Turning Up the Heat: A Sizzling Modern Romance Novel

17. Kelsey

I wokeon Wednesday morning to the brush of a hand through my hair. I kept my eyes closed and soaked in the feeling of lying against Oskar’s chest, listening to his heartbeat and feeling his warm arm across my back. He was silent, but I felt him lean down and kiss my forehead while his hand continued stroking my hair.

“Good morning,” I whispered with my eyes closed.

It was childish, but I had this strange compulsion to keep my eyes shut. Like if I didn’t open them, he wouldn’t have to leave.

Oskar brought his other arm around to hold me close to his chest. I felt his cheek, rough with stubble, touch my forehead as he held me.

“Hey. Not goodbye. Just see you later.”

“Right.” I was being silly. It wasn’t forever.

He rolled to his back, and his hands came up to frame my face as he pulled me to lie on top of him. We kissed lazily as his hands stroked my back, running along my spine with shiver-inducing gentleness. I felt his long fingers begin to grasp and search as gentle kisses turned into quiet but intense bliss.

I whispered Oskar’s name when he entered me. He rolled us over and lay over me, his arms framing my shoulders and his hands cradling my face.

As I reached my climax, I reached up to embrace him and hold him close as he moved in me. I heard him whisper something against my neck as he came. I didn’t understand him, but I didn’t ask. I just held on to him, trying to burn the memory of his skin into my mind. He didn’t leave the cradle of my body but lay there, catching his breath and pressing soft kisses into my neck and shoulder.

Oskar rolled us to the side and brought his fingers up to tuck my wild morning hair behind my ears as he smiled at me gently.

“What do you say in Danish when we’re together?”

He smiled enigmatically. “Secrets.”

“You’ll tell me someday?”

“Yes.”

“But not this morning?”

“No.” He kissed the tip of my nose, then sat up.

The blankets pooled around his waist, and I squinted at him in the morning light. “You’re too good-looking.”

He snorted and turned to look at me. “What?”

“You are. It’s not fair.”

“If you call me pretty, I’ll be forced to give myself a disfiguring scar or burn or something just to retain some semblance of self-respect.”

I shook my head. “No, you’re not pretty.”

He muttered, “Okay, when you say it like that, I feel a little insecure.”

I reached over to tickle his stomach.

He squirmed away from my fingers. “Don’t.”

I bit my lip and winked at him. “I have found your weakness, Chef.” Then I let out a cartoon-villain laugh.

Oskar got an evil smile on his face, leaned over me, and reached under the covers to trail his fingers up the inside of my thigh.

My eyes rolled back a little. “Oh, you’re evil.”

“Looks like I’ve found yours too.” He kissed my lips quickly before jumping out of bed and throwing on a pair of jeans. He did love running around shirtless even when it was cold. I wasn’t going to complain about it.

I felt like a little kid who’d lost their favorite toy. “Don’t leave the bed yet. Stay for a bit longer.”

He threw me a crooked grin and reached a hand up to pull his tangled hair into a knot. “You know, tickling is not my weakness. You are. I may never leave the bed if you keep lying there and looking at me like that.”

He walked over to my side of the bed and leaned down to me, stroking my cheek and running a finger along the side of my breast. “Soft.” He kissed my cheek. “Warm.” His finger trailed along the underside of my breast, and my nipple tightened. “So fucking sexy,” he whispered. His mouth closed over my nipple, and his tongue laved around it for a moment.

I closed my eyes only to open them again when he lifted his head. He stood up and tugged the covers up under my chin.

“Definitely my biggest weakness,” he muttered. “Put some clothes on, Kelsey.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have some eggs to poach.” He put on his game face. “Perfectly.”

I satat the kitchen table, drinking coffee and watching Oskar cook at my old stove. He deftly slipped the eggs into the lightly simmering water of the pan before turning to me, pulling me up, and grabbing me around the waist for a quick twirl around the kitchen.

I smiled. “You can’t stand still in the kitchen, can you?”

“No.”

Oskar spun me around one more time before leading me back to my chair and returning to the stove. He took a slotted spoon and gently lifted out the eggs, then set them on the sourdough toast waiting on the plates beside the stove before turning it off and bringing everything to the table. I grabbed some napkins from the sideboard, and he laid the kitchen towel on his lap.

“Napkin not big enough for you?”

“I’m a large man.” He snapped the towel. “I need a large napkin.”

“Okay, Chef, let’s see how you did.” I cut into my eggs.

Oskar watched me with a raised eyebrow.

The yolks ran just a little.

He cursed quietly. “Next time we have to dance to a longer song.”

I took a bite. They were delicious, of course, if a little more runny than I liked. “Thank you for breakfast, Chef. It’s great.”

“The egg thing is going to piss me off until I get it exactly right.” He narrowed his eyes. “If I were at home and had my own pans…”

“I should probably come to your house next time. Just to give you a fair shot and all.”

“Yes, you should.” He took a drink of coffee. “Besides, you know everyone would love to see you. I ran into Talia the other day. She said she hadn’t talked to you in a while.”

I felt a wave of guilt wash over me. I hadn’t been a very good friend. I’d been so wrapped up in Oskar that I hadn’t been calling her as much as I usually did. With everything going on with her, I should have been calling her more, not less.

“I’m a terrible friend.”

Oskar looked a bit surprised. “She didn’t look mad or anything. Has she been feeling okay though? She looked like she’d been sick. Thin, sort of.”

“Uh…” Her pregnancy wasn’t my secret to tell. “She’s fine as far as I know. Probably just having a bad day.”

He nodded and dug into his breakfast.

“You know, Octavia wants me to go to Sonoma in a couple of weeks. Maybe I’ll see if Talia can come along. Unless…”

I made a face. Should I have asked Oskar? I didn’t think he could go. Was I supposed to ask him first? Was that a girlfriend thing to do? I had never asked Austin along on weekend trips because I didn’t want the distraction, but I actually wouldn’t mind if Oskar was there. He would probably be helpful, not annoying.

I looked at him, a confused expression evident on my face.

Oskar laughed a little. “I’m not offended, Kelsey. She’s your best friend. Of course you’d ask her first. Besides, after this weekend, I’m going to be pretty busy for a while. I don’t want to leave Victor on his own too much.”

“Okay. I’d love to go to Sonoma with you sometime, but I just immediately thought of Talia. She loves it there.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Not a problem.”

By the time we finished up our breakfast, it was after nine. Oskar jumped in the shower and packed his bag while I puttered around the house, feeling at loose ends. I kept glancing at the calendar hanging up in the kitchen, trying to figure out a weekend that I could go down to Paso Robles.

It couldn’t be next weekend or the one after. Maybe three weekends from now? Wow, that seemed like a long time. That brought me to the beginning of November. Maybe I could go a few days early. That would still leave us apart for more than two weeks.

I didn’t want him to leave without a plan to see him again. I looked at the calendar and tried not to get frustrated.

Shit.

If I’d missed him before, it was going to be at least twice as bad after the past few days.

And if I felt like this before he even left, what was it going to be like in a week? Or two?

Was this a huge mistake? How was this going to work? We had two full lives in two very different places.

I was lightly banging my head on the wall where the calendar was when Oskar came back in the room. He paused in the doorway next to me, saw what I was looking at, and immediately put his large hand in front of my forehead to stop it from hitting the wall. “Stop. It won’t be that bad.”

I muttered, “Yes, it will.”

He leaned over and whispered in my ear. “We can do this. Is it still worth it?”

“Yes. Of course it is.”

“Okay then.” He kissed my forehead and wrapped his arms around me. “I have to go if I’m going to make it back for dinner.”

I bit my lip. It wasn’t like he was leaving the country or anything. He would be four and a half hours away if I needed him.

Four and a half hours.

He kissed the top of my head, then cupped my face in his hands and kissed me over and over like he had when he first walked through my door. “Not goodbye,” he whispered. “I’ll see you soon.”

I walked him to the door and reached down to squeeze his ass quickly. “Mine.”

He gave me a rueful smile. “Yours. I’ll start looking for a tattoo place.”

“Good idea.”

It wasnoon when I finally dressed and started catching up on work. Oskar would be on the road for another couple of hours. Looking at my desk, I smiled, realizing the one place in my house that Oskar and I hadn’t christened was the one place he kept threatening me about on the phone.

Maybe he wanted to keep that one for ammunition.

I heard a familiar knock at the door before Felipe’s voice reached me. “Hey, baby. How you doing?”

“I’m in the office, Felipe.”

I heard him come down the hall and quickly saved my document before turning to the door.

He leaned on the doorjamb and looked at me sympathetically. “Hey, you.”

I smiled. “Hi.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. This gesture reminded me so much of Oskar that I immediately stuck my lower lip out. “Boo. I hate this.”

“It’s only bad because he’s good.” He sat on the corner of the bed.

“I’m being a sad, mopey drama queen.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He picked at a thread on his pants. “You just met the man who could be—I’m just going to say it—the one for you, and you only got a few days with him before you had to say goodbye for weeks.” He shrugged. “That sucks.”

I wrinkled my nose and stuck the tip of my pencil in my mouth. “There’s no way you can know if he’s the one for me. We just started going out.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Whatever. You two are so perfect for each other that it’s almost nausea inducing. If I didn’t love you so much, I’d gag.”

“Don’t gag.”

Felipe leaned forward. “It’s fate!” He held up a finger. “And I know you say you don’t believe in fate, but it is what it is.”

I thought about Oskar researching artichokes in Copenhagen and coming across an article I’d written when I was seventeen. “You know what I need?”

“What?”

“Booze. I need booze, Felipe. Because I might just believe in fate now.”

He stood up and held out a hand. “I’ll make some sandwiches so you don’t get sick.”

“I’ll get the wine.” I closed my computer and stood up. “We’ll start with one of Josh’s reds and switch to the cheap stuff when we’re good and sloshed.”

“And that is a plan.”

We walked out of my room and went down the hall to the kitchen.

“So you’re a believer in fate now? When did that happen, Miss Practical?”

“Sometime after I found out that Oskar read my writing years ago in Denmark, and that’s part of the reason he moved to the United States.”

You could have flown a plane through Felipe’s mouth, it was gaping that big. I smiled a little at him and pulled out a corkscrew.

He finally spoke again. “Okay, you’re going to have to explain that little statement to me in detail.”