Ten Below Zero(61)

“Sounds like a really uplifting song,” I replied drily.

Everett laughed, took the loofa from me and rinsed it, before trading places with me in the shower. After pouring some body wash onto the loofa, he started rubbing it on my chest.

“This still smells like your body wash,” I said, understanding now why he always had the scent of cool water.

“Because it is. I want to smell this on your skin.” He rubbed the loofa down the front of my body before having me turn around. After running the loofa over my back, I felt his hands replace it and his fingers pushed into my shoulder and down my back, massaging the muscles there. My head fell back.

“That feels good,” I felt the words vibrate from my throat.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Only a little, but it also feels good.”

“There’s pleasure in a little pain then.”

I opened my eyes and straightened my head. “I guess so.”

“There is, Parker.” He wrapped his arms around my front and rubbed the body wash over me again. “You just have to be brave enough to endure it.”





After Everett fell asleep, I was left wide awake. Thoughts from our day wouldn’t leave my brain. Our moment at the Purgatoire River, and then again when I fell in it. And what Everett had said while admiring the dinosaur tracks, about leaving his mark on the earth somewhere.

Quickly, I pulled out my laptop and made a few calls, making an appointment for the following morning. Everett breathed heavily next to me the entire time, not stirring once, so I was able to make our plans without interruption.

After the excitement, I put my laptop away and crawled back into bed beside Everett. I watched him breathing deeply before I laid my head on his bicep. Like he had the first time I did it, he pulled his arm towards his body, pulling me in with him.



I let Everett sleep in the following morning. Though he was normally awake before I was, I knew he’d been exhausted the day before so I packed our things as quietly as possible, to keep him in his deep, peaceful sleep.

I brought food up from the continental breakfast in the lobby, and brewed a pot of coffee in the tiny hotel coffee maker.

It was the coffee that finally roused him. I watched him from the chair opposite the bed, watched his arms stretch above his head as he looked around. When his eyes found me, he settled back in the pillow, seemingly relieved. I got up from the chair and poured the milk I’d grabbed from the breakfast buffet in the cup before climbing on to the bed. “Here,” I said, handing him the mug.

Everett sat up and took the mug from me, drinking. “Thank you,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.

“How do you feel?”

Everett set the coffee down. “I’m fine, Parker. Okay?” There was mild annoyance in his tone. I knew why. So I didn’t push him.

“Okay. I have plans for us before we see your family.”

“What’s that?”

“I want to get a tattoo today.”

Everett shook his head. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.”

He laughed at my word choice. “If you’re getting a tattoo, I’m getting a tattoo.”

It was what I’d hoped he’d say. “So we’ll both get tattoos,” I said, biting my lip.

“Yeah.” He said up straighter in the bed. “And you’ll be the last one to see mine.”

I pushed him. Not hard, but enough for him to spill coffee all over the bed and himself. He looked down at the coffee-soaked sheets and then looked back at me.

Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed me and pulled me on top of him, smearing my clothes with his coffee mess.

“Kiss me, Parker.” I pecked him on the lips. “You can do better than that.” I pushed my lips to his again, trying wriggle out of his arms. “Kiss me with feeling,” his said, bringing a hand up to my cheek, cradling my face in his hand.

“But I don’t know what I’m feeling,” I breathed.

“You don’t have to. Whatever it is, let it come from your lips to mine.”

My heart pounded painfully in my chest. But I did as he asked. I let my lips hover over his for a moment before changing course and kissing up the side of his face. I kissed his ear first, letting out a breath after that kiss and then moved up his temple. My hands pushed the hair away from his forehead and I hesitated for only a beat before my lips pressed to the small dent in his forehead. And then I kissed along his scar. I felt his breath shudder against my throat. I kissed down the center of his forehead, slowly, until I reached his eyes. They were closed, so I kissed each eyelid gently before moving down his face, placing a kiss on his cheek, the tip of his nose, his chin and then down his chest.

I tasted coffee on his chest, but I didn’t stop kissing the trail across his body. My lips pressed to the skin that concealed his heart, and I felt thankfulness at its steady beat to my lips. I kissed the tattoo that had words and then down the trunk of the tree. I kissed across his abdomen and then over the sparrows on the other side.

When I reached his bicep, my breath was coming in shattered. Partly because of the desire I felt whenever I was in his presence, but overwhelmingly because of the feeling of kissing all the broken and the perfect parts of Everett, with all the feeling that I held for him.

I kissed each one of the lines on his bicep before resting my forehead on his shoulder, overcome with whatever this feeling was that I had for him.