Page 1 of Winter's End

CHAPTER 1

WINTER

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

My brain had to be misfiring; surely a result of my panic attack and the fact I had been arrested for something as ludicrous as prostitution.

There was no possible way Kellan Carlos was standing in front of me. The hulking, beautiful, majestic and raw face of the blond Viking God himself, the man who had taken pleasure in giving me three body-bending orgasms in twenty minutes, was here.

In this room. With me.

He hadn’t aged a day in the two years since I’d seen him last. Two and a half? Could someone really age in two and a half years?

Why was my brain even thinking of that right now?

My processing center was a melted mess of confusion and ire as I now questioned whether this was my actual reality.

Quick must have micro-dosed my tea earlier. It was the only logical explanation. And not the first time.

“Are you going to speak, little songbird, or just stare at me?”

His voice was the same familiar rumble, its resonance sinking through me and into my bones. I didn’t have a single feeling for him. Nothing more than an obvious attraction to a man who might as well be a god, but that voice could still give me incredible tingles down in my belly.

Still, I wasn’t a dainty wallflower. I was my namesake; fierce, frigid, and stormy. I had been snapped up from my friend’s wedding like I was a thief with leprosy on a clearly bullshit charge, and pretty or not, Viking Man was going to have to explain himself.

“I’m trying to figure my shit out, Viking,” I spat out, unable to smother the irritation that threatened to encase me in a protective shield. “What are you doing here?”

An average-looking man with brown hair and darker eyes smirked in the background—Logan’s handler?—I didn’t know what they were called outside of the movies—but I ignored him. He wasn’t my problem; he was Logan’s. Kellan, on the other hand …

The big man’s ice-blue eyes crinkled with unabashed amusement, curving his luscious pouty lips into the most satisfied smile.

“I’m glad you haven’t lost your fire. I loved that about you.”

“We hooked up on one night, Viking. I don’t see how that warrants continued thoughts on the subject.”

The other man choked awkwardly on air in the background behind me, while Logan seemed to get closer to me on the bench.

For a moment, I had forgotten he was there.

“I guess you made a lasting impression.”

Kellan shifted his considerable weight to kneel next to me on the concrete, producing a key from his pocket. He unlocked the handcuffs still holding my wrists. I desperately shook my arms to regain feeling, and the harsh, painful heat of blood flow back to my limbs spread through me. He moved beside me to do the same for Logan.

He stepped back and leaned against the bars of our cage on the other side of the room. I shakily pushed myself up from the floor onto the wooden bench behind me. Logan reached out to help, guiding my elbow when I collapsed on the hard surface.

My body felt like heavy-leaded balloons in need of mooring. Despite my hesitance to use Logan, of all people, as a crutch, I needed someone to lean on right now. I rested my head on the sleeve of his once pristine and dashing suit jacket and drew in a deep, soul-cleansing breath.

A shiver wracked my body as I settled into the inevitably all-consuming cool-down from my panic attack. I needed to start meditating again because my treasonous brain was getting ridiculous to manage. I couldn’t continue to drop and freeze anytime something unexpected happened in my life.

I mean, being arrested at your friend’s wedding by the FBI was probably a littlemorethan ‘unexpected’, but still. Enough was enough.

Logan shifted, pushing me upright as he shrugged the expensive jacket off of his shoulders. Then he draped it over me, tucking me back into his side and holding me tight to him.

I startled at the kindness, but only for a micro-second as his scent of frankincense and aftershave enveloped me.

He was offering me a peace treaty while we figured out how the hell we were going to get out of this situation. His touch was oddly comforting.

I wouldn’t overthink it. I would let Logan offer me some comfort in this clusterfuck of all clusterfucks. Right now, I needed comforting, or I was going to discover what my inner She-Hulk looked like.

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