She Breathes the Stars

Chapter Seven

My entire body tenses up as soon as I feel those unnaturally warm arms slide around me. His forehead is touching my temple, his breath brushes against my ear and the side of his body completely lines up with mine like a missing puzzle piece. His hands are sliding up and down my forearms to warm me, and it works, but the feel of his skin also leaves behind a trail of goosebumps.

For a few moments I'm as still as a statue with my knees pushed up to my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs so I can hide my face in them, but the tranquility doesn't last long. I can feel my heartbeat accelerate and pound against my rapidly coloring cheeks, and I know I'm about to freak out because he's freaking cuddling me.

And I'm enjoying it.

He must notice my discomfort though, because his hands stop sliding against my skin to squeeze my shoulders tightly and pull them back so I'm forced to look at him in the eye. I detect a slight hint of pink on his cheeks as well.

"Erm...Body heat, you know?" He murmurs; making it the most un-educational sentence I've ever heard him speak. "It's uh, not weird because you're cold and stuff."

I force myself to swallow the ball of cotton rising in my throat and nod slowly, because the way his dark eyes seem to gain some color when I look at him is just so enduring. I want to see those galaxies reappear in his irises the way they were when I first saw him. They don't hold any color right now; but they will.

I'm almost shaking with nerves as I smile bashfully. "I've only known you for a day," I say jokingly, "this relationship is moving way too fast."

Even as I say the words, they taste fowl leaving my lips. I've known him for far longer than a day, but he just doesn't quite remember it yet.

He forces a little chuckle and wraps his arm back around my shoulders, giving me a little more space to breathe this time. But with only one side pressed to his unnaturally warm body and the other facing the snowy outside world; my temperature feels off balance with one side freezing in the cold.

Taking deep breathes to steady my pounding heartbeat I look up at the darkening sky through the draping branches. It's hard to tell since the snow storm is getting worse; thus the clouds are getting thicker, but I believe that night will soon be coming. If that happens we'll be stuck out here all night and the boy in my arms will get cold again, putting both of us in danger for hypothermia.

Maybe I should get some sleep now. I think to myself. That way if something happens this evening to Nite then I'd have enough energy to do something about it.

I look up, seeing Nite's dark eyes watching the snowflakes slowly pile by our feet and melt around him as if he were a human radiator. I don't know how long it'll take before he gets cold again, so I decide to take advantage of it while I can.

I unzip my jacket and hold out the left side to him, blushing as I say; "Wrap this around you."

He blinks at me in confusion, but takes the side of my jacket nonetheless. He scoots closer so that the jacket can fit comfortably around us, and since it's pretty big on me anyway because it was my fathers, when I take my arm out of the sleeve I am able to zip it around the both of us. I am now painfully aware of Nite's arm pressing against mine and the feel of his breath on my neck, but when my shoulder slides against his chest and finds his pounding heart, I feel a bit better. It's beating as fast as mine.

Now that we're sharing the body heat that's trapped inside this leather jacket, I am more confident that we'll be okay even if the snowstorm does last till midnight... I hope.

"I am not cold, Tawny." Nite says, his breath tickling my ear. "I don't need for you to share your jacket with me."

"Night time is coming." I tell him dragging his arm up to his lap so it's not stuck out in the cold. "You'll be freezing in about an hour or so; so I need you to share your body heat with me now."