Page 64 of Prince Material
Oh god. I’d learned the formula back in high school. What was it again? Multiply by… multiply by one-point-eight and then add thirty-two. I did a quick calculation. “Minus five… give or take.”
“Minus five? That’s not that cold. Come on,” he said, and he took my hand. I wasn’t prepared, not for the touch of his bare fingers against my gloves or for the way his eyes crinkled at the edges, flecks of snow catching in his smile. He pulled, trying to drag me out into the open. I let him, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I said, when we stopped, our breath mixing like we were making clouds.
“Nah. You’re way too pretty for that…” He let go of my hand to flick a snowflake off my cheek, touching me lightly, his fingertips brushing my skin like he’d always been there and always would be.
I couldn’t take it. I was helpless. Hopeless. I leaned forward, before he could finish the motion. Before he could pull away. Before I could think and change my mind. I kissed him, right there on the open commons, with snow in our eyes and a hundred people around us. The last thing I saw was the shocked look on his face.
And then he kissed me back. His mouth covered mine, his lips cold against mine, and our tongues met and danced. I closed my eyes, sinking into the kiss with all I had… until my feet slipped right from under me and I lost my balance.
I fell back, flat on the frozen ground, the air knocked from my lungs. Floris landed on top of me, as shocked as I was, as breathless. But he recovered first, propping himself up on his elbows, looking down at me like he’d won the lottery. He laughed, and his laughter rolled through me, making my heart pound against the thin layers of my winter coat.
“What the hell got into you?” he said.
In lieu of the answer I didn’t have, I kissed him again. His lips tasted like wind, like snow, like all the daydreams I had about him. He kissed me until I forgot about all the people who might be watching. Until I forgot about everything except the feel of his mouth and the weight of his body and the way his leg pushed between mine, sending little shocks up my spine.
It was insane. It was reckless. It was the most reckless thing I’d ever done, but I couldn’t stop. I grabbed his collar and pulled him closer, turning us both, rolling through the wet snow, until it soaked through my jeans and leaked through his coat and melted in our hair.
“I thought you wanted to keep it a secret,” he said, between kisses, sounding like it was the best joke he’d ever heard.
“I changed my mind,” I said, breathless, even though my mind had gone completely blank, and it was my heart, or maybe some other part, doing the thinking.
Floris laughed, pressing his hips to mine, a little more than teasing. “I like it,” he said.
The cold was creeping up on us, and the clouds seemed to lower themselves to the ground. But we didn’t stop until we were soaked to the bone, until Floris’s lips turned blue and my hair stuck to my forehead in frozen clumps. A group of students ran past us, feet crunching in the snow, faces flushed with wind and laughter. They whistled and cheered and yelled things I couldn’t hear above the pounding in my ears.
“Okay,” Floris said, standing and reaching down to pull me up. “Before I turn into a Floris-cicle.”
“You and the lame jokes,” I said, because he had a habit of thinking everything was hilarious, but secretly, or not so secretly, I loved it.
He draped his arm over my shoulders as we headed toward Smelter Hall, our footprints already disappearing behind us.
Inside, everything felt too warm and too loud. The dark-wood paneling, the hallways of heavy doors, even the banisters on the iron staircase seemed to vibrate, filled with chatter and commotion. A burst of students poured past us, shaking off coats and backpacks, thawing and dripping all over the linoleum.
Up in our room, we peeled off our wet clothes. Floris tossed his bright-orange jacket over a chair, and I kicked off my boots, my fingers trembling with cold, unable to keep up with the task. My shirt went next, then my jeans, until I stood there in nothing but damp boxer shorts. Floris’s eyes were glued to me, but instead of being embarrassed, I shivered with the thrill of it.
He grabbed a towel from the rack and tossed one to me. I caught it, almost fumbled.
“Getting naked is smart,” Floris said. “So we don’t freeze.”
He dropped his own shirt to the floor, his tan skin glowing against the whiteness outside.
“Not freezing is good,” I said, unable to take my eyes off the freckled expanse of his chest.
He grinned, wrapping the towel around his waist. “You know what’s even smarter?”
“No, but please enlighten me.”
He stepped closer, only inches from me now. “Getting warm.” He let the towel slip. “In bed. Skin to skin contact will help us warm up fast.”
He held my gaze, and my heart leapt. He didn’t break eye contact as he backed up toward his bed, sitting down on the edge, the springs groaning in a familiar way.
“We wouldn’t want you to die of hypothermia,” I said, as if I cared. As if I didn’t think I might be the one dying from the need to have him touch me. I tossed my towel on the floor and climbed in next to him, next to the skin I wanted to memorize before we left for break, before it disappeared and became someone else’s. “I’d feel so guilty.”
“Can’t have that.” He pulled me down, wrapping himself around me like a blanket, the cute kind with a face and paws and ears, the kind you don’t want to take off. His hands moved over my shoulders, along my arms, leaving a trail of sparks. “Is this better?” he asked.
It was too much. It was not enough. “Definitely, but to be sure, don’t stop.”
