Caroline nodded and kissed her friend on the cheek as Veronica opened the door.
But instead of swinging open, the door came to a stop, and they heard a grunt from behind it.
“Niklas,” said Caroline, peeking around the heavy door. He was holding the foot that she had apparently just crashed into when she opened the door.
Veronica gave Caroline’s hand a last squeeze before she slipped out and disappeared down the stairs.
“I was trying to decide if I should knock,” he said, turning red.
“Clearly you should have,” she said, gesturing at his foot.
He snorted and gave a reluctant smile.
“I’m so sorry, Niklas,” she said. “I should have told you as soon as I realized it was Ludvig. I wasn’t really trying to hide anything. We just had so little time, and I didn’t want anything else to ruin it. Apparently, I keep making the same mistake again and again.”
He leaned against her door frame so that he was now only inches away from her.
“You’re stealing my apology,” he said softly. “I wanted the night to just be us, no more complications. But when I saw that little shit and put everything together, I had to leave before I did something really stupid.”
He brushed a stray lock of hair off her face and gently placed his hand on the base of her neck.
“And I do understand that covering the football championships in Spain is a career opportunity you can’t pass up,” he said. Then with a dry smile he added, “Or at least, I’m trying to understand that.”
Caroline shook her head.
“I’m not going,” she said. “I told Ludvig last night.”
Niklas raised his eyebrows.
“So you’re staying?” he said, confused. The hope in his voice cut into her.
She shook her head again and then opened her mouth to speak.
“Wait,” he said gently.
Then he lowered his mouth to hers and met her with soft, warm lips. Her arms found his shirt and hung on, pulling him closer. She felt the hunger that lurked behind his slow kiss, his reminder, I am yours if you will have me, and it echoed through her body.
“I just wanted to do that before you tell me again that you’re leaving me,” he whispered.
She nodded, not yet ready to speak. She found his hand and led him inside, closing the door behind them. They walked slowly down the hall, Caroline’s fingers dissolving in his warm hand.
“Packing?” he said, glancing into the bedroom at the single suitcase next to her bed.
“Packed,” she said and then turned to face him. “I’m leaving tomorrow. The flight to Brindisi leaves at 6:30 am.”
Caroline watched Niklas’s jaw clench. He swallowed once, twice, but didn’t let go of her hand. She reached up to touch his cheek. His hair was still damp from the shower, and his skin was warm and smooth. His lips came to meet hers again in another long, slow kiss, pressing her back against the door frame.
“If I don’t leave now, I’ll never be able to pull myself away from you,” she said softly when she broke away.
“Then don’t,” he whispered back in her ear. “Stay here. With me.”
The feeling was almost too powerful to resist.
“Oh, God, Niklas, I want so much to say yes. I just met you a few weeks ago, and I’m ready to give up the dream job I’ve waited so long for just to be near you. Just for the chance that something might work. That’s what worries me.”
Niklas’s blue eyes were heavy on her, and she tried not to look away.
“A few weeks is enough time to decide if you want something,” he said. His voice was soft and even. “And I want you. That’s not going to change.”
Caroline’s whole body sagged under this simple declaration. The discussion was harder than she had thought it would be. She wasn’t quite sure what she had expected. That he would get angry? That he would walk out? But however she had thought the discussion would go, it wasn’t like this. And she had no idea how to put into words the two opposing forces that were tearing at her inside. Caroline closed her eyes and tried anyways.
“Niklas, I started on this trip because I was tired of making choices for all the wrong reasons. I’ve dreamed about this kind of adventure for as long as I can remember. I wanted to go far away for college, but my parents weren’t ready for me to leave. And then Veronica and I planned to travel after college, but I canceled my plans to be with a guy who wanted something different. Now that I’ve finally gotten myself back on track, you come along, and the temptation to stay is a thousand times more powerful than it ever was before, even though I’m only just getting to know you,” she said, now staring up at him. “It’s tearing me up. Do you understand? It doesn’t mean that I can’t come back to Stockholm, but I can’t give this up just because I’m falling—”
Caroline stopped and looked down. Niklas pulled her head into his chest and smoothed her hair over the back of her head and down her shoulders. She felt dizzy, but he held her there, listening to the thump of his heart in his chest, until her breath matched his own, slow draws. Then he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently.
“I’m trying to understand,” he said, his forehead to hers, “I won’t ask you to stay anymore. But I can’t promise I won’t use other methods to convince you.”
Caroline caught a glimpse of a mischievous smile before he bent down to catch her earlobe in his mouth. She heard a sound leave her mouth as his lips moved down her neck, something between a sigh and a moan, and she could feel his smile on her.
“I can’t believe I wasted last night thinking about you leaving instead of doing this,” he said into her ear.
“Will you spend my last night in Stockholm with me?” she asked as her hands tangled into his hair.
He stood up and gave her a wry smile.
“Does that mean we have to go out tonight?”
Caroline laughed and shook her head.
“Your way tonight,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow, and when he spoke, his voice had turned low and husky.
“My way?”
She nodded.
“Be careful what you promise me,” he said and lifted her before she could respond. Moments later, Caroline was lying on her bed with Niklas’s arms wrapped tightly around her, his body skimming hers. Just for the sake of experiment she tried to move but was surprised at how easily he held her in place under him. He groaned in satisfaction at her attempts to move. One hand reached under her shirt and teased at her nipple.
“My way, huh?”
“I’M GOING TO miss this place,” said Caroline as she took the last glass Niklas had washed and dried it. She placed the glass in the cupboard and then shut the door.
“You’ve never met Tommy and Annika?” Niklas asked.
“No, but I feel like I know them from these pictures,” she said, gesturing to the photo wall behind the table. “I think I’d rather keep it that way. Sometimes ideas are better than reality.”
Niklas looked at her and shook his head. “But most aren’t. Reality is messier, but it can be much better because it’s something you can share, not just your own.”
Caroline wasn’t sure how to respond to this. His voice was kind, but this comment felt deliberately pointed. He wasn’t going to let her go easily.
Instead of answering, she surveyed the room for any stray belongings. The only thing left of hers in the room was her laptop, sitting open on the kitchen table, in the exact same spot where it was the last time Niklas came over. She could see he was now staring at it, too.
The photo of him and the woman was still clear in her mind, and yet she hadn’t looked at it since the night he had come. Caroline had wanted to ask him about it but still hadn’t. Was she scared? She was fairly sure that wasn’t why she had waited. She had put off asking him for the same reason she had put off telling him about her trip to Spain: because she didn’t want reality to come crashing into the magical world
she was trying to create with him. But reality was coming, only hours away, and if she didn’t ask now, she might never hear Niklas’s story.
Caroline took a deep breath.
“Can I ask you something?”
He crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter, staring at a point far away. He seemed to know what was coming.
“Whatever you’d like,” he said after a while.
“What happened back in Detroit?” she said softly. “That photo I saw in the news. Of you and that woman.”
Niklas’s face tightened. Yes, he had known it was coming, but the question still clearly hurt when she asked.
“I told you it wasn’t true,” he said.
Caroline shook her head. “I didn’t read the article. But I want to know what really happened.”
Niklas looked at her carefully.
“I met her after a game at a bar some of us went to. There’s a lot of that,” he said, keeping his eyes on her.
“Women coming home with you?” Caroline had meant to sound light, joking, but she could hear the tint of resentment in her voice.
“Are you sure you want to hear this?” His voice was controlled. “Because it gives me no pleasure to tell you.”
Caroline closed her eyes and nodded.
“Stephanie was her name. I came home with her a few times after the games. There’s something about playing hard that makes—“ He looked at her and stopped.
But he didn’t have to finish his sentence. She had felt it the other night. The rough, primal urge to dominate. The memory raised the flush in her face, something Niklas couldn’t have missed. But the immediate desire rubbed raw as Caroline contemplated this a little further.
“So you invited women in after a game so you could sleep better?”
He stared at her again. “I can’t blame you for not liking what you hear, but I’m trying to be honest with you.” He gave a frustrated sigh and waited. Then he added, “But I didn’t invite women back to my place. I didn’t want it to be that… personal.”
They were both silent. It occurred to her that he had invited her in. She wasn’t sure if he had said this to make her feel better, but it didn’t.
Finally, he said, “Do you want me to continue?”
“Yes,” she said. Caroline took a deep breath and nodded at Niklas again.
Niklas looked out the window.
“It wasn’t the first time with her, but I think Stephanie could feel that whatever was between us wasn’t going to turn into anything more. She never told me what she wanted or expected, but I just knew she wasn’t happy with the way things were going. A better man would have brought it up, but that didn’t occur to me at the time, either.” Niklas looked back at her, his voice betraying emotion for the first time.
“Stephanie called me up one day and told me that I had to come over. I made some excuse, but she said it was important, something had happened. I could hear she was upset, but I agreed to come for the worst reason possible. I was hoping this would be a good opportunity to break things off with her.” He gave a humorless laugh.
“When she opened her door, she was… you saw the photo,” he said quietly. “I asked her who had done that to her, and she told me it was Kevin Bauer. One of my teammates. I hadn’t shown up after the game, so she went home with him instead.
“I didn’t want to hear any more. There’s just no way to make any of this sound good, but I didn’t want to know how something like that could happen. Because the truth is that as much as I know I’d never do anything like that, I’m scared of myself sometimes.”
Niklas stood next to her with his eyes closed, quiet, so long that Caroline began to wonder if he wasn’t going to continue. Then he took a deep breath and spoke again.
“I tried to get Stephanie to call the police, but she wouldn’t. No police, she said. She wanted me to take care of it for her instead. She wanted me to go after Bauer. And when I told her I wouldn’t, she called me a coward. Told me I was just as bad as he was.”
Niklas ran his hand through his hair.
“Maybe I was. Should I have gone after him? Was that the right thing to do?”
Niklas shook his head, the corners of his mouth turned down.
“I did convince her to go to the hospital, and I stayed with her while she got her face checked out. Nothing broken, so they sent her home. But someone must have seen me there, because when we came out of the hospital, there were photographers waiting. That’s what you saw.”
Caroline looked at him carefully. “Why didn’t you respond to the story? Why didn’t you say you had nothing to do with it?”
Even as the words came out of her mouth, she knew the answer to her question. She knew a public denial wouldn’t help.
Niklas shook his head. “And do what? Accuse Bauer? Even if I had wanted to, Stephanie wouldn’t have gone along with it. No, I didn’t say anything because it wouldn’t have mattered, especially with my reputation on the ice.
“And you know what Bauer did? He thanked me. Like I had helped him out, like I had kept my mouth shut out of loyalty to him. And that felt like shit, too. Then, after a game a few months later, I saw them together again in the bar.”
Finally he looked back at her.
“So now you know,” he said, though his words sounded more like a challenge than a statement. As if to say, what do you think of me now?
Caroline laced one hand in his and held tight until his fingers found their way around hers as well.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said.
“The hockey and everything that goes along with it—that’s part of who I am, Caroline,” he said, looking at her even harder. “And I don’t know what that makes me.”
She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it.
“You’re not the same as that guy,” she whispered. “You’re not Bauer.”
Niklas pulled her into him so tightly she could barely breathe. He mumbled something in Swedish into the top of her head as he fit her deeper into him. She stayed that way for a long time, a part of him, listening to his heart race inside his chest, and him a part of her, too, until she felt him stir against her. He broke off with an amused look.
“I just told you about the worst time of my life, and still I can’t stop thinking about how much I want you,” he chuckled. “What are you doing to me?”
Caroline raised her eyebrows.
“The same thing you’re doing to me,” she said with a inviting smile.
He pulled her against him one more time and said, “Let’s go over to my place while I’m still your neighbor.”
Caroline let go of him and grabbed her laptop from the table. She looked around the kitchen one more time. She walked down the hall, surveying each room for her stray possessions. These were rooms she would never see again, rooms where she had been happy. Really happy.
Caroline felt Niklas’s hand on her shoulder, and she swallowed hard.
“I’ll get your suitcase,” he said, kissing her softly on her neck.
She stood at the edge of the living room for another minute and then walked back down the long hallway. It was time to leave. The ticking of the kitchen clock echoed as she walked to the apartment door, counting down the minutes they had left together.
“Thank you,” she said as Niklas held the door open for one last look. She closed the door slowly and locked it behind her.
“I’m going down to drop the keys off in Veronica’s mail slot,” she said quietly.
When she returned up the steps, Niklas was waiting for her. He put his arms around her again and squeezed her tight. Then he took her hand, and they walked across the hall.
“How about dinner?” he said. “Thai delivery?”
“Your way, remember?” she smiled up at him.
He raised his eyebrows.
“How could I forget?”
“CAN I TAKE a few photos of you?” she said as Niklas cleared away the last of th
e dishes.
His face hardened immediately.
“They don’t have to be straight-on,” she said quickly. “Not even your face if you don’t want that. They’re just for me.”
He nodded slowly and unclenched his jaw.
“Whatever you want,” he said softly.
“Whatever I want?” she said, smiling. She stood up and walked over to his chair, stopping between his legs, only inches from him.
Finally, he laughed and got up, towering over her once more.
“Yes, whatever you want,” he said, catching her lips with his.
She led him into the living room, still decorated with unopened moving boxes. And the red carpet. Her breath quickened at her memory of Niklas and her on that carpet. But he was distracted.
“In here?” he asked, looking around.
“Yes,” she said, “by those doors.”
Caroline pointed to the long, glass doors that led out onto his courtyard balcony.
“Can you move that box over a little and sit on it?” she said.
He looked inside it and nodded.
“It’s books,” he said with a smile. “Probably won’t be crushed under my weight, but not guaranteed.”
“Okay. Sit facing the doors,” she said. “No, more to the side.”
He wore an amused look as he turned.
“You’re all business. You like telling me what to do, don’t you?”
She turned red and laughed.
“Maybe. Sometimes.”
He nodded, still smiling, and turned his head to face the doors again.
“How’s this?”
“Perfect,” she said. “Now just relax and get comfortable while I go find my camera.”
When she returned, he was resting his forearms on his knees, staring out the window in front of him.
“Don’t move,” she whispered as she removed her lens cap.
She approached him slowly, taking the shot from different distances and different angles.
“Okay,” she said. “Now just do whatever is comfortable.”
She walked closer, close enough so that she caught a bit of his profile from the back, with only hints of the wide muscles along his shoulders and arms. She stopped, and the camera fell around her neck.
Stockholm Diaries, Caroline Page 18