* * *
It was evening, and the sun had set in a spectacle of colors when they found their resting place where they would camp overnight. Bringing a tent had seemed ridiculous. Neither of them was scared of anything, they could see well in the dark, and they were too busy enjoying themselves to think of such banalities.
Their resting place was on a plateau on one of the tallest hills—more a mountain, although they had walked and not climbed to the top—with a breathtaking view. Beneath them lay a small village, the silhouettes of the many houses barely visible if not for the blinking, twinkling lights in the windows and along the roads, specks and garlands of yellow in the bluish dark.
Felicia looked down at them with an unsettling sense of foreboding, her arms wrapped around her body although the felt not the least bit cool. She reckoned they could reach the village in an hour’s walk although it looked further away, tucked down below in the valley in a cozy way.
Something about it didn’t feel right—which was ridiculous, of course, because this was another clutter of homes and people going about their lives, and they had nothing to do with her and Joshua. Still, she wished they had turned left instead of right some time back, and camped in the forest. Out on the hilltop with the village below, she felt vulnerable of sorts, open to prying eyes, although there were none apart from those of harmless creatures rustling about their nightly life in the grass and leaves.
“What is it?”
From behind, his arms snaked around her waist and pressed her back against his hard frame, the contact sparking through them with delicious sharpness.
“I don’t know. I feel…uncomfortable.”
He turned her around in his strong arms and tilted her chin up with a finger to search her eyes and face with his cold yet oh so intimate gaze.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
Did she hear worry in his silky voice?
She shook herself and delighted in the way it caused friction between their bodies, a mingling of fire and ice that sent tingles of awareness through each and every cell inside her.
“Nothing. I’m just being stupid. For a moment there, I felt the sense of foreboding that had gripped me before the incident with the burning house and the child I saved. I guess that’s me feeling guilty for enjoying a day full of happiness and the freedom of being myself.”
His probing gaze was relentless, but apparently he couldn’t find anything, because he merely nodded, before dipping his head to kiss her lingeringly. After an eternity in which she thought she’d melt from the heat and desire inside her, his lips inched away and he stepped back to let her go.
“Maybe you’re right. Today was a new experience for me too.”
He wanted to add more, stopped himself short, drew a deep breath, and continued, “Being here, being with you, sharing my life with you like this… it’s the most special thing I’ve ever done. I never want to stop.”
Why did he sound so serious? Why was she so delirious with happiness at his words?
Bridging the short gap, she laid one hand flat on his chest, ignoring the shock of cold current shooting through her and being met by flames.
“I don’t want to stop either,” she whispered.
For a long moment, they stared into each other’s eyes. She was overwhelmed with so many feelings she couldn’t settle on one, couldn’t find the right words. Her heart was racing inside her chest, and the dragon was a tightly curled ball of eagerness inside her belly.
Could she tell him that she loved him?
After spilling words like a fountain during their hike, she was oddly at a loss for how to say what mattered.
She let her tongue dart out to moisten her lips. His searing gaze followed her movement, and she felt him grow rigid with self-control, his hands balled into fists at his sides.
Did he want her as much as she wanted him?
Did he love her?
On an impulse, she decided to let her body speak in a way her voice wouldn’t. One hand wandered up from his chest and back to clasp his neck. Her other hand hooked itself into the belt of his trousers, and she stepped so close that not a wisp of air fitted in between their bodies. A hiss escaped him as his hands grabbed her hips, and his eyes fluttered shut for a moment. Forgetting everything else, Felicia leaned in and pressed her mouth hard against his in a demanding kiss. When she dug her teeth into his lower lip, only too aware of the icy cold that seeped from his fingers into her skin and caused goose bumps to rise, a tortured, muted groan escaped him. Coherent thought became impossible when he opened up to her while painting an icy trail of frost over her hips, the small of her back and her spine. Pressed close against each other, they lost themselves in a kiss that said it all, and went on endlessly.
Somewhere at the back of her mind, she noticed the dragon soar out of her body and high into the night sky. She didn’t care.
There was no time to be afraid or to try and be in control.
When he tore himself away from her to pull her T-shirt off, she shook her head and took some more steps back. She shrugged out of the T-shirt and dropped it on the ground carelessly, her eyes feasting on the hungry, enchanted look on his face. With a deep breath, she concentrated on the flames inside her—until they shot out and licked at her skin instead of simply making her glow. A sizzling film of heat coated her body, its light touch adding to her desire, making her skin more sensitive.
There was a tiny smile playing on his lips that made him look more dangerous and tempting than ever, matched only by the bluish-white sparkles in his deep, grey eyes. He stripped out of his T-shirt, revealing ice-white skin, a hairless chest and fine muscles taut with wound-up want. When he breathed out, cold mist shivered around his body, mimicking her fire. For an instant, he looked unreal and unreachable, and she wondered what picture she presented. The next instant, wondering was beyond her, because with a jerk of one shoulder he threw off his mist coat hovering in the air, glistening, while he strode toward her and crushed her to him in a bone-breaking embrace.
With a satisfied sigh, she offered her lips to his kiss, her aura of flames reduced to a shimmer while the heat inside her rose and rose as if to eat her up alive. His mouth left a trail of tortuously delicious wintry sensations down her throat and lower, making them both moan and discard whatever last inhibitions were left.
They fell upon each other, all delving tongues and digging teeth, searching mouths and claiming hands. Joshua touched her body in places that had never struck her as erogenous zones, stoking the fire. He made her feel helpless and powerful at once. She writhing under his mouth and touch, raking her nails across his back, biting the hard ridges of his abdomen, clinging on for dear life.
They let their bodies speak.
A dance of fire and ice.
When the two opposites became one, snowflakes drifted down around their entangled limbs, falling softly on earth which had been scorched clean by a ring of fire. Holding them in, keeping the world out.