Page 48 of Acting Merry
I’m lying half-naked on a hard blanket of frozen needles, but the answer to that is ayesthat echoes all through the Cascades. “I’ll survive. But I can’t say the same for you.”
He smiles but doesn’t move.
I don’t pursue my threat. I’m too mesmerized by him, too curious what his next move will be. He’s got me caged in. The movehasto be his.
His eyes rake over my face, and the teasing starts togive way to something more serious and intense, melting like the snow under my legs. “You know something?”
I shake my head. It’s completely empty of everything but how much I want him.
He tucks a hair behind my ear. “You drive me crazy.” He lowers his head, stopping just shy of my lips.
I can feel the haze of warmth they’re giving off, like the glow of a fire on an arctic ice cap.
I wrap my hand around the back of his head and pull his lips to mine.
There isn’t an ounce of protest or resistance from him, and the heat of his mouth meets mine. It’s a small contact point, but my entire body floods with warmth, melting me from the inside.
His lips are insistent and real. He wants me. I can feel it. There’s no audience driving this, no plan we agreed on beforehand. It’s pure, mutual desire.
Against all reason, I shiver.
He deepens the kiss, then slips his arm behind my shoulders and rolls us to the side. His lips never leave mine, but the second towel drapes over the exposed parts of my skin before he lowers my back to the ground again.
Unlike me, he’s unprotected from the elements, and I’m torn between a desire to pull back and tell him we should continue this inside and the fear that, if I stop this, it’ll be the end of it.
It can’t end. I need it to go on and on and on.
I try to move my hand to his cheek, but it collides withhis. He slides his fingers in the spaces between mine, then pins my arm next to my head.
The wintry air bites and nips everywhere it can, but his mouth is fire, and I have no idea whether the cold or heat is more dangerous.
He pulls back just enough that our breath tangles in front of our lips. “We should stop.” But he kisses me again, and I make it my work to convince him stopping isn’t an option.
The brief break in our warm kisses must have been a reminder to my body, since it shudders, rattling me from head to toe.
Cole pulls back, but I keep my eyes closed a little longer.
When I open them, there’s a little smile on his lips.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get you warm before you freeze solid.” He pushes himself up, then helps me, snatching the towel that tries to drop to the ground. Grabbing my hand, he tugs me to the hot tub.
We’re not more than twenty steps from the tub, but with the whipping wind and none of Cole’s body heat shielding me, it feels like an eon before we finally get there.
“This is gonna sting,” he warns me, leading me into the water and wincing.
It hardly registers. I’m still reliving those moments in the snow.
I’ve found a new love for the cold.
eleven
Cole
A mug in my hand,I pause at the back door, looking through the glass pane.
Reese is curled up under a blanket on the deck couch. She holds her cup of cocoa with hands hidden by the sleeves of my gray sweatshirt. The rim of the mug is pressed against her mouth like she’s inhaling the steam while she looks up at the sky, a fire burning in the grate in front of her.
It’s wild what different emotions the sight of Reese in my sweater elicits compared to when Bree wore it. It’s just a sweater, but it’smysweater, and it’s like my brain is interpreting Reese being in it the same way.Mine.
