20
Maria hadn’t intended to commit herself so soon.
During this press junket, she’d meant to offer sex and companionship to Peter, but not her heart. Not until she knew for certain
he’d finally put her—put them —first in his life, above even work, and could give her what she actually needed, not just what he found easiest to offer.
If he had, if he could, she’d take some of the Hollywood roles being offered to her and stay in LA with him. If not...
well, she hadn’t wanted to think about it. But she always had another life waiting for her back in Sweden, with family and
satisfying work and sex whenever that particular itch presented itself for scratching.
Not romantic love, though. Not Peter.
Until now, she’d been unsure what to do, because over the years, he had occasionally put his professional reputation at mild risk for her sake. But when he discussed his future, work still seemed
to be the organizing principle. The central, immovable obstacle around which everything else had to bend, including the people
he cared about.
But the longer Peter spoke tonight, the more her remaining qualms faded.
Here were the corner pieces of his puzzle, at long last. And now that he’d finally given them to her, she could put everything else together without much trouble.
Of course Peter instinctively gravitated to the edges of every group, no matter how desperately he needed companionship and affection.
He’d been installed on the outskirts of even his own goddamn father’s life. He was used to isolation. Used to not belonging.
Used to being misunderstood, so what would be the point of speaking, anyway? Why even try to find friends?
As if that weren’t bad enough, Daniel had then proceeded to make the same fucking mistakes a second time, prioritizing his
own needs, his own desire for security, above helping his family get what they actually wanted. What would make his son happy,
as nothing in Peter’s life had since the day his mother died.
A chance to live outside his father’s orbit. A profession that fulfilled him.
No wonder Peter hadn’t been willing to risk the role of Cyprian. It wasn’t only a long-overdue, triumphant rebuke to Anne,
who hadn’t been willing to risk a future with him. It was also the final, best proof he could offer his father—and maybe even
himself—that he hadn’t made a mistake when he climbed on that LA-bound bus so long ago. It was the highest-profile role of
his career, one that offered a steady, generous income and the sort of fame that couldn’t be denied. Not by his ex-fiancée.
Not even by a man who wanted to deny it with all his heart, if only so his son would move back home at last and help fill
part of the gaping, decades-old hole his wife’s death had left in his life.
If Peter’s work had been absolutely everything to him, tonight’s revelations told her why.
But now he had genuine friends among his Gates colleagues, people who sought his company and would do almost anything for him. He had the critical respect, fan following, and financial security he’d been chasing his entire career.
He had her. Gods above, did he have her.
In time, he’d have her family too, because they adored him. After such extensive experience, it hadn’t taken them long to
recognize another lost, lonely soul bursting with love to give. One who’d gone far too long without someone in his life to
take that love and return it in kind.
They’d adopt him. Emotionally, if not legally, and she wouldn’t even put the latter past them. Filip was a lawyer, after all.
Peter’s life had changed in the past six years, and he’d changed with it. Work would always remain important to him, because
he loved acting, but it wasn’t his entire existence anymore. His world and its possibilities had expanded spectacularly since
that terrible conversation in a sunbaked LA parking lot.
He had room for her now.
She could be the new center of that world.
So here she was. Sitting by a lakeshore on a clear spring evening in Wisconsin, her hands cradled in his, the quiet shush
of waves a reassurance, his warm body beside hers a bulwark against any cold that might come her way.
She now knew his past; she’d been at his side for much of his present; and she could take an informed guess as to what his
future might hold. And with that new understanding in mind, she also knew what to do. Finally.
She loved him. Of course she loved him. If she’d believed she could offer her closest friend and most trusted colleague her
body and all her time without handing him her heart too, she was just as much a kn?ppgok as he was.
Luckily for them both, she now trusted him with that heart. Which meant she had nothing left to conceal and everything to share with him.
Because he loved her too, whether he’d admitted it to himself or not.
Her doubts were gone. It was time to celebrate.
“Someone like me,” she repeated. “I love you, Peter. You’re my beloved skitstovel . Do you want me to find a house in Hollywood, or would you rather I stay with you?”
Celebrations and logistics weren’t mutually exclusive, right? Because in approximately five days, their whirlwind press junket
would be over, and they’d be flying into LA, the city where she intended to remain for the foreseeable future. Also the city
where she currently had nowhere to stay, since there’d been no point in arranging for a hotel or a rental there when she might
be returning to Sweden instead.
If Peter wasn’t ready to live together, fine. But either way, she needed a home. One not located near Stockholm.
His lips still pressed to her hands, the man of the hour appeared to have frozen as solid as Lake Mendota evidently did in
winter. He was blinking rather rapidly, though, so she hadn’t killed him with her pronouncement of love. She considered that
a good omen.
After a few moments, he sort of gasped against her knuckles, inhaling sharply, which was when she realized he’d actually stopped
breathing for a while.
Fy fan , what a drama queen.
Carefully, he lowered their hands to his lap and angled himself to stare at her. Rather blankly, it must be said. Also, his
mouth was open more than a little. The word gaping might go too far, but the phrase parted lips didn’t go nearly far enough.
English could be a very imprecise language, she’d found.
“You...” More staring. “You want to... move in with me? Because you, uh, love me and plan to move to LA?”
All pronounced in the same tones one would use to say, for example, You want to smother me with jewels and then cook me a gourmet meal before giving me a thousand orgasms? Really intense, long-lasting
ones, like you’d been edging me for hours?
Only she was the jewels, the meal, and the edging-heightened orgasms.
It was all very flattering.
And as long as they were having this conversation, they might as well get everything out in the open, because who knew how
long it would take Peter to say it without prompting?
“Correct.” Leaning forward, she planted a smacking kiss on his still-somewhat-gaping mouth. “Do you love me ?”
There he went again. Frozen solid, other than that blinking. Or maybe that wasn’t blinking, but an eye twitch? Well, either
way, it was proof of life.
His lips shaped the word yes , although no sound emerged.
She’d been confident that would be his answer. Completely, utterly certain. But now that she’d seen it mouthed silently, she
could admit that her pulse had skyrocketed in that fraught gap between her question and his response, her blood pounding so
hard against her temples she’d seen sparks in the dark night.
She refused to believe, however, that the deep, ragged breath she’d just taken meant she’d been holding it until he answered
in the affirmative.
No longer on the verge of passing out, she waited uncomplainingly for further, more audible communication.
After a time, he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders and met her gaze with a directness that bordered on defiance.
Because, for him, this admission must require untold amounts of bravery, and she should have remembered that.
She couldn’t imagine he had much recent practice with the declaration. Had he even spoken those words to anyone but Anne since
his mother’s death?
“Of course I do,” he finally said with commendable aplomb. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know how much I love you, Maria. How
much I’ve loved you for years now.”
His voice was stone-steady, but his hands trembled against hers. And for a moment, she regretted her boldness, even though
it had earned her the words she wanted. The words she’d needed to hear so badly, but not because she hadn’t realized he loved
her already. Because she had to know he was willing to acknowledge those feelings, to her and to himself.
Unacknowledged emotion was too easy to dismiss, to set aside in favor of something more important, and the stakes for her
were far too high to allow avoidance of hard questions.
She wasn’t moving half a world away from her native country and her family for a man who couldn’t tell her he loved her. It
didn’t matter how many good reasons he might have for his reticence. It didn’t matter how much he did actually love her. It didn’t even matter how much she loved him in return, and how much—how very, very much—she wanted him
in her life.
Okay, so she’d had one or two remaining doubts.
But now they were all gone. Really.
He’d given her what she needed, and in return, she’d give him everything she had.
Carefully detaching her hands from his near-painful grip, she cupped his face, his beard scratchy against her sensitive palms,
his eyes wary but hopeful on hers.
Her thumbs stroked his cheeks slowly. Lovingly.
Then she leaned in and kissed him. Soft brushes of her mouth against his, damp and warm and tender. Patient, because she now had all the time in the world for him.
“ Jag. ?lskar. Dig. Sotnos ,” she said, punctuating each word with another kiss.
“Don’t know why,” he mumbled against her lips. “But thank fuck for it.”
His arms slid around her then, and he pulled her onto his lap and cradled her close as he kissed her back with just as much
deliberate care. He explored the corners of her mouth, sipped on her lower lip, and slipped his tongue inside, but not to
claim. To coax and slide and twirl around hers until she grew dizzy with the sweetness of it all.
It felt like a first kiss.
Well, no. Her first kiss had been with Arne Gustafsson in middle school, and he’d eaten garlic salami earlier that day, and
his tongue had slithered like an eel. Peter, in contrast, tasted like mint and chocolate and smelled like cedar. Furthermore,
his clever, agile tongue should be bronzed, but not until after she’d had full use of it upon demand for her entire lifetime.
So this didn’t feel like her first kiss.
But it was the first kiss that had offered her a future in a long, long time.
When it was over, his big, warm hand on her hip supported her as she got to her feet. Immediately, she turned around and extended
her own hand, a mute offer of assistance. He took it and gave her some of his weight as he rose. Because he trusted her strength,
trusted her enough to relinquish some of his independence and let her help.
Because he wasn’t alone anymore, and he wouldn’t be again.
When they made it back to the hotel room, they reached for each other as soon as the door thumped shut behind them. They stripped off their clothes and tumbled beneath the covers, but not to fuck. At least, not right away.
Tucking her close, he smoothed his palms down her spine, her sides, her arms. Anywhere he could reach. Each time she put her
mouth to his ear and whispered something else she adored about him—his sharp intelligence, his ready wit, his protectiveness
of her, his stubborn determination, his undeniable talent—his hands paused for a moment, then kept sliding slowly over her
bare skin until she was nearly liquid with pleasure.
“Gods above, I love you,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his earlobe.
When he buried his face in her neck, she sifted his hair through her fingers in the way that always gave him goose bumps.
And when her neck grew damp, she didn’t say a thing.
Some emotions needed to be acknowledged.
Others could remain private.
Later, when he braced himself above her, head bowed so he could nuzzle against her cheek as he slid inside her body, he offered
the words to her freely, unprompted, his voice hoarse and broken and fierce.
“Fuck, I love you, Maria.” With his first jolting thrust, he pushed even deeper. So deep his breath caught for a moment, and
so did hers. “Move in with me. Please.”
“Okay,” she said, wrapping her legs around those busy hips.
He paused midthrust. “Shit, if I’d known it was that easy—”
“Keep going, skitstovel . As they say in American medical dramas: ten ccs of dick, stat.”
Her slap of his ass probably hurt her hand more than his butt, but it did the trick. He started moving again. Moving and snort-laughing.
“Isn’t that, like, a tiny amount of dick?” He slipped a hand between their bodies and found her clit, his grin wide and bright.
“You just want the tip?”
“Feel free to increase my dosage,” she told him, and for the very first time in her life, she had a man in her bed who gave
her an orgasm after they both laughed until they cried.
Good tears.
The best she’d ever had.