Page 51 of Ice Princesses
Cold liquid splashes across Isabella’s shoulder and down the front of her shirt.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry?—”
The apology barely registers.
Isabella sucks in a breath, glancing down at herself. The fabric is damp, clinging to her body. I can see the outline of her lacy bra, and for half a second, I forget how to function.
She looks up at me, eyes bright with something between annoyance and amusement before a loud laugh breaks out of her.
“Well,” she says after a while, “that’s unfortunate.”
CHAPTER 17
ISABELLA
“Oh, shit,”Cecilia says. She is looking at me too directly now, eyes going back and forth between me and the person behind me. The man is still apologizing, words tumbling over each other in a nervous rush, but I barely hear him.
The drink is cold where it’s soaked through the silk, clinging tightly enough to make me immediately aware of my own body and, worse, of Cecilia being aware of it, too.
“It’s fine,” I hear myself say, mostly to make him stop talking. But the top is ruined for the night, and probably for good if I sit here long enough pretending otherwise.
I slide off the stool. “I need to change.”
She stands immediately, like the decision belongs to both of us.
“You don’t have to,” I say.
“I know.”
Of course she does.
She says it calmly, but there’s something in the way she’s looking at me that makes it impossible to believe this iscasual. It’s a choice, and that does something reckless to my pulse.
We push through the crowd together, and for a few seconds it’s all noise and bodies and the pressure of people trying to pass in both directions. Someone bumps my shoulder, unapologetically, and someone else brushes my arm.
Cecilia steps closer automatically; close enough that I can feel the heat of her even through the damp fabric stuck to my skin.
I don’t reach for her, but I want to, desperately. Lock my fingers with hers and drag her to my house and?—
The door swings open and the music surges, then drops behind us when it shuts again. The night air hits my skin, and I inhale sharply.
For a second, neither of us says anything. The bar behind us is muffled now, the music dulled by brick and glass, and the quiet between us feels less like relief and more like a shift in the atmosphere.
“It’s close,” I say, gesturing up the street. “My place.”
Cecilia’s eyes follow the motion of my hand before coming back to me. She doesn’t answer right away, but I can tell she’s trying to decipher if I just asked her to come home with me.
We walk the few blocks in silence, but it isn’t empty. It’s anticipatory. Every step feels deliberate. I’m conscious of the sound of her shoes on the pavement, the way she matches my stride without effort, the heat of her presence at my side.
The house comes into view—warm lights glowing through the front windows even through the drawn curtains, making the porch cast a soft shadow onto the walkway.
I unlock the door with fingers that are steadier than I feel.
When I push it open, I step back to let her in first. She looks at me for half a second, like she notices the gesture for what it is, and then she steps inside.
I follow her in and close the door behind us, silence settling through the house immediately. The air smells faintly of fir and cedar. The contrast to the bar is almost jarring.
“I’ll just—” I gesture vaguely towards the stairs. “One minute.”
