He closes his eyes and leans his head back into the pillow, his lips slightly parted as though in pain. Startled, I lean down to him to whisper, “Am I hurting you?” His eyes still closed, he shakes his head back and forth and reaches his hands up and places them on my hips, his hands so large on my skin, holding me in place for a heartbeat, the two of us almost one as we press against each other from hip to chin. My mind swirls with the knowledge that my nearness affects him, that I am not the only one who feels this heat.

There is a thump in the room next door and I quickly finish slithering over Travis and slip to the floor, ready to wedge myself under the bed if necessary.

Keeping my head cocked to the wall to listen for change in the movement in the next room, I scurry to the door and test the knob. Locked. There's no way I will be able to open it.

Travis is now propped up in his bed, leaning back on his elbows. By the moonlight I can see that his face is flushed with heat.

I will have to climb out the window. I cross the room and struggle against the sash until the window is open enough for me to fit through. Cold air invades my thin nightgown, fighting with the residual heat from Travis's bed, and I pull the quilt that I brought with me tight around my shoulders. Thankfully it's been a heavy winter and there is a substantial snowdrift below to catch my two-story jump. I'm about to make my escape when I hear my name.

Travis is holding his hand out to me and even though I know I'm tempting fate I go back to him. “Will I see you again soon?” he asks. The flame from the candle next to his bed whips around in the draft from the window, sending his face into shadows.

“I don't know,” I tell him truthfully. “I'm not sure I can risk it.” He nods. He understands. And then he takes my hand and presses his lips against my palm. It feels like fire entering my bloodstream and laying siege to my body. He kisses my wrist, and I am an inferno. He starts to move up my arm, his breath tantalizing, and I almost give in as he pulls me to him.

But instead I step back, cradling my arm to my chest. “Be well,” I tell him because I don't know how to explain what I really want to say. And then I slip out the window and am covered in snow that instantly douses my skin, which just moments before had been aflame.

Afraid of being seen by the people in the room next to Travis's, I sprint through the graveyard toward the fence line and into the shadows near the edge of the Forest. I kick my feet as I go, trying to make it look not quite so obvious that a human has walked away from under Travis's window, but before long my feet begin to freeze, the thin slippers I'm wearing no protection against the snow.