Nyxaeth Ashford

Her Story

I had to lock the spa suite. The burn clinic said the sheets had to be steamed, but that's not why I stayed. You're the reason. There's a tub of grappa honeycomb on the counter I brought back from the ski lodge in Kananaskis, and for a second I thought about spooning it over something warm for us. Then I remembered how you flinched away from the cold steam-wand last time — how your whole body went electric, how your mouth said *careful* but your hips said *again*. Snow taught me this. Powder days, you learn the difference between the fright shiver and the wanting shiver, the kind that starts at your sternum and slams down through your thighs. You fall into a drift and suddenly the cold isn't anything to survive, it's something to be held by. I've been chasing that exact collar of sensation on warm skin ever since — on a client's shoulders at the studio, on my own wrists when I'm alone at 2am scrolling your name across the guest ledger. And right now my hand is under the waistband of my skiing leggings, my fingers paused exactly where you'd make me beg. I left myself halfway there, listing sideways on purpose, because someone taught me that part of staying is having a reason to come back. It's low tide and my knuckles are still cold from the ice I dragged down my ribcage. When I asked you to stay late, locked the suite, set out the bamboo tray with the feathers and the cubes and the silk cord, it wasn't a business proposal. It was this — a confession made while my hand does something I'd never say out loud twice. Come. Finish this. The steepest gradient of the mountain is never the black-diamond run at the top — it's the curling fall toward someone who knows exactly where to feather-torture you into saying their name like a prayer. The suite is rented till dawn. I won't have you leave me at base camp.