I tilt my head, taking in Winter’s delicate features. This is the first time she’s let down her guard and trusted me enough to tell me something other than directions on where I can go to fuck myself. Something warm accompanies this newfound trust, and I can’t decide if I like it or if it makes me sick.

“No, Winter. Jokes on him.”

The neon glow of the clocks on the stove and microwave, combined with the soft light through the windows from the distant shore, cast slivers of light across Winter’s warm caramel hair, cascading in lazy curls over her bare shoulders.

Her chest rises to take in deep breaths, then falls to exhale them shakily. She’s nervous and vulnerable, something I’m sure she’s tried hard at not becoming. Especially in front of the likes of me.

And that’s when I notice her goosebumps.

She opens her mouth to speak, her bottom lip shaking. I know I’m staring at her, but I don’t care. Witnessing her vulnerability without making light of it or crowding it with sexual innuendos—even though I’d very much like to fuck her into next Tuesday—brings out something in me that doesn’t quite feel natural.

My own vulnerability, maybe?

“Your turn, Fox…”

“What do you want to know, Winter?” I hear my voice travel the space between us before my mind has a chance to stop it.

“What happened before ten, Aleck?”

Fuck. I can’t get close to Winter. I don’t even know her. And she doesn’t want to know this about me. I don’t know what it is about this fucking woman that keeps me so damn interested when all I want to do is fuck her then book another room so I’d never have to see her again.

The way she’s standing there, only three feet away, after cutting her chest open and spilling her crushed heart at my feet makes me want to do the same. But I can’t. I don’t know why I know I can trust her, but I do. Still, trusting her with my past, my childhood, would surely make her hate me.

Because then she would know I come from pure evil and not just a rich couple from West Hills.

“Hell, Grimm. Hell happened. And hell is no place for a child. Or ice cream.”

SEVEN

WINTER

No one wakes up knowing today is the day something will change their life forever. Fate and circumstance sneak up on you like a slowly approaching storm. The only difference is that with a storm, you can see it and hear it in the distance before it’s overhead. You have time to prepare for it and take steps to manage it.

It’s the storms that darken the skies in an instant, rain down on you without warning, and light up the sky with veins of electricity, that remind you how powerless you are to fate, chance, and circumstance. It’s in that powerless state you learn to understand what it is you truly want, even if it’s not what you need.