Page 66 of A Winter Wedding Adventure
Her doubtful expression pinched, but he wouldn’t give up yet. ‘I’m not asking you to just hand me the axe so I can try to swing it. You’d have to actually teach me. But I’m asking you to.’
He waited, imagining Alessandra laughing off a similar request with a joke about the wisdom of handing him an axe. Kira didn’t laugh.
‘All right,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Come here.’
Hot blood tingled under Kira’s skin and every cell in her body felt warm and alive and the sensation was so different from what she’d been feeling twenty minutes ago that she kept asking herself if it was real.
After the mortification of everyone discovering her wretched history and the reason for her infantile resentment of weddings, after the relentless confusion of her feelings about Mattia, now she was smiling, her chest floating and expanding – like the shock of sunlight after yesterday’s blizzard.
‘Allora, okay, I line it up.’
Mattia – a light sheen of sweat on his forehead and his coat discarded to reveal those wide, bony shoulders – placed the axe blade carefully onto the piece of wood on the chopping block, matching a crack in the grain. Standing back, a firm nod was all the encouragement she gave him.
His words were on repeat in her mind: It’s just me. He accepted her, trusted her, liked her. But that statement was more dangerous to her state of mind than anything any other man had ever said to her. Mattia Bentivoglio wasn’t just anything.
Taking a deep breath, he raised the axe over his head and let it fall back down as she’d shown him, the weight lodging the blade into the wood. He tried to haul it out again, but it was stuck.
‘Oh,’ he said with a disappointed flick of his eyebrows.
‘That’s fine. Just lift the whole piece and drop it down again.’
With a grunt of effort, he hauled up the axe – and the wood with it – and slammed it back down, rending the wood with a creak and a clang. He jumped in surprise and dropped the axe, the handle landing on his foot.
‘Cazzo!’
‘There, you did it,’ Kira said placidly.
Lifting his gaze to hers, his eyes bright with disbelief, he said, ‘But that was—’ Taking in the wood, neatly split into two pieces along the crack, he cleared his throat and tried again. ‘I did it.’
Picking up one of the pieces and setting it onto the block, she fetched the axe for him and pressed it into his soft hands. ‘It needs one more split.’
The way he stared at her as he nodded seemed to open up a world she’d refused to acknowledge.
She nudged his waist. ‘Stand a little farther back and keep your arms straight.’ Her hand seemed involuntarily drawn down his arm to his wrist and she was glad he was the one holding the axe, because her knees were unsteady.
It’s just you. When he nodded again, his hair fell over his forehead, tempting her fingers, but she forced herself to step back. He wanted to learn to chop wood. He certainly didn’t need her to teach him anything about kissing. He was very good at that already.
Concentrating with his bottom lip between his teeth, he regarded the wood earnestly as Kira studied him, quietly falling apart. Setting the blade onto the wood, he set up another swing and brought the blade down. He flinched again, powerfully, but the wood split obediently into two. The sound must have been ringing in his ears.
He looked up with a grin, the sun winking off the hoop in his ear and highlighting his angular features, and Kira tumbled, sprawling through her mess of feelings.
It’s you. While part of her wallowed in the burn of recognition, the sensible part panicked, warned her not to get caught up in this whirlwind. She was stressed, that’s all. Not in love. That would be ridiculous.
He seemed thankfully oblivious to the tectonics inside her. Lifting a fist, he tensed the muscles in his arm with a pout. ‘There! I can keep everyone warm! My first survival skill.’
She chuckled. ‘You can keep everyone warm for about an hour. Well done.’ Taking his hand, she rubbed her thumb over his palm, enjoying the way his smile dimmed and that brightness lit his gaze again at the touch. ‘But don’t give yourself blisters.’
Before she could take her hand away, he slipped his fingers between hers and her stomach swooped.
‘Are you suggesting I have soft hands?’
Very soft. She untangled her fingers while she still could. ‘I don’t think I’m supposed to be letting the wedding guests do this,’ she said over her shoulder as she went to fetch another chunk of wood.
But before she could get there, a gentle blow to her shoulder stopped her in her tracks and a shock of cold seeped down her neck. She whirled around, her mouth falling open in surprise.
‘Did you just?—?’
His studied, innocent look wasn’t convincing in the slightest.
