All's Fair in Love and Chocolate (Marietta Chocolate Wars #1) - Amy Andrews Page 0,41
lake was looking exactly like he knew it would, a pristine sheet of ice stretching pure and powdery white from one tree-lined shore to the other. Crystals of ice dazzled the eye beneath the early morning sunshine. Dark green branches, laden with snow, reached into the frigid sky.
“Oh, Reuben,” she uttered softly as she pressed her hand to her chest. “It’s beautiful.”
God…she was beautiful. She was so beautiful his chest ached. “You like?”
“I love it.”
She turned to him then, her eyes shining and her naked appreciation was like a sledgehammer to his chest. The fact that Vivian clearly appreciated the view as much as he did was like a hot water bottle shoved up his sweater on this freezing morning.
“Good.” Reuben grinned and undid his seat belt because he really wanted to kiss her but if he did that, they wouldn’t get out of the vehicle at all and they had about an hour until they’d have to share the ice and he wanted to be alone out there—just the two of them. “Because you and I are going skating on it.”
She blinked. “What?” She glanced at the lake briefly then back again. “But…I don’t have any skates?”
“Yeah, you do.” He smiled. “I hired you some.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Well look at you, Mr. Take Charge.”
Reuben waggled his brows. “That’s Officer Take Charge to you.” He pushed open his door, a freezing blast of air evaporating both the effects of the heating and his horniness in an instant. “C’mon, the sooner we get on the ice, the sooner we’ll warm up.”
*
They walked down the steps from the scenic lookout, using the well-worn track cutting through the towering conifers, to get to the water. The water had frozen unevenly where it had encroached on the shingly beach, looking as if a layer of thick white fondant icing with a scalloped edge had been laid over the shoreline.
“You’re sure about this?” she asked as they laced up their skates while sitting on an old fallen log where the tree line met the beach. “I’ve seen a few too many people being fished out of freezing water on CNN. The ice is safe?”
“Absolutely.” Reuben captured her gaze. “One hundred percent. The lake isn’t that big, nor is it very deep. It freezes solid for a few months every year. From November through to February. Sometimes even longer than that. They rent out skates in the afternoons at that shack over there on the east shore—” He pointed to the deserted distant building. “Families with little kids do it all the time. Trust me, I wouldn’t skate on it or let you skate on it, if I thought it was unsafe.”
She nodded slowly as she digested the information. “Okay then, let’s do this thing.”
Pulling her laces tight she removed the slides from her blades and threw them in the bag Reuben had brought with him. There were a couple of blankets, some glove warmers and a thermos of hot coffee in it too for when they returned.
Reuben also stood, pulling frigid air into his lungs, feeling the dull ache as the cold reached right down to the tiny air sacks deep inside. He held out his gloved hand and she took it. “Let’s go.”
Stones crunched under foot as they made their way across to the start of the ice and Reuben helped Vivian on, holding her hand as she wobbled a little to start before she found her footing. When she was steady she let go of his hand and pushed off like she’d been skating all her life and Reuben followed, gaining speed to keep pace with her, warming up quickly as his thighs and arms worked in unison.
They didn’t speak as they ventured across the lake, the only sounds that of their blades cutting through the ice and the occasional mournful bird cry from the woods. Reuben watched Vivian taking it all in, her head swiveling from side to side as her quads contracted in those black jeans that hugged everything. Her nose was pink, so were her cheeks and some of her blond hair had escaped her beanie, the flyways fluttering around her face.
The fringed ends of her scarf had escaped her blue jacket and were flapping behind her like the tails of a kite, a red streak on the white ice. Occasionally she flipped around to skate backward so she could take in the view of the other side growing smaller and smaller behind them as they approached the middle.