“I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “When I play hard, I—”
He stopped and shook his head. Then he took a deep breath.
“That’s why I wanted you to stay away from me after the game. And I really tried to keep my distance. But there’s something about you, the way you are with me, something I can’t stay away from. When I opened the elevator gate earlier this evening, I told myself I wouldn’t knock on your door. Not tonight, no matter how much I wanted to touch you, to be with you. But when I walked out of the elevator and saw you standing in front of me—”
“So your solution is for me to stay away when you get like this?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
He could clearly hear the challenge in her voice. This was his own logic, but when she spoke it, he seemed to hear the holes in it.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re right. It’s not your job to stay away from me. It’s my job to make sure I find a better way to take care of all these... feelings.”
Finally, he gave her a wry smile. “I don’t even know your last name.”
Caroline watched his beautiful blue eyes, finally open for her. Whatever this was that she had with Niklas, he was right: it was different. She felt the pull of him, his body, his voice, his hands, deep inside her, and she wanted to find her way closer to him, closer than the skin of their two bodies allowed. And he didn’t even know her name.
“Mendoza,” she whispered. “My last name is Mendoza.”
She ran her hands through his dark blond hair and then gently pulled his mouth down to hers. His lips were warm and soft, but she could feel the emotion behind his kiss.
“You’re making me crazy, Caroline Mendoza,” he whispered as he slid his body on top of hers.
Clearly, he wasn’t that tired.
“WHAT COMES NEXT for the famous Niklas Almquist?” said Caroline with a hint of a smile.
Twilight, the endless dusk of the Swedish summer night, glowed through the window. Niklas shook his head and looked at the ceiling. He lay with his hands clasped behind his head, the long muscles of his arms flexed hard. Caroline rested on her elbows next to him and watched his lips as he spoke. Her hair spilled over onto his chest in a tangled mess.
“One year with Djurgården. Practice starts in September.” His voice was quiet. “Sometime before that, I need to go back to Detroit and sell my house, ship back whatever I want to keep.”
His eyes moved away from her, and the tone of his voice was flat.
“You don’t want to do that?”
“I wasn’t ready to leave the Red Wings. Though after the last year, I can’t say I’m surprised. But hockey is my life. It’s all I think about, all day, every day,” he said. Then his expression softened and he looked back at her. “At least it was all I used to think about.”
His mouth curved into a smile.
“I hardly believe you lived like a monk all those years,” she laughed.
“Well, no,” he chuckled, “but it’s never interfered with hockey before. Even when I was together with someone, I didn’t think about them during the rest of my day.”
He glanced over at Caroline. “I know that sounds pretty cold, but it wasn’t something I did on purpose. It just happened. Everything I did was for the game. I just thought that’s the way I was.” He stopped and let his fingertips trace down her arm. “Now I’m not so sure.”
His hand began to explore the curve of her breast, and her heart beat faster. But she stopped him, taking his hand in hers. She ran her fingers over the angry red of his knuckles. She studied his long fingers, rough and scarred. His fourth finger looked as if it hadn’t healed straight from a break. Then she linked her own fingers into his, letting them cover her hand. She raised the scarred fingers to her lips and kissed them.
“I’m afraid of how much I want you,” she whispered.
“WHAT AM I going to do?” Caroline said aloud.
The light of the full moon, shining through one of the long bedroom windows, had awoken her. It lit up Niklas’s face as he drew in slow breaths. Caroline fought the urge to touch him, to trace the outline of his face, to slide her hand over the muscles on his shoulders and down his long arms. Instead, she watched the steady thump of his pulse on his neck. She studied the curls at the ends of his sandy hair, his inexplicably dark eyelashes, the fullness of the lips that had explored her body. She studied each of the details, storing them in her memory for the day that was coming soon, the day she would leave.
She hadn’t told Niklas about leaving, as if not speaking of her inevitable departure made it less real. She had worked too hard to pull herself away from Brad, and Niklas… well, Niklas had a far more dangerous lure that seemed to be especially made for her. But even if she could find a way to continue her interviews while staying close, where would that get her? Would she hang around Stockholm a little longer until her infatuation with Niklas died down? Because surely that’s what this was—infatuation. True, it felt different, stronger than any infatuation she had felt before, but after only two nights and a few chance encounters, what more could she call this?
A cold gust of wind blew through the balcony door, sending goose bumps across her bare arms. She disentangled herself from the warmth of Niklas’s embrace and climbed out of bed. Quietly, she closed the door, but she stayed by the window, looking out at the tall trees that swayed over Vasaparken. For just a moment, she allowed herself to formulate the thought she had already pushed away once that night: What if my mystical world, the one with just Niklas and me, was real? What if I stayed here, right here with Niklas, forever?
Caroline closed her eyes to enjoy the momentary warmth of this idea, but even allowing this tiny wish into her fantasy was too much. Immediately, a cascade of objections clamored in her mind, starting with this one: Look what happened the last time you put off what you wanted for a man. And though Niklas shared little else besides gender with Brad, Caroline couldn’t escape the feeling that she would be making the exact same mistake as she made the last time. The coldness of this idea was strong enough that she suddenly felt the urge to leave Niklas’s apartment right then, to tear herself away from him before she no longer could.
Caroline shivered, and her naked body begged her to move. Where were her clothes? In a pile on the kitchen floor, she remembered. Not far from the broken glass. But that memory triggered a flash of something else, the memory of Niklas’s lips on her shoulders as he slipped the straps of her dress off. She tried to push it away.
“What are you doing?” Niklas’s voice was rough and filled with sleep.
“I was cold, so I closed the door,” she said. A half truth. Just a moment before, she had contemplated walking out of his apartment. Now, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
“Come back,” he whispered.
He lifted the covers for her, revealing the rest of his impressive physique. Caroline felt her body stir. No, she definitely wouldn’t leave now.
Slowly, she walked back over to his bed and crawled in, fitting herself into him once more. He wrapped his arm over her and pulled her closer, his heat spreading through her body. Soon, she could feel the steady rhythm of his breathing against her again, coaxing away the tension of the unknown future. But Caroline lay awake for a long time after that, knowing that separating herself from Niklas was only going to get harder.
CAROLINE AWOKE TO the smell of bacon, the smell of her childhood weekend mornings. She opened her eyes, but it took a moment to orient herself in the stark whiteness of the room. Niklas’s room. He had opened a window again to let in the cool morning air. It’s his Nordic blood, she thought. He must be made of an entirely different substance, much more resistant to cold.
She sat up in bed and felt the tug of soreness from all over her body. And with each tug came a flash of Niklas up against her. She closed her eyes and let the breeze blow over her skin.
She opened them again and looked around. Her dress lay neatly on the corner of the be
d. He must have put it there. Caroline slipped it on and then walked down the hall to the kitchen. Niklas was standing in front of the stove, dressed in only jeans, attending to pans of bacon and eggs. All traces of glass on the floor were gone. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her of just how long it had been since she had eaten.
Though her body was clearly telling her to walk across the room and feel the warmth of his skin, she stopped instead. She leaned against the doorway and watched him, letting that feeling sit with her, drawing it out. There was a lightness to the way he moved, a contentment that she hadn’t seen in him yet.
He turned around to grab bread from the other counter and caught sight of her. His smile was open and warm.
“An American breakfast, just for you. I’d come over and kiss you, but there’s a lot going on right now,” he said, gesturing to the spread of food.
His eyes wandered from her face down to her breasts, where her bra was conspicuously missing. He raised his eyebrows and then turned back to put the bread in the toaster.
“Or maybe I’d do a little more than kiss you,” he said. She could hear he was smiling.
Caroline sat down at the kitchen table. Niklas grabbed two plates and began to serve the food. He placed one in front of Caroline and then leaned down for a soft, warm kiss. Just as her hunger began to take a back seat to other urges, he broke away and walked back over to the counter.
“I don’t know how you like your coffee,” he said. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Just milk,” she said as he sat down opposite from her. “Thank you.”
“I figured you’d be hungry,” he said and then added, “and tired.”
Caroline thought she saw another smug look of satisfaction cross his face before he looked down to take his first bite.
“And you?”
Niklas laughed. “I’m exhausted. In every possible way. But I have a few things to do today.”
He took a bite of his toast, then said, “Listen, I want to do things right with you. I don’t want to just meet in the hall and then spend the night together.” His lips curved up into a smile and he added, “Not that I’m complaining.”
Caroline raised her eyebrows and laughed.
“This isn’t coming out right,” he chuckled. “What I’m trying to do is ask you to have dinner with me tonight.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Out?” The smile faded a little from Niklas’s face. Hers must have too because when he looked back at her, he quickly added, “Yes, we can go out. We’ll give it a try.”
“What is it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Going out isn’t always very private for me.”
“And the famous Niklas Almquist doesn’t like to mix public and private,” she said dryly, “so he’d rather stay holed up in his apartment when he’s off the ice?”
Niklas gave her knee a quick squeeze under the table, right in the most ticklish spot, eliciting a yelp from her.
“That’s right,” he said with a wicked smile. “And I’m looking for someone to lock up in here with me.”
He grabbed his plate, which he had mysteriously cleaned in a matter of minutes, and stood up. But before heading back to the stove, he bent down and gave her another kiss, even longer and deeper than the last. Caroline heard her fork clatter onto her plate as she reached up to move her hands over his bare chest. His skin was hot and alive under her touch.
He broke off the kiss and gave her a look that was definitely smug. “Have I convinced you to come to dinner?”
She nodded, still catching her breath.
Niklas loaded up his plate again and sat down, eating with the same eager intensity as he had before. “Actually,” he said between bites, “I know a little restaurant on Södermalm with great home-made pasta. I can call and get us a table. That is, if you like Italian.”
He stopped eating and looked at her.
“Are you sure you’re up for going out?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Do I get to take you home afterwards?”
Now it was her turn to squeeze his knee, though she found that her hand barely spanned its width, and his thick muscles didn’t seem to move under her effort.
“You can do a lot better than that,” he said with a straight face, “just try higher up.” Then he took another bite of his eggs.
Chapter Seventeen
The apartment was quiet. The rain clouds had passed over the city, leaving behind still, heavy air that lurked outside her balcony door. Caroline sat at the kitchen table, waiting for Veronica’s knock. Her laptop was open, and the beginning of her second article waited for her on the screen. She was trying hard to think about something besides Niklas.
She stood up and cleaned the coffee pot. If she had learned anything about Stockholm in the last few weeks, it was that guests were served coffee when they came over. Even Mexican transplant guests.
Caroline had just refilled the compartments and screwed the contraption back together when Veronica’s knock finally echoed down the front hall.
“Are you now so busy that I have to plan ahead to see you, Carolita?” Veronica said, kissing Caroline on the cheek.
“I’m never too busy to see you,” she said, leading her friend down the hall and into the kitchen. “I just wasn’t near my phone last night.”
“Well, I wasn’t the only one you were ignoring,” said Veronica. “Ludvig called to see if I knew where you were. He said it was important, that he had left two messages.”
“What did you say?”
“That my friend was a fool to blow off any guy offering her a job that pays her the kind of money she desperately needs,” she said.
Caroline could feel her face flush. “What—”
But Veronica burst into laughter. “Dios mio, calm down. Do you really think I’d say that? I told him I didn’t know.”
Caroline found herself chuckling.
Veronica shook her head. “But I think I do know where you were. Caroline, what are you doing to yourself? You’re leaving soon.”
Caroline closed her eyes and let out a sigh.
“You did tell Niklas that you’re leaving, didn’t you?” Veronica stared at her. “Tell me you told him.”
Caroline shook her head slowly.
“Why not?”
The coffee pot gurgled. Caroline took it off the stove and filled up two cups. She brought them over to the table and sat down across from her friend. Then she took a deep breath.
“I guess I just don’t want this to end. And I’m scared I’m going to do something stupid like forget my plans, the ones that I’ve waited for for years, and throw myself at a man I only met a few weeks ago.”
Veronica raised her eyebrows and added, “A very sexy man.”
Caroline let out a laugh.
“Yes, a very, very sexy man. But he’s more than sexy,” she said. “There’s something about the way he is that just feels right. I don’t know how else to say it.”
“Oh, no, Carolita,” said Veronica, shaking her head and getting another laugh from Caroline.
“I know, I know,” Caroline said, waving her friend off. Then she lost her smile. “Here’s the worst thing: right now, there’s a part of me that’s ready to give up everything else just to stay with Niklas a little longer, just to find out if this is something real. The magazine job, the career possibilities, everything. And the more I’m with him, the more I feel it. But I swore to myself that I’d never do that again. I’m not giving up a part of myself.”
Veronica gave her a rare look of seriousness. “It shouldn’t feel like that.”
“You’re right,” said Caroline. She gave her friend a little smile. “Is this what you came over to tell me?”
“Oh,” gasped Veronica, “I almost forgot. And it’s bad news. I got a call from the owners of this apartment: Tommy broke his foot when they were hiking. It happened a few days ago, and now that the swelling has gone down, he w
ants to come home.”
“How soon?” asked Caroline.
“Sunday.”
Sunday. Three days from now. And two nights. She had two nights left to stay in the apartment across from Niklas’s. Two nights left of her life here, two nights for whatever she was hoping for to happen. Whatever that was.
Caroline was suddenly aware that Veronica was staring at her.
“You know you can stay with us before you go to Spain, don’t you?” she said quietly. “I don’t want you to leave, either.”
Caroline opened her mouth to answer, but her phone rang before she could speak. She flipped it over and read the name across the screen: Ludvig. She stared at the phone and then looked back at Veronica, who gave her an impatient glare.
Finally, Caroline pushed the talk button.
“Caroline, you didn’t answer your phone yesterday.”
He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t say anything.
“Listen, my boss wants us to get together for dinner tonight, the whole European Cup coverage team. He’s bringing the contracts and itineraries, and he has some specific assignments.”
The line was quiet, and she knew he was still waiting for her.
“I can’t make it,” she said softly.
“What?”
She knew by the sharpness in his voice that he had heard her, but she repeated it anyway.
“I can’t make it tonight. There’s something else I have to do.”
“Something more important?”
Caroline swallowed. “Yes, it’s important,” she said with a little more irritation than she had intended.
Ludvig was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I’ll call you later,” and he hung up.
Caroline put down the phone and looked up at Veronica. Though her friend had only heard Caroline’s half of the conversation, the look on her face suggested it was enough. Veronica shook her head.
“If you were looking for a little more excitement when you left Brad, you certainly got it.”
Stockholm Diaries, Caroline Page 14