“You sure about this?” he calls.
No. I’m not sure about any of this—not the sledding, not this fake relationship, not the way my pulse races every time he looks at me like that. But uncertainty hasn’t killed me yet.
I push off.
The world becomes a blur of white and speed and wind that steals my breath. My sled hits a bump and goes airborne for a heart-stopping second before slamming back down. I’m flying, completely out of control, and it’s terrifying and exhilarating and—
My sled clips Mitch’s leg just as he’s trying to get out of the way. We go down in a tangle of limbs and sleds and snow that would probably look hilarious from the outside but feels like someone shook our snow globe.
When we finally stop rolling, I’m somehow straddling his hips, my hands braced on his chest, staring down into those storm-gray eyes. Snow clings to his dark lashes, and his cheeks are flushed from cold and laughter. He looks younger like this, less guarded, more dangerous.
“Hi,” he says, his voice rough with unmistakable want.
“Hi yourself.”
We should move. Should untangle ourselves and laugh this off and pretend my body isn’t responding to the solid warmth of his beneath me. Should ignore the way his hands have somehow found my waist, holding me steady.
Instead, I find myself cataloging details. The way his breathing has gone shallow. The heat in his eyes. The almost unconscious way his thumbs are tracing small circles through my jacket.
“You two planning to make snow angels, or what?” Evan calls from the top of the hill, his voice carrying that particular brand of older brother amusement.
I scramble off Mitch faster than is probably dignified, my cheeks burning.
He sits up more slowly, running a hand through his snow-dusted hair, and I catch him looking at me with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Nice technique,” he says, getting to his feet and offering me a hand up.
“I was aiming for you the whole time.”
“Liar.”
But he’s grinning when he says it, and when I take his hand, he pulls me up a little closer than necessary. Close enough that I can see the flecks of blue in his gray eyes, close enough to catch that clean, masculine scent that’s become dangerously familiar.
“Clare Bear,” he says, so quietly only I can hear it. “You’re trouble.”
The nickname hits me like a physical touch. It’s casual, intimate—something you’d call someone you actually care about. Something that has no place in a fake relationship.
“I’m trouble?” I manage to say. “You’re the one who didn’t get out of the way.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to.”
The admission hangs between us, loaded with meaning neither of us is ready to unpack. Before I can respond, Sophie comes barreling down the hill again, this time with Jake right behind her, and the moment fractures into family chaos.
But as we spend the rest of the afternoon sledding, building snow forts, and waging a ridiculous snowball fight that would probably horrify my professional colleagues, I can’t shake the feeling that something shifted in that moment when I was in his lap.
Something dangerous.
Something that makes the nickname he whispered feel less like performance and more like a promise.
And the scariest part? I’m not sure I want to stop it.
Chapter Fourteen
Thin Ice
Clare
The fire crackles in the stone fireplace, casting dancing shadows across the living room walls adorned with family photos. I’m curled into the corner of the massive sectional sofa, wrapped in a quilt that smells like lavender and home, nursing a mug of hot chocolate that’s more marshmallow than liquid.