Page 13 of Snowed In With You

I grinned, ‘Okay, fine, what are the rules?’

Fletch’s answering smile was big and a riot of butterflies made my palms a little sweaty as I reached for the bottle. ‘You pick either Truth or Dare before you view your cards, whoever loses the hand has to do either the Truth or Dare – but you can’t pick one or the other more than twice in a row.’

‘Sounds fun,’ I clapped my hands together excitedly and then pointed at the cards. ‘Gimme.’

Fletcher dealt the cards and then called out, ‘Dare.’

I laughed, of course he would pick dare. He just wanted to kiss me again. ‘Truth.’

I set my cards down confidently, my smile fading as I saw his three of a kind beating my doubles. ‘Shit.’

Fletch looked wicked as he tipped back the tequila and caught a droplet of it on his tongue. I was absolutely riveted but his words made me groan. ‘Tell me what happened with your boyfriend – Zach?’

‘Okay, firstly,not my boyfriend. Rebound sex. Very mediocre. Truly nothing to tell.’

Fletch’s brow wrinkled, ‘Rob seemed to think you were heartbroken –in fact, that was pretty much his exact wording.’

I shrugged, ‘Rob doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I only told him about Zach because I was sad about–’ I cleared my throat and looked away, wishing I could unsee the way his face fell at my words. ‘So, yeah. Zach was an experiment, I had one hookup with him and that was pretty much it. We met in a bar, got drunk, hooked up and that was it. We tried to go on a date or two but it just… wasn’t the same.’

‘Same as with me?’

I looked at him shrewdly, ‘That’s more than one question, bucko.’ Thing was, it was true. Zach just didn’t compare to the night I’d spent with Fletch, there’d been no heat, we’d barely had enough of a connection to be friends let alone anything more.

Fletcher stood with the tequila in his hand, finishing the last bit in one gulp before going off to presumably grab more. My eyes dropped to his ass as he reached up and into a top cupboard in the kitchen, his cosy PJ bottoms hugging every part of him, he cleared his throat and my eyes leapt up to find smug humour written across his face. He waggled his eyebrows and I laughed shyly as he made his way back over to me.

‘If you’d been listening instead of ogling me, you would havehad the opportunity to pick our drink. But you weren’t, and now you’re stuck with vodka.’

‘Do we not have any mixers?’ I whined and he sighed playfully, tweaking my nose as he leaned forward to collect the cards again.

‘I could only carry so much back from the store in the middle of a snowstorm, Sara.’

I grinned, ‘Okay, fair enough. I guess your motivations weren’t totally nefarious.’

‘Well, I didn’t say that,’ Fletch chuckled as he dealt out the next lot of cards.

‘Dare,’ I declared boldly, internally wincing, but I couldn’t pick Truth forever. Fletcher picked Dare too and there was a challenge in his gaze that made me sit straighter as I looked over my cards.

‘Ready?’ He asked and I nodded, ‘Okay, three, two, one–’ Fletcher groaned and I laughed as he saw my cards. ‘Full house,’ he sighed, ‘what’s my dare then, gorgeous?’

I took a sip of vodka as I considered him, and then another. There was a bright eagerness to his face that made my heart sing, he looked like he would take anything I dished out and still beg for more.

An idea began to form and I smiled slowly, ‘I dare you… to take off all your clothes – no! To strip for me… and then run into the snow.’

Fletcher gaped, blinking at me before laughing and I joined in, relieved, worried for a second that I’d gone too far. He stood and anticipation was a live thing, coiling inside me and driving my adrenaline up as he lifted off his gray tee slowly, stretching upwards as I let my gaze roam down. I half-wished the power wasn’t out so I could play some music, maybe something likeLeave Your Hat On.My eyes glazed over as he toyed with the waistband of the pyjama bottoms, tugging it down to exposeone hipbone before pulling it back up and showing the other. Fletcher abruptly tugged them down and I stifled a gasp at the sight of the large lump in the front of his black boxers. A surge of satisfaction mounted knowing I wasn’t the only one aching and hot and bothered right now. He whipped the boxers down and off and was running towards the door before I’d got more than a glimpse of him, a laugh startled out of me at his yell as the cold air hit him.

I was cackling wildly as I rushed to my feet, swaying only a little as I staggered to the door just in time to see his bare ass meet ice as the wind bowled him over. I ran out into the snow and helped him up with a grin that he met with his own. Snowflakes were caught in his hair and eyelashes and his teeth kept chattering but we were laughing as I wrapped his arm around my waist for warmth and pulled him back to the lodge.

Chapter Eleven

Fletcher

Sara bundled me in front of the fireplace in what felt like a million blankets as soon as I got my underwear back on. She hadn’t stopped smiling since we’d come inside and my own face was starting to ache too. There was a strange sort of exhilaration at seeing her so clearly happy and knowing I’d been the cause. My shivers subsided fairly quickly, especially with the aid of the vodka. The expression on her face as I’d stripped for her was going to be burned into my memory forever and was currently doing a pretty good job of heating me too. She’d looked at me like she was starving and I was quickly becoming familiar with the sensation as I ran my eyes over her. But I’d meant what I’d said – I didn’t want to rush this and I didn’t want her to have alcohol as an excuse for falling into bed with me. I wanted her to want me and I wanted her to know it too.

I was soon sweating beneath the pile of blankets but I didn’t dare move because Sara was pressed to my side, warm and smiling and her hair looked like flames in the light of the fire. I wasn’t sure what Rob’s game was, but I believed Sara when she said nothing much had happened between her and Zach.

‘If it helps,’ I said hesitantly, not really sure whether being this vulnerable was going to be good or bad for us, ‘I haven’t been with anyone since you. It wasn’t the same.’

She smiled as I repeated her earlier words and a spiral of relief swept through me, she meant more to me than a casual hookupand I needed her to know that, to have all the facts before she wrote me off completely. Her green eyes seemed brighter than usual as they met mine and a little dart of pain flitted through my heart – she was so beautiful.

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