Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
LAILA
I dreamed of my grandmother last night.
This is the first time I’ve seen her in my dreams since she died.
We were in a meadow, high in the mountains, above the clouds, and the meadow had orange and purple flowers everywhere, like poppies. Suddenly I was sitting in the middle of this field, as if having a picnic, and my grandmother was standing in front of me.
At first I didn’t know what to say. The feelings were too overwhelming, and I didn’t know how to get it all out.
But she calmly raised her hand and said, “There is no need to tell me, Laila. I already know everything you want to say. I have been with you every step of the way, listening and watching. Sometimes I try to give you a sign, but you don’t notice. It’s not your fault. The world is made to keep you grounded, so that you don’t spend so much time thinking about this one.”
“You’ve been watching me?” I asked.
She nodded. “Hearing your thoughts if they pertain to me. I know how much you’ve missed me. And while I know your grief is love, I want so badly for you to be happy too. Life is for living, every second of it, and I don’t want my death to hold you back. You must live with your chest out and heart open. It’s the only way you’ll learn why you took the journey to earth, what it was that your spirit wanted to learn.”
It was like I understood everything at once at that moment. Like it hit me, dawned on me with frightening clarity, what it all meant.
Of course, lying here in my bed this morning, I don’t remember any of that. I just remember what she said. And what she said afterward.
She said, “I saw what happened to James. I saw your heartbreak. His spirit was very close to joining his other spirit on this side. You pulled him back, Laila. It was your love that brought him back. He chose you. No matter what you do going forward, you have to accept that he chose you.”
And as much as my grandmother’s message of love—the knowledge that she wasn’t really gone—meant the world to me, it was hearing her talk about James that made everything feel real.
Because I know I was close to losing him.
But when he was in the hospital, I chose to lose him again.
Why? Because I’m fucking stubborn, that’s why. Because he hurt me, and I wanted him to hurt too. Because I’m scared to death that if we can somehow work past our complicated history, if we could learn to be open and vulnerable with each other, then maybe both of us would fall so deeply in love that there would be no way out. That we would make the choice to be with each other for the rest of our lives.
And, whew, that’s something I never thought about. How love isn’t just about the here and now but about the forever. That we might become to each other the things we’ve always lacked, and that once again, our lives would change.
But it would change for the better , part of me thinks. It would change for the better.
I sigh and slowly get up. I stayed up late last night with Lady Jane and Ella in Lady Jane’s room, having too much wine. It was nice to have a girls’ night and everything, but my body is paying for it this morning.
I take a shower, trying to remember the bits from my dream until all that’s left is just the feeling, a most wonderful calm feeling, one that I know won’t erase my grief but will give me some sort of comfort. I think about why my grandmother would tell me that about James (and if it were truly just a product of my mind, why is my mind telling me that?). And I wonder if I’m going to do anything about it. It’s so hard to change, and I’ve spent most of my life harboring grudges and pulling away from people, it’s going to be tempting to stay mad at James for eternity. I get dressed, ready to face another day.
Luckily the day goes by easily. The boys are quiet—Bjorn really is trying to be more in control, and at his age that’s something to be commended—and we spend the day going for a walk, building snowmen, watching a cartoon, then coloring.
We’re sitting in the playroom, about to break out the watercolor paints, when Ella comes in the room.
“Laila, can I speak with you for a moment?”
Oh shit. What did I do now?
I get to my feet, wondering if this is retroactive firing for sleeping with James, and walk over to her. “Yes?” I ask warily.
“Oh goodness, Laila,” she says with a laugh. “You should see your face. This is nothing bad. It’s good. I was thinking of taking you out for dinner tonight.”
Hmmm. This is a surprise. “Just me?”
“The boys and Magnus won’t be going.”
“Oh,” I say with a shrug. “Well, sure. Of course. That would be nice.”
“Good,” she says. “Lady Jane will watch the boys, if you want to go get ready now. I’m taking you to Oslo.”
Wow. That’s even better. “Is it fancy?”
She purses her lips in thought. “Kind of. Just wear something nice.”
I wave goodbye to the kids and then go off to my room, half expecting to see James on the way, but I don’t. In fact I haven’t seen him all day, which is for the best.
I go through my closet and select a simple black dress that shows off my curves but not in an obnoxious way. I’m tempted to put on my boots, but because I don’t know where we’re going, I opt for a pair of low heels. Not the best for winter, but I’ll walk carefully.
I pull my hair back into a messy bun on top of my head, pop in some amethyst earrings my grandmother once gave me for my birthday, some quick makeup, and then I’m ready.
To my surprise, Ella hasn’t changed at all, but I guess she’s a princess and can do whatever she likes. Not that she looks bad in her wool sweater and skinny jeans.
“Am I overdressed?” I ask her as I get in the car, surprised to see Einar at the wheel and not James.
“Not at all,” she says.
“Where is James?” I ask. He is her bodyguard after all.
“He’s busy,” she says. “Einar will be taking us.”
“Oh.”
We drive off and Ella makes small talk, but there’s something about her energy that’s confusing. It’s not that she’s nervous, but she’s excited about something. I mean, maybe it’s just that she’s going out for dinner without her kids or something, I don’t know. I know moms should be making as much time for themselves as possible.
But when we should start heading toward the city core, the car veers to the left of the harbor.
“Where is the restaurant?”
“By the water,” she says. “You’ve been there before.”
I try to think, but I have no idea what she’s talking about. The wine bar with James? No, that couldn’t be it.
Then everything starts to look familiar, even in the dark, and as we pass the Viking ship museum, I realize where she’s taking me.
The car stops right outside the Fram Museum.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Einar comes around and opens the door for me, helping me out onto the shoveled sidewalk. I look behind me at Ella for explanation, but she’s only slid over to my seat, staring up at me with a mischievous look. “Are we supposed to go into the museum? Is that where we are eating?”
“It’s where you’re eating,” she says.
I don’t understand. “What about you?”
She shakes her head. “I have plans with my husband. I’ll see you later.”
Then she reaches over and shuts the door just as Einar goes back to the driver’s seat.
“Wait, Einar, you can’t leave me here alone,” I call after him.
He gives me the rarest of smirks and nods at the museum. “You’re not alone.”
I turn to look at the museum again, and this time I see James, dressed in a tuxedo, standing at the front door with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.
Oh my god.
What is happening?
Before I can ask Einar, the car drives off and I’m alone at the museum with James.
“Why don’t you come inside where it’s warm?” he shouts from the door. “You can call a cab from here to take you back if you’d like.”
He’s got a point there, though part of me just wants to stand where I am and stare at him. Let my heart keep tripping over itself.
I walk a step, and then my heels wobble on the slick path.
In seconds James is by my side, holding me by the crook of my elbow to support me, and gently guiding me toward the museum.
I stare at him, at his freshly shaven face, at the way his eyes glow blue under the lampposts, at his tuxedo that definitely pushes him into the James Bond category.
Then I stare down at the flowers in his hand. A bouquet of daisies, orange on the outside and purple in the middle. The colors from my dream.
“These are for you,” he says, handing them to me. “You never struck me as a roses kind of girl.”
“You’re right,” I manage to say as I take them. I like roses and all, but they always felt too stuffy and adult for me. Daisies are actually my favorite, but I don’t want to tell him that. In fact, what I should do is turn around, call a cab from my phone, and wait in the cold. That’s what I would have done in the past, when my anger was its most potent.
But I don’t have the strength to do that.
I don’t want to turn from James anymore, even though he hurt me.
I don’t want to hate him either.
I just want to love him and for him to be okay with that.
He opens the door to the museum, and we step inside. All the main lights are off, with a few mood lights here and there, and alongside the ship is a table lit by candles. Behind it, in the distance, are a couple of waiters dressed in black tie.
“What is this?” I ask, looking around in amazement.
“This is for you,” he says, pulling back a seat for me.
“I don’t understand.”
“This is me telling you I’m sorry.”
He comes over to me, taking the flowers from my hands and placing them on the table, before reaching out and cupping my face, his strong, warm fingers pressed into my cold skin.
“This is me begging you to trust me again,” he says, his voice lower now, his eyes watering with emotion as he stares at me. “This is me telling you that it was your love that made me swim to the surface, Laila, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to prove to you, and to myself, that I am worthy of it.”
I open my mouth to say something, but no words come out.
I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know what to feel.
He runs his thumb over my bottom lip, staring at me in awe, like I’m something he lost that he never expected to find again.
“And maybe,” he says, leaning in closer, “maybe you will find my own love worthy too. Because the truth is, Laila, that I’m in bloody love with you.”
His words light me up inside. It’s instantaneous. I dreamed of what it could feel like if he ever told me he loved me, and I didn’t think it would hit me like this. So sharp, so fast, and so deep. All at once the ice around my heart thaws, the icicles around my ribs shatter, and I feel, really feel, what being loved by this man feels like.
It feels like heaven.
“You are?” I whisper, afraid that maybe I heard him wrong.
He grins at me, that crooked, cocky smile that makes my knees weak. “Yeah. I am. I am fatally, fantastically, and stupidly in love with you, Laila. The ‘stupidly’ part has taken over a lot lately and for that I am sorry.”
I laugh. It’s my loud laugh, and it bounces off the ship and around the walls of the museum, and it just makes him laugh in return, the sweetest sound.
But then my laugh is swallowed up by his lips pressing against mine, pulling me into a kind of kiss that just cements his words, makes me feel them with the gentle slide of his tongue, the way he’s cradling my face, possessive and sure.
He pulls away an inch, presses his forehead against mine.
“I understand if you need more time. If you stopped loving me and I have to earn it back. I have more groveling to do. I have a whole plan.”
“Shhh,” I say, pressing my finger against his lips. “I mean, I won’t say no to more groveling if it leads to nights like this. But I still love you, you know. That didn’t change. I couldn’t stop loving if I tried.”
He gives me a sheepish smile. “And did you try?”
“You bet I did,” I say. Then I give him a quick kiss. “Turns out, you’re impossible to unlove, James Hunter.”
“Well, thank god for that,” he says with a grin before burying his nose in my neck and placing his lips there.
“Now,” he says, his mouth moving against my skin, “we have some time before the first course. I had arranged for there to be an appetizer but, well…perhaps I’d rather eat you instead.”
My brows rise, heat flushing through my body. I’m giddy, joyful, and in seconds, impossibly turned on. I haven’t been with James since the night everything went to shit, and even though I have done my best to keep him out of my heart, out of my head, my body has been calling to him.
“I don’t mind being on the menu,” I tell him, and he pulls back to flash me his wonderfully wicked grin, the one that gets me weak at the knees. He looks over at the table and the waiters, then grabs my hand and leads me into the depths of the museum.
Here, after hours, when the place is mostly dark, empty, and totally silent, save for some sounds coming from behind closed doors, where I assume the kitchen is, it feels like another world. It’s hard to believe it’s the same crowded and chaotic place I took the boys.
And it’s even harder to believe that I’m here with James, that he’s leading me into the polar area dressed in a tuxedo.
He brings me over to the ice caves and ushers me inside and out of view of the waiters, and then quickly presses me up against the wall.
“Ever had sex in an ice cave before?” he asks in a husky voice as he hikes my dress up to my waist, biting and licking my shoulders, my neck.
I giggle. “No. First time for me. You?”
“Also an ice cave virgin,” he says, pulling down my underwear until it’s gathered at my feet. “So hopefully you’ll take it easy on me. Keep in mind, I won’t be taking it easy on you.”
And at that he drops down to his knees.
Oh my god.
He grabs my thighs with his big strong hands and parts them, burying his face to where I’m already wet with anticipation over actually having the real thing and not just a fantasy I’ve pulled out my vibrator for. He sucks and licks his way up the inside of my leg until he reaches my pussy, and then he plunges his tongue inside me, pushing it in as deep as he can, moving it around, tasting, eating me, and then I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes, running my hands through his thick hair, and whimper.
I am completely helpless against him.
“James,” I moan. “Oh my god.”
“Mmm,” he says, licking and swirling his tongue around my clit.
I tilt my head back a little more and close my eyes, enjoying the feel of his hot mouth on me, the way he so completely and thoroughly devours me. He’s been just as starved for me as I have been for him. I move my hands to his shoulders and squeeze them tightly as the pressure builds inside my core, and a few moments later he reaches up with his hands and grabs my ass, squeezing it in kind.
“I love that you’re in a tux,” I tell him through a breathy moan. “Feels like I’m being eaten out by James Bond.”
He chuckles against me, the vibrations starting to uncoil the hot cord inside me, and he pulls my hips against his mouth so that his face is even deeper in my pussy. His tongue lashes against my clit and then darts down to the very bottom of my slit, sucking the tender skin between his lips, and my whole body jerks and I can’t stop myself as I come.
It feels like I come harder than I ever have before.
“James!” I gasp, trying not to scream and draw attention to ourselves, gripping his head firmly between my hands and tugging his hair like the mane of a wild horse.
While I’m still a quivering, boneless mess, he pulls me up off the wall and turns me around. Then he wraps his arms around me, kissing my neck from behind.
He holds me like that for a long, tender moment, and then he tugs my hair back gently with one hand and brings his mouth to the side of my throat. I hear the sound of his zipper as he pulls it down, and then he makes another sound, moving back, and I can feel his erection pressing against my backside.
“Tell me what you want,” he growls in my ear.
“Fuck me,” I say breathlessly. “I want you to fuck me like you’re making up for all the time we’ve missed, all the time we’ve been idiots.”
“I can do that,” he says, and I can hear the smile on his lips.
He grabs my hips and pulls my ass back farther, and then he pushes his cock into where I’m so very wet and apparently still needy, even after I’ve just come.
“My god,” I moan as his cock fills me, stretching me to my limits.
James takes my arms and brings them up above my head. Pinning my wrists there on the wall, he begins to move his hips, thrusting into me again and again, hard and fast, his cock pounding into me.
God it feels so good. I’ve missed this so much.
“I love you,” James says, his hips rocking against me, his voice both breathless and pained. “I love you so much, my Laila love.”
“I love you too,” I say, shivering at his words, at the feel of him deep inside me, taking me for all it’s worth.
I love him.
He loves me.
This is my dream coming true.
He takes my hair in his hand, gathering it up and bringing it over one shoulder, and then he pulls my head back and my chin up so that he can kiss me, his tongue probing deeply into my mouth, and I can taste whisky on his lips, like he had to calm his nerves before tonight.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he says, his cock pounding into me. “I can’t waste any more time not being with you, not being inside you.”
“You have me,” I say breathlessly, feeling him hard and deep inside me.
“I’m going to take you so hard, my Laila love,” he says, and I can feel the sweat beading on his forehead as it presses against my neck, the desperation of wanting me, on fire for me.
“Do it,” I tell him. “I want it. I want to feel you.”
“Fuck!” he groans, and pulls my body back hard against him, his hips slamming against me, and I can feel his balls bouncing off my ass.
He buries his face in my neck again, and he starts to pump into me wildly, his body jerking and thrusting against mine, and in the heat of everything I forget myself and start grinding back against him, meeting his every brutal thrust, moaning as he buries himself inside me over and over again.
His hands leave my wrists and grab on to my hair, twisting the strands around his fingers.
“I love you,” he pants, his thrusts becoming quicker and more urgent. “I love you and I never want to stop.”
I can’t think straight. I can only feel.
He’s moving faster and faster and my entire body is flushed with the heat of our passion.
I’m going to come.
I can feel it coming like a thunderstorm.
“Oh my god,” I gasp as my whole body begins to shake.
“Come,” James says, thrusting between my legs, his cock buried in deep, a hand reaching around and pressing in messy, slippery strokes against my clit.
“Fuck!” I cry out as every muscle in my body tenses and I start to come around him, gasping his name and gripping the wall like I’m going to crumble to pieces.
“Oh, I’m coming, I’m coming,” James grunts, slamming into me, and I feel his cock twitch and pulse as he comes, spilling into me over and over again.
We’re loud. There’s no way the staff didn’t hear us. But I’m assuming Magnus arranged this dinner for James, so perhaps he warned them in advance of what might happen.
James pulls out of me, leaving me feeling both sated and hollow, and I turn around to face him, wobbling slightly, leaning my body into his, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“Laila love,” he says to me, breathing heavily, putting his hand at the back of my head and pressing a wet kiss into my forehead. “I can’t bloody see straight and yet I’m far from being done with you.”
“We have dinner plans,” I remind him, but I make no effort to pull down my dress, even as I feel him start to spill out of me. I have to admit, nothing turns me on more.
“Plans changed,” he says, pulling back to grin at me, his eyes heavy lidded but brimming with lust. “You’re not just the appetizer. You’re also the main course and the dessert. You’re a whole fucking feast.”
He kisses me at that, and I kiss him back, soft and slow to start, then harder, deeper, messier, and I know it’s only a matter of minutes before we’re right back at it.
This man has an appetite.
He also has my whole heart.
And now, finally, I have his.