12. Freya
“Shower?” I ask, turning my head to the side so I’m facing him.
Rory’s eyes blink open, and he smiles back at me.
We drag our weak bodies from the bed, something that’s not as easy as it seems. But worth the effort when we’re standing under the warm shower, water cascading down over our entwined bodies. Neither of us willing to relinquish our hold on each other.
“We’re fucking good together,” he murmurs into my neck before nipping at the soft skin.
I don’t care if he leaves love bites all over my body. I want him to mark me, just like I want to mark him. A satisfied smile tilts the corners of my mouth up when I look for and find scratch marks on his shoulders and arms. I expect there are quite a few on his neck and back too.
“Absolutely. Now turn around for me,” I demand, and he quirks a brow before doing as I ask. I fill my hand with shower gel and begin to wash him. I love how the toned muscles of his back and arms feel beneath my palms. A crisscross of red marks stretch across his broad shoulders, making them even hotter.
Moving my hands lower, I run them over his tight butt cheeks, digging my fingers into the muscles in a rough massage. He braces his hands on the white-tiled wall in front of him, spreading his legs slightly.
“You’re playing with fire, princess.” The tone of his voice is similar to the growl when he pumped into me.
“Haven’t you heard, Iceland is a land of fire and ice?” I turn the tap to cooler.
He gasps, spinning around to face me. “Hey!”
Laughing, I adjust the temperature back. “I didn’t want you overheating.”
“I would have thought you like it when I heat up.”
He’s right, but the only response he gets is a girlish giggle that I didn’t even know I was capable of doing.
“Your turn,” he warns, reaching for the bottle of shower gel. Starting at my shoulders, he lathers it down my arms to the tips of my fingers. “Lift up your arms.”
And when I do, his slippery hands start at my wrists and run down the underside, slowing when they reach my ribs. I flinch from how it tickles, and he smiles knowingly but doesn’t stop. His hands massage my breasts, tweaking my peaks and turning the heat up in my body. Cold water is the only way to douse these flames.
When Rory finally turns the tap off, my legs are shaking, and my body is weak from another explosive orgasm. The man is a sex god. He reaches for a fluffy white towel. But instead of passing it to me, he takes on the task himself. And he does a very thorough job of it, leaving my skin pinkened. Suddenly, he drops the towel and scoops me into his arms, carrying me to his bed. I could get very used to this.
He is continually surprising me. From the grumpy man who first called to tell me about the silly bag mix-up to the man lying beside me, who is by far the most amazing lover I’ve ever had. There are so many interesting layers to him. And like the icebergs at Jokulsarlon, I feel like I’ve only learned a small part of the man, while just below the surface, there is so much more to discover. I want to penetrate his depths. Dive deep into what really makes him tick. The only trouble is Rory is just as likely to want to do the same to me, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to expose myself to that kind of an emotional toll when I know he leaves tomorrow.
I curl closer into his side. “Rory, will you tell me why you hate those houses you design.”
He sighs, and his chest rises and falls beneath me.
Tension pulls his brows together. “I spend my days designing boring little boxes that I would never choose to live in. They all look the same. Ugly small, two-story houses with nothing different between them other than one has two bedrooms and the next has three. But there’s always the push by management to fit more houses into the estates. The bedrooms are getting so small that they are more like the size of a large closet than a livable room. I hate it. It wasn’t what I thought studying for six years to be an architect would be.”
“Why do you do it, then?”
“I’m not really sure. But seeing the Nordic architecture in Reykjavik this weekend has made me want to stop. I’ve decided I can’t do it anymore.”
“That’s good. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, princess. It’s good.” He brushes my hair back from my face. His hand then strokes over my shoulder and down my back, and my body stirs under his warm caress.
“What will you do instead?”
He’s quiet for a moment, and when I tilt my head to look at him, he’s staring up at the skylight above the bed. “I think I’m going to start up my own business. I have a few houses I’ve designed that I think I could sell off plan. Also, I won a design competition a couple of years ago. I could probably reach out to some contacts I made at that time. Maybe find a client who likes my work enough to want to collaborate with me.”
“Really? That sounds great. I’m a little bit envious that you’ve worked out the direction you want to go in.”
He smiles, and his face is transformed. The wrinkle that appeared between his brows when he was talking about the ugly houses has disappeared. “Aye, it feels good. But what about you? I thought you liked your job at the gallery in Dublin.”
“I do. But I don’t get much time to paint. I’ve been thinking about moving to Wales to join an art community based there. I spoke to my father about it at our lunch, and he thinks I should do it.”
“If your passion is painting, then you should. You don’t want to end up like me, feeling like you’ve wasted years doing something that doesn’t make you happy.”
Damn, he’s right. Our positions are similar—both of us stuck in jobs that aren’t fulfilling or feeding our creativity.
“Besides, Wales is a lot closer to Edinburgh than Dublin is. That’s if you wanted to meet up again?” His voice doesn’t hold his usual confidence, and the hand that was stroking my back has stopped moving.
My heart beats a little faster. “I’d like to meet up with you again.”
He doesn’t say anything, but he pulls me a little closer and drops a kiss on the top of my head.
Enjoying this feeling of closeness, I ask, “Can I see your design that won the competition?”
He shifts beneath me, reaching for his phone and placing it in the center of his chest near my hand. I sit up, crossing my legs beneath me, and I don’t miss the way his gaze drops to check out my nakedness on full display.
Grinning, I pull the sheet over my lower body. “Later. First, I want to see the type of house you love.”
“That seems like a fair deal.”
He swipes his thumb across his phone, and when he hands it to me, there are a series of computer-generated drawings. They show a sprawling low building from different angles. White walls, angled to fit into the landscape, butt up to a rough natural-stone entry with a series of wooden platforms leading up to it. I see the design elements of the Nordic House, but they are used in a very different way.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, slowly scrolling through the photos. “And you designed this?”
He laughs. “Aye. You know, you probably shouldn’t look so surprised.”
“Sorry. It’s just you only talked about those ordinary houses. This is not a little box and it’s definitely not ordinary. It’s magnificent.”
“Thank you,” he says, reaching across to take his phone from my fingers and placing it back on the bedside table.
Suddenly he turns, throwing off the sheet and leaving me open to him. “Now, that is magnificent.”
I laugh as he pulls me down on top of him.
Damn, I’m going to miss Rory when he leaves tomorrow. But at least I can have hope that I’ll see him again.