On Ice

OI Chapter 22

“Come on Sleeping Beauty, it’s time to get up.”

I burrow deeper into the quilt and mutter my disapproval of this idea, but Kale has other ideas and his cool fingers dip beneath the quilt before stealing under my borrowed sweatshirt. Against my bare skin, his fingers are chilly and I feel goose flesh break out on my arms, I try to roll away from his cold touch, but he rolls with me. His fingers stroke from my belly button to just beneath my breasts and I suddenly find that my eyes are wide open and I feel quite awake. He drops kisses along my jaw and when he notices that my eyes are open, he smiles at me.

“Awake,” he asks.

Nodding, I groan as he pops to his feet and leans down to help me to my feet. The tease! I can’t understand how he can be so energetic. While the nap helped, I still felt tired and sluggish. I suppose it shouldn’t really surprise me that my lack of sleep was catching up with me, but still, I didn’t want to spend all my alone time with Kale snoozing. Rising from the floor, Kale drags me over to the door of the cabin and starts pulling on a pair of boots and a light jacket. Rolling my eyes, I stuff my feet into my sneakers and quickly tie the laces. My gaze darts back toward the couch, hoping to find my jersey, figuring that that additional layer would keep me warm enough outdoors, but before I can really think about it, Kale is tugging me out of the cabin.

He laces our fingers together as we stand just outside the door. Kale looks anxious and excited at the same time. It makes me feel a little nervous. He must have caught wind of my apprehensive frown, because he backed me against the door and lifted my chin, making me look him in the eyes. His thumbs traced my cheek bones and he dropped a kiss on the end of my nose.

“Hey,” he said, “Its okay. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do Calla.” His gaze was intense as he repeated, “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

I really didn’t like the sound of this. If I’d been nervous before, this just made it ten times worse. Taking a deep breath, I said, “Are you trying to scare me?”

“No,” Kale exclaimed and pulled me into an embrace, “I’m not trying to scare you baby.” He expelled a loud breath and took a step back. “Remember when I asked you what scared you about cars the other night,” he waited for me to nod, “You said if the car didn’t have a roof that you’d try to get in. My dad has an old Jeep he lets me borrow in the winter. It has a canvas type top that snaps on and off. I thought we’d take the top of and see how things went.”

Shit, I really didn’t like the sound of this now. It was definitely not something I wanted to do today. The idea of a panic attack wasn’t exactly on my to do list, but I had said I would try. It wasn’t a promise technically, but I couldn’t go back on my word, not that that relieved any of my anxiety. I nod my agreement, because I wasn’t sure that I could utter anything positive sounding around the tight bubble of panic that was already beginning to form in my chest. Kale brightened immediately and planted a smooch on my mouth that completely distracted me from my apprehension. The kiss morphed from something playful and fun into something passionate that stole the starch from my legs. I panted softly and used the door behind me for support until I felt that I could walk without my legs giving out on me.

Kale took my hand again and led me over to the Jeep. It was an older model, but its paint was shiny green and dent free. The top that Kale had mentioned was a dark tan and as I studied the vehicle, I could see the little snaps that held it together. I was surprised as I grew nearer to the Jeep that the urge to run was absent. Cautiously I circled, Kale hovering close and keeping my hand gripped in his own. I could tell that he was keeping an eye on me as he started telling me about the maintenance.

“I just put a set of new tires on, had them aligned and balanced, the breaks have been tested, she’s had an oil change to get her ready for winter and I had Joel fill up the tank before he brought her over,” Kale told me.