Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
JAMES
Helge’s funeral was beautiful, held at a white church in the middle of town. It felt like everyone in the town showed up. There must have been at least sixty people or more, some even standing outside the low stone walls of the graveyard and watching from afar.
She was buried next to her husband, Kolbjorn, and next to her children, Hedda and Erik.
I held Laila’s hand the entire time. I wanted to be her wall, the thing that could shield her from the world and everything bad in it. But I could not shield her from her grief, and that was a hard thing to come to terms with. Each tear that fell, each sob that escaped her lips…I wanted to take it all from her, free her from her pain.
But I couldn’t. I could only be there and try to be a source of comfort.
I wasn’t the only one doing that, of course. Laila had an endless stream of love from the villagers, neighbors, and friends. I met her cousin Peter, someone she doesn’t speak of very often but who I understand is her only family left, and it was touching to see them together. He’s a very quiet, stoic fellow in his late sixties, with a wife and a daughter who live in Canada. He promised Laila that though the house is hers now, he will take care of it for as long as she needs him to, which she seemed so touched by. The house is special and should be passed on through the generations, but at the moment, with her job in Oslo, it doesn’t seem like she’ll be able to use it anytime soon.
“That was nice of your cousin,” I tell her on the walk back to the house. We were given a ride to the funeral by the neighbors, Ann and Terre (they insisted, practically snatched the rental car keys from my hand), but Laila wanted to get some exercise and process everything by walking back. She said it’s only a half-hour walk, but the roads aren’t fully plowed, so it makes it a rather slow stroll through the snow.
“Yeah,” she says with a sniff, wiping at her eyes with her mitten. “He’s always kept to himself, you know. Growing up I didn’t see Peter’s daughter, Ingrid, very much. I think they, like so many people my age in this town, weren’t sure what to do with me.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “I was a strange kid. I mean, I still am, but…yeah. I listened to dark music—you know, Norwegian metal, that type—I dyed my hair black. Did everything except tattoos and piercings, and that’s only because I’m a wimp when it comes to pain.”
I can’t imagine Laila with black hair. “But everyone goes through that phase growing up, and I’m sure you weren’t the only metalhead.”
She gives her head a shake. “I didn’t have very good control of my emotions back then. It all felt too much. I liked to do things that maybe seemed young for my age. I started reading more, spending more time online. That’s where I could be real, in fandoms and chat rooms and all that. I could just let myself be free.”
“Do you feel you can do that now?”
She lets out an acidic laugh. “Are you kidding me? No.”
“Not even with me?” I have to say, I feel a little insulted.
An apologetic smile plays on her lips. She doesn’t have to answer.
She’s going through something, and you lost her trust long ago , I remind myself. Don’t make this about you.
I decide to change the subject. “And so what is your plan for the future?”
She frowns. “What do you mean?”
I gesture to the wide frozen fields that lead out to the dark fjord, the mountains towering above, the red, yellow, and white houses dotted across the landscape. We’re walking in a damn painting.
“Will you ever make this your home again?”
She rubs her lips together in thought, and I’m astounded by how beautiful she is, as tends to happen when I’m with her. It always hits like lightning.
“I want to, one day,” she says. “With Peter taking care of it and the neighbors keeping an eye on it, I know it’s in good hands. I can just focus on my life in Oslo, working, and then maybe if I have enough money saved, I’ll come up here. Or, hell, maybe I’ll get a job somewhere in town. Do something online. Start a business. I don’t know.”
Even though I know it’s good she’s feeling optimistic about the future, that there are possibilities, it bothers me that I’m not in any of those scenarios.
“I think that’s smart,” I tell her. “To know you’ll come back, sooner rather than later.” I clear my throat. “So you don’t see yourself working for royals forever?”
“Nah,” she says. “It’s been fun. I’ve enjoyed my jobs. I enjoy being with kids. But now everything seems turned on its head. The life plan I thought I had, however feeble it was—I feel like there’s been a major course correction. Which is scary, but…I’m realizing how important home is. I don’t want to realize it too late.”
“Makes sense.”
“And you?” she asks.
“Me, what? My plan?”
“Could you see yourself living somewhere like this?”
“ Somewhere like this? Or this place in particular?”
What exactly are you asking me, Laila?
“Okay. Somewhere like this.”
Hmmm. Can’t help but feel a little disappointed that she wasn’t talking about this town. Guess I was getting ahead of myself.
“It depends,” I say. “Am I here alone? Am I here with someone special? Am I here because I’m hoping to catch the eye of a pretty blond girl with the world’s loudest laugh?”
She nearly laughs at that but clamps her lips shut. “Right,” she eventually says.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I never thought about it until now.”
“Because you’re a city boy through and through.”
“That’s true. I have been. But we don’t always remain the same through life, do we? And since I started working for Magnus, I’ve actually gotten used to living in the middle of nowhere. I’ve come to peace with it. In fact I think it actually brings me peace, believe it or not. And if you had told me that last year, I would have said you were crazy.”
Laila is actually looking at me like I’m crazy right now. “Call me shocked.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what to say. I think…” I look around, taking in the amazing scenery, feeling like I’m actually one with the wilderness. Maybe I have some secret Norwegian blood in me after all. “I think I could thrive in a place like this. As long as I could thrive with someone.”
I want to be direct. I usually am. But with Laila it can be so hard to know where you stand, and the last thing I want is to seem like I’m coming on too strong, especially on a walk back from her grandmother’s funeral.
But when we finally get to the house, faces red from the cold, all worries about coming on too strong are quickly pushed aside. Laila grabs my hand and takes me up the narrow, steep steps to her bedroom, pulling me inside.
I’m already hard just from the anticipation of sex. Last night was amazing, but I never assumed it would happen again. I thought Laila would have chalked it up to a mistake, a bad idea, and it would have been put past us. But now…
“James,” she says as she puts a hand behind my back and pulls me against her. There’s desperation in her voice, the way her jaw tenses as her hands slip down over my cock, giving me a hard squeeze through my pants that makes me moan.
“I want you,” she says, her eyes searching mine.
She wants to escape from everything. She wants to forget. She wants to feel something other than the deepest and darkest pain.
I will do everything I can to help. I want to forget too. I want to pretend that our past never happened and there’s only our future.
Even though it scares the fuck out of me.
I grab her face and kiss her hard and then bring a hand down to the hem of her dress and pull it up while sliding my fingers down the waistband of her leggings and underwear.
Damn, she’s soaked.
I let my fingers explore, and it brings out a moan from her mouth. It’s as if she’s starving for me. When my fingers slip between her cunt and her hips buck, I let my middle finger slip inside her tightness and begin to fuck her slowly with it, taking my time. I know that what’s happening between us here is only meant to be here . I know this, I feel it…she doesn’t even have to say it. And so I want to savor this, every moment that my fingers touch her body, every moment that I feel her, touch her, because I know that we might not have another chance after this.
“James,” she says in a throaty whisper and her head goes back. I kiss her neck, slipping another finger inside her as we both stand at the foot of the bed. She feels like she’s offering herself to me, and I know I have to be careful in how I handle her. Not in a physical way—she likes it rough and she can be pretty wild herself—but emotionally. She has been letting me in bit by bit, like the leaves of a rosebud opening to the sunshine, as if I don’t bring rain. But maybe this time I don’t have to be what ruins her. Maybe I won’t make a mistake this time. Maybe I won’t get cold feet and run if she lets me into her heart again.
“Am I making you feel good?” I whisper to her, my fingers working her harder now.
“Yes,” she pants, her hands gripping my shoulders now. “God, James. Yes.”
I’ll never tire of hearing my name said like a fervent prayer.
I grin and press my thumb against her clit as I fuck her with my fingers, and she cries out, her whole body quivering, her legs shaking like they’re about to give out from under her at any minute.
I put my hand at the back of her head and bring her head forward, our eyes meeting each other for one electric moment before I kiss her, my mouth seeking hers out. As our tongues touch and dance, I slip a third finger inside her. She moans and writhes against me, and I can feel her getting close. I can feel her orgasm building, and I increase the pace, wanting her to come hard, for her to let loose and come undone in all directions.
“Oh god!” she says through a choked cry.
She comes apart, crying out and gripping my fingers tightly as she comes. I keep fucking her until she’s finished, and then I pull my fingers out of her and kiss her softly while she staggers slightly.
“Thank you,” she whispers, her eyes shining as she takes me in, lids heavy, eyes still red from crying.
“Thank you,” I say, kissing her again. “For trusting me.”
She swallows at that, perhaps taking in what I said. Because it’s true, because she is trusting me right now, and I feel I’ve worked long and hard for this trust. It’s not lost on me that it’s something I don’t even deserve.
She doesn’t say anything in response.
Instead she drops to her knees.
I’m taken aback at first, completely unprepared for what she’s doing. But then I get it, and I undo my belt and push my jeans and boxers down, giving her free access. I’ve been hard as hell from the moment we stepped into the bedroom.
She looks up at me, her eyes bright green and wanton, and takes me in her pretty, full mouth.
I moan, a long and low sound that rattles in my chest, as she starts to suck me off. She knows what she’s doing, knows how to work her tongue and lips around me, and I can feel myself getting harder by the second until there’s no place for me to go, my cock throbbing and begging for more.
She doesn’t disappoint, picking up the pace and sucking me harder until I feel like she’s sucking my brains out. I reach down and run my fingers through her hair, gripping it tightly as she brings me closer and closer to the edge.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, Laila,” I whisper roughly. “I’m going to come if you keep going.”
She acts as if she doesn’t hear me, twisting her hands at the base until my eyes roll back in my head.
Finally I can’t take it anymore. I pull away from her and grip her arms, pulling her up to me. I kiss her, tasting myself on her, then quickly step out of my clothes while she wrestles out of hers.
Then I’m pushing her back onto the bed, taking in the soft, exquisite beauty of her body, the way her curves flow into pure feminine energy.
“You’re a goddess,” I tell her in awe, and I mean it. “I wish I could sculpt you.”
I decide to do so with my hands. I kneel on the bed, looming over her, and start tracing the lines of her body with my fingers, traveling to no destination in particular. My dick is still throbbing and hard as hell, pressed against the soft flesh of her hip, but I’m enjoying the torture.
I touch her neck, the crook of her shoulder, over her collarbones, down between her breasts, her skin especially soft there. Then under her breasts, feeling the curve and the lush weight of them.
I cup them and squeeze gently, and she moans, her breath coming in quick gasps now. I don’t linger too long, instead trailing down to her ribs, then along the smooth skin of her stomach. She feels like a dream.
Then I’m moving between her legs, parting them with my hands as I kneel before her. Her cunt is glistening with wetness, and she’s whimpering softly as I gaze at it hungrily.
I can smell the heady scent of sex in the air, and all I want to do is devour her. But for now, all I allow myself is one long swipe of my tongue up from her entrance to just below her clit.
She cries out and bucks against me, pushing herself closer to my mouth so that I have no choice but to continue licking and sucking at her soft flesh until she’s writhing in pleasure under me while begging me wordlessly never to stop.
I could do this all day. All night. Just this slow, teasing consumption of her, taking in every single ripe inch of her.
“James,” she says through a heady whisper. “I want you inside me.”
I look up at her then; the hunger in my eyes must match the hunger that I see in hers. I want to be inside her too, but not before I get one last taste of her sweetness.
So I lean down, burying my face between her thighs and licking and sucking at that deliciously wet cunt until she’s sobbing with pleasure and begging me for more.
And when she can’t take it anymore, when she’s screaming my name as I bring her over the edge, only then do I finally allow myself to sink into her warm depths. She feels like heaven around me as we move together slowly at first and then faster, harder, until nothing else exists but us and our primal need for each other.
In that moment there is nothing sweeter than being with this woman. Nothing more exhilarating or satisfying or right than feeling the force of our bodies colliding in wild abandon while we come together.
There is sadness and grief and pain, but there’s also hope. Hope that this doesn’t have to end here, that it doesn’t have to stay hidden, that perhaps we can continue like this together in some way. I have my doubts; I don’t see how Magnus would ever be okay with the two of us together, and with the way that Laila is sometimes, the way she closes up, I can’t tell if that’s something she’d want. I fear that if I ever threw it all away for her—my job, my reputation—she would ghost me sooner or later. I just never know where I stand.
Focus , I tell myself. It’s not the time to worry, not when I’m so deep inside her. It’s like the two of us are moving as one.
And so I focus on the way her nails are digging into my back, the way she’s moving underneath me, the way she’s moaning my name like it’s a prayer.
My orgasm comes for me with no warning, and I feel her tense around me and shudder, and that’s enough to push me over the edge the rest of the way, my grip tightening, a hoarse cry escaping my mouth. I come inside her, feeling her roll her hips against me, wanting to take all of me in, wanting it all.
“Oh god,” I whisper into her ear as we settle, tingles of bliss still shooting up and down my legs. “I could stay inside you forever.”
She laughs a little, a breathy sound compared to her usually boisterous one.
I kiss her neck tenderly, feeling overcome by things I don’t even want to unpack.
“I’m serious, Laila,” I say, wondering if she’ll ever take me seriously. “I never want to let you go.”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares at me with those big green eyes.
Those eyes suddenly go wide. “We didn’t…a condom.”
Oh fuck. The thought hadn’t even entered my mind.
“I’m clean,” I tell her. “Clean bill of health before I came here. It’s part of the job. And I haven’t been with anyone but you.”
She exhales through her nose in relief, as if she really believed I was gallivanting around Oslo.
“I’m on the pill,” she says. “Was actually thinking of switching up to an IUD at some point. But yeah.”
I smile at her and kiss her forehead. It’s early enough in the day still that we could go for a hike like she suggested, but right now I could easily drift off to sleep in her arms. Before I can finish another thought, I’m out.