Page 41 of Hold Me Today

Without giving her the chance to leap out of the way, I loop my arm around hers, linking us together. Her muscles twitch under my touch, which I studiously pretend to ignore. “Sophia and I havesomuch to catch up on tonight.” I blast her with a smile that I hope doesn’t look deranged. Then I gesture to the man standing slack-jawed in front of me to get out of the way. “Scoot aside, Nick, before my nipples freeze off.”

Ice crawls up my stockinged legs as I wait for him to move.

He stares at me, darts a glance to Sophia, then steps out onto the front porch. My high school nemesis wastes no time in rushing forward out of the cold. Before I have the chance to do the same, Nick shuts the door behind him and steps in front of me. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m slightly hunched against the chill in the air, but he’s got the whole human-mountain thing down pat. He looks massive as he blocks me from heading inside.

Voice pitched low, he says, “Let’s take a walk.”

My heart gives a little jolt of surprise. “It’s cold out.”

His thumbs sink into the front pockets of his jeans. “I run hot.”

Oh, I just bet he does.

Standing on my tiptoes, I attempt to peer over his shoulder. Unfortunately, I’m a solid six inches too short to see much of anything. “Just because you’re an aberration doesn’t meanIrun hot.” I point to my outfit: suede, caramel skirt, with an emerald green blouse tucked into the waistband. My knee-high suede boots are warm enough, and flat enough, for a short walk, but that doesn’t mean I’m keen on breathing out icicles for the next twenty minutes.

It’s not even forty-degrees outside.

Nick closes the gap between us, his fingers going to the parted fleece collar of my coat. His breath is warm against my forehead as his fingers trail over the metal of my zipper, down past my breasts, down past my belly, down farther until my lungs are heaving and I’m welcoming short bursts of icy air into my body.

Then, swiftly, Nick zips my coat all the way up to the collar, locking in the heat he’s so easily sparked to life.

“Feeling warmer yet?” he husks out by my ear.

He steps past me, tromping down the three front steps to the sidewalk.

I’m frozen for a heartbeat, maybe two, before I break into action and scurry after him. He slows his pace, no doubt hearing my shoes scrape over the gravel, until we’re walking side by side, our elbows knocking together.

It’s an instant reminder of all those days we walked home after school and I hoped with everything that I was for our hands to touch.

I shake off the memories and look at him out of the corner of my eye. The man is grinning like he’s not even aware that it’s freezing outside.He’s insane.“You’re crazy, you know that?” I pluck at the short sleeve of his T-shirt. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

With his hands shoved deep into his pockets, he tilts his head. “Will you sit at my bedside in my time of need? Comply to my every whim and desire?”

“Every whim and desire?” Rolling my eyes, I pull my gloves from my coat pockets and put them on. And, yes, maybe I do it with a fair share of sass. He’s lucky I never leave home unprepared for Boston’s snowy winters. “What? Are you trying out for the role of Henry VIII?”

“Didn’t he have nine wives?”

“Six,” I tell him. “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, lived.”

“He loved the last one enough to let her live?”

The wind caresses my face with icy fingers, and I zip up my coat the final two inches. I should have opened upAgapesomewhere warmer, like Florida or Hawaii. “Probably not. Or maybe he did, I don’t know. He died; she became a widow. Thus, she lived.”

“Huh.” His bare elbow brushes my arm as he leads us down the winding street. “Where’d you learn all that?”

My cheeks flush with embarrassment. “Jeopardy.”

For years, I spent hours watching the show, acquiring random facts the way some people collect baseball cards or rocks. Reading was hard, but my ears worked just fine, and TV became my saving grace.Jeopardy, the History Channel, PBS—I devoured them all. Let’s put it this way: I wipe the floor with my opponent’s tears on Trivia Night.

“I’m more of an HGTV guy myself,” Nick drawls after a small pause. “Probably no surprise there.”

“You mean, your favorite thing to do on a Friday nightdoesn’tinclude watching paint dry?”

His deep laughter curls around me. “You’ve got the days mixed up. On Wednesdays, I watch paint dry. It’s exhilarating.”

“Oh, I bet.”

At my sarcasm, his hip collides with mine and nearly sends me stumbling off the sidewalk. Before I can fall to my doom, he catches me about the waist and hauls me upright. Correction—he tugs me right into him. My boobs smash against the hard planes of his chest. I fist his T-shirt; all the better to hold myself steady, I tell myself.

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