Tanner is sitting across the room from me, not looking happy as he cradles his right arm.
We’ve barely said a word since the accident. The medics came and got us. We went down the slope on a snowmobile.
All of that gorgeous powdery snow and I didn’t get to ski down any of it.
Because of that pompous jerk.
I hate him.
I’ll be lucky if I can walk by the end of the month! And look at him! He probably bruised his arm. Big fucking deal.
The door opens and the doctor walks out with her clipboard.
“Tanner Lawson?”
He shakes his head at her. “She goes first.”
She shakes her head back. “I’m examining you first.”
“Not a chance.”
The two of them stare each other down in a competition to see who has the harder head.
“Broken before strained,” she says. “Always.”
“Broken?” I say with my stomach dropping. I look at him in a new light. “It’s broken?”
He shrugs.
Shit. He didn’t even so much as wince. I had no idea he had a broken arm this whole time… and I was the cause of it. He tried to catch me when I slipped off and it made him fall.
Oh no… this is all my fault…
“Just go, Tanner,” I say as my heart breaks for him. “I’ll be fine.”
Tanner looks at me, looks at the doctor, and then looks back at me. He doesn’t like it, but he gives in and goes.
Even after we fell, he was more concerned about my ankle than he was about his arm. All he seemed to care about was my safety.
My pulse races as I look at the closed door, wishing I could see him again.
Wishing we weren’t related.
Wishing for a future that is both impossible to have and impossible to live without.
CHAPTER FIVE
Tanner
* * *
“Are you going to sign my cast?” I ask as I sit on the couch beside my sexy little stepsister.
She has her leg propped up on the table, ankle support brace on, a glass of wine in her hand, and a fierce look on her face as she turns to me. “I would love to.”
She grabs a pen off the table and then yanks my arm so hard it hurts. “Oops,” she says in a flat voice when I wince. “Sorry.”
“You don’t look sorry.”
She shrugs and then starts writing. I don’t care what she’s writing. It’s making her giggle and the sight of her adorable face giggling is worth walking around with whatever embarrassing thing she’s going to write on my cast.
I take my arm back and grin when I see a big hairy dick drawn onto it.
“I didn’t know you liked cock so much.”
She sneers at me. “I thought you’d like it since you’re such a big dick.”
“I do have a big dick, thank you for asking.”
“That’s not what I—Mmmpphh!”
I laugh as she grabs the remote control and hits the power button way harder than necessary. “I don’t know why I even bother talking to you.”
“We can do other stuff besides talking,” I say in a low voice as I lean in closer to her. She’s wearing perfume. Interesting… Who’s she wearing that for? “I can think of a few things I’d like to do with you besides talking. Do with you or to you.”
She’s all fire and ice as she slowly turns to me with a look that could kill a weaker man. “I can think of a few things I’d like to do to you too.”
“Does it involve the real life version of this?” I ask, looking at the cock she scribbled on my cast.
“Yeah. It involves kicking it really hard.”
“Oh, kinky. I never pegged you as the dominatrix type. But I can kind of see it now. I bet you’d look sexy as hell in leather.”
“And I bet you’d look great gagged and bound. Now that’s a Tanner I wouldn’t mind seeing.”
“Anytime, sis,” I say with a grin.
She’s about to respond when her mother walks in carrying a platter of salsa and nachos. “How are you guys?” she asks in a feeling-sorry-for-you motherly tone. “I can’t believe that happened. We would have been at the hospital with you if we knew. I can’t believe we were skiing the entire time while you broke your arm and you sprained your ankle! I feel horrible.”
“It’s okay,” Eleanor says. “I’m glad you had fun.”
“Don’t worry,” I say to her. “I took care of our little peach.”
“Peaches,” Eleanor corrects. “My nickname is Peaches.”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
She’s about to lay into me, but her mother doesn’t notice and begins talking first. “How’s your arm, Tanner? Did the doctor say how long you have to wear that cast?”
“Four to six weeks,” I tell her. “I can’t work on cars with this thing on. I guess I’ll have to find something else to do.”
Her mother is preoccupied with some salsa that dripped off her nacho and fell onto her sweater.