Chapter 20
TWENTY
CLARA
Cold air burned in my lungs, each breath a sharp drag, but everywhere else was heat—wild and disorganized, pulsing under my skin like I’d swallowed a live wire. Snow prickled along the back of my neck, sneaking under my coat and melting down my spine. I barely registered it.
All my nerve endings had narrowed to two points.
His hand on my hip.
His palm at the back of my neck.
Wes’s fingers were still there, heavy and warm through my coat, holding me like he hadn’t decided yet whether to let go. His body was solid beneath me, the sled buried somewhere under the tangle of our limbs, his chest rising hard against mine as we tried to remember how to breathe.
The first coherent thought that made it through the static was not What did I just do?
It was Oh my god, I want more.
Heat throbbed low in my core, deep and insistent.
My thighs pressed tight around his like they were trying to keep him there, my muscles aware of every inch of him in a way my brain absolutely could not handle.
I could feel the imprint of his mouth on mine, the echo of his tongue against mine, the way he’d groaned into the kiss like I’d given him back a piece of himself.
My fingers were still fisted in the front of his coat, knuckles buried in the thick fabric like I’d gone down with the ship and taken him with me.
This is bad. This is so, so bad.
“So that was . . .” My voice came out high and breathless, too bright, like I was narrating someone else’s choices. “Probably a terrible idea.”
It sounded like a joke, but I used it like armor.
Under me, Wes’s chest expanded with a harsh inhale. His hand didn’t immediately leave my hip. His fingers flexed once like he was testing his own grip on reality, and then loosened.
“Yeah.” His breath puffed white between us, the word rough, humorless. “Definitely . . . not smart.”
The speed of his agreement hit my ribs like a small, mean punch.
I nodded so quickly I probably looked like a bobblehead. “Right. Of course. Adrenaline.” My laugh came out thin and skittered off into the open air. “Post-sledding brain malfunction.”
My body had the audacity to disagree.
Heat pulsed between my legs, sharp and rhythmic, like my nerves were frayed.
My nipples dragged against the inside of my bra, tight and aching, every part of me cataloging the solid weight of him beneath me, the way his thigh was still slotted between mine, the way his mouth had felt like a problem I wanted to have again.
His thumb dragged once at my waist, a tiny, traitorous stroke I might’ve imagined if my heartbeat wasn’t pounding in my ears at the exact same time.
On the surface, we were two adults acknowledging a mistake.
Inside, I knew that wasn’t what any of that had been.
I pried my hands free of his coat one finger at a time and pushed up, snow squeaking under my knee. The world tilted as I scrambled off his lap, boots slipping before they caught, heart still trying to climb out of my throat.
“Okay,” I blurted, brushing at my sleeves like that would erase the last sixty seconds. Snowflakes scattered off my coat and onto his chest. “Well. You’re alive. Sledding achievement unlocked.”
Shut up, Clara.
I swiped at the snow clinging to my legs, dusting it off a little too hard, like I could scrub away the way my body was still buzzing. My pulse hadn’t gotten the memo that we were going back to being reasonable human beings.
Behind me, I felt more than saw him sit up. I heard the low rustle of his coat and the faint scrape of the sled against packed snow.
I didn’t look at his mouth.
I didn’t look at his hands.
I fixed my eyes on the hill instead—the track we’d carved through the untouched white, the faint groove where the sled had flown, the path that had led directly to me doing the exact thing I’d promised myself I would not do.
“Come on,” I said, voice wobbling only a little as I grabbed the sled rope. “Let’s get back before we freeze to death.”
Or do anything else incredibly stupid.
My heart thudded hard and hot against my ribs.
I turned up the hill, snow crunching under my boots, trying to move like we’d just survived a minor collision and nothing else—like my mouth hadn’t belonged to his a few seconds ago, like I wasn’t already wondering how I was supposed to live in the same house as a man whose kiss felt like the first good decision I’d made in a long time.
Every step back up the hill felt like trying to walk a straight line after spinning in circles.
The sled rope bit into my glove where I’d wrapped it around my hand, the plastic dragging over the packed track we’d carved. My thighs burned from the climb. My lungs stung from the cold and from the fact that my heart had not calmed the hell down.
My lips tingled. My mouth tasted like him. Every time my brain relaxed for half a second, the kiss replayed in high definition.
His hand on my neck, fingers spread, holding me like he meant it.
The rough drag of his mouth over mine, hungry and sure and nothing like an accident.
The way his body had pressed up into mine, like his restraint had finally snapped and I’d been standing on the fault line.
Beside me, Wes tromped up the hill in stubborn, measured strides.
His sled rope looped around his hand too.
His breath came out in steady, controlled exhales, fogging in front of his face.
His jaw was set, the line of his mouth back to neutral like he hadn’t just kissed me so thoroughly I was going to be mentally revisiting it in the nursing home.
We crested the slope and hit the flatter stretch of yard. The house glowed at the far end of the property—big windows lit warm, roof shouldering a fresh cap of snow, smoke ghosting from the chimney. The path we’d trudged out was already softening, edges blurring as flakes drifted down again.
The warmth of the house hit me like a wall.
The door shut behind us with a soft thud, swallowing the bright white world and replacing it with heat and the faint smell of breakfast that had sunk into the walls.
I kicked my boots against the mat, snow thudding off in clumps. Mittens went into my pocket. My fingers felt clumsy, half frozen, half fried from everything else.
My mouth still tingled.
Wes stepped in behind me, crowding the narrow mudroom with big shoulders and cold air, the whisper of his breath brushing the back of my neck as he reached past to shove the door all the way closed. His coat rustled. Snow slid off his sleeves and hit the floor with soft, wet plops.
We were both suddenly very interested in the practical business of having bodies.
I peeled my hat off, static making my hair lift and cling in a chaotic halo. A chunk fell into my eyes and I shoved it back, fingers trembling just enough that I hoped it looked like cold instead of kissing-your-brother’s-best-friend-on-a-hill shakes.
Across from me, Wes’s movements were slower than usual as he worked his coat off his shoulders. Controlled. Deliberate. I watched the way his jaw tightened when he tugged his sleeve free, like his muscles were protesting the extra work.
He was steady, though.
Solid, even as he shifted his weight to toe his boots off. The prosthetic thudded lightly on the mat. No flinch. No wince. A small, stupid coil of pride unfurled in my chest.
We both bent to wrestle with laces at the same time and nearly knocked heads.
“Sorry,” I blurted, jerking back.
“You’re fine,” he said, and his hand bumped my shoulder in the tight space as he straightened.
Every brush, every contact in the cramped mudroom felt magnified. His arm along mine when he reached for the hook. My hip grazing his when I stepped sideways. The ghost of his mouth still imprinting heat on my lips while the air around us tried to pretend nothing had happened.
Instinct screamed at me to bolt.
Up the stairs. Into the safety of my room. Pull the covers over my head and pretend the kiss had been a weird, hyper-specific hallucination brought on by cold exposure and sled-related near-death experiences.
Greg’s face surfaced for a heartbeat—not as some great lost love, but as the friend I’d almost married, knowing he wanted a different kind of life and a different kind of love than I could ever give him.
I’d called it helping, called it practical, while I smiled and said I was fine and let us both hide behind a lie until it had nearly swallowed me whole.
All those truths I’d been too scared to say—this isn’t the life I want, this isn’t the right kind of love for either of us—had burned the back of my throat for months. I refused to make myself that small ever again.
My heart hammered, but I squared my shoulders anyway.
If we left this hanging with nothing labeled, I was going to implode in on myself like a star.
“So,” I said finally, pitching my voice a little too loud, a little too bright, the way you do when you’re trying to sound casual and land somewhere near deranged instead. “We’re good to blame adrenaline, right? Near-death sledding. Temporary lapse in judgment.”
I winced at my own phrasing.
Lapse in judgment. Great. Nothing sexier than calling a man’s mouth a mistake.
Snow squeaked under my boots as we walked. I thought maybe he wouldn’t answer, that he’d just let it hang there in the air like a weird-shaped balloon and pretend he hadn’t heard me.
Then Wes huffed out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a humorless laugh.
“Pretty sure we were nowhere near death,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “But yeah. Adrenaline works. We don’t have to make it a thing.”
It was absurd how much those words managed to sting.
My body had absolutely made it a thing. My pulse, my mouth, the way every nerve ending had sat up and taken notes the second his tongue slid against mine—they’d all voted unanimously. This was very much a thing.