I went home sated, satisfied, and smeared with jelly.

I could have stayed. I probably should have. There was no doubt Yo had wanted me to. But I needed to pump the breaks, just a little bit. I wasn’t scared, but I was a realist. The thing between us was so new I didn’t want to rush and end up ruining it. I hoped we wouldn’t end up like the Hanukkah candles; each night they glowed hotter and brighter, but they also burned out faster and faster, until there was nothing left but cozy memories.

I’d disappeared all day for the same reason. Well, that wasn’t the entire truth. I’d had to go to campus to meet with a professor and then I’d hit the library. I’d stayed longer than I needed to, but I knew if I went home, I’d spend my day ogling Yo again. Ogling Yo was good. Everything about Yo was good. He was fantastic.

So I pulled away. I didn’t pull far. Just enough to let myself see what was happening clearly. Because I had feelings. Warm feelings. Sexy feelings. Wanting feelings. And I had to decide what to do with those feelings.

But the second I went over to his place and saw the relief mixed with desire in his eyes, my decision was made for me.

If we burned too bright, too hot, and we ended almost as soon as we started, then at least I’d get to feel the flames.

My bedroom was brighter than normal when I woke up. The light streaming in from my windows was a blinding white. Sitting up, I got a better look at the cause of the brightness: snow. I moved to the window and smiled at the winter wonderland outside.

There weren’t many things that filled me with glee, but snow was at the top of the list. And this snow was gorgeous. The flakes were big and fluffy. The reminded me of the paper snowflakes I made in kindergarten, each one perfectly symmetrical but impossible to replicate, no matter how hard I tried.

Wrapping myself in a thick fleece robe, I ran across the icy cold hall and tapped lightly on Yo’s door. It was still early, but I reasoned my light knock wouldn’t wake him if he was still asleep. I just wanted to see if he shared my excitement. If he didn’t, I might have to throw a snowball at his face.

He opened the door wearing a crooked grin, heavy-lidded eyes, and no shirt, all of which worked for me immensely.

“It’s snowing,” I said.

He fisted the collar of my robe, pulling me inside. “Do you have any idea how happy I am to wake up to the sound of you at my door?”

I circled my arms around his neck. “Shit, I was trying not to wake you.”

He pushed my hair aside and nuzzled the side of my neck. “You...were trying not to wake me by knocking on my door?”

I huffed. “It was a tap!”

“Definite knock.”

“You’re distracting me from the reason I came over.”

“Mmmm.” He captured my mouth, kissing me completely stupid. He made me melt, there was no other word for it. My mouth took to the shape of his, melding, changing, until I couldn’t even remember if they were my lips to begin with. My arms hung limply over his shoulders and my knees felt like liquid.

“Yo...the snow…” I breathed as he bit a line across my shoulder.

“Mmmhmm...I like snow,” he mumbled against my skin.

Finally, some sense came back to me, and I grabbed his cheeks, lifting his face so I could see him. “I want to go play in it!”

He blinked at me, his eyes glazed and unfocused. “You want to play? In the snow? Not naked, in my apartment?”

“There’s a high probability that I’ll get very cold and need to be warmed up when I come back inside.” I waggled my eyebrows playfully.

“That sounds like bribery,” he said.

I tapped his chest. “You can stay inside where it’s warm and boring. I’m going to go bundle up and make a snow angel.”

I turned toward the door, but he caught me, pressing his chest to my back. Against my ear, he whispered, “I’ll have you know, I make fucking amazing angels. They put all other snow angels to shame. My wingspan is out of this world.”

I giggled, tipping my head back to smile at him. “Challenge accepted.”

Back across the hall in my own apartment, I kept catching myself smiling. Yo made me feel playful and free. I had so much work I could be doing, but it was barely a thought in the corner of my mind. I had two days left of vacay and there was no other way I’d rather spend it than being silly and ridiculous with Yo.

I had snow pants from the one time I went skiing—despite my love of snow, it was not my bag—so I slipped them on over leggings and piled layers on top before pulling on my coat, scarf, hat, mittens, and boots. Yo was waiting for me on the landing, looking like a sexy snowboarder, while I resembled a marshmallow. A warm marshmallow, but still a marshmallow.

But he grinned at me and pulled my puffy body in for a kiss. “You’re so fucking cute, Larissa.”

“And you look like you walked out of the Winter X Games.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “I’ve been skiing and snowboarding a time or two.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t stop the smile. “Ugh. You’re one of those natural athletes, aren’t you?”

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe. I just like to be outside and move my body. Always have.”

We started down the stairs. “I don’t mind those things. I just tend to not be so great at them.”

“When it’s nicer, you’re going on a bike ride with me. I’ll get you to love it.”

My chest flooded with warmth. I knew Yo liked me. That much was clear. But hearing him plan something for a few months from now like it was no big deal was something else entirely. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that.

But that wasn’t really true. I felt hopeful, which wasn’t a common emotion for me. But it was Hanukkah, a holiday that was about nothing if not hope. So maybe the holiday had infected me with the spirit...or maybe it was just Yo. Either way, I wanted to believe we’d be riding bikes together in the beautiful spring weather, like a romantic comedy montage.

No Everesting though. I drew the line at Everesting.

When we stepped outside our little house, I filled my lungs with the icy air. The cold bit at my cheeks and nose, but the rest of me was cozy in my many, many layers.

Lifting my face to the sky, I let snowflakes melt as they hit my skin. I stuck my tongue out to catch even more.

“You really love this, don’t you?”

I grinned at Yo, blinking the snow out of my eyes. “Yeah. I’ve always loved the snow. My mom used to have to drag me inside when my lips turned blue.”

Yo tipped his head back like I had, letting the snowflakes hit his face. “What do you love most about it?”

I picked up a handful of fluffy snow and rubbed it across my lips. “Listen.”

He paused and stayed perfectly still. “What? I don’t hear anything.”

“It’s quiet, but not really. You just have to listen.”

There was at least a foot of snow coating the road, so there were no cars driving, but in the distance, probably blocks and blocks away, I could just make out the rumble of a plow at work. It was still early, but if I tilted my head to the side, I heard the laughter of kids playing. Hopefully they were having an epic snowball fight. And the snow itself had its own distinct sound. A quiet, somber hum. It wasn’t white noise; it didn’t snow often enough for my ears to relegate it to the background. But it was still soothing, relaxing. A sense memory that brought me back to the happiest times in my life.

Yo sat down, then lay back in the snow, his eyes closed and a smile curving his lips.

“I hear it.”

I lay next to him, some of the snow seeping through my beanie, but I didn’t care. I was too content to really feel it. Yo grabbed my gloved hand with his and we lay there quietly, just listening and letting the snow cover us.

“Can I say how surreal it is to be lying on a city sidewalk without being trampled?” he said.

I turned my head to smile at him. “You’re telling me you’ve never done this?”

“Can’t say that I have. I spent my prime snow-playing years in Israel, and we got more rain than snow during the winter.”

“I’ve lived in a city my entire adult life. If I didn’t lie on a sidewalk every once in a while, I’d miss out on a lot of awesome.”

He returned my smile. “I wouldn’t have taken you as this whimsical.”

I threw some snow at his chest. “A little bit of whimsy is good for the soul.”

He tossed snow back at me. “Are you trying to start a snowball fight, Larissa?”

“If I was, I wouldn’t do it lying right next to you. I’d find a place to take cover. Preferably higher ground. And I’d get a good stash of snowballs before I launched my attack.”

He snorted. “Not that you’ve thought about this.”

“Hey, my sister would have fucked me up if I hadn’t learned a strategy at a very early age. She’s ten years older, but she never took it easy on me.”

He rolled to his side, his face hovering above mine. Yo’s eyes actually sparkled with happiness. I’d read about eyes described that way but had thought it was some throwaway term. Until now. But a lot of things with Yo were ‘until now’.

He rubbed his cold nose on mine and I shivered. “Cold?”

I pulled him down and kissed him. His lips were cold too, but that didn’t stop me. The friction from our mouths rubbing together would keep us warm. He half-laid on top of me and the weight of him combined with the cold of his lips and heat of his tongue had me shuddering and needing more of him. The sound of the approaching plow was the only thing that broke us apart.

“No,” I said.

He was still just above me, and his brows pinched together. “What?”

“No, I’m not cold.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled and his mouth drew up into a slow, lazy smile. “If you’re not cold, then I think it’s time I demonstrated my snow angel skills.”

I clapped my mittened hands together, releasing a puff of snow. “Let’s do this thing.”

After taking a snowball to the face and then stuffing a chunk of snow down the back of Yo’s jacket, we called it a day and headed inside.

“I’m impressed you didn’t take it easy on me,” I said.

He held his hands up. “I swear I was aiming for your chest. But you did peg me twice in the face. So you were kind of asking for it.”

We stopped on the landing between our apartments, quiet for a moment.

“I’m about to ask for something else.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

I gripped the front of his coat. “Come inside with me. Help me get warm.”

“You don’t have to ask. I’m just gonna follow you.”

And follow me he did. Inside my apartment, we shed our layers, leaving them in piles by the front door. We weren’t quite naked, but both of us were down to our underwear, shivering...this time from the cold.

“I’m fucking freezing,” Yo said.

My teeth chattered as I hugged myself. “Come get under the covers with me.”

“That is the best offer I’ve had all year.”

Pulling back my thick comforter, we climbed beneath the flannel sheets and fluffy bedding, snuggling together in the middle of my bed. My legs twined with his and his arms wrapped around my shoulders, holding me close.

“I want to kiss you, but I can’t feel my lips,” Yo said.

I smiled, nuzzling closer to his chest. “That’s okay. This is really good.”

He stroked his hand down the back of my head and over my shoulders. “Yeah, it really is.”

Using the excuse that I needed to warm my hands, I rubbed them across his chest and down his back, letting my fingers memorize the feel of his skin. Last night everything had been so frenzied that I hadn’t really taken the time just to touch him.

Men didn’t generally have the artistic curves of women, but I still saw the beauty in their bodies. The thicker, tougher skin. The coarse hair covering the planes of muscle. The narrowness of their hips. The V that some men were lucky to have. If I’d been an artist, all of my paintings would have been of that V.

Yo had the V. I ran the tips of my fingers along the ridge of the muscle and he rocked his hips forward, toward me.

“Are you warming up?” I asked.

“Keep doing that, I’m still a little cold.”

Reaching between our bodies, I wrapped my hand around his hardening length, and slowly stroked the silky skin. He groaned, shifting around so that he was closer, pressing into my belly.

“God damn, you’re so soft. I feel like a broken record, but I fucking love your body,” he said. He cupped my ass in his big hands, kneading it. He pulled back when I hissed. “Oh, shit, baby, did I hurt you?”

I twisted my hips to see the bruise on my bum. “It’s still a little tender.”

He got on his hands and knees and crawled down my body, leaving a trail of kisses along my side. He stopped at the circular black and blue mark that was just now starting to fade a bit, so it was tinged with a gorgeous shade of green. “Poor you,” he murmured. Then he kissed and licked all around the bruise until I was a writhing, panting mess.

“Turn over,” he said.

I complied, rolling onto my front. Yo’s hands were on me immediately, outlining my back and ass, careful not to touch the tender spot again. He pulled my underwear down my legs, discarding them next to the bed. I could only lie there and feel his touch. For me, it was more than enough. His hands worshipped my body, stroking and gliding over every bump and curve.

He lowered himself onto me, his breath hot in my ear and his cock hard against my ass. I tilted my hips up, needing to feel him now. He hadn’t touched my breasts or between my legs, yet I was on fire for him.

“Condom,” I said, pointing to my bedside table.

The heat from his body lifted off of me for just a moment, and goosebumps formed in his absence. Then he was back, blanketing me.

“Lift your hips for me, Larissa.”

He eased some weight off of me, allowing me to draw up my knees and push up, so that I was open and ready. He rubbed his erection up and down my center, drawing out the moment and driving me crazy. I rocked back, seeking...anything. Just anything to ease the ache that had come on so strong and fast, it took my breath away.

He sank into me slowly, steadily, hands gripping my hip and tangling with my hair.

It was such a relief to have him inside me, filling me the way he did, that I let out a long, low moan. The hair on his chest brushed against my back, making me arch up into him even more.

“You’re so warm,” he said.

I turned my head, trying to see him over my shoulder. “Oh, is that what this is about? Stealing my heat?”

He bit my shoulder just as he slapped his hips against my ass. “That’s exactly what this is about. It isn’t that I like you more than I should.” Slap. “Or that I find you so fucking beautiful I can’t think straight.” Slap. “Or that your pussy is like hot velvet and I never ever want to leave.” Slap, thrust, slam.

Yo slid an arm under my stomach, angling my hips up more, then moved his hand between my legs. His fingers found my clit, swirling slowly, working me higher and higher. And he kept talking, whispering dirty, loving things in my ear. I was so out of my head, I couldn’t even say anything back.

I wanted to say he fit me so well, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be fucked this good again. I should have said the feel of him pressing me to the bed was addictive, and I would die a happy woman if I could have this every day. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that my body was now completely his to pleasure as he pleased.

Instead of words, I gave him whimpers. I let him know how good he felt sliding in and out of me by clawing at the sheets and bucking beneath him. And finally, when he brought me to heights of delirious ecstasy I couldn’t help but fall from, I clenched around him mewling like a wild animal.

Yo fell on top of me completely, thrusting erratically and without finesse. But I didn’t care. He kept pressing on my clit and I kept coming and coming. His teeth clamped down on the side of my neck and he growled as he ground into me one final time. He stayed there, as deep as he could go, my delicate skin between his teeth, holding me tight.

After a long moment of panting and trying to regain some sort of equilibrium, Yo pulled out and flopped right next to me, one of his hands splayed over my back. I smiled at him, still a little delirious from the orgasm he’d just given me. And maybe a little delirious from the feelings that were currently making my heart swell and throb.

Yo smiled back, his face flat on the bed, and his eyes glazed. He looked like he was just as delirious as me.

“Still cold?” I asked.

“Not even a little.”

“Glad I made you play in the snow?”

“Hell yes. And there was no making me. You tell me we’re going to make broken-glass angels, I’ll probably come.”

I snorted. “Oh, please don’t. If I ever suggest something like that, tell me that’s a fucking terrible idea.”

He laughed and swiped his hand down my cheek. “Will do.”

I turned over on my side. “I want you to know I have so much reading to do today. But honestly, all I want to do is lie in bed and talk to you.”

He turned on his side too. “So let’s do that. Tell me what you’re researching.” He rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip. “I want to know what you’re learning. Hell, you can read to me if you want.”

I grinned and my heart did a crazy, fluttery dance in my chest. “Yeah? You want to talk about the ethics behind expanding the use of genetic testing?”

He did. He wanted to talk and he wanted to listen. I never thought I’d spend the day, half-naked in bed with a gorgeous man who had stumbled into my heart, discussing my research. But that’s just what we did.

And at sundown, when we went to Yo’s place to light the menorah for the seventh time, there was only one empty spot. One more day of Hanukkah and then reality would set in.