Winter Fire: A Red Hot Winter Story Read online

  “I make no excuses for screwing her. She’s a damned beautiful woman. The second I laid eyes on her—before I knew who she was—I wanted to sleep with her.”

  “And discovering she’s the woman I love didn’t stop you in your quest?”

  “No. It inspired me.”

  Jackson stared at him in disgust. “You’re a sick fuck.”

  Garreth raised an eyebrow. “I am? Funny, I don’t remember you thinking that when you slept with Sarah.”

  A muscle twitched in Jackson’s cheek. Sarah. One of Garreth’s girlfriends. “You invited me to sleep with her. Both of you did.”

  “And Rebecca?”

  Jackson’s girlfriend. Not even a girlfriend. A woman he’d dated a few times. A woman he’d slept with. He and Garreth. At the same time. “She wanted it.”

  “We all wanted it. Just like we all wanted it when it was Deanne. And then Shirley.”

  “You gonna list every woman we ever slept with together?” There’d been several over the last year. Sarah had been the first. The experience had been an eye opener for Jackson, but it had been so damn good, he’d looked forward to the next time, and then the next.

  In fact, he and Garreth had kind of gotten into a pattern. They’d begun dating women who showed interest in both of them. Women who were more than happy to accept them both into their bed.

  Ménage sex was a turn on Jackson had never expected. After Rachel had left he’d been hell bound and determined to get over her. He’d tried so damn hard to find another woman, someone he could have a deep and meaningful relationship with. He’d never succeeded. Rachel was the only woman he wanted.

  The one thing he had found was a bone-deep satisfaction in sharing women with Gazza. The sex was always mind blowing, and it kept his mind off Rachel. It also kept him from ever having to commit to another woman.

  “I’m just making a point,” Garreth told him.

  “Point taken.” He’d slept with Gazza’s women, Gazza had slept with his. Neither had minded before. “But Rachel’s different.”

  “Why? Because you love her?”

  “Yes, God damn it. You have no business being with her.”

  “Ah. So now you’re placing restrictions on who I can and can’t sleep with?”

  “There are rules, asshole. Unspoken rules. You don’t fuck your best mate’s girl.”

  “Just like you don’t fuck your sister’s best mate?”

  Garreth’s words hung in the air between them.

  “Your rules are screwing up your life, Jack. You don’t wanna mess around with Jenna’s friends, fine. I get it. You’re being a good brother. But when you let the best thing that ever happened to you get away, you’re being an asshole.”

  “Letting her get away doesn’t give you permission to sleep with her.”

  “She wanted it. As much as I did.”

  Jackson snapped his head back as though Garreth had punched him. Fuck. Who’d have thought a couple of words could hurt so bad? “Nice, mate. Why not stick a knife in the other side too?”

  “I’m not trying to fuck you over. I like Rachel. You love her. I thought, with her approval, the two of us could show Rachel how we feel.”

  “Over my dead body.” The answer shot out of his mouth before he could think.

  Garreth looked at him with a deep frown. “You don’t want to share?”

  “You don’t fucking get it, do you?” Jackson grit his teeth. “Rachel isn’t like the women we’ve shared. She isn’t someone I can fuck and forget. She’s the one, mate. She’s in my head.” He thumped his chest. “In my heart.”

  “Yeah, but she’s not in your life. That’s a choice you’ve made. So what, you can’t have her, no one can? Is that your game?”

  “You think I wanted to walk away from her?”

  “I think if I were in your shoes you couldn’t have dragged me away from her.”

  Jackson glared at his house mate, a bad feeling stirring in his stomach. “You falling for her, Garreth? You falling for my woman?”

  Garreth didn’t answer for a long time. He stared thoughtfully at Jackson. “You make her your woman, and I swear to stay away from her. Until such time, Rachel’s fair game.”

  “Fuck you, Halt.”

  Garreth smiled at him. “I’m happy to share.”

  “And I’m happy to slam my fist into your nose.”

  “Give her the choice, Jack. Let Rachel decide if she wants to sleep with us both.”

  “You make it sound like a rational choice.” Fuck. After two years he’d have thought Garreth understood. Obviously he was wrong.

  “It is.”

  “There is nothing rational about sleeping with her. She’s off-limits to me, and from this second on she’s off-limits to you too.”

  “Tell me the idea of holding her between us doesn’t appeal. Tell me you don’t want to slide inside her sweet pussy while I take her ass.”

  Jackson saw red. And white. White stars. Jesus, the image made him instantly hard. It also made him so fucking angry he thought he might seriously injure his friend. Garreth talking about Rachel’s pussy? His Rachel? Uh uh. That pussy belonged to him. No one else.

  Fuck. No, it didn’t.

  “You thinking about it, Jack?” He lifted a scrap of material off the back of the couch. A bra. A black satin-and-lace bra. Rachel’s black satin-and-lace bra.

  He glared at Garreth, hating him.

  “You are, aren’t you? You’re wondering how she’d feel wrapped around your cock. You’re wondering if she can take us both at the same time.” Garreth used the bra to palm his cock over his jeans. “I am. The thought has me ready to blow.”

  Jackson’s balls tightened, pressing close up to his dick.

  “Know what I’m picturing now?” Garreth pressed on. “Rachel on her knees, wearing this bra—and nothing else. She’s bent over you, sucking your shaft. I’m behind her, fucking her while she blows you. Christ, Jack, she’s gorgeous. So beautiful it almost hurts to look at her. You can barely contain your orgasm. She’s licking you, sucking your balls. Taking you in all the way to your root.”

  Jackson’s ribs compressed his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. Against every instinct, the images Garreth painted clamored through his mind. Fuck, yes, he could picture Rachel doing everything Garreth said. It was so real he could almost feel her mouth on his dick, her warm tongue lapping his balls. Could hear her soft moans as Garreth pumped into her.

  It made him despise Garreth. And desire Rachel even more.

  “Rachel is off-limits,” he ground out.

  Garreth shook his head. “I’m not backing off, my friend. If Rachel will have me, I intend to spend the rest of the weekend with her. My gut tells me you should spend that time with us.”

  The quiet conviction in his voice had Jackson shaking his head in incredulity. “You truly believe that, don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t push it if I didn’t.”

  “I won’t share her.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “Don’t do it, Gazza. Don’t fuck her, and don’t fuck with our friendship.”

  “Give me a good reason not to.”

  “I love her. It’s reason enough.”

  “Then quit living in the past.”

  “I have no choice. She’s my sister’s best friend.”

  “So what?”

  “So, I can’t do that to Jenna.”

  “Because of some childish demand she made years ago?”

  “Childish?” Jackson glared at him, feeling murderous. “You know fuck all, Halt.”

  “I know Jenna got hurt because you messed around with a couple of her friends.”

  Thunder roared in Jackson’s ears. “Jenna didn’t just get hurt. She damn near killed herself.”

  The color leeched from Garreth’s face. “What did you say?”

  Jackson forced a deep lungful of air into his chest. “I never told you the full story.”

  Speechless, Garreth shook his head.

  Jacks
on stiffened his spine and straightened his shoulders. It was time Garreth knew. Time he understood the real reason Rachel was off-limits to Jenna’s twin. In a twisted way, he understood why Gazza had seduced Rachel. Why he’d thought a threesome might be a good idea between them. Gazza believed it was time to get over the immature barriers that had kept Jackson and Rachel apart. Garreth was pushing him to take a stance, to make Rachel his. But Garreth had acted without knowing all the facts.

  “I had a fling with one of Jenna’s so-called friends when we were seventeen.” She’d been pretty, she’d been popular, and she’d been interested. She’d also been about as fascinating as an empty can of tuna. After a few dull dates Jackson had told her they wouldn’t work out. “When she realized I didn’t return her interest, it pissed her off. She decided I needed to be taught a lesson. So she told fifty of her closest friends that I couldn’t get it up.”

  Garreth opened his mouth, but Jackson pushed on.

  “For her. She told them the only girl I could get it up for was my sister.”

  Garreth gaped at Jackson.

  “The rumor spread. Within a day the entire school had heard it. Only by then it had morphed into Jenna and I having a heated sexual relationship. We were the talk of every teenager at South Brisbane High.” The viscous bitch had destroyed Jenna’s life. Had she kept her bitterness focused on Jackson, he’d have had no trouble laughing it off. But she’d targeted Jenna as well. Accused them both of hideous untruths.

  Those untruths had taken root in the school grapevine and grown out of all proportion, destroying Jenna’s and Jackson’s reputations in the process. The talk and the gossip had not died down quickly. Over the weeks it had changed Jenna, turned her from the vivacious, confident sister he’d known, into a hollow shell of her former self.

  “Jenna became depressed. I’m not talking sad and miserable. She suffered a full-on clinical depression. And she stopped eating. By the time my parents admitted her to hospital, she weighed barely thirty-five kilos. If she’d gone on like that she’d have starved herself to death.” The memory still dredged up the same sense of uselessness, of helplessness, he’d felt back then. It left him as powerless now as he’d been at seventeen.

  “She stayed in the clinic for the rest of the year,” he told Garreth. “Three months passed before either Jenna or her doctors and therapists believed she was ready to be discharged.”

  At the beginning of the new year, Jenna and Jackson had transferred to a new school and a new life, leaving the scandal and the rumors far behind them.

  “Jenna has every right to make the demands she now does. I couldn’t stop the landslide that followed that bitch’s assassination of her, but I’ll damn well make good and sure nothing bad ever happens to my sister again.”

  “I-I never knew,” Garreth whispered in a tortured voice.

  “Jenna never wanted you to know. She doesn’t want anyone to know.”

  Garreth nodded. He was quiet for a very long time, absorbing everything Jackson told him. “Rachel would never do anything like that,” he said finally. “Even if things don’t work out between you.”

  “Of course she wouldn’t,” Jackson agreed. That was a given. Rachel was the one who’d helped Jenna through her trauma. The girl who’d befriended her at their new school, who’d seen through his sister’s pain and somehow accessed the real Jenna again. “But even dating Rachel would freak Jenna out. It would bring back memories she’s put away and moved on from.” He shrugged. “I made a promise to Jenna. I won’t go back on it.” No matter how much he wanted to be with Rachel.

  Rachel spent the day in hiding. The shock of discovering Garreth was Jackson’s housemate was too overwhelming to think about. She chose not to. Instead she went in search of Jenna, found her and hauled her off to the chocolate shop in Katoomba.

  Sam, Jenna’s boyfriend, opted out, choosing to read in the warmth and comfort of their hotel room rather than witness the choc orgy the women intended on indulging in.

  Over creamy, rich, hot chocolate and brownies worth dying for, she and Jenna caught up on each other’s lives. They spoke for hours, like they had when they’d shared a flat in Brisbane.

  Rachel told Jenna about the jewellery store. Ash Diamonds had lived up to all of her and her brother’s dreams and expectations, and was now a well-established, renowned business in the heart of Sydney. She told her about Paul and the dismal failure of yet another disastrous relationship. And she told her about life in Sydney in general.

  In turn Jenna spoke about Sam and how they’d been together for almost three months. He was fun—but she couldn’t really see any long-term prospects with him. She mentioned how her practice as a dietician was booming, and she caught Jenna up on all the goss from Brisbane, telling her about all their mutual friends. Rachel was more than aware that gossip to Jenna meant sharing only items that were factual and already public knowledge.

  Nothing was news to either of them. They’d discussed it many a time on the phone. But going through it all again was an essential part of their friendship. And so much fun, she and Jenna spent most of their time together laughing.

  Rachel gave Jenna the birthday gift she’d brought along for her. Diamond earrings, handcrafted specifically for her friend. It was a day early, but Rachel figured with everyone else joining the celebrations this would be the last time they’d have alone. Jenna loved her present on sight, and they were in her ears two minutes later.

  There were two subjects Rachel refused to broach.

  She would not tell Jenna about Garreth, not just yet anyway. Her own thoughts about him were too scattered to share.

  As for Jackson, well, she mentioned she’d seen him briefly and left it at that. Jenna did not seem to notice the way Rachel’s spine straightened when she said his name, or the way her heart thundered so loud it almost deafened her. It was surprisingly easy to not say anything about her shock in Garreth’s room. But then she’d spent so many years avoiding talk about Jackson with Jenna, not bringing him up now was simply second nature.

  That didn’t mean it was easy to be with her friend. Just looking at Jenna was reminder enough of the man she loved.

  Like Jackson, Jenna had warm blue eyes that lit up with humor and delight as she spoke. Their expressions were so similar, every time Jenna laughed and her eyes crinkled, Rachel could imagine it was Jackson. They’d once had the same colored hair, the honeyed gold that still crowned Jackson’s head, but Jenna was now a platinum blonde, thanks to her very expensive hair dresser.

  The main difference, aside from their gender, was their size. Rachel could bury herself in Jackson’s embrace and feel petite as a flower in his arms, which was quite an accomplishment considering she stood at a good five foot seven. Jenna on the other hand, was tiny. No taller than Rachel’s shoulders and thin as a rake.

  She knew when they got back to the hotel Jenna would make use of the gym to work off the four gazillion calories they’d consumed. Rachel would hop into a hot bath and read.

  It had taken Jenna a long time to come out of her shell after they’d met at school, but sticking with her, persevering at their friendship had been the best decision Rachel could have made. Jenna was a first-class grade-A friend, and today she unwittingly did a fantastic job of helping Rachel escape from the anguish of her thoughts and the unfulfilled desire that still seeped through her body tormenting her with its persistence.

  Chapter Five

  He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t do this. He should walk away and talk to Rachel later. At dinner. When there’d be at least ten other people to buffer his feelings. To stop him from doing anything rash.

  But when Rachel opened the door, dressed in a robe, with her hair piled on top of her head and her cheeks flushed, he knew there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

  Without saying a word, she stepped aside, and Jackson walked past her into her room.

  She shut the door tight and looked up at him with her enormous midnight-blue eyes. “I didn’t know he was you
r housemate,” she spluttered.

  “I know.”

  “I’d never have let anything happen…”

  He nodded. He knew that too. It didn’t stop the jealousy from flooding his system.

  “Do you hate me?” She could hardly look him in the eye. Her gaze was focused on his chest.

  “What the—? Rach, I could never hate you.”

  “I slept with your housemate.”

  He scraped a hand through his hair. Jealousy tore a red streak through his stomach. “I hate that you slept with him. I don’t hate you.”

  Color raced to her cheeks. “H-he spoke about you. We both did.”

  “When?”

  “While we, uh, you know…”

  Huh? “I thought you didn’t know he knew me,” Jackson said, perplexed.

  “I didn’t.” She frowned. “It’s complicated. When he told me he was a journo living in Brissie, I instantly thought of you. I mentioned you were coming up here. Garreth picked up on something in my voice.” She blushed and turned around. “Later, when I was in his room, he kind of, well…” Her voice trailed off.

  Jackson gritted his teeth. “He kind of what?”

  “He, er,” She cleared her throat. “He suggested I fantasize about you while making love to him.”

  Jackson absorbed her words with shock. Gazza had included him in his and Rachel’s bedroom play. Even while Jackson had been in Brisbane, Gazza had brought him in on the action.

  Rachel dropped her head into her hands. “God, I thought he’d been so insightful, picking up on feelings I’d tried to hide.” She shook her head. “He wasn’t perceptive at all. He knew the whole story.”

  “Don’t judge him too harshly,” Jackson said, striving to keep his tone neutral. “He had his reasons.”

  “He should have told me.”

  “You’re right. He should have. And I suspect he would have. But I arrived early.”

  She turned to stare at him. “Y-you’re defending him?”

  He shrugged. “I understand him.”

  “Well, I don’t. Maybe you could explain.”