Nelly wasn’t far away at all. He supposed she couldn’t be in a cottage as small as the one she lived in, but he was filled with a vicious surge of pleasure at the sight of her curled up on her couch a couple feet away, a fluffy knitted blanket draped around her shoulders and her knees drawn up tight to her chest.
He didn’t even try to hide the grin that spread across his face. Just looking at her made him feel so…fizzyinside?Wait, what—
“Hey, Clark,” she squeaked, eyes big in her heart-shaped face.
Hot damn. She knows my name!Why even that small acknowledgment made his cock jerk behind his fly, he really couldn’t say.
Sucking a deep breath of her, he replied on a sigh, “Hi, sugar. Nice to finally meet you.”
There was a beat of silence. Nelly watched him, clearly waiting for something, but Clark had no idea what. His head was too full of… fizz, which made thinking difficult. Instead of trying too hard, he sat up a little straighter and looked around, taking in what she’d done with the old cottage with an ever-widening smile.
Sparkles and colors everywhere.
She’d swapped out all of her predecessor’s old furniture for new stuff in fun, bright colors: a lemon yellow couch, a pink area rug, a white kitchen table speckled with holographic flecks, even a lime green toaster. Paired with her decorations for the holiday, it all made for an explosion of color and light. If Nelly smelled sweet and bright and delicious, her sense of stylelookedthat way. He loved it.
“Like what you’ve done with the place.” Had his voice come out a little slurred? No, that couldn’t be right. He hadn’t gottendrunkdrunk in months, and he sure as shit wouldn’t have driven over to Nelly’s house blitzed off his ass.
I drove to Nelly’s house.
Clark looked back at her. She had shrunk in on herself in the seconds since he saw her last. Nelly really didn’t look pleased to see him. In fact, she looked like she was waiting for a bomb to blow up in her face.
Fix it. Fix it now.
Instinct made him restless, unsettled. He didn’t like that wary look on her face. He wanted her to be closer. He wanted smiles and laughter and maybe, definitely a kiss.
I kissed Nelly.
The memory was a series of blurry snapshots bombarding him at once: Nelly speaking softly to him; Nelly’s wavy hair sliding along his jaw; Nelly staring down at him with wide eyes; Nelly’s breath puffing against his lips; Nelly’s squeak of surprise as he skimmed his lips over hers, tasting, asking,please—
“Do you remember what happened?”
Clark flushed so hot, he wondered if he glowed as bright as the fire behind him. “I think I do, yeah. Gods, Nelly, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have— I never should have touched you without your permission.”
Nelly made a choked sound. Her little hands tightened in the blanket as she pulled it taut around her shoulders. “What are you— Thekiss?”
Clark frowned, wondering what else she thought he meant. What else had hedone?
Raising a hand to his pounding head, he replied, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve never kissed a girl without her say-so in my life. ’Specially wouldn’t kissyou.”
Did he have a bandage on his head? Clark pressed the pads of his fingers against the rubbery bandage stuck to his forehead. He must have had a nasty knock to require something like that, but even more concerning was the way the skin of his hand, hidden under his winter gloves, feltraw.
He’d been hurt often enough to know that having feeling in his hands at all was a good thing, since it meant the flesh hadn’t died of frostbite or suffered some other nerve damage, but it wasn’t particularly nice, either.
Clark was so busy trying to figure out what in the world was going on that he almost missed the way Nelly flinched and pressed herself back into the cushions of her yellow couch.
“What?” he asked, suddenly laser focused on his witch. The static in his mind went quiet as he examined her stricken expression. “What’s wrong, sugar?”
Her lower lip trembled, but before he could start to panic, she appeared to gird herself enough to say, “So, first off, I don’t know exactly what happened, but I can make some educated guesses. I don’t know if you remember, but you— I’m not sure what you were doing, honestly, but you were driving your truck down my road and I think you hit a patch of ice. Your truck hit a tree.”
He’d been in a car accident?Yeah, that sounds right.He had the vaguest snatches of memory. He knew he’d been driving; that it was snowing. He remembered wanting to see Nelly — no surprise, since healwayswanted to see her — and he thought he recalled having to leave because she was busy.
Not busy. On the phone. She was talking to her parents and had been crying.
The memory sharpened. Yes, he’d swung by thinking the weather would keep her indoors. He wanted to bring her a gift and invite her over for Moonset, but she’d been so distraught that he decided to try again the next day.
He remembered being heartsick for her as he climbed into his truck and then… nothing.
“Damn,” he muttered, absently picking at the strap that kept his right glove tight to his wrist. He needed the glovesoff.“Ice, huh? That’s embarrassing. I’ve been driving icy roads since I was twelve.”
