing.”

“Yeah. The snowboarding thing.”

I grab one of the plates he put on the table, heap it high with fruit and a big chocolate croissant, then grab a fork and my coffee before crossing to the bed.

“You want to eat there?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Don’t you know? There’s nothing better than breakfast in bed.”

“Nothing? Damn. Obviously I did something wrong last night.”

“Fishing for compliments is
so
unattractive,” I tell him with a grin. “Especially when you know just how
right
you did everything last night.”

“Oh, yeah?” He grabs a plate, shovels an astonishing amount of food onto it. “You think I did everything right?”

“I did come like nine times.” I watch as he settles next to me on the bed. “And then you brought me chocolate for breakfast. I’m not sure what more of a job performance review you want.”

“The chocolate’s the key, huh?”

“I’m not going to lie. It helps.”

“I’ll remember that.” He leans forward, presses soft kisses across my jaw and down my throat. “And for the record, you came ten times.”

That startles a laugh out of me. “You kept track? Wow, Z, you’re a real romantic.”

He arches a brow at me. “In some circles, ten orgasms
could
be considered romantic.”

“In some circles,
one
orgasm could be considered romantic.”

“Well, then I’m ahead of the game.”

“Which is exactly how you like it.”

“Damn straight,” he says with a nod. “But if you want, we could go for eleven, just to make sure.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “How come I think eleven is actually code for twenty?”

“Because you’re a smart girl.” He reaches over and rubs his thumb firmly over my nipple. Heat streaks through me, and I arch into his touch, despite myself. “And a sexy one.”

My breath catches in my throat as he puts our plates on the floor before sliding his hand over my stomach and into my leggings. Still, I manage to ask, “You think I’m sexy?”

“Now who’s fishing for compliments?” he whispers as he strokes gentle circles around my clit.

The boy knows what he’s doing—God, does he know what he’s doing—and it only takes a minute or two before I’m trembling over the edge of orgasm number eleven.

“And for the record,” he whispers against my lips in between long, drugging kisses, “I think you’re very sexy. I also think you did everything right last night, too.”

I roll my eyes, nip at his lower lip. “Well, obviously.”

He laughs. “That’s some ego you’ve got going on there.”

“Not really,” I say as I shift to kneel between his knees. “After all, you’re still here, aren’t you? I figure that’s all the performance review I need.”

“Yeah.” He turns serious fast. “I’m still here.”

“In case I didn’t say it earlier, I’m really glad you are.” I tug his pants down below his knees. “And since you are …” I deliver a long, lingering lick to his very aroused cock, then suck
it deep into my mouth.

He doesn’t say anything else for a while, but then again, neither do I.

“I’m not doing it.”

“Come on, Ophelia. Just try.”

“I don’t need to try.” I cross my arms over my chest and look anywhere but at Z. “It’s not going to happen.”

“Yes, it is.”

I make a frustrated sound deep in my throat. “Just because we had sex a few times doesn’t mean you have the right to tell me what to do.”