She shook her head and winced.
‘It’s going to snow all night, Lex,’ he told her, sounding desperate.
‘I know that you think I’m mad, but once me, Addi and the girls, on hearing that the snow would last all day in the Ceres area, drove three hours to find puddles at the end of our trip. The girls cried. Addi and I cursed.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘In Africa, when you see snow, you go outsideimmediately. It’s arule.’
No matter how tempted she was, no matter how she burned for him, how she couldn’t wait for him to make her sigh and scream, she wanted to stand in the snow. The bed, couch, the wall—wherever he wanted to have her—would still be there in ten minutes but the snow might not. ‘Ten minutes, Cole. Please?’
Cole looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. ‘I cannot believe that we are having this conversation.’
‘In the snow versus sex battle,’ Lex told him, sounding serious, ‘snow is probably always going to win.’
‘You Africans are seriously weird.’ Cole walked over to the side door leading out onto the patio and opened the door. ‘I’m giving you five minutes to catch your snowflake and then I’m getting you naked.’
That sounded like a truly excellent compromise.
Lex caught a snowflake on her tongue and, as soon as she did, Cole covered her mouth with his, tangling his fingers into her hair and twisting his tongue around hers, the snowflake dissolving instantly.
Not expecting to be out for long, they’d left the house in just their jeans and jerseys, and Cole felt the snow landing on his shoulders, in his hair, his body temperature steadily dropping. He knew they should go inside, but Lex’s joy in what to him was such a banal weather event had a tiny stream of what he thought might be joy running through his system. For as long as he lived, he’d remember standing out here with her. The vision of Lex catching snowflakes on her tongue, her arms spread out wide, would remain with him until he died.
He felt her shiver and knew that they should return inside as neither of them wore shoes. His socks were wet, and hers would be too, but there was just one thing he needed to do before they went inside.
It was his most recent fantasy, but they didn’t know each other well enough for him to ask her to strip in a snowstorm. Pity.
Without warning, Lex whipped her top up and over her head, and she gasped as a couple of snowflakes hit her bare skin. ‘Cole, it’s freezing!’ Lex moaned, hopping from foot to foot.
‘You’re the one who took her clothes off, you crazy woman. Why?’
Her blazing eyes met his. ‘Because you looked like you wanted me to,’ she replied. ‘And I want you to do whatever you were thinking of.’
‘You kill me, Lex,’ Cole told her, reaching for the front-facing clasp holding her bra together. ‘I just wanted to see you standing in the snow naked. Or half-naked. Lex, you are so very beautiful,’ he murmured.
Her torso was long and slim, her breasts bigger than he’d expected and tipped with blush-pink nipples. Freckles covered her skin, fine and the colour of golden syrup, a few shades lighter than the ones on her chest and shoulders. He wanted to kiss every one, but for now he’d be content to lick a snowflake, just one, off her nipple. He felt as if he was commanding nature when a snowflake landed on her breast and slid down her skin. As it hit her nipple, Cole ducked his head and suckled her, his tongue hot against her freezing breast.
He felt her hand come up to grasp his head, her fingers sliding into his hair, and he heard her moan, low, sexy and sweet. Knowing that he couldn’t keep her out here for one minute longer, he swung her up in his arms and walked her into the house, kicking the outside door closed with his heel.
Cole walked straight to the area in front of the fire, sighing when the warm air enveloped them. Lex’s feet hit the Persian carpet and she turned her back to him, holding her hands out to the fire, utterly unselfconsciousness to be standing half-dressed in front of him. He liked that she wasn’t shy, that she felt comfortable with him and trusted him enough to take care of her.
And take care of her he would.
Cole dropped her jersey and bra to the floor, bent down, lifted her foot and slid her wet sock off, tossing it to the side. He removed her other sock and, standing up, toed off his own. Then he ran his hands over her slim shoulders and down her long arms to tangle his fingers in hers. Dropping his head, he rested his forehead against hers.
He wanted her, more than he thought was possible. If he was an imaginative man, he’d think she’d cast a spell over him, that he now understood why men crashed onto rocks at the call of a siren, why they launched a thousand ships because of a lovely face.
At this moment there was nothing he wouldn’t do to have her under him, to be inside her, making her his.
But ten minutes in the icy cold might’ve changed her mind. ‘Is this what you still want, Lex?’
Instead of replying, she undid her belt, popped the buttons on her jeans and shimmied the fabric down her legs, before kicking them away. She wore plain white panties, and through the fabric he caught the suggestion of a tidy strip of red hair.
Wrenching his eyes up, he took in her flat stomach, her rounded hips and those stupendous legs. She pulled a band from her hair, shook her head and red curls fell over her shoulders and down her back. He picked one up and gently pulled it straight. If her hair was straight, it would fall to the middle of her back. For some reason, Cole couldn’t imagine Lex with straight, smooth hair. It didn’t suit her open, vibrant personality.
She was everything lovely, as wild as a summer thunderstorm, as unexpected as a blizzard in Africa—complicated, intriguing, different.
He couldn’t wait to explore every inch of her fabulous body, but it was her mind that intrigued him more.
It shouldn’t, but it did.
On shedding her jeans, Lex expected Cole to yank her into his arms, lower her to the leather sofa behind them and, well, get busy.