CHAPTER TEN
Ice
“HOW ARE THINGS with the new roomie?” Sinner asked as we worked on rebuilding his house. Sebastian had hired his friends to work on our houses, but they were slammed at the moment. Sinner’s house had been burned to the ground and they were staying with Cara’s brother until his was rebuilt. I knew that he was hating staying with someone else and needed his own space. Any man would. So, Ryan sent his buddy, Drew to run things and all of us were acting as construction workers. It was a nice change of pace. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumbled. “That good, huh?” he grinned. “That bad. She’s a pain in the ass.” I left out the part where I fucked her silly a few days ago. Nobody needed to know that I had given in and fucked a woman that I couldn’t stand. “It’s the ones that drive you crazy that you have to watch out for.” “Did Cara drive you crazy?” I asked him. “Cara drove me wild.” “What’s the difference?” “The difference is, I did shit with her that I didn’t do with anyone else. She’s a mixture of a woman scared out of her mind and a defiant, sexy vixen,” he said as he shook his head. “Best sex of my life.” I thought back to fucking Lindsey and what it was like to be inside her, fucking her, possessing her. She was by far the best sex of my life. “Ahh, I know that look. You are fucking her.” “Not fucking her. She drives me crazy, but not in a good way. You know, the first night we slept in the same bed, she told me every disgusting thing about what’s crawling around in bed with you? You try sleeping after hearing that there are 1.5 million dust mites in your bed.” “Seriously? Why does she know that?” “Because she’s in the hotel business. She has to know that shit, but that doesn’t mean I have to. I couldn’t sleep the whole fucking night. I thought I had bugs crawling on me.” “You don’t think… I mean, do you think the mites are crawling all over your junk and in your ears and shit?” “I didn’t think that, but now I do, asshole,” I snarled at him. “I still say, you should just fuck her. Get it over with. Once you get her out of your system, it’s all downhill from there.” “I don’t want it to be downhill. I’ve seen what the rest of you consider to be getting a woman out of your system. It doesn’t seem to actually work.” He waved me off and smiled. “That’s only for those of us who actually can feel it in our bones that the woman we’re with is meant to be our downfall. If you really hate this woman, fucking her is just going to let off some steam.” “So, you think I should just fuck her and get it over with?” “Why not?” I could think of a million reasons why not. The most important being, that I already had a taste of her and I was nowhere near getting her out of my system. In fact, if I kept screwing her, I might end up down the rabbit hole with the rest of these fuckers. Which was something I definitely didn’t need.
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I was exhausted by the time I got home that night. It was different work than I was used to and my body was telling me that I wasn’t cut out for the construction business. Walking in the door, I noticed that it was cold in the house, which I didn’t understand considering that there was a woman here that would make sure that the house was warm. So, what the fuck was going on? I walked into the kitchen and looked around, not seeing any windows open or anything. Then I went to the thermostat and saw that it was set at sixty-eight degrees. What the fuck? I tried turning the heat up, but nothing happened. Shit. I went the closet and looked at the heater, knowing immediately that something was wrong. I opened the panel and saw that the fucking thing wasn’t working. Why the fuck didn’t she say anything? I stormed into the bedroom to see her huddled under the covers. Flipping on the light, I glared at her when she rolled over and squinted at me. “You want to tell me why the fuck you didn’t say anything about the furnace going out?” “How would I have told you?” “I don’t know? Pick up the fucking phone and call?” “I don’t have a phone. Or did you forget that you kidnapped me without any of my belongings?” I went to yell back at her when I realized that she was right. Fuck. “Well, you still could have…” What? Walked over to a neighbor’s house? She raised an eyebrow at me, begging me to finish that thought. Irritated with myself and her just for being here, I stormed out of the room and put in a service call to the twenty-four hour hotline for repairs. The earliest they could come out was in two days. That wouldn’t be a big deal for me. I could sleep anywhere in any conditions, but I had a damn woman in the house with me to think about. I was probably going to have to listen to her bitch about how cold it was in the house. Taking a quick shower, I crawled in bed, staying firmly on my side of the bed. Despite what Sinner said, I wouldn’t be trying to fuck her out of my system. What was the point? I knew it wouldn’t work. I woke in the middle of the night to feel the bed shaking. Looking over, I saw that Lindsey was shivering on her side of the bed. I rolled my eyes in frustration. As much of an asshole as I was, I wasn’t going to let her freeze over there. I scooted closer to her and pulled her into my body. She came willingly, wrapping her arms around me and burrowing into my body. My cock responded immediately, standing proud and begging for some attention. However, when she put her cold as fuck feet against me, that took care of my woody problem. I tucked her feet between my legs to warm them up and cursed myself for falling into this woman’s trap. She may not be setting one intentionally, but I sure as hell was falling for it. The thing that killed me was that I liked the feel of her in my arms. I liked the way her body fit against mine. I liked her in general, when she wasn’t being a pain in my ass. Which was probably the reason I was such an ass to her the next morning. “Next time, put on some fucking socks. Your feet were freezing and it kept me awake all night,” I snapped at her. “Well, if the heat wasn’t broken, I wouldn’t be so cold, now would I?” “Look, the repair guy can’t come out until tomorrow. You’re just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. Put on some fucking clothes and curl up under a blanket. It’s not like you have any place special you have to be.” She glared at me, her nostrils flaring in anger. “I would have someplace to be if you hadn’t-” “Burned down your house,” I finished. “Yeah, we’ve been over this a million times. How long are you going to continue to blame me for that? Shit happens. Get the fuck over it.” “Easy for you to say. You have someplace to live. You have a job to go to. What the hell do I have? I have nothing. Everything that belonged to me is gone! And to make matters worse, I’m stuck with you because I have nowhere else to go. So, I’ll get the fuck over it the day I move out of this house and back where I belong.” She stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. It’s not that I didn’t see her point of view, I just couldn’t do anything to fix it at the moment, so what was the point in yelling at me? I heard the shower running and decided now was my time to slip out before she could come back and bitch at me some more.
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Two weeks later and I needed that woman out of my house more than I needed air. Hell, there was no air left to breathe because she never shut the fuck up. If there was ever an oxygen crisis, I would know who to blame. I had successfully avoided sleeping with her for the past two weeks, but only because I slept on the couch most nights. I couldn’t risk accidentally sticking my dick in her again. But it just seemed that the more I stayed away, the bitchier she got. She even left me notes and they were mean as fuck. Like the one she left me last night, We’re out of pretty much all food in the house and if you don’t want to starve or have me go out and start killing wild animals to survive, maybe you could actually be home at some point to take me to the fucking store. Or at least let me drive your truck so that I could go to town myself. Don’t worry, I won’t destroy your truck the way you destroyed my house. So, she was still a little touchy about that. Maybe I had been a little hard on her. Maybe she did have a right to be upset that we had destroyed her livelihood. Either way, I knew that I had to face her at some point, so I let Sinner know that I wouldn’t be out until later today so I could take her to the fucking store. I walked into the bedroom and yanked the covers from my bed off her and snarled at her. “Get the fuck up. I have shit to do today and I can’t waste time waiting for you to get your pretty, little ass out of bed.” I stormed out of the room, pissed and turned on all at the same time. I had really tried not to see how that shirt she was wearing was riding up her ass. I really tried not to look at how perfect those cheeks were or think about how much I wanted to spread them. The damn woman was driving me insane. Usually when there was a woman in my bed, she was willing and begging for more. This one, I didn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole. But my cock sure did. She came out ten minutes later, dressed and yawning. I walked over to the coffee pot, thinking I would make us some coffee really quick, but saw that there was none. Slamming the cabinet door, I stalked to the front door and out to the truck. I was pleasantly surprised when she followed behind me and didn’t say anything. I was really expecting some attitude from her at this time of the morning, but she just sat there. We were just a few minutes down the road when I heard it. A low, loud grumble came from her direction, but she didn’t even flinch. “What the fuck was that?” She looked at me with a quirked eyebrow. “My stomach. I’m hungry.” “Why the fuck didn’t you grab something before we left?” “Because you don’t have anything. You haven’t had anything for days.” “Then what the fuck have you been eating?” “I haven’t,” she snapped at me. “The last time I ate was two days ago, which you would know if you weren’t avoiding me like the plague.” My face reddened and I was glad that it was still dark out. I was such a dick. Ignoring her was one thing. Letting her starve because I wasn’t paying attention was another. And I couldn’t even yell at her for not telling me because she had. Practically every note she left was her telling me that we were running low on food. And I had ignored them all because I was worried about my dick getting attached to her. I pulled into the diner in town and threw the truck in park. “Let’s go.” I got out and walked into the restaurant without looking back. Her stomach was growling even louder now and the waitress was looking at me like I had picked up a homeless person to feed. I really looked at her for the first time this morning and swore to myself. She looked like shit and not just in the you dragged my ass out of bed before I was ready to get up kind of way, but the I’m a slug because I haven’t eaten in two days and I have no energy kind of way. I really was an asshole. “What can I get for you today?” “Two coffees, two orange juices, and everything on the breakfast menu.” The waitress' eyes widened, as did Lindsey’s. “That’ll take a little time,” the waitress said hesitantly. “Just bring it out as it’s ready.” She nodded and walked away. Lindsey was looking at me like I was insane. “The whole breakfast menu? Who’s going to eat all that?” “Both of us.” She snorted and shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry. I was an ass. I was ignoring you so that I didn’t accidentally fuck you in your sleep again.” “I would have preferred you fuck me over not having food,” she growled at me. I nodded, ashamed of myself. I was never like this, but this woman had a way of pushing my buttons in every way that she could possibly torment me. Both good and bad. “It won’t happen again.” We sat in silence, and one by one, the food started pouring out of the kitchen. I watched as Lindsey devoured plate after plate of food until she was holding her stomach. “I think I ate too much.” I looked at my plate that I hadn’t touched yet and then back up at her. She was eyeing it like it was a Thanksgiving turkey. I slid the plate over to her and watched as she stole my bacon. I deserved that. When she shoved the bacon in her mouth and moaned, my cock hardened painfully. I watched as she devoured the bacon and then licked the grease from her fingers. I shifted, trying to get comfortable, but it was useless at this point. Nothing could make me forget what I just saw. I sat through the rest of breakfast with the most uncomfortable woody of my life.