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She feels good against me. Really good. So good that I’m not surprised by the fact that I’m getting hard—then again, that seems to be a permanent condition around her—but I am surprised by the tenderness that sweeps through me. She’s so tiny, so fragile against me, and I can’t help feeling like I need to protect her. Even more surprising is the fact that I want to.
I’m not sure how long we stay like this—Tansy wrapped up in my arms. But however much time passes, it still doesn’t feel long enough when she finally raises her head and looks at me.
“Thank you,” she says shyly and I think I just felt something melt inside of me. Something that’s been frozen solid for seven long months.
“For what?” I ask, working to keep my body relaxed and the smile on my face. “I’m the one who came in here and got you all freaked out. I should be apologizing to you, not sitting here listening to you thank me. In fact, I came here to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For what you did out at the half-pipe today. Things with Logan and me are pretty tense right now—he thinks I’m too overprotective, and I am, I guess. I just—I almost lost him, you know, and the thought of anything else happening to him freaks me the fuck out.”
She nods, like she knows exactly what I’m talking about, even though she can’t. That’s no reflection on her. It’s just this fear, this bone-deep terror I wake up with every morning, is not something you can really understand until it happens to you.
Until you’re living it.
“He’s doing well, though, Ash. You know that, right? He’s as well-adjusted as I think any kid could be at this point. You should be proud of that.”
Proud? How can I be proud when I pretty much choke on guilt every time I look at him? Not that I have any intention of mentioning that. I’ve spent too long burying that shit deep to just blurt it out at this stage of the game. “Yeah, well, I still wanted to say thanks. For intervening and smoothing things over.”
She smiles and this time it’s genuine. In fact, looking at the way it lights up her face, the way it carves little crinkles into the skin around her eyes, I can’t help thinking it’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her all day. Maybe even longer.
The thought makes me nervous in a way I can’t quite figure out.
“So, umm, do you want to maybe go get—”
“You know, I’m not really a sex fiend—”
We both start—and stop—talking at the same time.
“Umm, what were you asking?” Tansy inquires after a second, eyes wide.
I start to answer, but I figure I need to clear up her misconceptions first. “I don’t think you’re a sex fiend.”
“You caught me watching porn!”
“I’m a pretty normal twenty-one-year-old guy, Tansy. I’ve seen a lot of internet porn. I don’t think that makes me a sex fiend, either.”
She snorts. “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about that.”
For the first time in days, I think about how we met. About how I took her into the back of the storage room and … Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed. To not be able to look her in the eye.
“I’m sorry,” she adds after a second. “That was a shit thing to say.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was honest.” I clear my throat, try to figure out what I want to say here. What I want to do. There’s a part of me that wants to just say fuck it and run for the door. There are a million girls out there who won’t ask anything of me, who won’t call me on my shit or look down on me for fucking around.
Tansy isn’t one of them. She’s shy and inexperienced, but she’s also tough and honest and doesn’t back down easily. It’s a good combination—she’s a good combination. One I probably would have been all over seven months ago. But everything’s changed since then and I don’t think I’m ready for her, or for what she’ll ask of me. What she needs of me.
And yet … and yet, I can’t get last night out of my mind. How she felt pressed against me. How she tasted melting over my tongue. How she sounded when she came. I know I should walk away—hell, I should run away. But I don’t want to. I want to hold her again, to kiss her and touch her and watch as she comes apart in my arms. I want to fuck her, maybe even want to come apart a little in her arms, too.
None of which is going to happen if she keeps looking at me like she is right now. Like she thinks I’m just fucking with her. Just using her. Which, to be honest, I might have been at the beginning. But now … now I feel something for her. I don’t know what it is, yet, but it’s something. Something more than I’ve felt in a damn long time.
“The thing is …” I tell her after a too long pause. I don’t look at her when I’m talking. It’s hard enough to get the words out, to strip my defenses away, when I’m staring at the ground. Looking at her would send me right over the edge. “The thing is, I didn’t used to be like that. I mean, yeah, I got offered a lot of sex—kind of comes with the snowbunny territory.”
“Snowbunny?” she asks tentatively.
“You know, girls who are in Park City for a week’s vacation. Who want to brag about sleeping with a famous boarder or skier.”
“Oh, right.” She nods like she knows what I’m talking about, but her eyes say she doesn’t have a clue. It’s such a weird contradiction—she’s such a weird contradiction. For a girl who stood in my kitchen and had no problem bartering sex for my agreement to come on this trip, she seems awfully naïve.
