He turned to her and furrowed his brow. After he swallowed down all of his food, he said, “I thought you wanted to go for a walk.” He tilted his head toward the door.
She blushed, her face going slack. “Oh…okay.” Mortified, she hurried forward and out of his apartment. She was relieved to hear him follow her.
It was so cold that it hurt to breathe, but the peaceful, quiet surroundings soothed an ache in her soul that she never realized she had. She was torn between wanting to go back inside or remaining outside forever. Her gaze wandered over the thin pine trees, the sound of her boots crunching against the snow and pine needles piercing the air. She forced herself to inhale, and it felt as if ice had burst inside her lungs.
“I’m from Seattle,” she told Andrew, who walked beside her. “And I liked it there, but it was never so…it never gets like this, you know?”
“Too noisy?”
“All the time, yeah.” She turned to him, and she was surprised to see him watching her. “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what?’ You were talking, and I was listening.” He huffed, shaking his head. For a second, it looked like he was grimacing, excepting that the corner of his lips was turning upward. “You’re a strange one.”
Warmth bloomed beneath her breastbone. “That sounds like a compliment.”
His cheeks turned a shade redder, and he glanced away. “I guess.”
“You’re being nice to me—in a kind of messed up way, but it’s still sweet.” Grinning, she playfully bumped against him. “You like me.”
He looked back at her and narrowed his gaze. His cheeks were still red. “What makes you say that?”
“You let me spend time with you,” she said, “even though you claim you don’t want me to.”
He pouted out his lips and shrug. “Maybe I’m just trying to be nice.”
She laughed. “You?”
“I can be nice!”
She brought her gloved hand to her mouth, laughter still bursting from it. Amusement coursed through her, and for a second, she couldn’t speak. The cold, her laughter—it was too much for her lungs.
“Fine,” Andrew said, stretching out the word in one long, exasperated breath. “I don’t like being nice.”
“You don’t say,” she managed to pant out, her giggles finally ebbing away. She rubbed the pleasant ache from her chest.
“You…” He licked his lips, his gaze darting over the ground. “You make me want to be nice, sometimes. That’s all.”
She nearly cooed, but luckily, her shock got the better of her. She stopped. “Really?”
A few steps ahead of her, he stopped and turned back to her. “Yeah, but don’t let it go to your head or anything.”
“How can I not? That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He groaned, tilting his head back as he rolled his eyes. “Your life must be sad.”
She smirked. Amused, touched, and feeling very daring, she took one slow step toward him and fluttered her eyelids. “It was until I met a handsome fella like you.” She giggled, suddenly feeling giddy and light-headed.
Andrew blushed. His eyes wide and full of uncertainty, he stuttered out some garbled noises.
It was adorable. Her heart warmed at the sight, and she couldn’t keep herself from smiling. She had never met a man like Andrew before, and she had never expected to care about someone as gruff and tactless as he was. But now, standing in the icy air, she wanted nothing more than to feel him all over her.
“That’s sexy,” she said as Andrew continued to stutter out gibberish. She meant the words to sound teasing, but the moment she said them, heat flared inside her lower belly; it sent a pleasant shiver through her flesh.
Andrew must have been affected by her words, too, for he went quiet and his eyes darkened. His mouth still hanging open, he panted out little warm clouds past his reddened lips.
She was staring at his lips when he moved forward, grabbed her face, and kissed her. She gasped, not realizing that they were moving backwards until her back hit a slanted tree. Everything was moving so quickly—his tongue licking at her teeth, his hands trailing over her body, his thigh pressing in between her quivering legs. Her mind struggled to process everything at once, even as her legs spread apart on their own accord. Lust pulsated through her in hot waves, and she whimpered with the overwhelming desire it created within her.
Andrew growled in response. Panting against her neck, he grabbed the waistline of her pants and panties and tugged aggressively until they came sliding down.
The cold zapped through her skin in violent quivers, the threat of numbness—of hypothermia—blaring in her mind. But, God help her, it made her core feel all the hotter and the wetter. She could feel it throb and moisten, aching with the need to be filled.