.....................

She just lied there, on her back, under the Ponderosa Pine, allowing her lungs full capacity, pulling in the cold air. I watched her touch the space between her breasts. She turned her head toward me.
"Do you want to stay here for a while? I would like to."
I shook my head yes and smiled at her. She smiled back and turned her eyes toward the spaces of sky between the needles above her. She stayed within the circle of green underneath, probably a bit warmer, while the snow fell around the outward stretch of the branches. I was cold, sitting in the blow.
We didn't talk at all. I gave her time to think about it all. About me. About what it meant that I left the party with her without thinking twice. Was I too forward? I guess she was the one who asked me first. Girls can be forward without being forward, though. They just end up being all sweet about it, and you barely even notice. You just feel warm.
I thought about getting into any bed with her; thought bout getting out of the cold and then being naked under covers and just touching hands to skin. Just letting hands run slow over skin, rising and falling and hiding.
Her hands would be warm, and would stay on my cheeks for a while, with the back of her fingers.(I think she would use them in that way) And then on my neck. My hair, too. She would play around for a while.
My hands would be so cold. She would jump at them on her hips, breathe deep, and bear it. I would go up her side(strictly side, yes, believe me) and then her arm and then between her breasts. I would try not to want to have sex with her.
We would not have sex.

"What are you thinking about?"
She was grinning at me. I was staring at my shoes.

"Nothing. Uh. The snow. Foot-tracks, er, foot-prints."

"Well, come under here. It's pretty cool, man."

"Okay."

I laid down next to her, on my back, and she rolled half her body onto mine--her right leg over my right leg, half her chest over half of mine, and her right arm around my waist. I breathed out, heavy. She did too. There was no fucking way this was actually happening.