Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale #3) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,81

my hand going to my throat.

Turtledoves.

The vivid blue eyes I saw last night stared back at me, watching me with fervor. Trevor was good looking, but compared to the man in front of me, he wasn’t even in the same realm. I forgot how unreal and sexy Frost was. His dark features and chiseled face were beyond any man I had seen. His eyes didn’t just look at you; they peeled and stripped you bare. His powerful physique didn’t just loom, it engulfed. And his presence didn’t just fill the space; it consumed and devoured. He was raw, sexual, ruthless, and confident. Everything about him scared the mashed potatoes out of me.

I felt safe with someone like Scott or even Blaze. In control. Frost made me feel the opposite—scared and wild like I was jumping off a ledge with no idea what was below.

“You came.” He took a step to me. A slight smirk hinted on his lips, the mouth that had invoked sensations in my body so staggering they shattered everything in me. And I still understood it had been greatly dimmed through Trevor. If I experienced the real thing, I wouldn’t make it out in one piece.

“I don’t renege on promises. And I also came for answers.” I picked up my chin, trying to hide the way I trembled under his scrutiny. The friction thickened the air, my core clenching at the memory.

“Sure.” He scoffed, his thighs hitting mine, dominance billowing off him, capturing me in the mushroom cloud. He leaned down, his breath skating down my neck. “Tell yourself what you need to, little Liddell.”

“I’m not little anymore.” I glared back at him.

“No….” A naughty smile twisted his mouth, his lips brushing my ear. “But you were so fucking tight, my tongue could barely fit inside you.”

Inhaling, I stepped back, my spine hitting the wall, his brash words doing the opposite of what I wanted them to do, flushing hot desire through me. Angry at my body’s betrayal, I lowered my lids. “It was a mistake.”

“Really?” He put his palms on the wall by my head, trapping me in his space. “Is that why you came running down here the moment you could? Because it was a mistake and you regret it? The cries you screamed out last night were all fake?”

I tried to say yes, but the lie stuck in my throat.

“For once.” He flattened his frame against mine, letting me feel him hard and burning into my stomach. “Be honest with yourself.”

“I am being honest with myself.”

“Please.” He chuckled darkly. “You’ve been lying to yourself since you were a child, building walls of falsehoods around you until you can no longer tell the difference.” A hand grabbed my throat, his thumb pressing into my pulse. “What are you blocking, Dinah? Why can’t you remember this place? Tell me, what is the last thing you remember here?”

A glimpse of Blaze and me running, terrified, and screams of what sounded like death echoed in my head. Panic instantly punched the air from my lungs, and I shook my head, trying to look away.

“No.” Frost growled. “Tell me.”

“I-I don’t remember. I only have a few memories of being here, and they still feel like a dream.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I grew up and stopped believing in magic and Santa Claus. This is probably happening all in my head right now.”

“Stop dismissing what you know is true because you are scared,” he snapped.

“I’m not scared.”

“Please.” He scoffed. “You are so afraid of letting go, you’d rather live a life in this Dinah husk than actually take a leap. Truly live.”

“Screw you.” Ire jetted over my limbs as I fought to get out of his hold.

“I think that would help a lot, actually.” He snorted, his head shaking. “You once were so fearless. Strong, daring, and full of life. What happened, Dinah? Where did that girl go?” He leaned in closer. “You remember somewhere deep inside, little one. Stop fighting it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Bullshit.” His elbows flattened on the wall next to my head, his mouth scraping my ear. I sucked in, my jaw clenching down. “Dig deeper. It’s there. You know what you did. Say it.”

“I didn’t do anything.” The darkness in my soul, the sense of something sinister, bubbled closer to the surface, terrifying me, lashing out. “Can’t do anything to a place or people who don’t really exist.”

“Don’t exist?” He pushed his hips in deeper, dragging his erection over my jeans, his