Chapter 19
NINETEEN
WES
“Up for another ride?”
Her words slid straight past my brain and landed in my dick. There was a whole different kind of ride I wanted her to take, and none of it involved a plastic sled.
“I just smoked you down this hill,” I said, aiming for gruff but missing. “You really want a rematch already?”
Clara’s laugh broke through the crisp air as she stood.
We climbed back up the hill in a slow, clumsy truce with the snow—her boots punching neat prints, mine dragging a little wider, the sled rope gripped tight in my hand.
My thigh burned halfway up. The socket pinched.
None of it mattered as much as it would have yesterday.
I was alive in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. Breathless, yes. Off-balance, sure. But alive.
At the top, Clara turned to face me, her breath puffing white between us. Snow clung to the ends of her hair where it stuck out from beneath her hat, melting into dark, damp strands against her cheeks. Her eyes were clear and wicked.
Her eyebrows wiggled as she lifted her chin. “Wanna race?”
“You really want to lose twice in one day?” I asked.
She snorted. “Please. You screamed the whole way down.”
“I made a tactical noise,” I said evenly. “Also, you pushed me.”
“That sounds like an excuse, Vaughn.” Her mouth curved, pure trouble. “On three?”
I rolled my eyes and dragged my sled into position beside hers, both noses aimed at the same cut in the snow where we’d carved a path.
My heart kicked harder.
Clara held my sled steady as I lowered myself down, careful with my leg, feeling for the right angle and the right weight distribution. The plastic flexed and groaned under me. I planted my boots in the snow ahead, ready to push off.
Clara dropped onto her own sled with a graceless plop that made me huff out a laugh.
She wriggled to get comfortable, cheeks pink, hat slightly crooked, scarf askew.
She looked like every winter afternoon I’d ever wanted and never thought I’d get again—messy and laughing and not careful with me in a way that felt like oxygen.
She glanced over, eyes skating down the line of my body like she was checking my posture . . . and maybe a little more. Heat slid under my skin.
“Ready?” she asked, voice breathless.
Not even close.
“Yep,” I lied.
She wiggled her ass again as she stared down the hill. “Three . . . two . . . one—”
We pushed off at the same time.
Snow rushed beneath us in a hiss. The sleds lunged forward.
The cold wind knifed at my ears, my eyes watering as the world narrowed to white and motion.
My stomach dropped again, but the edge of panic that had nearly choked me the first time was dulled now—still there, still sharp, but layered with something else.
Clara’s laughter cut through the air, bright and wild, riding just ahead of me. “Woo!”
Her sled shot slightly faster than mine, angled a little crooked as we barreled down. She twisted to look back over her shoulder at me, eyes dancing, mouth open in a grin that punched straight through my gut. The shift in her weight made the front of her sled wobble.
“Eyes forward,” I yelled, even as a laugh tore out of me. “Drive, Duchess.”
“Relax, old man,” she called back. “I’ve got this—”
The sled hit a shallow drift and skipped sideways. She went weightless, momentum jerking her off the smooth track, her body pitching toward the softer snow at the edge of our carved path.
Instinct hit before thought.
I dug in my heel as best as I could, yanked my sled toward hers, and reached out. Our sleds collided with a hollow crack of plastic. Her sled spun, twirling sideways. Clara let out a startled shriek that dissolved into laughter even as she tipped.
My good leg braced. My prosthetic held. My arm hooked around her waist on pure muscle memory.
We toppled over.
Snow exploded around us in a spray of white. My back hit the drift first, the impact cushioned by a thick layer of powder. Cold shot up my spine. The plastic sled dug into my side. A grunt punched out of me as my lungs tried to catch up.
Then there was weight.
Clara landed half on top of me, half against my chest, all warm limbs and cold gear and the familiar clatter of cheap plastic sleds knocking together.
Her knee slotted between my thighs. Her gloved hands fumbled against my jacket, fingers bunching in the fabric.
The world shuddered, then stilled, everything going oddly quiet under the thick winter air.
My arm was still around her waist, holding her tight to me from where I’d grabbed her.
Her body fit along mine, soft and solid in all the ways that rewrote my understanding of gravity.
Snow dusted her hat and the curve of her cheekbone, a few flakes caught in her lashes like glitter that hadn’t finished falling.
She blinked down at me, breath puffing against my mouth, our noses almost brushing.
“Jesus,” I breathed, pulse slamming so hard it felt like it shook the snow beneath us.
Her thighs tightened around my hip as she caught herself.
The shift dragged her over the hard line pressing against my fly, and a flash of helpless arousal shot through me so fast it stole my breath.
Every nerve I had zeroed in on where her body pressed into mine, cataloging heat and weight and the impossible fact that she was here, on top of me, laughing and alive and not flinching.
Her gaze flicked down, catching on my mouth for one raw, naked second.
The temperature between us changed.
The laughter in her eyes went molten, something darker and softer bleeding in at the edges. Her hand on my chest tightened, glove creaking as she fisted the front of my jacket like she wasn’t sure whether she meant to push me away or pull me closer.
The snow around us seemed to fall quieter. The whole world narrowed to the four inches of air between our mouths.
I could feel her breath ghost against my lower lip—warm and quick. Her nose brushed mine on a tiny exhale, an accidental nudge that knocked something loose in my chest.
We went utterly still.
Her face was right there, framed in light and snow and flushed skin, her lips parted on a breath she hadn’t finished taking.
My fingers flexed at her waist, thumb digging into the thick fabric of her coat, like I needed to convince myself she was real and not something my lonely, broken brain had conjured up on a hill.
There was nowhere to look but at her.
Nowhere to go but forward.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
We just stared, both of us breathing hard, the slope and the pines and the whole frozen world dropping away until there was nothing but her face hovering over mine.
Her mouth curved, breathless and bright. “You didn’t die or lose another limb,” she said with a laugh, voice soft and shaky. “Congrats.”
“Yet,” I managed, but it came out rough, more gravel than a joke.
She huffed another laugh, shoulders shaking. Then, before my brain could catch up, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
It was quick, clumsy—half a peck and half a victory stamp. Her lips were hot against my cold skin, soft and sure, the press lingering just long enough to burn.
My lungs forgot how to function.
She pulled back an inch, eyes wide like she’d surprised herself too.
We were still close enough that her breath slid over my mouth, warm in the freezing air.
Something low inside me snapped the fragile leash I’d been holding on myself since the day she walked through my front door with her suitcases and that damn diamond ring.
My hand moved before my good sense could.
Fingers slid up into the loose hair at the nape of her neck, the glove rough against silk-soft strands. I felt the small, startled shiver run through her when my palm settled there, thumb brushing the warm line of her skin just under the edge of her hat.
She froze—then didn’t move away.
Her gaze locked onto mine, pupils blown wide, the gray blue of her irises eaten up by black. Every version of What the hell are you doing, man? screamed in my head at once.
Hayes’s face. Clara’s ring. Our deal. Every line I wasn’t supposed to cross.
“Fuck it.” I tightened my grip and drew her down the rest of the way, closing that last impossible distance.
Our mouths met like they’d been headed there from the first second she walked into my house. The first brush of her lips against mine was soft, almost questioning. Then she made a sound—a tiny, helpless whimper right into my mouth—and whatever restraint I thought I had went up in flames.
I kissed her like a starving man.
My other hand found her hip and hauled her the last few inches onto me, dragging her fully into my body. Her chest pressed against my chest, thighs slotting over mine, the weight of her settling exactly where my body wanted her. Her mouth parted under mine, giving, opening, inviting.
I took the invitation.
My tongue slid against hers, slow at first, relearning the shape of a kiss after too damn long without one.
She tasted like cold air and cinnamon sugar, sweet and sharp.
Her fingers curled into my coat, clenching in the fabric over my shoulders like she needed something to hold on to while I devoured her.
Heat roared through me, hot enough to make the winter air feel irrelevant.
She shifted to get closer, and her hip rolled right over my cock, hard and pressing against the fly of my jeans. The drag of her body over mine sent a white-hot bolt straight through my spine. A groan tore out of my chest before I could swallow it.
Her answering whimper shot straight to my dick.
Clara leaned into me instead of away, kissing me back with a kind of hungry relief that had my head spinning. She met every stroke of my tongue with her own, matched every angle, like we’d been doing this for years instead of dancing around it for days.
Snow crunched under us as we moved, coats rasping, sleds shifting.
My hand at her hip tightened, dragging her even closer, anchoring her there so she could feel exactly what she was doing to me.
My thumb slipped under the edge of her jacket, found the warm curve of her waist through her sweater, the heat of her bleeding into my palm.
She shivered like I’d touched bare skin.
“Wes,” she breathed against my mouth, my name breaking on the syllable, half moan, half laugh, the sound tipping something over inside me.
I angled my head and deepened the kiss, taking more, giving more, letting myself want without throttling it for the first time in months. She met me there, mouth fierce and greedy, like she’d been holding back, too, and had finally decided she was done.
Everything narrowed to her.
Not the sled. Not the snow. Not the leg, or the hill, or the thousand ways this could go wrong.
Just Clara’s mouth under mine.
Clara’s body pressing me into the snow like she was staking a claim.
Clara’s breath mixing with mine, her hands sliding up to bracket my jaw through my hood, holding my face like she was just as terrified to let go.
A rush of emotion punched through the heat—sharp and terrifying in its own right.
Relief, bone deep and staggering, that I could still do this. That my body was good for more than pain and maintenance and getting from point A to point B without falling.
Gratitude, ugly and bright, that she’d pushed me, that she’d dragged me out here and told me my fear was small-dick behavior and meant it in the exact way I needed to hear.
Hope, the most dangerous of all, curling low and stubborn in my chest at the feel of her kissing me like she’d wanted this just as badly.
For the first time since the accident, I didn’t feel like a man managing symptoms or surviving another day.
Kissing Clara Darling in the snow, with her body pressed tight to mine and her mouth wrecking me in the best possible way, I felt alive.