Page 31 of Puck to the Heart
A group of laughing college students sped past us, nearly knocking me down in the process, breaking the perfect incandescent bubble of Ash and me.
The cold, the unnatural, miserable, lowest level of hell cold Ash made me forget while we skated must’ve frozen my brain, because I blinked and found myself outside the barrier.
“You’re freezing.” Ash’s hands gripped mine, squeezing until I looked at him instead.
With my jacket slung over his arm, it was no wonder. “’M f-fine.”
“Barnes, you’re shivering.”
Even after he helped me into my jacket, I couldn’t stop. “It’s fine. I’ll warm up on the way home.”
“Absolutely not. You’re with me, now.”
Was there another layer to his words? Or was it only a kiss? We didn’t discuss anything; we’d just had our tongues down each other’s throats.
In public.
Oh, God.
How did I end up here, dangling on the end of a string, following him in a daze, not knowing what I wanted? Did Iwantit to be more? Was something between us transmuted with a brush of our lips?
Something new connected us; delicate like a drop of water or the lightest breath could sever it.
Delicate, I was not. I was more of a battering ram, usually too loud or too abrasive. Too opinionated and hostile. Too much but not enough. Delicate only served in my work; there was no place for it in my life.
But I yearned to protect this fragile thing. Cup it in my hands and hide it from the world. Like the concerned tilt of his head… I wanted to bottle it and take it out on my worst days.
“W-what?” The ache in my jaw as I tried and failed to keep my teeth from clacking together was nothing compared to the ache in my chest.
“Barnes—Olivia.” Ash wrapped his hands around my shoulders, drawing me closer, all traces of joking aside. He had the same deadly focused look he wore when he stared down opponents on the ice, and being the object of such scrutiny was exquisite, almost painful in its intensity.
But maybe not in a bad way.
Slowly, he leaned closer, his breath mingling with mine in a tiny cloud between us. The rough pads of his fingers traced beneath my jaw, tipping my face up to his. “Let me take you home.”
Brakes screeched, leaving scorch marks on the highway in my mind, uncertain if he meanttake me home.
At my scowl, he laughed softly, leaning nearer. Of their own volition, my eyes drifted from his sinful, carbon-black eyes to lips still too close to mine. “Your place then. I don’t have to come inside.”
Dazed, I nodded. The jacket slowly worked its magic, but I still shivered as I followed Ash to his car. He opened the door, helping me into the stupidly high passenger seat, and then paused for a moment with the door open, shucking off his jacket, placing the puffer over my trembling legs. Residual body heat sank through the layers of clothes, and I let out a pleased sound at the heat. Blame it on the icicles forming in my brain.
With a sigh, my head sank back against the headrest, relaxing until Ash hauled himself into the driver’s seat. The overhead light cast a sickly yellow hue over us, and I blinked sleepily as he gripped the shifter, the skin of his forearms exposed for the first time since we met.
And, seriously, forearms on a man were the height of eroticism, everyone who’d ever read a romance novel knew that.
But Ash’s—he had?—
“Tattoos?” The unbidden question slipped out and was as involuntary as the stroke of my fingertips over his skin.
Warm fingers covered mine for a second as he laid his other hand atop where mine rested on his arm, and he cleared his throat as he glanced in the rearview mirror. “Yeah.”
“They’re beautiful.” It came out as a reverent whisper.
“Thanks.” The blade of a knife might be duller than the edge in his voice, but I didn’t know why.
Black, vining floral tattoos snaked up the muscled length of his arms, disappearing into the stretched black sleeve of his t-shirt. The line work was exquisite, thin and precise, with countless tiny details.
I suddenly longed to trace each line with my fingertips, to see how far they extended beneath his shirt, to map their route across bare skin.
