Her eyes warmed as she continued buttoning her coat all the way up to her throat. Shoving mittens on each hand, she laughed and held them up to me. “I could never be restricted to two colors of clothes. Just these babies alone have ten colors. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a football coach.”
I smiled at the image of her on the field, wearing a headset and an orange polo, shouting orders behind a clipboard. But getting a glimpse of what would be under her polo made the picture more entertaining, so I kept my mouth shut. It took me ten seconds to bundle up before I assessed her, making sure she was covered everywhere. “You’re absolutely sure about coming with me?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You lead the way. I don’t want to walk too fast and lose you.”
She saluted and waltzed toward the front door, pausing for a deep breath before opening it.
The frigid air stung every exposed part of my skin, and I winced.We shouldn’t be doing this.
Becca didn’t stop. She marched down the stairs and headed next door toward the sorority house. The wind whipped snow almost at a horizontal angle, and ironically, I was glad her coat stood out against the white.I’ll see easily if she falls.
We walked for a full minute before a bitch of a wind gust hit and I had to rebalance my weight into a crouching position. I covered my eyes with my arm, and by the time I looked back up, Becca was half-buried in the snow. My heart leaped into my throat.Shit.
“Becca!” I bent to my knees and slid one arm under her legs and the other around her rib cage, lifting her slightly.
She scrunched her nose and pressed her lips together so tightly that they looked white.
“Do we need to head back?” I asked.
She shook her head and pointed to her ear.
I moved closer, almost pressing my nose into her face. Despite the blizzard blowing around us, she smelled like vanilla, and a surge of lust went through me. “You sure you can go on?”
She mirrored the gesture, bringing her mouth so close to my ear her lips almost grazed the outside. “Yes. The wind knocked me down, and I bruised my butt.” She reached around and rubbed the back of her thigh.
“You’re a petite thing. I imagine it wasn’t hard.”
The expression in her eyes changed, and she gave me a warm, inviting look. But I didn’t get time to react to it. Another gust blew at us, and I pulled her closer to my chest, hoping to block her from the worst of it. Her grip was almost painful, but I didn’t dare adjust my hold on her until it passed. Ten, twenty, thirty seconds went by.
The wind finally relented, and I didn’t ask before quickly placing her on her feet. “Walk fast, Becca.”
I kept my hands on her shoulders the rest of the way and breathed a huge sigh of relief when we reached the front door. Brushing past her, I pulled it open against the wind and gently shoved her inside before following behind. “Damn.”
“It’s b-bad out there.” Her words trembled out of her almost-blue lips.
My first thought was to kiss them. For warmth.
Get it together.
“The candles are up in my room,” she said.
“Let’s hustle then and get our asses back to the fire.”
Her jaw shook—from what I assumed was cold because mine was also shaking. She bolted up the stairs in all her colors.
“Becca, slow down. You’ve gotten stabbed by an aggressive window and taken a fall. I can’t have you tumbling down the stairs, too. I’m a horrible nurse.”
She slowed her pace. “You do have a terrible bedside manner.”
I caught up to her and matched her stride to the third floor. She led me toward her room, keeping her hand on the side of the wall. We entered the small room, and while I wanted to study her setup and learn more about her, it was cold and not the time. Reaching her bed, she bent down and rifled through the drawers of a wooden nightstand.
“Bingo!” Standing upright again, she held up four large candles.
“Four contraband candles. I would never have pegged you for breaking the rules, Becca.”
Damn, is my voice just dripping with innuendos?
