I’ll never try to understand how she’s managed to tilt my universe on its axis. Alara has woven her way into my heart so effortlessly, so easily, and I never stood a chance at protecting myself from her.
I wrap both arms around her waist and spin us around, thesnow falling even harder around us and cocooning us in a bubble of growing trust and deep devotion.
She laughs, tilting her head back, and when I set her back down on her feet, she’s staring up at me with that smile she reserves for me. I tilt her chin up with my knuckles, lowering my lips to hers in a soft, gentle kiss. Fireworks explode inside me, lighting me up and weakening me at the knees.
Our tongues meet, slowly, sensually, and there’s something different about this moment, yet I can’t pinpoint what’s changed. I keep her torso flush to mine, pouring so many unspoken feelings into our kiss. I’m scared of voicing them, of admitting them out loud, but I hope she can understand them from the way I kiss her like the world’s ending.
She kisses with equal intensity, and I fucking plummet into an abyss of adoration.
I can’t climb to the surface.
I’m drowning, I’m falling, and I want her to come with me.
The universe might be laughing at me right now. I didn’t want this to be anything more than casual sex, yet here I am realizing that my feelings for her are deep, uncontrollable. I was a fool to think I’d be able to be nothing more than her friend. I knew, from the start, that she’d ruin me.
We pull apart, and she pecks the tip of my cold nose. “Want to know something?” she whispers.
“Yeah?”
“You’re my favorite person.”
My heart skips several beats. It’s an admission that confirms she’s on the same page as me. “And you’re mine, Alara. You don’t understand how much I adore you.” I think another word is resting on the tip of my tongue, trying to batter its way out of my system, but I can’t bring myself to say it.
She buries her face in my coat, and for the remainder of the song, we stay like this, tangled and safe in each other’s arms.
When the next song starts playing, she steps out of my hold.
“Where are we?” I ask, finally looking around. My breath loses itself in my lungs as I marvel at the view. We’ve stopped on top of a hill, in the middle of pine trees covered in snow. On the horizon, we can see a part of the city, but what fascinates me is the view we have of the resort and its sheer beauty.
At the snow park, several riders, looking like tiny dots, are practicing their skills under the bright glow of the lamps. A stabbing sensation punches me in the heart – I wish I were with them. I wish I were one of them, but if I keep on believing everything will be alright, I’ll be back soon.
“This is my favorite place in town,” Alara says. “My safe place. My getaway. I like to come here, even in the summer, to read or just stare at the view. It’s quiet, as if the world isn’t too loud when I’m up in these hills.”
You’re my safe place,my heart screams.
Christ, I’m so far gone it’s not even funny.
I shake my head, completely in awe of what I’m looking at. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something quite this beautiful.
“This is insane.” I breathe out with disbelief. “Breathtaking.”
When I turn to Alara, she’s already staring at me, her eyes glowing with a tenderness that renders me speechless for a moment. She’s so impossibly, unbelievably stunning that I find it hard to breathe. It’s a privilege to have her look at me this way, as though she’s admiring her favorite painting.
“Shit, don’t look at me like that,” I huff, with a quiet chuckle. “You make me so nervous that I’m going to forget how to speak or something.” I have no ability to control myself when I’m with her, so idiocies like that one just get blurted out by my lizard brain. She makes me lose my sense of everything, and when she makes me nervous as fuck like this? I can’t manage to think properly at all.
A sweet laugh bubbles out of her. She knows it’s a copingmechanism – to joke around and flirt with her when my emotions get intense. I’ve never had to tell her, because she can read me easily.
Cupping her cheeks, I rapidly peck her lips. “How can I thank you for showing me this place?”
“Use your imagination.”
Just like that, at the sound of the intonation she’s used – dripping with seduction – my mood shifts, and I’m intent on leaving all the emotional shit behind and taking her into the backseat of the car.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I say with a smirk. Slamming the passenger-side door, I open the one to the backseat and push her inside the car.
She giggles, but makes haste to take off her coat. Her hair is full of snowflakes and her cheeks are red, but her eyes are glinting with a desire that has my cock hardening in a heartbeat.
Even though no one’s around, I reach forward to lock the car from the inside, and when I plop back down beside Alara, she’s already out of her boots and socks, climbing on my lap.
