Page 16 of Burn for Me (The Last Snow of the Season 2)
"If you think we can get down this mountain and you aren't afraid to try with me then I'm all for it, little rabbit."
I'm pulled back away from my thoughts and my conversations with Mark when Charlie look at me and ask me if I trust Mark. What the hell?
"Of course!" I'm offering to go down a snowy ice hole of a road with the man driving me for fucks-sake. Charlie goes on to explain that me and Milly are really the only people who don't 'know' our partner. But I know Mark. I KNOW Mark - like in a biblical sense. If I trust him with my body, I'm pretty sure I'm going to trust him not to kill me.
Betsy asks about having to go back upstairs and all of us make the decision to sleep downstairs and in pairs. We don't sleep right next to Rani and Milly but we're close enough that I can see them. Not a lot of sleeping goes on throughout the night. I have hours and hours to doubt my decision about volunteering us. Hours.
Sometime just after midnight, I am pulled tighter to Mark. "You made a good choice, little one. Never doubt that I will have your back when you make a decision. Always." He kisses me under my ear and then turns my head to kiss my lips. "Always."
Something in his words must soothe me because I sleep sometime during the night and wake up before the sun breaks across the sky. The next few hours are busy ones with us up and dressing and everyone helping to make sure the ride down is as smooth as it can be with all the snow on the ground.
I don't get a chance to even talk to Mark until we are in the car and then I worry that I might distract him and make him wreck. On the way down I find out that seeing a man drive the way Mark is driving turns me the fuck on. What is wrong with me? It's the way he uses the shifter that does things for me. He has such big capable hands and I have an intimate knowledge of those hands.
I'm kind of surprised when we make it down the mountain and the snow fades away to just drifts of nothing in the ditches on the side of the road. It must have been our elevation that caused us to have so much snow. Once in town, it's another mad dash of people and speaking and getting things lined up to go back and retrieve the body and help our friends down off the mountain.
Thankfully Charlie called to alert the police, so they were waiting on us when we got to the station. Back up the mountain we go and all of a sudden there are even more cops and questions being asked and we are all asked what happened. It is a question I'm not sure how to answer. It was pretty embarrassing to have to admit I was sleeping with Mark - like in the same bed - when we both heard the scream and the gunshots. I don't know how everyone else came out of the questioning, but it really drove the point home that this whole weekend lover thing isn't going to stay just my little secret.
By the time we're back in the jeep and on our way back down the mountain, the only thing I want to do is find a bed and spend a weekend in it. This is one vacation that has seriously wiped me out. We pull up in the driveway of a little, white, two-story house that looks adorable. It only takes a minute for me to figure out whose house we are at because Mark opens his door and starts unloading his stuff.
He puts it on the low porch that wraps around half the house. The yard here is beautiful. It is so green and pretty. My aunt lives in an apartment complex with one tree in the front and the rest of the space is a parking lot. I must be half-horse because I can see myself wanting to roll in the grass here, getting the entire experience of this lawn. Not to even mention the trees that are encircling the house like they're offering a hug to the house.
I'm a little surprised when Mark comes back to the car one more time to help me out of it. Maybe he wants to drive me home separately so we can have time to speak to one another without an audience or fear of interruption. I say my goodbyes to Milly and Jag with a promise to visit with Milly soon. She only has her mom and is worried about college and what to do after graduation too. Maybe we can figure this whole adulting thing out together.
Mark walks me into the house, and I fall in love with it. Damn it! I shouldn't have walked in. Now I don't want to leave. I stand right in front of the door not really knowing what to do now. I'm sure he'll want to take me home soon, but he also has to bring all of his stuff in and take my stuff to the car parked out front.
"Go ahead and look around, make yourself at home. It is now after all."
He says the last as he's turning from me to go make another trip to bring things inside so I'm pretty sure I heard him wrong. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part. Even though he's given me free rein of his house I don't want to go any further. I'm afraid I might find something else that makes me fall even more in love with this cute little house.
I wait for him to come back in before I speak. "I...I should really go home."
He stops doing what he is doing and turns to me. There is a wicked smile on his face that tells me he's up to something I might not agree with.
"You are home, little rabbit."
