Wicked Fate (The Wicked Trilogy) (14 page)

“Hi! My
name’s Annabelle. What’s yours?” her little voice is sweet
.

“Ah—my name’
s Mage.
It’s nice to meet you, Annabelle.
”

“Are you going to stand out in the cold all day
or are you going to come in
for the party?”

There’s absolutely no way I’m
going insi
de Adam’s home. My mind goes completely blank. One, I have
no idea how to talk to
a small person, and two I wasn’t
i
nvited to any party. I
wouldn’t have gone to any party even if I was inv
ited. I scramble
for words.

“Well
,
actually I had no idea that you guys were having a party. I’ll just come back another time
,
okay? It was really n
ice to meet you though.” I say
all this while making my way down the last two steps.

I have
to make an escap
e before anyone else sees me
.

“Who is it, Anna?” a deep voice asks from behind the door.

Adam.

Then he’s there standing behind Annabelle. He looks at me and some strange emotion flickers in his emerald gaze. He giv
e
s
me his slanted smile and I feel warm. I could almost forget the fact that I’m frozen from my head to my toes.

“Run inside and tell mom I’ll be b
ack in a bit, okay?” He pats Annabelle’s blonde head before he reaches over and grabs his coat from the
coat
rack.

He steps outside, putting his coat on at the same time, and then shuts the door. It’s as if we’re the only people in the whole
white
world.

Breathing
sudde
nly becomes hard for me
. I had prepared the cookies and knew what I was going to do with them, but not once had I thought of what I wou
ld say to him when we were face-to-
face.

He begins
rubbing his hands together and blowing
hot breath between them. He sits
down on
the
top s
tep then pats
the spot
next to him.

“Want to sit down?” he asks

I walk up the two bottom
s
teps and sit beside him. Our arms brush together and I feel
a tingli
ng sensation. Neither of us speaks, which is bad since now I’m sure he can hear my erratic breathing. My hot breath comes out in white clouds in the frigid air. Not only can he hear my hard breathing, but he can see it, too.
Embarrassin
g thing number one—check!

“Can you be
lieve this weather? Yesterday it
was warm and it was suppose
d
to be warm
the rest of this week. Then you
wake up and it’s snowing and cold outsid
e. That’s strange, huh?” he asks
with a knowing smile.

“Yeah
,
I guess so.”

“Do you want to go inside? I
see you shaking, it’s freezing out here.”

“Oh—n
o thank you
.
I was just com
ing by to give you this,” I hold
out the tin with the cookies in it. “Thank you for my present and the tree. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Did you like it?”

“I love it. The tree’s beautiful. It feels like
Christmas
at my house,” I smile. “
Sorry about the cookies. I didn’
t know what else to get you and
I figure
d what guy doesn’t like cookies,
”
my face flushes
.

I’m
babbling. Since when do I babble? I put my hea
d down in embarrassment and we get
quiet again. I
’ve
never felt more nervous in my life.

“Thank you,” he pops
open the tin
. “I like sweet things.”

His silky words caress my skin and between him and the freezing temps, I’m covered in goose bumps again.

We both get quiet and then I realize that he might
be waiti
ng for me to leave so that he can go inside. I stand up and step down the stairs
.

“Well, I better head back
home. I just wanted to say thanks
for th
e tree and everything,” I pull
my beanie
tighter onto my head and then I turn
to walk away.

“Wait—d
id you walk here?”
his brows inch up.

“Yes. But
it’s
okay—it’s not far
.”

“But i
t’s freezing outside,” he jumps
up from the step. “I’ll take
you home.”

“No, its fine really—I
don’t mind. I enjoy the walk
.”

“
There’s no way I’m letting you walk home in the cold
,
Mage
. Come on,” he starts
towards his truck.

There it is again, my name on his lips. Why does
it do such weird things to me? He could probably persua
de me to do anything…all he’d have to do i
s say my name
.

I’m a sad little individual.

I follow
behind him.

Part of me is glad that he’
s
taking me home and part of me is nervous. It’s sweet of him to offer and it would be rude of me to turn him down.

My brain i
s going a hundred
miles-per-hour. I’m
about
to get in Adam’s truck and he’
s
about to drive me home. We’re going to be all alone, and if that’s not
one of
the greatest things ever, he has
to go and make it ten times better by opening
the truck door for me—such a gentleman.

I’m short, so he helps me climb into his big truck.  H
is
warm hands slide down my waist and he lifts me like I weigh nothing. A
ll
the cold in my bones dissipates and I feel hot all over. He makes an appreciative noise and smiles
before closing the door behind me.
I watch as he walks around the hood of his truck and then jumps into the driver’s seat without a problem.
After cra
nking the loud engine, he turns
on the heat.

“Hopefully it won’
t take long to heat up,” he says while he rubs
his hands together trying to warm them.

The s
hort trip back to my house doesn’
t last nearly l
ong enough for me, yet it seems to take forever. It’s the strangest thing. I’m
completely nervous around
him—I always feel
like running away, but at the same time
, I never want him to leave. Adam’
s slowly becoming a constant part of my mind. Ever since this morning with the whole
Christmas tree situation I’ve
completely forgotten about my grandfather’s reaction to my terrible nightmare.

On the ride home, I find out that his truck is an older Ford F-150. He talks about it like it’s his baby. He tells
me abou
t all the great things he wants
to do with it, like the fact that he
wants to paint it black.

I also find out that when he’s not at school or hanging around with Kale, he works
at the tire shop in the middle of town. The thought of Adam all swea
ty and covered in motor oil makes
me blush.

H
e put
s his truck in park and then turns it off when we get to my house.

“Thanks for the ride home,” I open the door to get out.

He gets out too. I look
over at him, but i
nstead of walking ahead and
lea
ving him; I stand there like an idiot. He walks
around
to the passenger side and stands in front of me. His smile’
s differe
nt, darker almost. As if he holds
some deep myste
rious secret that no one else i
s allowed to know.

“It’
d be rude of me to take you home
,
but not walk you to the door, right?”
his dark brow lifts with his succulent lips.

I nod
m
y head at him and then slowly walk
alongside him to the bottom of the stairs leading up
to my front porch. My legs are shaking and
my palms
are
beginning to swe
at inside my gloves.  I want to run inside and slam the door behind me, but
before
rushing up the steps, I turn
to face him.

The piercing green
of his eyes attacks
my senses
and my breaths get shorter. He’s so handsome, and yet here he i
s with the weird girl at school
,
instead of some really hot blonde.
That says a lot about how great he is.

Sliding his finger under my chin he tilts my head up so that I’m looking up at him, then he slides his hand to the back of my neck playing with the little hairs along my hairline.  S
udden
ly, he leans in and tilts his head. His mouth is inches from mine and I can feel his hot breath against my cheek as he breathes deeply in and out. I freeze as he softly runs his warm lips across mine. 

“Have you ever been kissed, Mage?”

He’s so close that every word he says makes his lips brush against mine—warm and moist. A tiny electrical current races down my spine and taps against my tailbone. I feel paralyzed from the sensation. My breathing increases and I feel like I’m spinning.

“No,” I whisper.

He swallows hard.

“I want to kiss you,” he says softly.

Fire licks at my lower stomach with each caressing whisper.

When I say nothing, he presses
his warm
lips against mine. My heart does
a f
lip and my stomach tightens. I stand there for a minute—my eyes wide from the sudden rush of sensations that take over—the contrast of the frigid atmosphere around me and his heat that’s rushing through me.

His hot lips press a little harder and I start to relax. Like a natural reflex, I close
my eyes.
A soft noise escapes my throat and he responds with a heavy groan. Sliding his strong arms around me he pulls me closer to him.

I press
my palms into his soft down jacket. The warmth from inside
of
his
jacket captures my fingertips
causi
ng them to tingle. The kiss feels
so natural, so perfect, as if we had k
issed a million times. Yet it’
s the newest
, most wonderful thing ever. How can
some
thing feel so right, yet make your knees turn to jelly
all at the same time? 

This i
s my first kiss
,
and it couldn’t have been
by
a
better person; a person who’s
alw
ays captured my curiosity. He’
s one of the fe
w people in my world that I feel
some form of a
connection with; one that seems
to be consuming my every
thought these days.

I’
ve always ha
d a thing for Adam. I think about him every day and now here I am,
a few days be
fore Christmas, kissing him. My entire body feels
relaxed and calm
now—thanks to his amazing kiss
. The warm feeling in my bod
y spreads. It feels like we’re in an open field in the middle of summer being bathed by the sun. It’s everything I’
d
ever
hoped it would be.

He lifts his hand to my face and strokes
my che
ek with his thumb.  Everything about him is so warm. It’
s the sweetest moment of my
life. Adam Westcott i
s actually
holding me close,
caressing my face
,
and kissing my lips.

When the kiss ends I take a deep breath; my mouth tingles. The hot feeling has taken over and I’m
afraid t
hat if I open my eyes I’ll never recapture this feeling again. His forehead connects with mine as he rubs my upper arms up-and-down. He’s so close to me I feel like I could crawl into his jacket with him.