A Solstice Kiss #3
His laugh echoed in the night, husky and low. The sound warmed Ellie down to her half-numb toes and caused the handful of other people walking nearby to briefly glance his way.
She looked over at him, too, admiring how the streetlight gilded the edge of his face. “You moved here ten years ago, you said?”
His head dipped in affirmation. “For my position at the museum. I was fresh from earning my doctorate in art history and jumped at the opportunity. I was incredibly lucky, and I know it.”
She was about to ask how difficult his transition had been—out of idle curiosity, she told herself, rather than any particular applicability to her own situation—when they reached their destination.
Both the museum and her hotel were located on the same relatively compact island, one of thousands that comprised Stockholm’s archipelago.
The shoreline was never far away, and she could actually see the front entrance to her hotel from where they stood.
From neighboring Djurg?rden, the amusement park’s holiday lights glowed in the dark sky and—as Felix had predicted—reflected on the rippling water. And just as the two of them halted, a few fat snowflakes began drifting from the sky to swirl at their feet.
“Perfect timing. Everyone will think you used a filter.” Lifting his free hand, he caught a fluffy white flake on his gloved palm. “Do you want to take the picture? Or shall I?”
Any photo she took in these conditions would undoubtedly suck. “I’m no good at selfies, especially at night.”
“Photography is one of my interests, so if you’re willing…” When she handed over her phone, he removed his gloves and fiddled with its settings for a minute or two. “All right. Should we…?”
“Uh, yeah.” Awkwardly, she shuffled closer to the edge of the waterfront, then lifted her arms in an invitation he promptly accepted. “Oh.”
His body was large and sturdy and entirely unfamiliar. Pressed lightly against hers, it blocked out the wintry chill and erased every coherent thought from her brain.
“Is this okay?” His eyes searched hers. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, Ellie.”
“I really, really want this,” she whispered, too poleaxed by the rightness of the embrace to feign nonchalance. Only—wait. “Do you have a significant other? A spouse, a girlfriend or boyfriend, or…?”
“None of the above.” Gently, he guided her arms to loop around his neck, extended his own arm to capture the embrace in her phone’s display, then cupped her chilled cheek in his other bare, warm hand. “You?”
“I’m extremely single.” And apparently incapable of summoning even an ounce of chill, despite the current outdoor temperature.
His smile widened, and he edged even closer to her. So deliciously close, she couldn’t see or feel anything but Felix.
Felix, who wasn’t quite a total stranger anymore. Felix, whose thumb was coasting so softly over her cheek as his head lowered inch by inch. Felix, whose lips met hers with such tender care and lingered sweetly, as if he was savoring the feel and taste of her.
The thrill of it stole her breath. Made her tingle down to her fuzzy-socked toes.
After another suspended, breathless moment, his head tipped farther.
His mouth played over hers in slow, teasing brushes of heat and sparking excitement.
She shifted restlessly, stretching upward on her tiptoes, tightening her arms to get closer, to bring their bodies more firmly together.
Then, in a heady rush, her mouth was open and so was his, and their tongues tangled as her head buzzed with shocked excitement.
He tasted like mint, smelled like the woods, and felt like absolute glory against her.
The palm cradling her cheek slipped away, then pressed firmly in the center of her back, hitching her against him as her quiet sound of pleasure drifted on the waterfront breeze.
There were other people nearby; vaguely, she registered the footsteps and quiet conversations of passersby, but she didn’t care what they thought or what they might be saying. Her entire being was focused on one thing. One man. One kiss, spinning into dozens.
When he lifted his head untold minutes later, they were both panting and flushed. His dark blond hair was rumpled from her fingers, which were unexpectedly bare. Apparently, she’d flung her mittens to the snowy ground for more skin-to-skin contact at some point.
She smoothed a fallen strand of his hair away from his forehead before dropping her arms to her sides, unable to muster the right words for the moment. Afraid of severing the new, fragile connection between them with a careless phrase.
His eyes had closed at her affectionate gesture. When he opened them again, the blazing blue heat in their depths nearly incinerated her on the spot.
“Post your picture, Ellie.” He dropped another brief, hard kiss on her parted mouth before pressing her phone into her trembling hand and taking a step back. “I assume your sister will tell you how your ex reacts?”
She nodded and peered down at her phone, wondering at the sudden crease in his brow. “I’m sure she will.”
Felix had taken several snow-speckled photos, ranging from an image almost chaste enough for the cover of an Amish romance novel to a shot that should have singed her eyebrows.
She chose a pic that fell somewhere in the middle, full of passionate intensity but only a discreet glimpse of tongue, and posted the image with emojis of the Swedish flag and a yellow heart as her only caption.
Then she slipped her cell back in her pocket and turned expectantly to Felix.
His gaze was searching. “You’re not going to wait for his reaction?”
She shook her head. “Nah.”
That deep crease in the center of his forehead promptly disappeared. He retrieved her mittens from the ground and began easing her frozen fingers into them.
“In that case…” The corners of his mouth indented in a small, private smile. “How convincing do you want your story to be?”
She blinked up at him, dazzled. “What do you mean?”
“To truly sell your story, you need more than a single romantic photo. You need a series of romantic photos.” He scritched his scruff consideringly. “One from the Skeppsholm Bridge, maybe, and another from the Gamla Stan Julmarknad.”
At her questioning look, he clarified, “The Old Town’s Christmas market. It’s about a thirty-minute walk away, if that’s okay with you.”
“That sounds perfect. And then…” Since he was apparently suggesting an entire evening spent at her side, she wasn’t even nervous about her intended proposal. Just excited and hopeful. “Could we post a picture from a cozy café dinner together?”
“An excellent idea.” He put back on his own gloves, then held out a hand. When she unhesitatingly took it, his dimples reappeared. “Do you need to get anything from your hotel before we head out?”
Since she didn’t, they set off in the direction of the Skeppsholm Bridge—and she finally got the chance to ask one of the hundreds of questions she’d been mentally compiling since their first moment together. “What was your dissertation about?”
“Latin American and Caribbean surrealists.” Enthusiasm rang from every word of his answer. “Specifically, the various personal and artistic connections between Frida Kahlo and Wifredo Lam, who was a Cuban artist of Chinese, African, and Spanish descent.”
She would love to say something smart about that topic, but she had nada. “Why surrealism? What attracts you to that style of art?”
“Good question.” He took a minute to consider his answer.
“Surrealism’s origins as a response to the horrors of World War I fascinate me.
As someone who resists easy answers, probably to a fault, I also appreciate how surrealistic artwork raises questions instead of reassuring viewers that their daily reality is absolute and immutable.
I have to believe there’s more to our world and our existence than the obvious and the practical.
” He paused to guide them safely past an ice patch, then added, “And as a human being living in the twenty-first century, I find surrealistic works emotionally evocative. The last few years have underlined how lives and institutions that once felt solid and predictable can abruptly twist and turn unrecognizable.”
Apparently, thoughtful, intelligent answers that took her questions seriously were her sexual kryptonite. Good to know.
“They can melt away.” She cast him a sidelong glance of understanding. “Like a clock.”
Like her certainty about what her future could and should encompass.
He tugged her closer, his lips quirking. “A Dalí reference. Well done.”
The sordid things she would do for that smile didn’t bear thinking about.
She ducked her head, her cheeks warm with flustered pleasure. “Thank you.”
“We have paintings by Lam and Dalí on display right now, but you seemed especially focused on a different work.” He squeezed her hand. “What about the Abercrombie painting drew your attention?”
She couldn’t see any good reason not to tell him. “I have a decision to make before tomorrow. I’ve been offered a temporary position in my bank’s Stockholm branch, and I was certain I’d say no.” Her chest rose and fell on a small sigh. “Until I wasn’t.”
“Ah. I think I see.” His lips pursed as he thought it over. “Two futures, two ladders?”
“Exactly.” She laughed weakly. “Here’s the thing, though: Uncertainty makes me uncomfortable. I’m very much a creature of habit, so I shouldn’t be debating which ladder to take. I’m not nearly as adventurous or curious about the wider world as you are.”
His voice was mild. Nonjudgmental. “You don’t think so?”
She shook her head, and he only gave a noncommittal hum in response.
While they’d been talking, they’d entered one of the pedestrian walkways that bracketed the relatively short but charmingly historic Skeppsholm Bridge. Halfway across that iron expanse, each walkway’s railing boasted a gilded crown, and Felix stopped beside theirs.