Free Frigid by Jennifer L. Armentrout Page A

you’re doing,” Kyler said, catching one of my hands and holding it down in the snow, next to my head. His fingers circled my wrist in a firm grip.
    I wiggled under him. “Yes, I do.”
    His eyes closed again and when they reopened, they were like black pools. “You’re so drunk, Syd.”
    “Nah-uh.” I managed to get a leg out from underneath his, but then he sat up, pulling me along with him. A second later, I was on my feet and the sky did a little jig. “Whoa.”
    “Yeah, whoa, exactly,” he said, his voice deeper than I’d ever heard it. “Let’s go home.”
    “But—”
    “Sydney,” he snapped, and I flinched. “You are drunk. The only thing that I’m going to let happen is me getting you home.”
    There was that tone again—the kind that said “shut up and do as I say.” Usually I bucked at that, but I was shocked into listening. He took my hand again and started walking back to the house. I stumbled alongside him, confusion eating away at me along with the tequila. I didn’t understand. He was attracted to me. He’d said I was beautiful and that he’d always thought I was beautiful, and I’d felt him. Like I felt how attracted he was against me. There’d been no hiding that, but he’d rejected me.
    Kyler had rejected me.
    And he didn’t reject any female.
    I wanted to cry—to sit down in the snow and cry. Humiliated, confused, and still more than a little horny, I forced myself to stay quiet and to keep walking. Both were equally hard. Diarrhea of the mouth was building in my throat. No good could come from that. It took forever to get to the house and by then I couldn’t feel my hands or legs and I didn’t think the snow had anything to do with that.
    Kyler let go of my hand as he turned on the lights. The harsh glare hit me hard, causing the room to make like a Tilt-a-Whirl. He was right there—perfect timing too, because I was sure my legs had stopped working.
    Lifting me up, he cradled me close to his chest as he started toward the stairs. “You shouldn’t have drunk so much, Syd. There was no reason for that.”
    I burrowed my face into his shoulder. Being admonished for drinking too much by Kyler Quinn was the height of irony and embarrassment, but he was right. I was so drunk I could admit I was drunk.
    Kyler said nothing as he carried me upstairs and to the room I was staying in. He said something when he placed me down on the bed, but the moment my head hit the pillow, I was blissfully and luckily out cold.
Kyler
    What in the fuck just happened?
    Seriously. I was waiting for some divine intervention to offer up an explanation.
    I stared down at Syd, totally convinced that when I entered Snowshoe I must’ve walked into some kind of warped reality where seeing Syd half-naked occurred, watching her get drunk off her ass, and then having her try to kiss me was run-of-the-mill.
    I was absolutely struck stupid, and kind of pissed, too. If I hadn’t been with her tonight, she would’ve hooked up with some random ski instructor. And fucking Zach at that? Acid burned in my stomach. Holy shit, that didn’t sit well with me at all.
    And I was also sort of turned on, but then again, she had just been wiggling in my lap like any number of the girls back at school did. And she’d felt really damn good wiggling in my lap—too damn good, and real hard to turn down.
    Man, I had no business even thinking about this. Of course I was attracted to her, but I couldn’t go there, because if I really started to acknowledge that, then I’d have to get real about other things.
    I scrubbed my hand over my face. Syd was drunk, really drunk. The girl needed to stay away from Jose.
    She shifted, her brows pinching as she whimpered softly.
    I was by her side before I even realized I’d moved. “Syd?”
    No response from her, and I could tell she wasn’t comfortable. Straightening, I bit back a curse. I couldn’t leave her like this. And what if she got sick? Grabbing a pillow from the head of