A Summer With Snow (Frosted Seasons #1) by Hallie Swanson Page B

more playful approach.
    “Well then, what say we try it my way? Go on, Darc, undress, lay back on the bed and open your legs for me; I’ve got something hard, something waiting here that wants to fuck you.”
    My erection is bulging in my boxers for release.
    “God, if only it were that easy, Snow,” she whispers. “Some people are just better at hiding their scars than others.”
    I can only wonder what she knows about me as I hear the ambiguity in her words. It appears she awaits my reaction, but I sit silently in thought, unable to decipher what she means.
    “Darcy, tell me what’s wrong, just not in riddles.”
    My heart races as I await her reply. She stares at me with a vacant expression.
    “If only I could forget, if only I could wipe what I saw from my mind, but I can’t. It’s something that’s haunted me for over ten years.”
    My hand slips from her face.
    “Every night after Mum … my real mum put me to bed I would lie with the covers pulled over my head, waiting for the doorbell to ring; which it always did without fail. Mum told me to stay in my room, and said that her special friends were coming to visit her.”
    She pauses.
    “Go on,” I prompt.
    “Snow, the things I heard are things no child should ever have to hear… But one night, the sounds were different. Deep voices shouting came from next room, and then I heard Mum’s screams; she was begging them to stop. Grabbing Lucy, my rag doll, I held her tightly against me as I slid out of bed, and tiptoed barefoot across the landing. As quietly as I could I turned the knob and pushed open her bedroom door, and through the tiniest of cracks I peered inside.”
    The mattress rises as Darcy gets up from the bed and stands with her back towards me.
    “I was only six years old, and that’s the day my childhood ended.”
    God, things are starting to make sense . With a wry smile I glance over at the small bedside lamp that lifts us out of the darkness.
    Snow, you fucking idiot. My fists tighten into balls at my side. The first time she lets anyone in, the first time she has sex, and I throw money at her. I knew what it was for, but it left her feeling like a common whore.
    I clear my throat, and in a low voice ask, “What then?”
    “I guess the neighbours heard, and the police were called. Social services got involved and I was taken into care. I never saw my mum at Christmas, she never turned up to the supervised visits … I never saw her again. When I turned eighteen I tried to find her, but was told she’d taken a drug overdose and died on the streets several years earlier.”
    I can’t help thinking that in her own way she’s as fucked up as me, and what she said was true; guess some people really do wear their scars better than others. I lean forward on the bed, pulling her towards me by the waistband of her shorts.
    “No, Snow, get off me.”
    She takes a step forwards, but I pull her back. She spins round, hitting out at my face; grabbing her above the elbows I pull her into my chest, encasing her in my arms.
    “Get off me!” she yells.
    “It’s okay, Darc, it’s okay.”
    The harder she fights, the tighter my hold on her becomes. After only moments I feel her tenseness dissolve and her yells become sobs. I reach up, softly stroking my hand down the back of her hair in the same way I remember my mother doing to me as a boy when I was upset… But that’s Snow’s story and locked away. There are so many facets to my life, ones I’m not prepared to share.
    Still holding her against me, we’re almost as one as I lower us back onto the bed. This is foreign territory I enter, for never in my life have I held a woman the way I’m holding Darcy now. I have this overriding feeling that takes over my head, telling me I want to protect her, keep her safe. Suddenly, my heart hurts, for it is something Snow was unable to do for Summer. But this isn’t a sisterly love I feel for Darcy; I can’t place what I feel. I glance down onto her