"Dimitri, c'mon!" I slapped my palm harder against the door. "You can't leave me in the cold! I don't have any pants!"

I heard a muffled laugh from the other side of the paneling, and glared.

"Don't laugh at me! It's dark out here! Someone could be hiding in the tress- I could die. Right here, on your doorstep. My blood would be on your hands. Consider that while you eat your warm food in your warm house, and leave me out here to be butchered by a fat man and his machete!"

"It's the guns you should be worried about," Dimitri said. His smirk was evident in his voice. I poked my tongue out at the door, though he clearly couldn't see me.

"It's me you should be worried about," I snapped back. Shivering, I pulled my knees in tighter to my chest and closed my eyes against the glare of the porch light. "I'm freezing. I wasn't joking about not having pants."

There were two slight knocks from the other side of the door. "Rose without pants," he drawled. "How achingly predictable."

I grinned, and knocked back.

"Open the door, and I'll show you 'Rose without a shirt.'"

"No deal; 'Rose without a shirt' frequents at my house already. Try again."

I sighed, and pressed my head against the door.

"'Rose without pants and a shirt'?" I asked. He chuckled, and knocked twice again.

"How about 'Rose with socks' when we go to bed tonight?" He said. I knocked back, and the door clicked open.

"I put two pairs of socks on you, yet your feet are still freezing," Dimitri said, trapping my feet between his shins. I grinned.

"I did maintain the 'Frosty Bitch' status quite well tonight- the cold toes are only fitting."

Dimitri groaned. "What did you do, Roza?"

I wriggled closer to him and then closed my eyes, taking pleasure in the combined warmth of the blankets and the fire and him. "I was with Adrian," I whispered, praying my breath didn't reek of alcohol in our close proximity. "And Avery didn't like it. The 'Frosty' part she pulled from our PDA- or lack thereof, and 'Bitch' from my genuinely being a bitch."

Dimitri snorted, and then pressed his face into my hair and yawned.

"She's jealous," he murmured.

"I don't know why; Adrian and I haven't done anything. She knows that, hence the reference to ice."

"But she thinks you will," Dimitri replied. "And she's probably correct."

I opened my eyes to glare up at him.

"She's not," I argued. "I can't. Not with him. We already talked about this, Dimitri."

He shushed me, and pulled the blankets tighter around us.

"I don't want him to know I lied," I whispered, ducking my head shamefully. "It's embarrassing, because I'm pretty sure he already suspects. There's only so many excuses I can use."

"I know, Roza," Dimitri said. "I shouldn't have mentioned it. Lets just go to sleep, and you can freak out about it tomorrow."

I sighed in response, and snuggled into Dimitri.

"You know," I said, after a moment's silence, "she's probably jealous about you. Not everyone gets to snuggle up to a giant Russian lumberjack whenever they want."

Dimitri chuckled, and ran a finger down my leg. I jerked away from the ticklish touch, and slapped him on the chest.

"With the exception of socks," he replied, tearing my hand from his torso with a grin. "No one gets to snuggle with the lumberjack if they've got cold feet."

Confused about Rose and Dimitri's relationship? So am I.

Leave a review and I'll break it down more in the next chapter.

(:

I don't own Vampire Academy, or any of the characters mentioned.