Page 73 of A Very Snowed In New Year
That beautiful smile that I’ve been seeing for hours radiates across her face again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if all the snow around this cabin has melted because of it. She shrugs. “I just think you’re kind of great. I probably shouldn’t say that, but it’s true.”
“I’m pretty sure you should say that—when you’re talking tomeanyway.” I brush strands of hair from her face and kiss hercheek. “If it wasn’t clear already, my little sister isn’t the only fan of yours in my family.”
She sits up straighter. “Has your mom read my fanfic too?!”
“No.” I laugh. “I don’t think so. I meant me—I’m a big fan of you. As a person and as an author of elevated fanfic.”
She lowers her head, laughing. “Okay, okay.”
“I’m serious. In fact, I would like to do a reading of one of your works, if I may.” I hand Piper my champagne glass so I can reach into the back pocket of my jeans to pull out my phone. “I actually have it bookmarked—hang on.”
She is trembling because she’s suppressing her laughter and if she didn’t have a glass of champagne in each hand she’d be covering her pretty face. But she isn’t telling menotto do a reading, so…I load up one of her stories on FictionAxis and read aloud from my phone.
The table lamp is the only light that’s turned on in the living room now. It starts to flicker. We both turn our attention to it, but ultimately it stays on. “Uh-oh,” Piper says. “You should probably save your battery in case the power goes out.”
“I can charge it in the car if necessary. This is happening.” I proceed to read aloud. “Seven a.m. in Arena Seven. In which organized storm rider Zephyr meets chaotic fire rider Ember over a scheduling conflict in Arena Seven, their dragons conspire to get them together, and love blooms at an unreasonably early hour. A spicy rom-com AU ofRiders of Storm and Fire. Forced Proximity/Enemies to Lovers/Slow Burn/Meet-Cute Fluff by PiperThanFiction.”
I pause to clear my throat and snake one arm around Piper’s waist as she adjusts herself on my lap, leaning into me, her cheek pressed against my temple as we both look at my phone screen. This is the only way I want to look at my phone from now on, with her face pressed against mine.
“The only seemingly chaotic thing about Zephyr was the pattern of silver flecks in the tiny, mesmerizing oceans that were his irises. But he made it a point not to allow anyone to stare into his eyes long enough to notice this—plus he was so tall, most people just stared directly at his firm pecs or his rippling abs. What people did notice about Zephyr was his sense of duty, his precision, his laser-like focus, his aforementioned pecs and abs, and his amazing butt.”
Piper buries her face into the crook of my neck. The power in the cabin dims and surges, but I continue my dramatic reading.
“The ever-organized storm rider had a strict schedule for training flights with his dragon. Training Arena Seven, at exactly seven every morning. He had filed all the paperwork for a permanent reservation of that time slot. Fire-riding Ember couldn’t care less about paperwork. She was as laid-back as her hair was red. She would just show up whenever, wherever there was an empty arena. She assumed seven was free now, because who trained at sevena.m.?! Not her. Not usually, that is. But today was different. She had been unable to sleep after waking up from a dream about a certain perfectly-groomed storm rider. What kind of a dream? Let’s just say that his hair was severely tousled and his ocean-blue eyes were foggy by the end of it, and Ember had a lot of confused feelings to work through…”
I scroll down, past the part where Zephyr and Ember’s dragons get tangled up midair while showing off. Past the part where Ember’s fire dragon accidentally singes Zephyr’s perfectly organized flight manual. To the part where they end up in the Rider Administration Office, bickering over arena scheduling.
“‘I submitted form DR-107 in triplicate two months ago,’ Zephyr told the clerk behind the counter. Ember lounged in a waiting room chair behind him.Here I thought he had a perfect butt because he was so athletic,she mused to herself,but it looks like it’s from clenching around the very orderly stick uphis ass.‘I submit my winning smile to the arena supervisor every time I see him,’ Ember said, smirking. ‘That’s not a real form of submission, and you know it!’ Zephyr snarled. Ember stood up languidly, sauntered over to Zephyr, draped herself over the counter next to him, and said, ‘Actually, I’ve been told my kind of submission is called being a brat. But I do respond surprisingly well to being restrained. Under the right circumstances.’ Zephyr’s golden skin turned rose gold. His jaw tightened. His nostrils flared. Beneath his uniform, his nipples hardened.
“Ember stared up into his eyes, readying herself for an epic battle of wits and stubbornness, but her brow softened momentarily. She straightened her spine and declared, ‘The silver flecks in your right eye are in the form of the Stradivarian constellation. The flecks in your left eye form the outline of a scorpion. Whaddya know?’ Zephyr felt his heart softening as another traitorous part of him, not just his nipples, was getting stiff.”
And that’s when the cabin finally goes dark except for my phone and the light of the fire and totally silent, except for our breaths, and it stays that way.
“Shit. Just when things were getting really stiff—I mean good.” I put my phone to sleep and then take my glass from Piper and polish off the rest of the champagne. “It’s really a clever take on Zephyr and Ember.”
“Thank you. That was a very entertaining reading.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you warm enough?” she asks.
I’m so taken aback by the question because I’m not used to girls my age asking me that kind of thing. “Yeah. For now.”
“How long do you think the power will be out for?”
I blow out a breath. “Well, I didn’t hear a transformer, so I guess it depends if the weight of the snow broke a power lineor if there was ice buildup that caused equipment failure. Who knows. Probably overnight.”
She does that thing again—where she looks at me and I can tell she’s making some kind of decision. She takes my empty glass from me and stands up. “Be right back.” She places the glasses down on the coffee table. I hear the scratch and hiss of a match being lit. In the darkness, the rough scratch of the match against the box is louder than usual, more intimate in the silence. She lights a bunch of pillar candles around the living room, candles that she brought for someone else, and I’m reminded that I actually agreed to meet Shay Nicholls here instead of Piper.
It’s already so hard to believe there was ever a time when I wasn’t under the same roof as this person. I’m not ready to think about what it will be like when I won’t be. And there are still so many things I want to do with her before that happens.
She’s disappeared into the bedroom, and the air around me is cold without her nearby, even though I’m four feet away from the fireplace. Piper emerges from the bedroom doorway, wrapped in the white comforter from the bed. She pads across the hardwood floor in her socks, stopping right in front of me. Her hand pokes out from under the blanket. “Here. Hang on to this.”
I take a condom packet from her. Another one from Shay’s stash, I guess. “You got it. And what are you going to do while I hang on to this?”
She opens her arms as if spreading her wings, revealing that she is completely naked beneath that comforter, except for her very long socks. I can barely see the curves and shadowy, dark places of her body in the fire and candlelight, like a dirty secret she’s whispering, but it’s enough to spark me to life like that match. My jaw tightens, my nostrils flare, my nipples harden, blah blah blah… I’ve gone fromruminating by the firetohornyas fuckwithin seconds, and she does the cruelest, most awesome thing. She covers us both with the comforter so I can’t see her anymore. The top of my head and the back of the armchair hold the comforter up like it’s the roof of our blanket fort. And she kneels down on the rug, in front of me.
“I don’t think I’m ready to do this when you can see me yet,” she says, almost apologetically. “But there’s something I’ve been wanting to do.”
