Page 35 of The Groupie

He lowers his mouth and covers mine, cutting me off, and his sensual salty taste calms my nerves when it should panic me. However, his words seep in past my defenses. He has a point.

He lifts his mouth, his eyes slightly glazed but no less penetrating. “I know you wouldn’t set me up like that. Don’t ask me how. But I’d like to know what’s going on with you.”

“Why? You could send me home now and have nothing to do with me ever again.”

“Call me greedy, but I want the full two weeks.”

“One week and five days.”

“Tell me about growing up in a foster home. Tell me why you ended up in a foster home.” He’s not asking. He’s commanding, compelling me as if he has some magical power over me and I’ll comply. I deride myself. His magical hockey stick is his power. And maybe I’m greedy enough to want more of him, too.

“Not much to tell.” I shrug, but my chest tightens, and my gut roils like I’m going to be sick. “I ended up in the foster system because my parents died in a car accident when I was seven, and they couldn’t find my aunt. They put me in a group home until they could find a foster family, and that’s where I met Suzie. She was only four. We ended up with Mamma Cass in Southie. I was lucky—we were lucky—to land with a great foster mom.”

“Lucky.” I hear the irony in his comment and ignore the suffocating tightness of my chest to drag in a deep defiant breath. I go on like I need to prove my point, that he doesn’t need to feel bad for this girl.

“Me and Suzie grew up together like sisters. Mamma Cass got me in a snowboarding program at eight, and I went straight for the halfpipe and jumps and on from there to every extreme sport I could find. Skate boarding, surfing, ziplining. I stayed with snowboarding long enough to win some prizes and got on a team to compete. I competed nationally in high school and earned a spot on the Olympic team when I was seventeen, but I wasn’t close to the medal box.”

“The Olympic Team. Fuck, that’s amazing. That’s every kid’s dream.”

“It wasn’t mine. Not at first. I started with the basic dream of surviving without my parents and helping Suzie survive. Then when things settled in with Mamma Cass, I got greedier in my ambitions. I wanted to really feel alive.”

“So, you’re an adventurer at heart. I can identify with that. What other adventures do you have?” He gives me a sexy smirk, but I’m still in a defiant mood, so I disappoint him.

“At one of the competitions, I met some boarders who were into parachuting onto a ski slope in South America, and I went with them. Some people call me reckless.” I lift my chin, inviting him to register his opinion.

“Not me. You have to live life to the fullest.”

“All in. Every day.”

He nods. My chest tightens again at the way he’s looking at me, like he sees me, like he likes what he sees. I clear my throat.

“Suzie was sent to a theater camp. Now, she’s trying to break into modeling and acting. So far, there’s not much money in that.”

“What about you? You have any promotional deals yet?”

I shake my head. “I have enough sponsorships to get by, but my competition resume is light compared to others on the circuit and on the Olympic team. I kind of came out of nowhere. But I can live on very little money. It doesn’t matter.” Or it never mattered until now.

“I’m like you,” I admit. “I have an appreciation for the value of life, the need to live every day to the fullest. I figure I’ve been on borrowed time since the accident. I should’ve died with my parents—” Fuck, where did that come from?

“Don’t say that. Don’t even fucking think that,” he says, clamping his hand around my arm.

“But I didn’t die, so here I am living in the moment and making the most of life. It could all end in a flash.” I shrug, but my heart moves to my throat, and I shove my hair from my face with a shaky hand. Why the hell am I sharing so much? I don’t want him to get the wrong idea, so I add, “That’s why I’m not interested in relationships. Why bother?”

He gives me a hard look. “I get your logic, and I understand—but still… There’s something not right about it. Makes you sound, I don’t know…tragic.”

I scoff and slap his back. “Don’t worry about me, Zak. I’m doing just fine.”

“I believe you.”

“Except for money.” Fuck. It’s like I’m drunk on sex and can’t keep my mouth shut. Something that’s never happened before.

He narrows his eyes like he’s wary, suddenly unsure about me. That stirs my indignation.

“I’m not asking you for money. I’m not that girl. I’m an independent woman and proud of it.”

“Again, I believe you. What’s the problem? Why do you need money?”

“Mamma needs to see a doctor. Her health is falling apart because she smokes like a chimney and won’t quit. Her house is ramshackle and needs fixing up. She says she won’t go to the doc because it costs more than smoking cigarettes, and if she has a choice, she’d rather stick with the sure thing. Have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous?”