Page 19 of Snow Much Trouble
“Why, where are you going?” Lauren’s arm shoots out and grabs me by the wrist. “You’re not going outside, are you?”
I fight the urge to grin. Very brave, huh?
“What? No. I’m going to the kitchen. Where the snacks and the water and the marshmallows live.”
“Oh. Okay.” Lauren seems to realize she’s got a death grip on my wrist because she looks at her hand like it’s done her an injustice and drops it back into her lap.
If she wasn’t so damn cute and vulnerable right now, I would tease her. Instead, I say, “We’re not going to freeze to death.”
She nods, but she also bites her bottom lip and looks less than convinced.
That lip is distracting. I want to sink my own teeth into the tender flesh. I want to kiss her until those lips part and then tease my tongue inside her mouth to entwine with hers.
I want to…
“Bring the bourbon,” she says. “It will make time go faster.”
“Or just knock you unconscious.”
“Even better.”
Lauren is clearly genuinely concerned.
I have a double mission now to both keep her warm and distract her.
I add another log to the fire as I shift around her legs.
It’s meant to reassure her but she says, “Are we going to run out of wood?”
I squat down in front of her, stare deep into her eyes.
Her own eyes widen. Her lips part.
Then I brush my thumb over her cheek, lean in and…
“No. We’re not,” I say.
Then I stand up, making sure my thigh brushes her shoulder as I do.
I hear her gasp but I don’t turn around as I make my way to the kitchen with a flashlight, grinning.
Gathering up two armfuls of supplies, I return to find her staring into the dancing flames of the fire. I hand her a tumbled filled with bourbon and watch her take a sip.
“Want to play a game?” I ask.
“That sounds like the beginning of every horror movie ever written.”
That makes me laugh. “Fair enough. But maybe we could find a deck of cards or play twenty questions or…”
Have sex in front of the fire.
All fun things. Sex being the funnest.
“Hm?” Lauren glances over at me, clearly distracted.
She’s lost in thought and I don’t think it’s about how much she can’t wait to get naked with me. These are deep thoughts.
“Are you okay?”
