I cut off because Gideon’sgrinningas he sits up, brushing the snow off, and it’s infectious. I can’t help grinning back, and I can’t help wanting to take this moment and bottle it so I can bring it out whenever I want. Gideon does a lot of things, but he doesn’t reallygrin.
“That was fun for you?” I tease. “Leaping from a moving vehicle?”
“That’s what you think just happened?”
“It sounds better thanI talked Gideon into something reckless.”
“It’s not reckless, it’s just sledding,” he says, and reaches toward me. “You’ve got—”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, just runs a gloved hand along the inside of my collar of the fleece I had on under my coat, knocking the snow out. The fabric of his gloves brushes the back of my neck, and it’s not skin on skin, but I get goosebumps anyway.
“Thanks,” I say, but his hand lingers there when I look up and suddenly realize how close we are, my knee brushing his thigh, his face inches from mine. He’s stopped grinning but those telltale crinkles are there around his muddy green eyes, the soft indents that are on their way to becoming laugh lines someday, and there’s a thought. Gideon, with laugh lines.
Gideon’s hand is gentle but firm around my wrist in the dark. The bloom of heat in every point of contact: my knee against his thigh, his elbow over my waist.
I feel like a deer in the headlights, like something huge and maybe catastrophic is barreling toward me, but all I can think about is how beautiful the light is. Gideon’s still looking at me, his pretty eyes still smiling. The crash is inevitable.
“There’s,” I say, and raise one hand to the snow melting in his beard, but my glove’s covered in snow and I only get more on him, and I’m distracted by his mouth, his gloved hand still on the back of my neck, the memory of his arm around my waist and his hand on my wrist and his thumb tracing around my ankle. I shouldn’t, but his eyes flick to my mouth.
I shouldn’t, but I lean in and kiss him before I can think any more.
His mouth is just as soft and warm as it looks. The snow in his beard and the tip of his nose are cold against my cheeks, and it’s sweet and gentle and I can’t believe I’m doing this—
Gideon’s not kissing me back. He’s gone still as a statue, frozen in place. I jolt back like I’ve been scalded.
“Fuck,” I babble, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat, my face cold and then hot. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what—”
I’m mid-apology when his lips hit mine again and the wordsa mistakedisappear into the warmth of his mouth, sweet and tentative and needy, all at once. He kisses me and pauses, lips a millimeter away like he’s thinking, and I close the distance. It’s back and forth like that, each press deeper and warmer and giddier. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m getting away with it.
I can’t believe it feels sogood, sitting in the snow, both of us a little off-balance as we work out the angles where our mouths fit together best. I scrape his lip with my teeth and mumble an apology. In response, he puts a gloved hand on the side of my neck and I gasp, a rush of cold air against my warm, wet lips.
Gideon grunts, pulls away, and before I can wonder what’s going on he grabs a finger of his glove with his teeth and yanks it off. Then his hand is on me again, cold fingers sliding into my messy hair and his warm palm against my neck.
I make a noise I’m not sure I’ve ever made before. There’s a drop of melted snow from his glove on his lower lip, and when I get close enough I lick it off and then his tongue is sliding against mine, hot and slow, like we can memorize this. I don’t make another noise, but I want to. I do pull a glove off and work my fingers into his unruly dark hair, knocking his hat off as he pulls me closer, mouth never leaving mine.
It’s better than it’s got any right to be, both of us sitting in the snow in the middle of the woods. Gideon kisses me unhurriedly, lazily, like there’s nothing else he’d rather do. He pulls his other glove off and tugs me forward by the waist until I’m half in his lap, tangled on the snowy ground, and it’s dizzyingly warm everywhere we’re touching and cold everywhere else.
Finally, I can’t ignore how numb my butt is, and I pull back, swallowing as if I can mask the way I’m panting for breath.
“I, uh,” I start, and instead of pulling back his mouth traces a line along my jaw, beard tickling my neck as he brushes a kiss against the spot below my ear and I forget what I was going to say. God.
“What,” he murmurs, and I swallow.
“I can’t feel my butt,” I say, and he stops, the tip of his nose cool against my ear. I shiver, my fingers wrapped around the back of his neck. I can feel him breathing.
His lips are still brushing my skin when he says, voice low and scratchy, “We should get back.”
“For sure,” I agree, doing my best to sound normal and failing. “It’s... late?”
For a moment he barely moves, one hand in my hair as he kisses my neck again, mouth hot as a brand even as I shiver. He stays there, lips barely brushing me, as he moves his other hand from my waist down, over my hip, settling atop one thigh and holding on.
He’s not squeezing. He’s notgrippingme, just holding on in that patient-but-firm way he seems to do everything, hand spanning the muscle, the heat soaking through the pants and leggings I’m wearing and sinking into my skin.
“Okay,” he says into my neck, and now hedoessqueeze my thigh, a bolt of warmth and something else scaling my spine. “Up.”
He untangles himself. I’m suddenly cold everywhere he was touching me, and he’s all business, brushing his hair back, adjusting his fleece, finding his gloves. I point to his hat, still behind him where I pushed it off, and he hands me mine.
In a minute we’re both standing, re-arranged like nothing happened, except my skin still tingles where his lips were and he’s flushed across his cheekbones, his mouth deep pink, his hair even more riotous that usual where it’s sticking out from under his hat.
