He laughed. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I just…don’t date. That’s all there is.”
“And is there a reason for that?”
I leaned my head on my folded knees, looking up at him. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you all my secrets in one night, John.”
I could swear the air between us sizzled. He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. A tentative smile. A smile that was dangerously close to crossing a line in the sand.
“I gotta admit, this trip didn’t turn out as expected,” I said, rubbing my hands. Trying to regain some sort of composure and distance between us. Talking to John like this felt like walking a tightrope. “I didn’t even prep for a survival bootcamp.”
“Oh, you need to know that working in publishing trains you for the worst.”
I emptied my mug. Feeling myself relax, my body yearned to move closer to his warmth, but I scolded silly-Nora and stayed where I was. “Even so, you’re probably the last person I would ever get stuck with during a zombie apocalypse. So none of this has any practical value.”
“I would be the last person I would want to be stuck with during a zombie apocalypse, too.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “So our survival would lie mostly on my shoulders?”
He smirked. “Unless there’s a pub quiz or a dance battle, I’m afraid I’m out.”
Laughter bubbled out of me, part hysterical, part tired. My cheeks warmed with it. “Is that all you can bring to the base? Random knowledge and moves like Jagger?” I pulled the blanket off my shoulders and over my legs. Now the other half of me was cold.
“And what about you? How would you battle us out?” John tugged on said blanket until I lifted a flap so he could share the heat. Our sides pressed against one another. When the heat of him seeped into my skin, my muscles relaxed further, while other parts of me seemed to switch to high alert.
I chewed on the inside of my cheeks. “I can name all Robert Rodriguez movies in alphabetical order. Fold a paper boat blindfolded. Mix a mean margarita.”
His brows rose.
He stretched his feet towards the fire. “You like horror movies then?”
“You are trying to bond with me, aren’t you?” I said. I shivered when the cold air hit my back as he shifted.
He wrapped his blanket around my shoulders. His arm stayed in place so it wouldn’t fall.Goddamn this felt…nice. More than nice.
“I’m just trying to figure you out, Nora.” The way he said my name. The gratingN, the whisperedA.
I swallowed. “I love horror movies, especially the ones featuring monsters because...” I shrugged. “It’s a tangible evil. There is always some way to defeat them. You cut their head off or shoot them with your machine gun prosthesis.” I leaned my head back, resting it on his arm like it was no big deal, because it wasn’t, and watched him watch me. “But there’s always a way, not like in real life.”
A sad smile crossed John’s soft lips. And maybe it was because night had settled in and it was just us in this tiny cocoon of flickering firelight, but the man that shared his body heat with me, that made me pancakes and said my name in that special way of his…he didn’t feel like the John Kater I knew from the media, not even the one I had met years ago. This guy next to me was different. Maybe even likable. I was definitely stuck in a Black Mirror episode.
I yawned. Then scanned the dark behind the living room. I shivered just at the thought of having to go up the stairs and sleep in an ice-cold bed.
As if reading my thoughts, he stretched. “We should sleep here. It’s only a few hours until morning, anyway.”
He threw two pillows on the floor. Tugging the blanket up to his chin, he patted the space on the fluffy rug beside him. The one closer to the fire.
“If we’re lucky, the storm will have settled by then.”
“And if we are unlucky?” I said.
“I can imagine worse ways to die. Come on, I won’t bite.”
After a moment of hesitation, I placed myself between the fire and John. His arm wrapped around my middle, drawing me into him. When his breath caressed my neck, a totally different kind of shiver ran over me.
“Is this okay?” He asked into the crown of my head.
I nodded, heat sinking into my back. I could feel his chest rise and fall in rhythm with mine. The valleys and dips pressing into my back. Heat filled me, heat that had nothing to do with the fire warming my face. His scent wrapped around me as I nuzzled deeper into the pillow. I had to stifle the urge to turn toward him and bury my face in his chest. He smelled expensive. I caught myself trying to get a lungful. John’s breath tickled my ear, then my neck. I remembered the heat that had pooled between my legs when his thigh had pushed between them. I wondered what it would feel like if he did that now.
