Page 39 of Just a Little Wicked (Wicked Sisters #2)

She’d been running for six weeks, and she missed her family.

She missed her aunts’ soothing temperaments, Missy’s saucy commentary on reality TV shows Winter didn’t care about, and Holly’s steadiness.

She missed the dark branches of the bare apple trees against the moon, and the soft rustle of pine needles in the cold night.

Wicked Good Apples was her home. It was where she made her livelihood, where she suffered, where she loved.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d long for it when she left, just as she hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to leave to fully understand her place there.

She loved Wicked Good Apples, but she’d learned over the past six weeks that she was capable of surviving without it, and that it was capable of surviving without her .

Her absence had made her realize too late that she wasn’t a prisoner there. That, if she’d wanted, there was more she could’ve done. More she could’ve dreamed of.

Now, she wasn’t even sure she had a future.

They listened to violin music on the drive, even though she tried to get Erikson to put on his own music.

“I like it,” he argued, flipping back to the album she’d been playing. “Leave it.”

“Tell me something about yourself,” she said after they’d been driving for an hour and she felt she was going mad, her brain circling and searching for answers and never finding any.

“Tell me about your favorite sport, or the happiest you’ve ever been, or the silliest episode you’ve ever done. Distract me.”

“Hmm.” The deep noise vibrated in his chest, and she flushed as she remembered how he’d made a similar sound between her legs, the crash of the ocean behind his shoulders and the nip of the wind on her bare skin.

Now she’d never have the opportunity to make him come as undone as he had her.

Their already short window for the “benefits” part of their friendship was growing smaller the closer they got to Wicked Good Apples, because once they arrived, they’d be spending every waking minute trying to stop the Shadow Council.

She already ached at the loss of what might have been.

“My favorite sport is basketball,” he answered, unconsciously tugging on his baseball cap. The logo on the front was for the Celtics, so she wasn’t surprised. He was a Boston boy, after all. “When I’m on my phone, I’m usually checking scores.”

“Do you go to Celtics games often?”

“When I can. Connor bought me season tickets for my birthday last year.”

“Why basketball?”

He shrugged. “You’d think it would be football since that’s what I played when I was in high school.

We moved schools a lot, and I played on a bunch of football teams, but that was because I was good at it, not because I loved it.

I probably like basketball because my dad does.

Some of the few good memories I have of my dad are when we watched basketball games together.

Connor isn’t really into basketball, so whenever a game came on, he’d disappear into his room, but I’d stay with my dad and eat popcorn with him and yell at the refs over the screen, even if I didn’t understand what was happening.

He gave me my first sip of beer during a basketball game, and I still get flashbacks to sitting on that old, ratty couch whenever I smell Coors Light.

After watching so many games together, I guess I fell in love with the sport myself. ”

Winter studied his profile: his strong, unshaven jaw, and the way the bill of his cap shaded his eyes from the headlights of on-coming cars.

She’d asked him to share a memory, and he’d shared something meaningful instead of something trite or surface-level, because when it came down to it, Erikson Grimm was anything but a surface-level kind of guy.

She wanted to go to a basketball game with him. She wanted to watch his face light up with every good play. She wanted to observe him engrossed in something he loved for no other reason than because it brought him joy.

And that would never happen.

She didn’t want to draw the Shadow Council’s attention to Erikson any more than she already had.

She and Erikson would part ways in two days, and he’d go to future basketball games with Connor, and maybe Holly, and some day he’d take his girlfriend who’d later become his wife, and everyone she knew and loved would move on with their lives while she became a cold-hearted murderer.

Okay, she was definitely spiraling.

“Do you still speak with your parents? I saw them at the wedding.”

He blinked, taking a moment to figure out that she was referencing a wedding that hadn’t happened yet, the one where she’d first seen Atlantes.

“It’s messy and tense, but Connor and I still have relationships with them.

We see them at holidays—separately of course, because I’m not sure my parents have shared the same air in over a decade—and we send them birthday presents and stuff.

I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of love lost, though.

We aren’t close with them the way you and your sisters are close with your aunts. ”

She looked at him from beneath her lashes. “Is that why you never get serious with a woman? Because you have trauma from your parents splitting?”

He flashed her an amused look, well aware she was throwing his “therapist” tactics from earlier right back in his face. “I suppose anything is possible, but I think it’s simply that I haven’t found the right woman yet.”

“I’m sure you will.” She slouched in the seat and crossed her arms over her chest. The thought of it made a little lick of Wickedness flare to life in her belly. “You’re not so bad.”

“Honestly, Winter, your compliments bring me to my knees.”

She snorted a laugh before she went back to scowling.

“You know you can bring me to my knees for other reasons, too,” he added, tossing her a look that, although she couldn’t discern in the dim light, she could feel through all the layers of her clothing.

“About that,” she said, because she refused to shy away from an awkward conversation like a coward. “What we did was . . . well, I loved it. I’m sorry I couldn’t return the favor, but maybe it’s a good thing we’ll never have the chance to sleep together. It makes things less complicated.”

“Whoa, who said anything about not sleeping together?”

“Erikson, we’re forty-five minutes from Wicked Good Apples, where two of my sisters, your brother, and my aunts live. There won’t be any sexy times.”

“I’m sure we can find privacy somewhere.”

“Pretty sure we’re going to be busy doing all we can to save my family from the Shadow Council.”

He grunted. “Right. After that, then. I still have several weeks on hiatus from the show.”

Winter blinked. Not once had she considered the possibility of there being an after .

Why would she? She still hadn’t found a single glimmer of hope to suggest that she would make it out of the Shadow Council’s grasp unscathed.

She was willing to entertain the prospect of a few stolen days with Erikson now because she was desperate to cling to any last hints of joy, but if the Shadow Council was no longer a threat, would she still want to put herself in the vulnerable position of once again, in yet another lifetime, watching him walk away? She wasn’t so sure.

“Maybe,” she hedged.

He arched a brow. “Maybe? Are we not on the same page? We like each other. Our chemistry is scorching. We both want to be friends with benefits.” He glanced at her and spun his hat backwards. “Unless . . . are you catching feelings for me, Elf?”

“No, I’m not catching feelings. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little busy wondering if I’ll survive the next few days rather than thinking about where your dick is going to go.”

He laughed and leaned back, his hand casually relaxed on the wheel. “Again, you make a fair point. We’ll do it your way and table this conversation for now, but there will be a conversation about it later.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely,” he said firmly, and Winter had no idea why she liked that so much.