Stockholm Diaries, Melanie

by Rebecca Hunter

  Chapter 12

  Mel woke up disoriented. The perpetual sunlight of the Stockholm summer had already thrown off her sense of time, but falling asleep at odd hours made it impossible to gauge even the most general time of day. Light streamed through the windows and onto the covers, warming her feet, which were sticking out the other end, intertwined with Henrik’s.

  Henrik. It wasn’t just a dream. He was still there, next to her, his face nestled in her hair, breathing slowly. Mel wanted to turn and see his face, see if the lines of tension were gone when he slept. She didn’t want to wake him. Not yet. Even in his sleep, his arms rested around her, holding her against him. The arms she hadn’t taken her eyes off all summer. An memory flooded her, the memory of his arms, straining under his weight as he thrust one more time, taking her to the peak of pleasure.

  She felt something inside of her stir as she traced his hard, firm muscles. How could she want him again, so soon after the deep and overwhelming satisfaction that she had found? Mel shifted against Henrik and felt him begin to harden against her. His breath quickened, and he pulled her tightly into him.

  Mel adjusted a little so she could see his face. The lines on his forehead were gone. She freed her hand and brought it to his cheek, studying his eyes. For the first time, she saw contentment there.

  “I guess this wasn’t just another erotic dream about you,” he said, his voice husky and filled with sleep. “You’re really next to me… naked.”

  He gave her a lusty smile as his hand moved down to her waist and then cupped her rear.

  Mel raised an eyebrow.

  “What were we doing in these erotic dreams?”

  Henrik chuckled as his erection pulsed against her.

  “Mmmm… maybe some other time,” he whispered.

  Henrik rolled her onto her back and parted her legs with his knee. He hung over her, the soft hairs of his chest teasing her nipples. One of his hands stroked her hair and traced the tip of her ear.

  “So you won’t get pregnant, no matter how many times we do this?” he said, leaning over to lick the tip of her earlobe.

  His voice was low and provocative, and the suggestion made her smile.

  “No,” Mel whispered, “not even if we do this all day long.”

  His teeth ran along the rim of her ear. She squirmed under him, and he growled, holding her firmly down.

  “Be careful,” he said, his lips moving down her neck. “Once I set my mind on something, I don’t let go of it easily.”

  Henrik held his body above hers, still not quite touching her, taunting her. She arched, seeking more of him. Their bodies met, and his muscles tensed and hardened against her skin.

  “Slowly this time,” he groaned.

  His lips trailed down her neck, over her collarbone and onto her chest. His kisses were slow and deliberate as he circled her breasts. And as he came closer to her sensitive nipples, Mel found herself moving underneath him again, wanting the sensations his mouth promised.

  Henrik paused, his mouth almost touching one of her nipples, and gave her the grin of a predator closing in on its prey. He was purposely making her wait, teasing out her pleasure.

  “I want some time with these,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve imagined you the way I found you that first day, naked, your breasts begging to be sucked. Is that how you usually introduce yourself to a man?”

  His tongue flicked her nipple, and Mel’s cry was a mixture of laughter and pleasure.

  “That wasn’t on purpose,” she said, still panting and giggling.

  “Oh really? That bathing suit was just begging to be ripped off. And that wasn’t the only time I found you all stripped down for me.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he took one of her nipples in his mouth and played with it until she lost her train of thought. Then he released it, and Mel struggled to regain her thoughts.

  “I… I don’t remember…,” she said, her voice fading out into a moan. She was breathless, and she felt the hard length of his arousal surge against her, but he made no move to appease it. His voice was smooth and relaxed, and she wondered how long he would go on with this exquisite torture.

  “Are you sure?” he asked with a chuckle. He scraped his teeth over her nipple, and she cried out again. “The morning after you fell in, I found you on your dock in the bikini that doesn’t even cover your breasts. Tell the truth.”

  “The bikini that you bought me,” Mel laughed, breathlessly.

  Henrik shook his head, his hot breath teasing her nipple.

  “But you had no intention of swimming,” he said.

  He was right. Mel thought he simply hadn’t shown up that morning, but he must have come, seen her and left. Then she had admitted in the row boat that she was too scared to swim after her fall, and he had put this all together.

  His smile had disappeared, and in its place was unguarded desire. He positioned his erection against her most sensitive parts, dragging it slowly over her until she moaned.

  “Who were you thinking about when you put on that bikini, Melanie?”

  He throbbed and pushed against her, sending waves of pleasure through her.

  “You,” she breathed, her voice barely there.

  “Tell me,” he growled, his voice losing its careful control. “Did you fantasize about me?”

  “Yes, Henrik,” she cried out as he entered her in one, hard, deep thrust.

  Then he stilled inside her. Her breath came in short pants as her body tried to accommodate this hard, thick intrusion. Henrik’s breath was ragged and uneven, and he closed his eyes for a moment before he continued.

  “I saw you that day on the dock. The sight of your breasts spilling out over the sides of that bikini. All I could think about was how they would feel in my mouth. And that made me so hard I had to turn back.”

  He leaned over and lifted one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked on it like he couldn’t get enough. Bursts of pleasure ran through her body, and she reached up to pull him further inside her.

  Henrik released her breast and drove into her again with a satisfied smile.

  “I’m so glad you like that,” he said. “I imagined you would. Only this is much, much better than what I imagined.”

  He whispered the words, and they set off something in her. He was right—this was much better than any fantasy. Henrik was on top of her, inside her, and she still wanted him closer. Mel lifted her hips to meet his long, hard strokes. He groaned deeply at the sensation and nudged her legs wider. His eyes were hungry and wild, but he kept his movements slow, controlled.

  He grabbed her wrists and raised them over her head, holding them there as he continued his delicious onslaught. He held her body taut, exposed, and she closed her eyes and arched up, unable to contain these new sensations. Henrik seemed to sense that her release was near, and he slowed even further, toying with her pleasure.

  “Please, Henrik,” she cried. “Please.”

  Mel struggled to free her arms, wanting to pull him into her faster, harder. Still, he held her firmly in place, but her efforts caused a momentary break in his composure. He surged hard inside of her. She cried out again, dangerously close to the edge. Henrik closed his eyes and parted his mouth in a gasp of ecstasy before he could stop it. Then he swallowed hard and growled.

  “Please what? What do you want?”

  Words came to her, words she had never considered saying in her life. She couldn’t say them.

  “Harder,” she said.

  He lowered himself so that his mouth was next to her ear.

  “Do you want me to fuck you harder?”

  “Yes, Henrik.”

  The waves of ecstasy began before his name left her mouth. All of Henrik’s control was gone as he drove into her in his final, frenzied thrusts. His release inside her set off more jolts of pleasure. It was too much.

  Incomprehensible words flowed from his mouth, low and guttural.
Then, finally, he released her hands and gathered her into his trembling arms as her body gave one, last, exquisite shudder.

  Neither of them spoke for a long time. He held her against him as her breathing evened out. She could feel his heart pounding a slow, steady rhythm against her, and it filled her with a deep stillness. Mel closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensation of his skin against hers. And for that silent moment, there was nothing else she wanted.

  Mel shifted onto her stomach and rested on her elbows. Henrik’s arm draped lazily over her back, and his fingers slowly caressed the slope of her waist.

  “You wanted me to beg you,” she said.

  Henrik raised his eyebrows and looked at her, but he didn’t answer right away.

  “I wanted to know that you wanted me,” he said at last, “as badly as I wanted you.”

  She felt a more deliberate caress over her hip. His answer made her feel a little better, but she still eyed him warily.

  “You wanted to make sure you were still in control,” she said.

  Henrik took a deep breath and slowly shook his head.

  “I’ve never hidden that from you, have I?” he said softly.

  Mel swallowed. This was true, of course, but it wasn’t much comfort.

  “It’s just that—” She wasn’t sure how to put words to what she was feeling. In fact, Mel wasn’t even sure she knew what she felt. Maybe she should just let this be, just be happy for what she had so clearly enjoyed only minutes ago. But she couldn’t.

  Mel tried again. “Henrik, this isn’t like anything I’ve ever experienced before. But I’m not sure I’m the kind of woman you want.”

  He looked at her for a while. He reached up and gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. He let his hand linger on her cheek and then traced the edge of her jaw.

  He leaned over and pressed his lips to her shoulder.

  He said, “I think you should let me decide that for myself.”

  Chapter 13

  The days were beginning to blur together as Mel found herself thinking more and more about the nights. And the nights ended far too quickly.

  Henrik woke her up early, his large body pressing against her back, warm and aroused. He made love to her slowly and gently, his hands cupped around her breasts, holding her body into his, until she moaned and shuddered. Afterward they were still again, salty skin against skin, the rain pattering on the roof above.

  “What do you do in the mornings, before we work?” asked Mel.

  He didn’t answer right away, and at first Mel thought he didn’t hear her.

  But then he said, “I’m fixing up the cabin for when my mother arrives. And I’m trying to write.”

  When he came to these last words, his voice sounded guarded. Jonas, the author next door, had asked Henrik about his writing, and Henrik had practically growled like a wounded animal. She hadn’t found a way to ask him about it since. But this time he had brought up the topic himself, and Mel decided this was as good of an opportunity to ask as she would get.

  “What are you writing? Another mystery?”

  Henrik frowned.

  “No more mysteries. Ever. Though I realize that there’s nothing readers like better than to pass their time entertaining themselves with different ways to kill people.”

  “You sound a little bitter,” she said.

  Henrik laughed.

  “Maybe. I would have tried for love poems, but my experience in that area is just about as bleak.”

  Before she could think further, Henrik gave her a wry smile. “The new book is about an unhappy marriage that only gets worse.”

  Mel raised an eyebrow. “Another bestseller?”

  That comment earned her a real smile.

  “You never know,” he said. “It may have the same morbid appeal as the mystery. Though I’m not counting on it.”

  “But it’s not going well?”

  Henrik frowned and shook his head.

  “You snapped at that other author when he asked about it. I bet he hasn’t been over to ask you out for beers.”

  He gave a little chuckle, but his smile faded.

  “Nothing’s working. I have pages and pages of useless crap. It started out okay, but since this summer began, I just don’t care about it anymore.”

  “Is the work on my father’s biography getting in the way?”

  Mel expected Henrik to deny it outright, if only to avoid hurting her feelings, but he didn’t. Instead, he stayed quiet for a while, as if he were considering her question for the first time.

  “I’m sorry if it is,” she added.

  Henrik shook his head at her apology.

  “I’m not. Honestly, I’m glad to be losing interest in unhappy marriages. It’s just the writing piece that’s bothering me. I don’t even believe in writer’s block, so I don’t know how I could have it.”

  Mel studied the creases in his forehead, back after their night-long absence, and tried to process this information. Henrik had been married once. Even if that marriage had gone bad, hadn’t the relationship begun with love?

  “Did you… did you love your ex-wife?”

  Her stomach twitched with what might have been jealousy as she spoke. He didn’t answer right away.

  “Maybe,” he said. “The best I knew how.”

  Whatever she had expected as an answer, that certainly wasn’t it. Henrik seemed to understand this. He took her hand and placed it on his large, warm chest. She could feel the steady thump of his heart under the hard muscles.

  “I make a terrible husband,” he added with a laugh. But his eyes told her something different. As he pulled her in closer, he looked at her as if to say, I’m doing the best I can.

  “Your mother must be coming soon,” she said quietly.

  He nodded, but his face turned blank, unreadable.

  “This next weekend,” he said.

  “Can I talk with her?”

  She had asked the same question a while ago, on the boat, and he had dismissed it. This time she was determined not to let the subject drop so easily. His mother was a primary source from her father’s past—from the time right around when he had left for the U.S., if she were to guess. Henrik was a young boy at the time, but his mother might have more insight, even if she had only known Mel’s father for a short time. But part of Mel felt guilty for asking. She saw that something about the idea of her meeting his mother hurt Henrik, though she didn’t know why.

  Henrik’s face was no longer unreadable. Instead, the corners of his mouth tugged down into a tight frown, and she thought his eyes looked almost sad.

  “My mother…” he started and then faded off. “My mother is quite religious. And it doesn’t leave much room for anything else.”

  His words were filled with emotion, held in tight control. She could see how difficult it was for Henrik to even say them. She reached up and ran her hand behind his neck, stroking his skin, trying to ease the pain in his look.

  “And her English is pretty stilted,” he added.

  Mel could tell Henrik wanted her to drop the subject, but she couldn’t. This was a chance she couldn’t give up. All her father’s other friends and colleagues had spoken of her father as the famous poet: a brilliant man, thoughtful, passionate but distant. But Henrik’s accounts of their summer on the island when he was young had revealed someone much different, much more like a real person. Henrik’s mother must know that side of her father, too.

  Mel looked up at Henrik.

  “You could translate for me,” she said softly. “Please?”

  Henrik closed his eyes. Mel reached down and took his hand in hers. She brought his fingers to her mouth and kissed them, then settled the hand around her waist.

  “Henrik?” she said, reaching up to gently turn his head toward her. Reluctantly, he let her. “What is it with your mother? Did something happen?”

  Henrik shook his head. Then he gently turned Mel so that sh
e lay on her side, her back resting against the warm length of his body. She was aware that he had arranged her so she could no longer see his face, and at first she thought that this was his way of ending the conversation. But then he spoke.

  “Nothing happened. At least, everything that happened occurred before I was born,” he said in a dull voice. “I was a mistake, a moment of passion that my mother has spent the rest of her life in church repenting for. She tried hard to love me, and sometimes I thought she did. In fact, I think our cabin was an attempt to be alone with me, to get away from my father, to see if the feeling of sin would follow her.”

  “I was only five when we bought the cabin, but I remember that summer better than anything else in my childhood. We were finally on our own, without my father, and my mother was happy. I had never thought about my mother as being unhappy before, but it was such a change. One day when your father was over, I heard her laugh, really laugh, for the first time. It was a shock, a sound so foreign that I didn’t even know who it was at first. For a five-year-old to remember that… well, it says a lot about my mother.”

  She lifted his large palm against hers and squeezed.

  “I’m so sorry, Henrik. It sounds so lonely.”

  She tried to imagine this man in front of her as a boy, trying to make sense of his mother’s moods. If he was like most five-year-olds, he would have taken it personally. At that age, he would have thought her unhappiness had something to do with him.

  Mel wanted to see him, but he kept her facing away.

  “As you might imagine, it took me a while to sort all this out. The further my mother drifted away, the more my father came down on her, trying to make her love him. There were times, many times, when she was so distant…”

  Mel squirmed until he loosened his arms around her. She turned herself around and looked up into his deep green eyes, wide and sad.