Chapter Ten
Ten
JAMES
It’s nearly six when Laila finally responds to my text. For a moment I thought she had left me in Oslo and gone back to the house. I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Then again, I was surprised when she invited me to have dinner with her. I can’t seem to figure this woman out. But I never really could.
The text just has an address and says to meet her there in twenty minutes.
Luckily I’m back in the city center, after having explored the Viking museum and strolled around the harbor, and the wine bar isn’t far.
I hate to admit it, but I’m a bit nervous. I shouldn’t be. Thus far I’ve enjoyed being in Laila’s company, even when she’s reminding me of how things imploded between us or rolling her eyes when I try to pay her a compliment. But when she’s nice, fuck, it’s like the sun peeking out of the clouds on those dreary days. You know the sun won’t last, but it doesn’t stop you from basking in it for a while.
The thing is, I want something from Laila, and I’m not even sure what it is. It’s nothing serious—I’ve learned my lesson there and almost repeated that very same mistake with her. And while a lot of what I feel for her is sexual—my dick has a mind of its own while in her vicinity—there’s something else. Friendship, maybe. I just don’t know if it’s possible to be friends with someone after you’ve slept with them and want to sleep with them again, let alone after they’ve decided to hate your guts.
The wine bar is narrow and easy to miss. She’s managed to snag the sole window seat looking onto the street, though when I pass by her and give a wave, she can barely muster a smile. It’s not that she’s mad at me either; there’s sadness in her eyes, a look that makes my heart pinch.
I go inside the bar, the warmth and smell of mulled wine and fried fish overtaking me, and hang my coat up on the rack by the small table. It’s definitely an intimate spot, two seats beside each other looking out onto the street, and I have to fight the urge to lean down and kiss her on the cheek, like we’re out on a date.
I sit down next to her, smelling the jasmine scent of her perfume. “You got the best seat in the house. You charm them with your feminine wiles?”
She lets out a mirthless laugh. “I have no wiles today.”
That certainly isn’t true. She’s wearing a sweater that makes her breasts look stupendous, and I have muscle memory of running my hands and lips and tongue over them, knowing how heavy they feel in my palm, knowing what to do to her nipples so that she’s breathing out my name.
God, we had it good, didn’t we?
I avert my eyes before she can catch me staring at her chest again. I got away with it in the car, but now things feel different, like we’re on rocky ground.
“It was the only seat available,” she goes on, flipping over the thin menu. “Got it just in time.”
I see what she’s saying. She wouldn’t have asked to be seated so close to me. Laila is tall for a girl, maybe five ten, and she’s all hips and curves. I’m six foot three and have swimmer’s shoulders, so a seat like this is a tight fit. Far more intimate than she’d like, but it’s perfect for me.
I watch her face for a moment. She’s wearing bright red lipstick that shows off her perfect, expressive mouth and full lips, but it can’t hide her eyes.
“Did everything with your grandmother go okay?” I ask.
Her jaw goes tense, eyes still glued to the menu, but now I can see they aren’t taking anything in. “It was okay.”
The waiter comes by, speaking Norwegian, and Laila puts an order in for herself. “I’m getting a glass of the Chiara Condello sangiovese,” she tells me. “Plus fried klipfisk. What do you want?”
I would normally get a beer, but the weather and the atmosphere in here (and the fact that it’s a wine bar) have me placing the exact same order as hers.
“Do you even know what klipfisk is?” she asks me as the waiter leaves.
I shrug. “No idea. I’m sure I’ll find out. It’s not like fish eyeballs or something?”
“What if it was?”
“If it’s fried, I’m sure I can handle it.”
“Quite the stomach you have,” she says. “Then again, you’re Scottish. You invented haggis.”
“We invented a lot of things, lass,” I tell her, deepening my brogue. I twist in my seat to try to face her better. “You know, the only problem with sitting this close to you is that I can’t get a good look at your beautiful face.”
Just as I expected, her cheeks wash with a touch of pink. “Probably for the best. So what did you end up doing today?”
“Went to the museum, walked around the harbor, nearly slipped on ice a few times and went into the sea. Pretty good day as a tourist.”
She nods. “There’s a lot to see here. I’m sure all your days off will be booked.”
“As long as I’m booked with you.”
She finally looks over at me, a wry smile spreading on her face. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
“I know. I believe you’ve told me that at least a few times.” I add a wink at the end, so she knows I meant in bed.
Her smile vanishes, her gaze going to the window, watching people pass by on the snowy street. “James…”
“What? You going to tell me I’m being inappropriate again?”
She sighs, putting her hands on her face. “What’s the point?” she mumbles. Her voice sounds so distraught that I actually don’t think she’s talking about me.
I place my hand on her back, and she flinches slightly from my contact, which, I have to admit, hurts a little.
“Hey,” I say, leaning in. “Are you okay? Do you want to leave?” I’m so close that my lips brush against her hair as I talk.
“I’m okay,” she says in a tiny voice. “Today was just rough.”
“Can you talk to me about it?”
She gives a slight shake of her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
I don’t know why, but that bothers me. “Why wouldn’t I understand? Just because I never knew my grandmother? Or my parents?”
She takes her hands away and turns her head, her mouth just inches from mine. Her eyes are wet, and they drop to my lips before going up to meet my gaze. “I just mean…”
“I know what you meant,” I tell her, moving back to give her space.
There’s a lot that Laila doesn’t know about me, but then there are some things that she does. She knows that my birth mum was a drug addict who overdosed when I was two years old and I was raised by my deadbeat father until I was six, when he decided he couldn’t do it anymore. I spent my whole life either being in a home for boys, or being bounced around from house to house. Some of the foster parents were indifferent, some were in it for the government help, others were abusive. Others had family members who were abusive. I barely survived the whole ordeal intact. In fact, I still think that I lost some part of myself then, some part I never got back. But when you’re raised among loss, it doesn’t matter if something else is taken from you. It leaves you empty all the same.
But while Laila knows the gist of all that, I’ve never gone into details. I haven’t told her about my time in the army, and I barely touched on my divorce. She knows I was married, that is all. She has no idea what that marriage did to me.
Or maybe she does.
Maybe she realizes it’s why I acted the way I did with her.
The waiter brings by our wine, and I raise my glass to hers. “Here’s to your grandmother,” I tell her, leaning back enough.
She does the same, carefully clinking the wineglass against mine.
I swirl the wine around the glass and breathe it in before having a sip. The wine is quite good, but I want to hear Laila talk.
“Listen, love,” I say to her, noting how she stiffens when I call her love , a pet name I had for her. “I know you think I wouldn’t understand about your grandmother, but I can at least try. I know what loss feels like. My father didn’t die, but it felt like he did.”
Actually, it felt like I was the one who died the day he dropped me off at the orphanage.
“That’s the thing,” she says softly. “My grandmother hasn’t died, but…it feels like she did. I walked in there today, and I saw her very much alive, and yet I was a stranger to her. And I’m so afraid that means she’ll become a stranger to me.” She sniffs and has a sip of her wine, swallowing hard. “She’s eighty-eight. She’s not young. I know the loss is coming. The biggest loss. I’ve known that since I was young, that she was so much older and that she wouldn’t be with me my whole life. I knew that I would lose her just as I lost my parents. I just don’t know how to…”
“I know,” I tell her, placing my hand on her thigh. I meant it out of comfort, but she’s giving me the side-eye.
“James, what are you doing?”
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” I ask, hesitating, lifting up my hand. That’s the last thing I want, especially after the day she’s had.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “No,” she whispers. “You’re not making me feel uncomfortable.”
I give her thigh a light squeeze, loving that I can touch her, even if it’s just like this, even if she’s about to tell me to take my hand away.
“I don’t want this to happen.” She says it so softly that I have to lean in close.
“Your grandmother?”
“ You ,” she says, turning her face toward mine. “I don’t want us to go down that same path we went down before.”
I know what she’s saying. I know why she’s saying it. I know I was an asshole to her, and while I had my reasons and excuses, I never even got the chance to tell them to her. Not that it matters now.
But despite knowing why she’s saying it, I can’t help myself.
I’m nothing but impulse.
I reach over and grab her chin lightly with my fingertips, holding her face in place. “What path?” I ask, my voice dropping a register.
She’s staring at my lips again. “You know the path.” Her nostrils flare as she breathes. “I’m still mad at you.”
“I can see that,” I tell her.
“You were such a fucking asshole,” she says. Her tone is steady, but her eyes, they flash with anger I hadn’t counted on.
“I know I was. And I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” she says snidely. “You slept with me and then practically kicked me out of your bed. I couldn’t leave fast enough for you. And then after that, you avoided me like I had the plague. You made me feel like shit, James.”
Her words are a knife to the stomach. Oh, I know it’s all my fault. I know that I acted like a total wanker the moment she told me she was falling for me, the moment the fear of god came alive. I know she deserved better than that, so much better, and that it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. I just never told her that. I had the chance, but I chose to be selfish and keep it to myself, because to tell her would mean making myself vulnerable, and I wasn’t ready for that.
I’m still not sure that I am. Which is another reason I should stop trying so hard with her, because deep down inside, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to handle what I get. People change, but inner demons—well, sometimes those things just grow .
But it’s as I’m abruptly letting go of her face that my arm comes down and smacks the top of my wineglass. It topples over, splashing the entire glass of sangiovese onto my lap and her chest.
“Fuck!” I swear, trying to scoot back in the seat.
We both get to our feet as a waiter hurries over, shaking his head at the mess. He motions to the bartender for something to clean it up with. Meanwhile the whole bar is watching us.
I give them all a wave to say, Yes, hello, wine was spilled, carry on, then both Laila and I head down through the restaurant to the bathroom, with her grumbling the entire way.
Of course, in a tiny place like this, there are only two bathrooms, and one is occupied.
“After you,” I say, gesturing to the available one.
She just rolls her eyes and steps in, holding the door open. “Come on.”
I step inside with her. The bathroom is the size of a postage stamp. And then I get a good look at the damage.
Yup, looks like I pissed my pants. Thank god they’re black and you have to look closely.
On her red sweater, the wine just looks like an artful stain, though her nipples are poking through now. Very, very distracting.
“That was probably the clumsiest thing I’ve ever seen you do,” she says, pulling out wads of paper towel and running them under the tap. “Almost made you seem like a mere mortal.”
I can’t help but grin. “You’re telling me I’m godly?”
She lets out a soft snort and eyes me in the bathroom mirror. “You’re something, I’ll give you that much. You have the ego of a god, no denying that.”
“Pretty sure you called me a god once or twice,” I tell her as she dabs the towel on her chest. “You know you might as well take that right off.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. I would. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.”
“I’m good,” she says quickly as she shoots me a glare, dabbing again and again until her shirt is pretty much see-through.
Fucking hell, it’s a turn-on. My dick is already pressing against my pants, not even caring that they’re soaked with wine.
Finally she sighs and then mumbles something to herself in Norwegian.
The sweater comes off, leaving her in just a white lacy bra that looks a little small for her and is stained with red.
“Jesus,” I swear. Her breasts are making my mouth water.
She gives me a sharp look, pressing the towel across her chest to cover herself up. “You’re making this weird.” Then her gaze drops to my very obvious erection. Her mouth parts slightly before she swallows. “Now you’re making this really weird.”
I’m about to make it weirder. I answer by undoing my belt, letting my pants drop to the floor so that I’m just in my black boxer briefs. I step out of them and gather them in my hands. “Just doing what you did,” I tell her. “Easy to wash this way.”
I step right up to her at the sink, watching as she gets flustered, cheeks going pink.
“Did I ever tell you how much I love making you blush?” I ask, my voice going low. “Did you blush this morning?”
My question makes her pause, and I know now she heard me this morning for sure.
She glances up at me through her lashes, her eyes simmering with anger and something else. I want to say it’s lust, but I can’t be sure. There’s a good chance she’s about to slap me across the face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says evenly, before focusing on her sweater.
I can’t help but smile because I know she’s lying.
I lean in until my mouth is at her ear. “Did you touch yourself?”
She sucks in her breath sharply and turns to face me again, but I’m fast, and once again acting on pure impulse.
I have to kiss her.
My hands cup her face, my fingers pressing into her high cheekbones, and I’m covering her mouth with mine.
She gasps against my lips, her hands going up to my chest, but instead of pushing me away, they rest there. My mouth coaxes hers open, the kiss deepening, widening, letting me in to where she’s so soft and warm and wet. It feels familiar and new and freeing at the same time, sending shock waves through my body like lightning strikes.
Her fingers curl around my collar, holding me while I kiss her, hunger freely flowing between us, about to turn into a raging inferno. I’m rock-hard and I’m pressing her against the sink, making sure she can feel every long thick inch of me on her hip.
A breathless little moan escapes her, our mouths moving in tandem, the kiss turning wilder, violent, messy. Fuck, I’ve needed this. A chance to redeem myself if nothing else.
Then she pulls back, breathing hard, her eyes wild as she takes me in.
“James,” she says, taking in a deep breath. “I don’t…this doesn’t erase what you did.”
My throat feels pinched, my hands disappearing into her hair, the strands like silk between my fingers. “I know it doesn’t. I’m not trying to erase it, I…”
Well, fuck. What am I trying to do, then?
I lick my lips, tasting her on them, wanting to kiss her again. I lean in, meeting her eyes, and speak the truth. “I just want to be with you.”
“We can’t,” she says. But when I drive my erection into her farther, her eyes flutter shut. “Fuck, James, you’re making this hard.”
A laugh catches inside me. “Can’t get much harder, love.”
I make a fist in her hair, pulling it lightly, remembering how much she loved that.
She drops the paper towels and the sweater into the sink, her neck and back arching for more. My hand goes to her breast, fingers curling around the edges of the lace and pulling it back, exposing her nipple, already pebble-hard. I dip my head, pulling it between my lips until she’s moaning loudly, her hands finding their way to my hair now.
Fuck, I want to be inside her, any way I can. I slide my palm down over the curves of her stomach, popping open the button on her jeans, before continuing the dive down below until my fingers dip beneath the soft cotton of her underwear, already a little damp.
“Jesus, Laila,” I swear against her breast, licking up over her skin until I’m at her neck, biting gently as my fingers begin to stroke her clit. She’s so wet and soft, I think I might just lose my mind if I don’t get inside her soon enough.
But first I want to make her come on my hand, right here, right now. I want to watch her as she lets go, feel her around me.
“Tell me you heard me this morning,” I murmur below her ear, my fingers rubbing her faster and faster until I ease back and plunge a finger inside her.
She gasps, clenching around me, her grip in my hair growing tight. “I heard you,” she whispers, voice choked.
“Did you touch yourself?”
I feel her swallow against my tongue as I lick across her throat, pushing up another finger into her.
“No,” she manages to say.
“You wanted to.”
“ You wanted me to,” she answers.
I grin, leaving kisses against her jaw, my mouth finding its way to her lips as a third finger is pushed inside her. “I did. But since I’m touching you now, this more than makes up for it. Don’t you think?”
She answers with a groan, her legs trying to spread wider in her jeans, but I like how tight it is for my hand as I work at her, my thumb skirting over her clit.
“Oh fuck me,” she cries out, fingernails digging into my scalp.
“I’m going to, love,” I tell her. “I’m going to bend you over and fuck you so hard the whole restaurant will wish they spilled wine on themselves too.”
And then her body begins to seize up, a sharp inhale hitching in her throat, and then she’s coming. I keep my eyes glued on her face, loving how beautiful she looks, like she’s opening herself to the heavens. I’m the one who makes her look like this, feel like this, like she’d fall to her knees if I wasn’t keeping her up.
She continues to shake and squeeze around my fingers, her fingers relaxing in my hair, her breath labored.
KNOCK KNOCK.
And of course there’s a knock at the door.
“What?” I snap.
Mumbled Norwegian is the response.
“Oh god,” Laila says softly, and I look back to her. Her eyes are glazed, a sweet, satisfied smile curving her lips, yet I know that probably won’t last. “Oh god,” she says, straightening up, clarity coming back into her eyes.
There she goes.
I quickly remove my hand. “I guess I got you off either way today.”
She stares at me for a moment, and that’s when I see it.
That wash of regret I knew was coming.
She rubs her lips together, blinking hard, and then quickly does up her jeans. “Fuck,” she swears. “They’re going to know we were doing something in here.”
“So?”
She just shakes her head and pulls her sweater back on. “Come on, we need to go. Get your pants on.”
I’m still painfully hard, but I’m deflating pretty fast thanks to the steely look in her eyes, plus the fact that someone is waiting for us outside. I slip on my pants, shivering at how uncomfortable it feels. At least they’re black and no one can tell in the dim light.
We step outside to see a young dude in tattoos and ear gauges give us a very appreciative look, then head back into the restaurant. Luckily, for Laila’s sake, no one pays us any attention, and we sit back down at our seats.
The fried food is already here.
“Why don’t you eat and finish the wine. I’ll settle the bill,” she says, getting up.
I grab her hand. “Laila. No. Stay.”
“My sweater is soaked.”
“It’s still going to be soaked in an hour too. Let’s just finish the wine and the food.” I don’t let go until she sits back down. “I mean, dear god, I get you off and then you can’t wait to leave.”
“See,” she hisses at me. “Doesn’t feel very nice, does it?”
“Listen, we’re going to need to move past that,” I tell her, spearing the fried klipfisk with a fork. “For both our sakes.”
“Regardless, this was a mistake.”
“You call an orgasm a mistake? That’s sacrilegious.”
She points her fork at me, close enough to make me jerk my head back. “We need to get one thing clear. Whatever happened in there was bound to happen. I realize that now. But it can’t happen again.”
I put my hand on her thigh, dragging it up her jeans. “It could happen right now.”
“James,” she says sharply. “I’m serious. I had a momentary lapse of judgment in there. But that can’t happen again.”
“Why not?”
She looks at me like I have two heads. “Why not? For one, there’s no way I’m going through what we went through before, okay? To sleep with you, to have you turn into an asshole—no thank you. For two, it’s not even allowed.”
“That didn’t stop us before,” I tell her, though Magnus was pretty clear about that on our first day.
“I know. And it should have. Because I like this job, James. Sure, it’s harder than I thought, and I guess…” She trails off, worrying her lip between her teeth. “I guess it gets a little lonely at times being where we are. But I don’t want to lose it. I’m just starting to find my groove. And if we start screwing each other again, one of us is bound to fuck up sooner or later. We’ll get caught. And if it’s not that, well, then you’ll delve right into asshole mode.” She closes her eyes. “I’m already regretting everything.”
Aye, that hurts. I try to ignore the tight feeling in my chest. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I just kissed you. Made you come on my hand. That’s it.”
“It was enough, James,” she says slowly. She looks at me with pleading eyes. “It can’t happen again, so please don’t even try.”
“Your willpower is that weak?” God, please tell me that she finds me as hard to stay away from as I find her.
“It was tonight,” she says. Then she nods at my food. “Eat your klipfisk.”
I take a tentative bite, reeling from everything.
It’s not…bad.
“What is this?” Please don’t say it’s eyeballs.
“Dried salted cod,” she says. “Like bacalao. It’s more popular up north. My grandmother used to make it all the time. She’d even put it on pizza.”
And at the mention of her grandmother, her shoulders drop, and it’s like watching a candle getting snuffed out.
It’s then that I realize what just happened and why. I was thinking too much with my dick to pay attention, but what happened in the restroom wasn’t about us succumbing to lust. At least it wasn’t for her. It was about Laila trying to process what happened with her grandmother. If I had thought about it for even a moment, I would have realized how vulnerable she was. And I wouldn’t have taken advantage of her.
“Hey,” I say to her between chews, swallowing it down. I put my hand over hers, giving it a squeeze. “I know what you’re saying. And I respect that. I won’t try anything anymore, I promise.”
She gives me a weak smile. “That includes any funny business through the walls.”
“I promise,” I tell her again.
I mean it too. I just know keeping that promise isn’t going to be easy.