“Uh-huh. I’ll have to show it to you later.”
I ran straight into the trees where I’d last seen him, still carrying my snowballs as I searched.
He wasn’t there.
I crept forward, not wanting to give my location away.
I searched for a good two minutes, not finding a single clue to where he’d gone.
“Boo.”
I whipped around to face the voice behind me. And there he stood. Tall and muscular and almost scary-looking. But there was no way in the world I could ever be scared of Lanche. He was just too innocent.
He grinned at me, and before I could say anything, he splatted a snowball right in my face.
I spluttered and backed up a step before a laugh came out of my lips. “You cheater!”
“How was that cheating? I didn’t use my magic at all that time.”
I laughed harder, dropping one snowball so I could wipe the snow off my face and look at the cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater. “You ass.”
He snorted. “You started it.”
I shook my head, then grabbed a snowball from the pile in my other arm and threw it at him. I must’ve surprised him because he didn’t move, and it hit him right in the shoulder. He gaped, and I quickly threw the rest of my pile right at him in one big heap.
Most of the snowballs hit him and sprayed snow everywhere.
Our eyes met.
A crinkle appeared in the corner of his eyes, and I couldn’t help but laugh. And then we were both cracking up.
As we both calmed down, I caught his attention again, and it felt like I fell right into those pretty reddish-brown orbs. Like I could get lost in them. Lost in him.
I stepped forward, almost hypnotized by the beauty of his eyes, the openness of his face, the sweetness of him.
My gaze moved down to his lips, and an overwhelmingwanthit me. I wanted to taste those lips. I wanted to press my entirebody against his and feel those muscles. I wanted to feel the rasp of his whiskers beneath my fingertips.
My body moved closer of its own accord, but the second my gloved hand touched his arm, I felt a sort of pulse—was it magic?—and it snapped me out of it.
I cleared my throat as I stepped back. “Um… yeah, so you, uh… wanted to ice skate?”
He was quiet for a few seconds before he took a deep breath. “Yeah, that’s… yeah. Let’s skate.”
We walked down to the lake together, and I grimaced. “What if it’s not frozen all the way?” I knew the likelihood of that was very minimal considering how cold it’d been over the last few weeks, but I’d always been told not to walk on a frozen lake since there was no way of knowing if there were any thin spots.
Lanche grinned at me, and he looked a little excited. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it.” He stepped up to the edge of the lake, squatted down, and rested his gloved hands on top of the ice. I felt a jolt of his icy magic swirl through the air, and I wasn’t surprised at all when snowflakes started falling down around him. Of course, his magic was as beautiful as his house… as beautiful as he was. A flash of his magic pulsed through the entire lake in a small blast before dissipating.
He stood and faced me, still smiling. “There, frozen solid.”
My eyes widened. “You can freeze an entire lake that quickly?”
He shrugged. “Um, yeah. It’s no big deal. This lake isn’t even that big.”
I lifted a brow at him because what did he mean it wasn’t that big? The lake was so wide at one point, it was nearly impossible to see the trees on the other side.
But whatever. No sense in getting worked up on how powerful he was. He was obviously uber powerful, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it when I’d already said it was fineto stay out here… alone with him. Just the two of us. Completely separated from anyone else, from society at all.
In a place where no one would ever hear my screams.
