25. Ice is unforgiving
25
Ice is unforgiving
Electra
I always believed in the notion that we are born with some type of instinct, or what they call female intuition, but I couldn’t be more wrong because for the second time in my life…it doesn’t even stir at the treat of an approaching death.
“Okay, angry elf, what’s first?” Exton asks as he finishes lacing his skates and fixes his jacket.
It’s considerably warmer this morning here. Well, it’s still freezing cold, and the skies are overcast, but for Vermont at the beginning of March we call this a blessing, and you can almost smell spring breaking through the thick layer of winter.
“Stretching, which we could have done in the comfort of our home, Exton.” I roll my eyes and then catch him smirking. “What are you smiling about?”
“You called it our home.” Damn, my own mouth that I try to smooth out now.
“The termites that invade houses also think of those spaces as theirs.”
“So now I’m a termite.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Then don’t complain when I eat you alive.” He winks, and I do everything in my power to ignore this man.
“Jesus, if I’d waste so much time talking I’d never get anywhere in the sport. Now, move your legs and give me five full loops around the lake.”
“Fuck, you are so hot when you command me,” he says in gravel voice. Exton’s whiskey eyes fix on me as he wets his lower lip and I see one of his hands moving toward his crotch, adjusting it. My cheeks warm up and I will my eyes to look away, but they won’t. He skates up to me until his mouth is at my ear. “Enjoy it while it lasts, because once I get my hands on you, you’ll be the one on your knees for me.”
“E-Exton.” I try to steady my voice but fail and his smirk intensifies before he invades me with his tongue, kissing me like I didn’t just tell him we are only friends.
“T-ten laps, Mr. Quinn, for misconduct,” I rasp out when he pulls away and skates away, tipping his head up with a booming laugh.
“You looked up hockey terms, angry elf?”
“No, I didn’t,” I say too quickly, giving away my own lie.
“God, you are perfect.”
I whimper. Damn it. Before I can help myself, I whimper but at least he didn’t see it, already making the first loop.
He skates around, stretching as I tell him and with each new exercise, he flies up to me, kisses me and goes to the next one.
Who is this man? I keep watching him and not recognizing the person from the one that barreled through my front door a mere month ago. But then I look at myself and realize he’s not the only one who’s changed.
He’s not the only one who no longer wears the scowl as his favorite makeup and permanent emotion and it’s both frightening and elevating.
I’m healing and even if—when—he leaves, I’ll at least have that. I’ll be grateful for that.
“Please tell me it gets harder because I’m not even breaking a sweat yet,” Exton says as cocky as he can.
“Baby, that was a warmup. Now give me a nice backward slide.”
He does it with a breeze, but it’s a breeze of a hockey player not a figure skater.
“Too easy,” he announces, and I shake my head.
“Except that’s not how we do it. Come here.” I point to the spot in front of me and he slides right up.
“Miss Monroe, I didn’t know you’d get kinky on the ice so fast,” he says, again with that smirk because in my position his crotch is right in my face. I lift my hand and slap him on his sweats-covered dick.
Exton yelps as I scold him. “No goofing around during practice, Mr. Quinn.”
“Ohhh, you’re asking for it, Miss Monroe.”
“What are you gonna do about it, baby?” I taunt him with his own comment, and I see those nostrils flare right before he’s about to leap on me and I stop him with my hand. “Get back in position, Exton,” I command once again, and to my utter surprise and undiluted pleasure, he obeys, halting himself as he comes right back to me.
I smile a winning smile and place my hands on his hips, turning him around so he’s standing sideways to me and slap his ass as hard as I can.
“What the hell?” he yelps again and take another doze of pleasure at that.
“This ass? It needs to be tucked in. We don’t show it off to the world, we keep our hips and all the rest tucked in.” I use my hands to right his position and this seasoned hockey player almost tips over.
“Easy, huh?” I taunt him some more and catch a glimpse of a whole other kind of fire ignite in his eyes.
The Exton that everyone knows kind. The competitive kind.
“Soft knees, A-frame, shoulders down and your hands in front of you as if you’re pushing on the ice with them and hips tucked in.” I swat his ass again. “Now, go again and give me a nice backward slalom.”
“Backwards what?”
“Slalom.” I sigh when there is no recognition on his face. “Keep your feet together, push, and twist your hips so your legs make a sort of half-moon motion, backward.”
“That’s what you should lead with, not your fancy terminology,” he grumbles but tries to get in position and fails right away.
I can’t help the laugh that bursts out. This is so much more entertaining than I thought it would be and we are still on one of the easiest exercises.
His hulking defenseman body is not as easy to maneuver into delicate moves, but Exton is not deterred. He falls, gets up and starts again. By try number six, he grumbles and growls at the ice, cussing like a sailor and then he raises his fist as if ready to punch the ice, and I know what’s coming. I can sense the anger rolling off him in spades but Exton halts as I hold my breath and looks up.
Give me your calm , his eyes seem to plead with mine.
Always , mine answer back as I watch him, looking straight into his soul. Into the dark smoke clouding it and blowing air through it, lending him my hand as he always does for me.
I almost forgot how easily he loses it. Exton’s been so different with me these past couple weeks, I almost forgot how explosive he can be. Yet one look, one glance my way, one silent conversation, and he takes a deep breath, lowering his fist slowly and straightens up, tugging on my invisible arm to follow him. To help him. To move with him.
What I watch next is nothing short of mesmerizing, he simply closes his eyes, yet I still feel them on me, and his legs move like those of a professional figure skater.
I have no idea how he did that. How he managed to move like that, but I feel my eyes mist as I track his movements.
He’s beautiful. So strong and powerful and yes, angry but also controlled.
“Exton! That was amazing!” I praise him and he looks up to me with two shining eyes, looking as excited as Emett does whenever Exton shows him something and he does it right.
“Told you it was easy.”
“Andddd he’s cocky again.” But I let it slide, sensing he needs it. Sensing that it’s more than attitude, it’s his hiding place.
I’m about to move onto the next trick when he’s next to me, the ice sloshing over the blanket I have around my legs and Exton’s hand cups my face, his lips are on mine as he breathes out. “Thank you.”
I lick my lips, gathering the taste of him and give him a small nod, knowing exactly what he’s thanking me for.
Exton gives my chin a tiny pinch and moves back on the ice demanding to learn more and so we do.
I teach him to slide on one leg as the other one is in the air set perpendicular to the other and he only falls about a hundred times before he gets it, but there’s no more anger, only laughing.
We are both laughing like two silly kids playing in the snow. Exton throws snowballs at me when I taunt him and an hour into it, my stomach is cramping with all the exertion I’m putting it through.
“Show me the spinny thingy you do,” he exclaims. “Oh, and a jump! I want to spinny and jump.”
I shake my head with a soft smile on my face. “Spinny?”
“It’s a word, deal with it.”
“The spinny is bit too complicated.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Are you telling me I wouldn’t be able to do it? You should know better by now.” He plants his hands on his waist like a little brat, and I break out in giggles. “Fine! I’m doing one on my own,” he proclaims and starts spinning on the ice with the grace of a bear, falling a million times and bouncing back like a rubber ball that’s been dropped one too many times and barely has any juice left in it.
So what I mean is he’s basically rolling on that ice to get up.
“S-stop, stop.” I’m wheezing wiping the tears off my eyes. “I can’t take it anymore. I’ve never laughed so much in my life.”
“Wait till I add the jump to the spinny!”
Exton skates farther away for some speed, I’m guessing and then the whole two-hundred-something pounds of muscle jump up…
The next ten seconds take an ion to pass…but also happen in a blink.
Maybe if I wasn’t laughing so hard, I’d hear it.
The crack.
Maybe if I wasn’t so lost in feeling happy, I’d sense it.
The change.
Maybe if I didn’t let him thaw the ice around my heart, it wouldn’t break all over again.
Splintering into a million sharp, life-threatening pinpricks as each one stabs through the blood-pumping muscle.
Maybe if I’d remember the power of the ice, I’d keep him from it.
Because the ice is unforgiving. It’s cold, ruthless and doesn’t take well to feelings.
It’s an iceberg that kills.
And all I can do is sit and watch it swallow the love of my life. Pull it under. Drag him into its cold lair. Away from me. Forever.
“EXTON!”
I run.