Falling Away (18 page)

“Um…seriously. Where’s the bunny run?”

             
Evan’s robust laugh echoed, drawing attention from nearby groups as we stood at the top of the hill. The very steep hill. Like trip-and-fall-and-snap-my-neck-easily hill.

             
“I’m guessing your friend forgot to mention the part about
why
only adults come up here?”

             
“In her defense, she probably thought I’d done this a million times before.” Air slowly filled behind my lips, finally puffing out once the maximum pressure was met. Luckily, that’s all that came out, ‘cause my stomach contents had been doing some serious flip-turns since we got up the hill.

             
“Well, lucky for you, I brought the sled big enough for two, so you won’t have to worry about steering. You can just sit there and scream with your eyes shut the whole way.”

             
I playfully shoved his shoulder. “I didn’t come here to cop out. I just wasn’t expecting
this
on my first try.”

             
I peered over the edge again, my heart pounding. I’d never been very courageous when it came to heights, my drowning incident being the boldest argument against them. I scolded myself internally when I caught myself reaching for that damn missing necklace again.

             
He pushed the sled slightly over the edge and stood on the back end to keep it from tipping over. “Come on. Sit here.”

             
“Can’t I ride up front?” I asked once I realized he wanted me more towards the back. I knew the front was gonna be scary, but something about having Evan’s arms wrapped around me made it seem the safest place to be.

             
“Not unless you want to steer,” he sang tauntingly.

             
Yeah, no. I carefully seated myself, fearful my weight would act like a seesaw and fling Evan off the back end and send me down the hill uncontrollably. Once my weight secured the sled, Evan crouched within the space in front and took hold of the rope, rocking us slightly. My heart leapt against my ribs and I was reminded of that horrible feeling of getting stuck at the top of a
ferris
wheel. You know the one. Where even the slightest movement could cause the seat to rock haphazardly and you’d fall to your death ‘cause there’s no way in hell that puny seat belt was gonna hold you in if you tipped over just a little too far? Yeah, that one.

             
“If you feel me lean, just go with it.”

             
I nodded my head ‘cause my murmured agreement barely made a sound, but
duh
…he couldn’t see that.

             
He turned his head as a smile crept across his face. “And you may want to hold on tight.” My hands lightly grasped the top of his shoulders as I extended my legs around his body for extra grip. “I said tight.”

             
“Yeah, I bet you’d love that.” It was probably suicidal in this instance, but I fought my inner urge to wrap my arms snuggly around his waist.

             
My hands shrugged with his shoulders when he replied, “All right.” He attempted several jerks before we tilted over the edge. Gravity was a bitch, and my stomach tried to make its way into my throat. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I felt his upper body vibrate with laughter as my hands abandoned his shoulders and wrapped a death grip around his neck, and my legs squeezed tighter than a python, a semi-scared scream bursting from my lungs. The wind was calm, but the air still chilly, and it stung my eyes before I thought to squeeze them shut.

             
The downhill run couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds, but I swear to God it felt ten times longer. My scream didn’t stop until we came to a complete stop. I pried my eyes back open, wiping the icy moisture with the back of my cotton knit mittens. It wasn’t fear or the weather, but my lower half was frozen, my legs still compressing Evan in place.

             
He shook his head like he had a major twitch. “I think I’m deaf.”

             
“Oh, shut up.” Well, that got my body to move again.

             
“What?!” he yelled.

             
I shoved the back of his shoulder before awkwardly standing to my feet. Evan soon followed, turning the toboggan around to pull it up the hill once more.

             
“You’ve got a nice set of lungs, you know that?” I had the distinct feeling it wasn’t my lungs he was considering as his eyes swept over my chest. “Just promise me you’ll scream less this time. Or anywhere other than directly in my ear.”

             
“No promises.” I followed him up the hill,
silently
cursing the length of his wool pea coat and how it covered up a certain asset I was trying to admire. Oh, yeah. I remembered what lied beneath all that clothing. Every gorgeous, muscular curve.

             
What? I may not be trying to jump into bed, but there’s nothing that says I can’t look and enjoy! And as if he’s not doing the same to me…

             
The next run I did better, at least in terms of suffocating his body with my grip. I still screamed a little, but I kindly turned my head like he asked. The third run I managed to open my eyes and the scream became more of a
whoop!
than an act of utter horror. The fourth I asked him to let me drive, which made his face cringe.

             
“Uh…” he dragged out, desperately trying to come up with a legitimate excuse. I crossed my arms, arched my eyebrows and waited him out. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. After a brief explanation over how to
steer, we sat down on the toboggan, his arms barely gripping my waist from behind.
That’s right, buddy. You’re my bitch now.

             
What was it with men and always needing to be the driver anytime another male was within eye shot? He sure as hell never complained when I used to drive in the bedroom.

             
“Do me a favor, and just try to stay on the path we’ve already made, okay?”

             
“Yeah,” I answered confidently, as if I had a
flippin
’ clue what I was doing.

             
He rocked with me to get us over the edge, pushing himself firmly against my back, and a very dirty thought entered my head. Too bad, too. Not that it wasn’t a good one, but I completely lost focus for that split second, which, unfortunately, happened to be the instant we tipped over the edge. I struggled to control the sled and found us pointing in a direction that wasn’t already laid out for me. I tried to lean and pull the sled right, but it was stubborn and didn’t want to go. Evan leaned to the right too, and tried to reach for the rope to help tug, but he was too far back to put any power behind his pull. We kept veering left, towards a field of debris that hadn’t been cleared for sled use.

             
“Roll off!” he called in my ear.

             
“What?” Next thing I knew, Evan wrapped hard around my waist. I let his tug pull me right and dropped the rope. We tossed a few times in the snow, but stopped pretty quickly considering the steepness of the hill. We must have been closer to the bottom than I realized.

             
We lay there motionless, his arms still wrapped snuggly around me as his body pressed atop mine, and I couldn’t care less that oxygen wasn’t making its way into my lungs. Our legs and arms were entangled like the good
ol
’ days, and I wondered if that was registering in his brain too. Those hazel orbs were dark out here, a stark contrast to the snow lit up by the moonlight, and they pierced my brown ones with a firm heat of passion. My eyes averted to his mouth, which he instinctively licked, and my body tingled at the thought of those luscious lips sweeping hard against mine.
Whoa. Wait. What?
When my temporary brain fart was over, I focused back on his eyes again, but they had softened, the fire suddenly subdued. His eyes narrowed playfully. “No more steering for you until we find a bunny run.”

             
He rolled off of me, and dug his second arm out from underneath me. We lay there splayed out on our backs in the snow. Giggles burst from my chest that refused to relent.

             
“But I’m a good driver,” I protested pathetically, waving my arms and legs a few times to make a snow angel.

             
“No,
Princess
, you’re not. At least not with a toboggan. But when we find an easier slope, you can try again.”

             
“Fair enough.”
             

             
There was a twenty-four hour diner in town between my place and the bookstore. We settled into a booth in the back and sipped on a few cups of coffee to get the blood circulating in our frozen fingers and toes again.

             
I think I was already beginning to lose the battle of the wills in terms of holding back a relationship. In theory, it made complete sense to go slow, to get to know one another again and allow my heart to fall further away from Robert. Unfortunately, reality spent the night handing me curve balls, putting me in moments that made me think with my hormones instead of my head.

             
I was a complete goner when Evan watched me from across the booth, a partial curl to his lips that made me wish I knew how to read minds. On accident, my foot bumped into his, but I repeatedly did it on purpose afterwards. Curiously, he didn’t do anything other than gaze back with a sexy twist of the lips.

             
We spent the majority of our time at the diner speaking with our eyes. And trust me, I was an expert when it came to decoding eye language, and those orbs were saying far dirtier things than Evan had ever let come out of his mouth before…which made me suspect he was deliberately trying to seduce me instead of waiting patiently for me to come along on my own.

             
Dirty little boy.

             
My lips continued the plan of evasive maneuvers, but I allowed his hand to grip mine the remaining two blocks to my home. My skin felt overheated, so I stripped the scarf from my neck. The crisp air was rejuvenating, and a few chills shivered down the length of my spine. The moment we reached the stoop to my building, I moved to untangle our fingers.

             
After about ten seconds of him standing there grinning like an idiot, I inquired, “You’re not waiting for me to invite you upstairs are you?” As if I was gonna do that after he spent the night trying to subtly turn me on.

             
“No.” Yet his eyes made me think differently.

             
“Good, ‘cause I literally live in a shoebox. There’s hardly enough room for
me
to move around in there.” He clearly thought I was dodging, and I was, but I wasn’t kidding about my minimalistic lifestyle. And knowing what a media buff he was, I casually threw in, “Not even room for a TV.”

             
Yep. There’s the eye roll.

             
“It’s called a flat-screen,” he deadpanned. “They hang on the wall now.”

             
“As if I could lift and hang the thing at the same time.”

             
Shrugging, he replied, “You could always ask me for help.”

             
“Have you met me yet? I realize the dream version may be slightly different than reality’s version, but when have I
ever
been willing to ask for help?”

             
His thumb scratched the area between his nose and mouth, and I couldn’t help but gaze at the lips whose curvature I used to know so well. Tantalizing tingles exploded within my belly.
Curse him!
Several seconds went by before I realized he was waiting for me to look up and acknowledge him as a whole. His voice deep and smooth, he answered, “I think we’ve both changed a little over the past two years.” He stepped forward, and shivers, that had nothing to do with the chilly wind blowing gently against us, covered my hidden skin with
goosebumps
. My feet stood their ground, but more likely, they were told to do so by my traitorous heart, whose beats were out of control; or by my mouth, whose lips ached for me to lean forward and connect with his. “And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to find out what those changes are.”

             
I swear his right eye just twinkled when his cheekbone lifted to make room for his ever growing smile. But then he turned and began walking away. “Goodnight, Jenna.”

             
“Wait. You’re leaving?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

             
He turned but kept walking backwards, farther and farther away from me, fading away into the blurry white haze coming off the mist produced by passing cars. “You didn’t invite me up.” His grin told me he wasn’t really mad at that, and in fact, was probably pretty happy to be leaving me wanting more.