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  Winter Kisses

  A 3:AM Kisses Novella Book 2

  Addison Moore

  Edited by: Sarah Freese

  Cover design by: Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations

  Photo by: Regina Wamba of www.MaeIDesign.com

  Interior design and formatting by: Amy Eye of The Eyes for Editing

  Copyright © 2013 by Addison Moore

  http://addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com/

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Books by Addison Moore:

  New Adult Romance

  Someone to Love (Someone to Love 1)

  Someone Like You (January 2014)

  3:AM Kisses (3:AM Kisses 1)

  Winter Kisses (3:AM Kisses 2)

  Beautiful Oblivion

  The Solitude of Passion

  Young Adult Romance

  Ethereal (Celestra Series Book 1)

  Tremble (Celestra Series Book 2)

  Burn (Celestra Series Book 3)

  Wicked (Celestra Series Book 4)

  Vex (Celestra Series Book 5)

  Expel (Celestra Series Book 6)

  Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7)

  Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5)

  Elysian (Celestra Series Book 8)

  Ephemeral (The Countenance Trilogy 1)

  Evanescent (The Countenance Trilogy 2)

  Ethereal Knights (Celestra Knights)

  Prologue

  Laney

  I used to believe in love. I used to believe that two people and one lifetime equaled happily ever after. I used to believe that the strong arms that once held me tight would always protect, never leave, never give up on us.

  Maybe he didn’t give up on us. Maybe I did.

  At the end of the day, maybe we both did.

  And yet, here I am in his penthouse, devoid of clothes, low on dignity, loaded with whiskey.

  “Let me into your heart, Laney,” he pleads with those deep navy eyes as we stand just shy of his bed. “Let me crush every memory you have of the two of us and make something new, something better, something that never disappoints because it doesn’t know how.” He dots a series of hot kisses slowly up my neck, and a shiver runs through me.

  My skin touches his, and then it’s over. I’m all in. Every last inch of me has been so thirsty for Ryder, and now, here I am, ready to drown in the cool spring of his affection while my entire body reanimates under his willful supervision. A part of me died last winter in a very real way, and, here he is, reawakening me, breathing life back into my soul by way of his mouth, his fingers—his bare flesh.

  He pulls back and rakes over me with his slow gaze.

  “Get in my bed,” he growls it out, sharp like an order.

  “If you want me in your bed you’ll have to damn well put me there yourself.”

  Ryder gives the ghost of a smile.

  And he does.

  1

  Can’t Buy Me Love

  Laney

  Playing the part of a wench isn’t easy, especially when the very people who have accused me of being the real deal are sitting in the front row. I’m sure that in just a few short minutes they’ll be smirking at the way my boobs keep threatening to unleash themselves from this demonically tight corset.

  “Good luck, Laney!” Baya helps adjust the seventeenth-century ball gown I’ve crammed myself into.

  “Don’t say that!” Roxy swats Baya as she pushes me onto the stage with the rest of the cast. “Break a leg!”

  I scuttle out, trying not to focus on the fact I spotted my ex in the crowd just a few minutes ago, and now I’m nervous as hell, and breaking a leg seems a literal possibility in my sky-high heels.

  It’s the night of the Gala of the Stars, an annual fundraiser for the drama department, but if I had known who would be here, gawking at both me and my cleavage, I would have gladly bowed out. Of course, the trauma of the evening is multiplied a thousand times over, due to the fact my ex-boyfriend happens to be sitting front and center, smack in between his judgmental mother and the girl he left me for. Well, I’m not sure if he really left me for Meg, but, nevertheless, they’re an arms length apart.

  I move along with the rest of the drama department as we walk the expanse of the stage like runway models. Tonight we’ll be auctioned off like objects to the highest bidder in the name of school spirit—and, hopefully for the department, some serious cold hard cash.

  I take the turn at the head of the stage and force my eyes to remain on the girl in front of me. I lose myself in the bird’s nest her hair has been teased into, the full crimson gown she’s wearing that balloons from her waist like a parachute.

  Walk the line, I keep telling myself. Madame Thenardier doesn’t need to smile, and neither do I.

  A pressing heat fills me as I pass my ex. The air crackles, it sizzles and snaps from his direction. Ryder Capwell commands the attention of every estrogen bearing female in the room—and, damn straight, he gets it.

  Finally the long tongue of the stage is behind me as I scurry back to the curtain and peer out at the crowd. I see my mother and sister, Izzy, as they wave to me from the side. Even though Izzy is five years older, we still look like twins with the long dark hair, the stonewashed blue eyes.

  Mom strums her fingers over the table, a clear sign she’s anxious about something. I’m guessing she’s seen the Capwells and is ready to bolt like a cat from a bathtub. Her jet-black hair curls out of her head like claws, and she insists on wearing the brightest shade of pink lipstick known to man. Despite the fact Mom is a larger woman, no matter what her size, her lips are the first and last thing you see when she’s coming and going. She’s tough as nails but independent and fierce to a fault. I’ve always admired those attributes about her most. Everybody respects my mother, well except for Rue Capwell. According to Rue, my mother is the kind of slimy invertebrate you find living under the belly of a rock.

  Mom points a finger at Ryder and shakes her head at me. She isn’t exactly Ryder’s biggest fan, then again, neither am I. But no matter how hard I try, my eyes gravitate to him like fire to oxygen. This is the kind of compulsory mess that no matter how much effort you put into avoiding, you know what the outcome will be. Ryder Capwell still has a very real piece of me. I’m going down in flames, I can feel it, and I’m already enjoying the burn.

  I cast my eyes over his perfect eminence for just a moment. All I can see from this vantage point is his blessed-by-God face—that perfect bone structure, his Roman nose. The muscles in his jaw pop as he darts a look this way, and I’m quick to jump back from his line of vision. For just a brief moment he was examining me in the way that only his gorgeous eyes could do. Ryder had a way of bringing me to life like a picture slowly developing before his beautiful eyes. He brought out the color in me—the vibrancy from deep within my soul that I never knew existed.

  “Holy hell,” I mutter, diving back behind the curtain as my best friends Baya and Roxy try to discourage me from hanging myself from the rafters. Honestly, a public hanging seems a much more appealing option than facing Ryder, especially since Meg boyfriend-fucking Collins has planted herself right next to him. Well, I seriously doubt she’s fucked him outside of her wildest dreams, at least I hope not, but, that too, seems beside the point because my blood boils at the sight of her, and the urge to puke is coming on strong. Maybe I should go with it. Who knows? A little projectile vomiting might be exactly what the psychiatrist ordered, that is if I land my target. Either Me
g or Ryder’s mother will do. Ryder doesn’t deserve my vomit.

  “Every person on the planet who hates me is here tonight—and, by the way”—I look to Roxy—“I’m including my own mother in that equation.” Quite possibly my sister, but that’s probably not true—Izzy and I just aren’t that close.

  “My mother doesn’t hate you.” Roxy averts her eyes as if this were an impossibility.

  Baya touches her hand to her chest while her dark hair quivers back. “And I’m sure your mother doesn’t hate you.” Baya is gorgeous, and she’s got a body for miles. It’s no wonder my friend Bryson fell so hard for her. I’m glad they’re happy—hell, I’m glad someone’s happy.

  “Oh, you don’t know my mother,” I’m quick to correct. “And, for the record”—I turn to Roxy—“you don’t know your mother either. Hate is just the tip of the iceberg of what that woman feels for me.” I look to Baya. “True story. She hates me and loves Meg Collins.” Meg comes from money, was gently reared, and annoyingly insisted on calling my ex-boyfriend’s mother, mom, long before we were ever over. “Face it, Rox, both your mother and Meg are thrilled that Ryder and I called it quits.”

  “Ryder didn’t call anything quits—you did.” Roxy tugs at my corset until my boobs pop up, creating a dramatic décolleté that Ryder only wishes he could bury his face in. The dress I’m wearing has the girls on a perch, ready and willing to jump off the ledge at a moment’s notice. The gown in general is a period piece, a dirty blue brocade with a full bell skirt and tight waist, low cut to the nipple line, and I must say I look every part the wench. Actually I’m Madame Thenardier the keeper of the inn. Whitney Briggs is putting on Les Mis for their Winter Spectacular, so here we are at the country club trying to raise funds for the department.

  “I don’t care who called it quits. The important thing is that it’s over.” I untie my bustle only to retie it six times tighter than before. “To hell with breathing, I have far more important things to do like bring you-know-who to his drop-dead gorgeous knees for everything he put me through last year.”

  “Hey, relax. Nobody is out to get you,” Baya says it sweetly while combing the hair away from my face. “Can I ask what happened with you and—” She ticks her head toward the crowd. I have a very strict do-not-use-the-asshole’s-name-in-my-presence rule, and if you should feel the need, kindly replace his moniker with Bastard, or what he’s more formally known as, Rat Bastard.

  “Nothing happened.” Roxy dares defy the circumstances that got the breakup ball rolling, thus openly rejecting my reasoning for the horrible relationship demise. “My brother still loves her.” Roxy’s eyes swell with tears. “Laney is just too stubborn to hear the truth. See this, Baya? This is what happens when someone isn’t willing to listen to a logical explanation. She just hopped to her own conclusions and, poof, a thing of beauty disappeared into thin air.”

  “I’m not listening.” I pick up my dress and stalk off toward Bing Chase, my partner in Les Mis crime who happens to play the part of my perverted husband.

  “You need a hit?” He holds out a bottle of Seagram’s 7, and I’m quick to snatch it from him. I put my lips to the tip and effectively pour the brown brew down my throat, easy as drinking fire.

  “Slow down, girl.” He tries to muscle it away from me, but I continue to chug until my insides threaten to detonate like a nuclear warhead.

  The choir finishes up a sassy version of Jingle Bells, and the master of ceremonies takes his place at the podium once again.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of this fine establishment,” he rambles it out with all of the theatrics of a circus conductor. “Whitney Briggs dramatic arts and dance department is proud to present a snippet of the Winter Spectacular’s prized presentation, Les Miserables. Feast your eyes on the fine cast as ten title characters are auctioned off as a part of our evening with the stars. Open your wallets and your hearts. All proceeds go directly to the department. And, now, please put your hands together as we present, Master of the House.”

  The crowd breaks out into a mild applause, and I refuse to pan the front row. I refuse to let Ryder Capwell catch me glancing in his direction—for him to see even one hint of desperation in my eyes. God forbid I lock eyes with Meg or his mother for that matter—my ultra-pointy stilettos might go flying. And believe you me these are some serious weapons of mass destruction, or at least worthy of a good stabbing. They’re the killing-cockroaches-in-the-corner variety, but they’re cute as hell, never mind the fact they’re cutting off the circulation to my pinky toes. I swear the girl in the costume department hates me. This isn’t the first time she’s cursed me with something that’s capable of a quasi-maiming.

  Bing plucks the bottle from my hands. “We’re on, kid.” The music starts up, and we saunter out with the ensemble. I try to keep my focus on Bing while he wails away his solo, but my thighs are shaking just being this close to Ryder. It’s like I can sense him in the room. My chest heaves for no good reason, my skin gets hot then cold, then sticky and clammy because, truth be told, that man still has a very real physical effect on me—also there was whiskey.

  Nevertheless Ryder Capwell is a god, fit for altar worship and eternal veneration all of which I was physically and mentally prepared to do until he left me alone and naked in bed one night. He hightailed it back to his mother’s house to once again rescue the forever damsel in distress, Maniacal Meg.

  Anyway, he apologized until his balls were blue in the face and asked what he could do to make it better—that he would do absolutely anything, so I asked the only logical thing I could think of. I told him to stay the hell away from me. I meant it at the time, but damn it all to hell if I haven’t hated myself just a little this past year for invoking such a harsh punishment. And, Ryder being the moral upstanding, albeit Rat Bastard, kind of a guy he is, upheld his end of the Laney embargo, and we haven’t been face-to-face in twelve solid months. I mean, he tried, but I was quick to instate Newton’s third law of e-motion: for every one of his actions, I enlisted an opposite and equal reaction—ready and willing to deflect his efforts. For instance—he called, I ignored. He texted, I blocked. He emailed, I unopened.

  The tragedy of it all is that I used to believe in love. I used believe in Ryder and me. I thought we would last. I thought we had forever in our grasp, but we were just a lie. He couldn’t hold me up over the other women in his life. Instead, I was sloshing around the bottom somewhere beneath his mother and Meg, both of whom took turns urinating on me.

  Bing stomps over and gives a stern look. It’s only then I realize the music is recuing itself on a loop as the band patiently waits for me to jump into the number.

  “Crap,” I hiss, scuttling further onto the stage, and the audience chortles along with the cast—although the cast chortling happens to be scripted.

  I belt out my number, slow, seductive, and I don’t squirm like I usually do during rehearsals when Bing pushes Guy Richards’ face between my boobs. This time I sort of jump into him, increasing his plunge into my cleavage, and I can actually feel him breathing right over my skin. I bend my neck back and let out a breathy sigh as if I’m enjoying the shit out of it because secretly I want Ryder to die a thousand slow deaths knowing his face will never again venture to be where Guy Richards’ lucky nostrils have landed.

  I make the mistake of glancing down at his mother—Rue. There she is with her freshly died auburn hair, the veins in her neck distending as she forces a smile on those dry orange lips.

  Last winter, Ryder’s mother called me a common street whore. Yes, she went there. The insult came after I sent him a private picture of me changing for a play that I was starring in, Annie. I thought it was hilarious the way I looked with my cupie-doll makeup and curly red wig with nothing else on but my pink lace bra and matching thong, so I took a selfie and shot him one. Only Ryder was at his parent’s house, and his mother somehow got ahold of my need for redheaded self-expression of the Victoria Secret variety, and, well, the word whore bubbled from her lips. O
f course, Ryder didn’t relay the message, Meg did, but when I had the big confrontation last Christmas Eve, Ruthless Rue, a.k.a. the woman I myself shall never call “mom,” didn’t bother to deny it. Instead she backed it up with a potshot at my own mother that went something like, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  Anyway, Rue Capwell is the cruelest most judgmental person on the planet, and I have no problem saying that, considering she’s my best friend’s mother because it just so happens to be a solid fact. To deny it would be akin to saying that the earth is flat, or that a shoe sale at Macy’s is a thing to be ignored.

  Meg is no angel either. When I think of the night it all came crashing down for Ryder and me, it’s her naked body that burns into my mind. I’d rather stick my face in a hot skillet than relive any part of it. There are a lot of words to describe a person like Meg, and they’re all way too nice for her—a canine of a certain gender, a delicate part of the female anatomy. But I’m not going there. I couldn’t hate her more if I tried.

  In the end, his mother and Meg wore me down. I would never be enough for his mother, and Meg would never quit. The saddest part of the equation was that Ryder never seemed to believe me when it came to his mother’s special brand of cruelty. He was always ready with an excuse, too quick to overlook her grievances. His mother and Meg created an ocean of hurt, and time after time Ryder set me down in it, surrendering me to the wind like a cheap paper boat.

  I finish up the solo portion of my number, and the ensemble joins in as we round out the scene together. God—I hate when my attention is spliced in two while I’m trying to perform. It’s a serious mindfuck because on one hand I’m flaunting my cleavage trying to convey this clever dialogue through song while I’m really off somewhere in my brain having hot make-up sex and simultaneously strangling my ex.