What is that, apology?
He cracks his fist with a noise I hate before narrowing his eyes at my dad one last time before thrusting his seat back and storming off.
I pray that stupid woman doesn’t come back, fearing Carter will give her a bunch of five for her efforts he looks so mad.
But as quickly as I felt myself pressed against Carter.
As quickly as I felt his heat, his warm touch, and his passion against me, he’s gone.
He raises a dismissive hand to everyone in his way as he storms out of the dining hall.
Our first day here as a group. Our first meal together.
My first time seeing him in the flesh in god knows how long.
The announcement of dad’s matchmaking backfire announced, I should feel elated.
But now I feel crushed like I can feel Carter leaving already before we’ve even-
“I’ll go,” I hear myself say with some authority, standing from the table and rattling the cutlery.
My dad’s hand gripping my wrist and pulling me back down tops me. “You’ll sit down,” he scolds me, rising above me, his own anger showing now.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on, Serena. But you’ll sit here and have your lunch with me. I’ll get to the bottom of this, Carter be damned,” he says, bringing his own fist down onto the table, silencing me.
The only time I’ve ever seen him so mad.
And the only time I’ve ever defied him so openly.
“I’m with Carter, dad. What you did was stupid, bringing him here so you could set him up, some friend you are,” I blurt out, ignoring his hand reaching for me and all the other diners in the lodge as I race after Carter.
He’s all I care about right now, even though I know he’ll never love me I can still be his friend.
I can show him my dad’s plan wasn’t my own.
My own plan?
Well, that’s obviously not gonna happen either.
I don’t hear or feel dad chasing me, and only get a look of the same smugness from the old woman as I dart past the reception area of the dining hall.
A few heads look up, but the amount of warmth and food available is more appetizing than any floor show we’ve given them all.
True to my word, I go to Carter. Not even knowing if or why he’d hear me out.
I trace his defined, heavy steps to a set of cabins not far from the main lodge, and again follow his steps up to his door which I pound on desperately.
“Carter,” I call out. “I had nothing to do with that, let me in,” I plead against a heavy and snow-lined oak door, which eventually creaks open.
“Get in here,” he growls moodily, leaning against the door once I do.
I’m all his, he can do whatever he wants to me from now on, I’ve already decided.
He points to the sofa nearest the entrance and I sit, feeling his eyes on me again.
Hearing another low sound rumbling inside him that feels like it travels through the floor, straight up my legs, and into my body, making me gasp.
“What the hell was that all about?” he finally asks, sounding more himself and sitting opposite me in a large chair, crossing his legs and resting a huge hand on his wet ankle as I notice it start to twitch and kick in time with his thoughts.
“Dad had some idea, he was trying to matchmake you with some…” I start to say but don’t want to use words hard enough to complete my meaning.
“Some?” Carter muses out loud, his face relaxing and his leg coming down, spreading both of them wide as he leans forward with an inquisitor’s gaze.
“Tell me,” he commands. “Tell me and I might tell you something, Serena,” he offers, making my center ache with a single word.
A single phrase that carries suggestion, inquiry, and of course, power.
His power.
The same thick power I felt pressing up against my body, the same power I know I now crave deep inside me at any cost.
“He should really tell you himself, naughty dad.” I tease. “But, well...He said he set up a dating account with your photo, hoping to snare you some beauty you’d fall madly in love with on an all-expenses-paid trip to-”
It sounds like it’s coming from behind me, but a croaking cry suffocates my words.
I try and tell Carter what dad’s best intentions were, are. But my own sense of betrayal is too much.
I can’t stand the thought of him with anyone else. I just want him.
I only want him to-
“C’mere,” he says softly, standing up as I gravitate towards him. His huge arms circling me, warming me against my own shivers as he strokes my hair.
Listening to my sobs and pressing them harder into his own body.
He takes a deep breath in and I can feel his own familiar, deep voice resonate through me as he speaks.