15 #3
“What did you call me earlier?” He sounded sleepy. “It wasn’t shit-boot. Something like ‘soot-no’?”
Gods above, she’d revealed entirely too much of herself today. “ Sotnos .”
“Knowing Swedes, it still probably involves shit in some way.” Soft pressure against the crown of her head. A kiss. “What’s
it mean?”
She bit her lip, but answered. “Literally? Sweet nose.”
“Sweet... nose?” His body shook as he laughed. “What the fuck, Pippi?”
Loath as she was to explain herself further, she couldn’t overlook the slight to her mother language.
“American endearments don’t make any more sense, Reedton.
Grown adults call each other ‘baby.’ Parents refer to their kids as ‘sweet pea’ or ‘pumpkin,’ when human children are not, in fact, produce. ”
He fell silent for a long moment, all laughter gone.
“It’s an endearment?” A quiet question as his arms hitched her tighter against him. “What’s the closest English equivalent?”
She’d answer him honestly, but then she was done with the topic.
His pulse might be strong and steady, but hers was skittering unpleasantly.
“ Sweetheart ,” she told him, her tone brisk and matter-of-fact. “Anyway, something occurred to me earlier.”
After a long pause, he let out a slow breath and stroked her hair back from her face. “What’s that?”
Okay. He was letting it go.
Her heart slowed, and she reached deep to find a genuine smile. Genuine amusement.
There it was. Her reliable companion through joy and desolation both, no matter who came and went in her life.
“We—” She snickered, and it wasn’t an act. Merely a redirection. “We basically just lived out that really explicit fic Alex
sent us last week. Like, almost exactly. Remember? The one where we ended a joint interview by fucking on literally every
flat surface in the hotel room, including the fold-down ironing board in the closet? Which somehow didn’t collapse under our
combined weight, even as you railed me from behind?”
She’d applauded the author’s imagination, if not their grasp of physics.
“Remember?” Peter snorted. “I have that fic bookmarked. I considered it a key source of inspiration for today’s sexual exploits.
Except for the ironing board bit. I wouldn’t want to explain to housekeeping how it broke in half and stabbed me in the junk.
Besides, they shouldn’t be asked to clean junk blood, so I was trying to be thoughtful. ”
“Very generous of you,” she said, laughing.
“I thought so.” He yawned so hard, his jaw cracked. “Go to sleep, Pippi. You’ve got a nine-hour time difference to conquer.”
He was right. If she wasn’t leaving his bed, there was no point agonizing over whether she should. She needed her rest, and
so did he. So after giving him a half-hearted poke for the Pippi reference, she closed her eyes and let herself relax against
him.
“Good night, skitstovel ,” she said.
“Good night, sotnos .” A tired chuckle, and he ducked his head to kiss her nose. “Well, I’ll be damned. It is pretty sweet.”
“Your pronunciation sucks,” she muttered against his chest, in lieu of either panicking or crying, and he chuckled again.
They lay cuddling for several minutes, his hairy legs slightly scratchy against her own, their soft bellies pressed together,
his cedar scent an ineffable comfort.
She was almost asleep when something occurred to her. “Peter?”
“Yep?” It took him a few moments to answer, and his voice was gravelly with exhaustion.
“Alex can never know we used the fic he sent as inspiration.”
If he did, only the gods above knew what he’d force on them next.
If there was such a thing as sleepy horror, Peter’s voice contained it. “Never. We’ll never tell him.” When he shuddered,
the movement jostled her pleasantly. “He couldn’t handle that much power.”
She lifted a fist, and he bumped it to seal their vow. Afterward, his hand stroked down her spine and cupped her butt, apparently
with the intention of staying there till morning.
“’Night,” he mumbled.
That hot, huge hand on her ass felt good. So good she squirmed a little, which meant she rubbed up against him, caressing
his entire body with her own. Breasts over chest. Legs tangling with legs. Pussy sliding over hair-dusted skin.
That felt even better.
Jet lag was weird. A moment ago, she was exhausted and near sleep. But in Sweden, it was nine in the morning, and her body
didn’t yet understand she’d left evergreens behind and removed to the land of palm trees and hot, unrelenting sunshine.
The time difference might explain how she could suddenly be wide awake and aching with arousal once more. It couldn’t, however,
explain the growing press of Peter’s dick against her thigh.
With a happy little hum, she fisted his erection. Stroked up and down, tweaking the underside of the head in exactly the way
that’d made him gasp earlier that night.
Now too, evidently.
She couldn’t resist. “Speaking of handling power...”
“Sweetheart...” Peter groaned, but he also closed his hand over hers and helped her squeeze harder, his hips starting a
slow grind. “Have mercy. There’s another full day of interviews tomorrow. I’m tired, and unlike my nubile Swedish costar,
I’m an old man.”
When she nipped him right over his heart, her teeth didn’t break his skin, but they’d sting. They’d leave a mark. “ My old man.”
He’d encouraged her to bite earlier, so she had. But not in that spot. Not until now. Her possessiveness didn’t bode well,
and she knew it, but she was too turned on to care. Especially when that rumble in his chest vibrated through her so deliciously.
“Yeah.” A near-growl, firm and low. “Yours.”
Adjusting a little, he wedged his thigh between hers, pressing higher and harder, until he could nudge rhythmically up against her clit. She closed her eyes, moaned, and tried to wriggle even closer. Gods above, she loved that powerful body of his.
After a few minutes riding his thigh, she was close to coming, and his dick throbbed in her hand, wet at the tip. They were
both breathing hard, both sweaty once more.
“If you leave in the middle of the night this time, I swear to God I’ll find every fucking herring factory in Sweden and burn
them to the fucking ground,” he said, then rolled her over and proceeded to prove he wasn’t so old or tired after all.