Page 46 of Chokehold
My nostrils flare, and I look back to Allie. She tilts her head. “What’s wrong? Why do you keep staring at them?”
“I’m not,” I lie, waiting for the instructor to come and take us to the bunny slope.
Blaise and I haven’t been skiing before, so we’re not allowed on the big slope, but Mia and Allie have been plenty of times with their families. Our parents think this will be a great bonding experience since they’ve noticed how tense the atmosphere has been around me and Blaise.
If only they knew.
There isn’t tension. I just want to fucking strangle the bastard while he wraps his fingers around my cock again and?—
“Hold my hand,” Allie says, breaking me from my thoughts. “I’ll catch you if you slip. Make sure you’re pointing your toes together. The motion will act as a break. Or if you go too fast, you can slow down by doing it too.”
“I’m sure the guy over there is about to talk us through it.”
I flinch at the voice beside me, too close, yet too far away, enough to make me shiver. Blaise huffs, his shoulder bumping into mine as we make our way to the small group gathering around the instructor.
He draws on about safety and rules and everything else while me and Blaise try not to slide on our asses during practice. Allie and Mia ditch us to go on the big slope, and I shove Blaise when he slips and tries to grab my arm.
“Really?”
I look down at him in the snow. “I told you not to touch me.”
He scoffs and shakes his head. The instructor goes on for an hour before we feel semi-confident to go to the top of the bunny slope. It’s not big, but it’s way more slanted than I expected, and when I go to straighten my skis, I stop.
Blaise glances over at me, with two kids between us, just as they shoot off down the slope with no care in the world, cheering and asking their parents if they saw them.
“Scared?”
“Why would I be scared?” I frown at him. Deep down, I’m nervous. I’m not afraid of heights, but this feels dangerous.
“Such a fucking pussy.” Blaise moves slowly down the slope until he’s halfway, straightening his skis so he zips down the rest.
I wait for him to topple over, to fall and decapitate himself on a snowball, anything. But he reaches the bottom, glancing over his shoulder up at me with a smirk.
Asshole.
When I straighten my skis, I hold my breath and try not to close my eyes. I’m not scared – there’s an image flashing behind my eyes of my dad dangling me from the top floor window by the scruff of my shirt, Mom screaming at the bottom, begging Dad not to let me go. My leg itches at the memory of him – the scars covered by ink to hide the abuse and forget it ever happened.
I collide with someone trying to catch me, dragging them down into the snow and off to the side so we’re in a ditch.
“Fucking hell, Cole,” Blaise groans. “Watch where you’re going! You were going too damn fast!”
His nose is bleeding. He touches it, and the ruby red has me mesmerized and desperate to feel the warm liquid between my fingers. To reach up and wipe the droplets away, but I stay frozen beneath him.
Because he’s on top of me, pinning me into the snow, and I can feel all of him pressed against me.
A droplet of blood drips onto my cheek. Blaise follows the trail rolling against my skin, his heavy breaths hitting my face.
Blaise tuts. “Why do you always need to fuck things up? You can’t even go skiing without making a mess of shit.”
My eyes darken as I glare, and the force of me throwing my forehead into his face knocks him off me. It takes him half a second to catch his bearings before his fist flies into my cheek. Sometimes I forget the asshole has muscles, because I’m certain my jaw just nearly shattered.
Through the burning of pain, I unclip one of my skis and get to my knees, grabbing the ski and swinging it at his side, knocking him off his skis completely.
“What the fuck!”
I drop the ski and unclip the other, traipsing through the deep snow to grab him by the hair, now on his knees in front of me where he fucking belongs.
The blood on his face is making me hard, my pulse elevating.
