Smoke emanated from the cabin, looking like a dull cloud against the clear, bright stars above. The only sound was of his footfalls in the snow ahead as he dashed towards the grove. As I caught up, a bashful chuckle escaped his lips and he turned with me nearly bowling him over in my stride. I stopped short, our exerted, cold mouths blowing steam up towards the heavens. He was listening. Nobody had followed.

Just outside the prying, yellow lights stretching across the snow towards us, he pulled me by my jacket to the shadowed cover of the widest oak on the lawn. There, he pinned us firmly against it’s bark, his lips tearing at mine with the fervor of a thousand unfulfilled opportunities. My body reacted with instinct, reciprocating a passion I had no idea I’d contained.

Snow, clinging to our lashes and hats, melted approaching our heat-blushed skin. A pause with a pleading in his eyes, and another nip—another breath exhaled against my wanting lips.