“My God, it’s so good,” she moaned, and he nodded.
They ate in comfortable silence. Ambra sipped her red wine and seemed to relax again. She was wearing a thin top the same color as the blocks of ice, and she had small, glittering stones in her ears. A memory of her long leg between his thighs fluttered through his mind. The way she looked when she closed her eyes and groaned into his mouth. What would she look like when she came?
“How are you doing?” she asked. “How are the panic attacks? Still as bad?”
It felt good that she asked straight out. It did him good, as though some of the shame lifted.
“It’s okay,” he replied honestly, spearing a piece of meat. “Better.” She put her cutlery to one side and gave him an encouraging look. “I promised you secrets, I know. Ask away.”
“How did they capture you?”
“I was in Chad, like I said. A rescue operation for a Swedish citizen.”
“A woman,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, a Swedish woman. My helicopter crashed; it was a ball of fire. My men assumed I was dead and left me behind.”
“I didn’t read about it anywhere.”
There were Westerners in captivity all over the world, Swedes among them. The media knew about most, though they didn’t tend to write about them out of consideration for their safety. But no one had ever found out he was being held in Chad.
“How long did they keep you prisoner?” she asked when he didn’t say anything.
“A few months.”
“Is that why you’ve been feeling like you have?”
“Yeah, I get flashbacks from things that happened.”
She studied him with a steady gaze. “Sounds really damn tough. I’ve seen how powerful the attacks are. What a story. It’s incredible.”
“You can’t write about it,” he warned her.
“No, of course not.” She glanced furtively at him. “Unless I can convince you? I really need a good scoop right now.”
Her words were jokey, but Tom heard only the journalist in her. He shook his head.
“Definitely not. What I told you was in confidence. It can’t end up in any newspaper.”
“Got it,” she said, holding up her hands.
“Want dessert as compensation?” he asked.
Her face lit up. “Definitely. The more the better. Dessert’s almost better than a scoop.”
Tom waved for the waiter to bring the dessert menu, then watched in amusement as she deliberated between arctic bramble panna cotta and seaberry mousse.
“You order one and I’ll order the other. We can share,” he offered.
After the desserts arrived, she asked, “Have you ever tried arctic bramble?”
“I didn’t even know such a thing existed,” he replied honestly.
“It’s one of the best berries,” she said, picking up a ruby-red berry from her panna cotta and holding it up to him. “They ripen under the midnight sun.”
“Is that true?” he asked skeptically, digging his spoon into the mousse.
“No idea,” she replied with a grin.
He laughed, and since she had already wolfed down most of her dessert, he pushed his over to her. “Here, take mine too. Have both.”
She pulled it closer. “Thanks. Dessert overload. Just what I need after a day like today. Do you want to try the panna cotta?”
He shook his head, liked to watch her stuff herself full of sweet things. “How long are you staying this time?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It depends.”
Her words hung in the air between them. She scraped the bowl clean and licked her lips.
“How long can Freja cope without you?” she asked.
“I need to go home soon,” he said. He had never realized how much responsibility it was to have a dog.
* * *
It was snowing gently when they went outside, huge flakes that caught in Ambra’s hair and eyelashes. He didn’t want to drive her back to the hotel just yet. It was so cold that the snow crunched as they walked over to the car. From time to time, their arms bumped and she didn’t pull away. He wanted to put an arm around her, but instead he walked around the car and opened the door for her.
“Thanks,” she said.
He grabbed the scraper and cleared the ice that had formed on the windshield. Afterward, he climbed inside and started the engine, but he didn’t pull away. He debated with himself.
“It’s not so late,” he said.
“It’s early,” she agreed. Her voice was neutral.
“I’d like to stay out, but I need to get back to the dog.”
“I understand,” she said, looking at him.
“Want to come?” he asked.
She blinked.
“I can give you a ride back later,” he added. Unless you want to stay, of course. He wanted to see her in his house again, curled up on the couch. He wanted to be with her.
Ambra looked at him for a moment. “Sometimes, Tom Lexington, I don’t understand you at all. What happened to just being friends?”
“We are friends,” he said.
“Maybe. But that’s not all. Admit it.”
“I like you.”
“I like you too. And I’d like to go to your place. Even if you are the most difficult man in the universe.”
“I’m not that bad,” he said, putting the stick into gear and stepping on the gas. But maybe Ambra was right, he thought. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore.
Chapter 32
So, she was back at Tom’s place again. Ambra shook her head. He came out into the living room with Freja’s leash in his hand.
“I’ll get a fire going when I’m back, but I need to take her out first,” he apologized. Freja barked and wagged her tail. Her huge body was trembling with joy.
“I’ll manage,” Ambra said, glad she wasn’t expected to follow them outside. It was snowing more heavily now, and even the short distance from the car to the house had been enough to make her shiver.
“Make yourself at home. I need to take her for a good walk or she’ll tear the place to shreds, but we’ll be back soon.” He gestured to the dog with his head. “Come on, you beast.” Freja barked and almost knocked over a table on her way out.
Ambra waited until she heard the door close before she peered around the room. She moved over to the bookcase and aimlessly scanned the shelves. There was a small pile of Swedish paperbacks, but most of the books were in Norwegian or English. She absentmindedly flicked through a book on the Northern Lights.
She strained to see whether she could hear them coming back, but when she didn’t hear either Tom or Freja, she moved on, out of the living room.
What exactly did “make yourself at home” mean?
The house had a lot of doors. She would like to take a look inside a few of them, she thought, moving through the house.
Hmm, that looked like a gun cupboard. Made from thick metal. Secured with what seemed like some kind of advanced combination lock. Ambra had no connection to weapons herself, but everyone up here probably had guns. Or was that just prejudice? She hoped the cupboard was full of hunting rifles and nothing else. Otherwise that was illegal, wasn’t it? Even if you were ex-military? All she knew about Swedish gun laws was that most things were illegal, aside from weapons for hunting if you’d taken a course and had a license.
She studied a closed door. Damn, she was curious. Was Tom hiding something, or did he just not like open doors?
“Hello, we’re back!” she heard from the hallway.
She hurried back into the living room. Freja came running in and shook herself, sending snow flying across the room. She ran over to Ambra and started sniffing her leg. Ambra scratched the dog behind the ear as she listened to Tom making noise in the kitchen. When he came in, he held out a bottle of beer.
“We didn’t really do what we had planned, so I’ll probably have to take her out again in a while. Just say if she gets too irritating,” he added with a nod toward th
e dog.
“It’s fine. She seems to like me.” She noticed he was still drinking low-alcohol beer, so clearly he was serious about his offer to give her a ride back later. He smiled, and his eyes were warm.
Ambra swigged her beer and glanced at him. She had never really bought into the idea that you could be physically attracted to someone without any kind of intellectual connection. But she still wasn’t sure about Tom and who he really was. And yet, she really wanted to have sex with him.
Tom was crouched down in front of the fireplace. He methodically cleared away the ash, added new wood, and built up a small pyramid of logs. The stack didn’t take long to start crackling. The flames rose upward. Ambra sat on the couch and put down her beer. She didn’t feel like drinking any more.
“That has to be the best sound,” she said.
He mumbled a reply. The fire smelled great too. And was so warm. She sighed gently with contentment.
Tom came back and sat down on the other end of the long couch. Ambra pulled her cell phone from her bag. It was almost dead, the battery on red. “I didn’t bring my charging cable,” she said.
“It’s the cold.”
“Yeah, do you have one for this?” She held up her phone.
He shook his head. “Only an older one. Do you even have any coverage?”
Ambra studied the bars on her dying phone. “Barely,” she admitted.
“It’s difficult to get Wi-Fi out here in the forest because we’re so isolated. I’m on a different provider, but it doesn’t always work.”
She put down her phone, didn’t like how dependent on it she felt. She curled her legs beneath her.
“Are you cold?” he asked, immediately getting up and fetching a blanket for her. She draped it over her legs and studied him thoughtfully. The atmosphere had changed. It was one thing to spend time together in a busy restaurant, but now she was alone here, and they didn’t know one another. Not really. Though maybe she was just paranoid. Trust wasn’t exactly one of her greatest strengths.
“Are your parents still alive?” she asked. He was so solitary, like one of those enormous boulders dragged into the middle of nowhere by a glacier. But he had to have come from somewhere.
“My dad died a long time ago. Mom is still alive. And I have three sisters, though we don’t talk much.”
Ambra twisted the fringe on the blanket and wondered how that felt, to have blood ties with someone and then decide to have nothing to do with them. She understood it could happen, of course. You couldn’t choose your family. But still. Having a living mother, several siblings, people you looked like, relatives.
“Why don’t you talk to them?”
“It’s my fault. I couldn’t do it, not while I was feeling so bad.”
“Aren’t they worried?”
“Everyone is worried. That’s the problem.”
“What was it like before you left? Were you close?”
“It’s complicated,” he said with a deep sigh and a furrowed brow.
Tom and his complicated relationships.
“My mom cried when I joined the special forces. I guess she knew what it involved. You have to live a parallel life. She felt like she lost me.”
“Did you enjoy it there?” she asked, though she suspected she knew the answer. A certain look appeared on his face whenever he talked about the special forces.
“Yeah, I did.”
She didn’t ask any more. No one said as little as special forces men. Not even their press spokesman talked to the press. Part of her assumed that they loved the secrecy of it.
Tom got up from the couch and stoked the fire, added more wood. “Would you prefer coffee?” he asked over his shoulder.
She smiled at the way he didn’t miss a thing. “Maybe a little tea?” she said.
He went out to the kitchen, and when he came back she took the steaming mug he handed her. He was drinking coffee. It smelled good, strong. She strolled over to his bookcase, sipped the tea, and allowed her eyes to wander; she loved gathering information that way.
“When was this taken?” she asked when she spotted an old photo. It was of Tom and three other young men, all in green army clothing. Their faces were painted, and they seemed to be in a plane.
“It’s old,” he said. “We were just about to jump, somewhere above Lake Vättern. An ordinary day, an ordinary exercise.”
“You look so happy,” she said, studying the picture more closely. She had never seen him like that: grinning, carefree. Not weighed down.
“Yeah.”
“Was it during your training?” she asked.
He seemed to hesitate, but then he quickly nodded.
“Was that where you met Mattias?”
“Yeah, we met in Karlsborg. Probably the best time of my life.”
She knew a little about the training they underwent there so she said, skeptically, “But you basically get tortured there?”
He shrugged. “It’s not for everyone. I can’t explain it. They test you in difficult situations until they know what you can do, know that you’ll perform when it counts most. Every man wonders whether he could handle it. Those of us who went through the training, we know we can. It’s some lame manly thing, I guess.”
She put the picture back on the shelf. “I know it’s not the same thing as training to be in the special forces, but I’ve done a few safety courses. They send us on them all the time.”
“People handle that type of pressure differently,” Tom said.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve seen tough CEOs break down, hardened war reporters act completely irrationally when they’re put under pressure.”
“And you?” He was looking at her with interest.
She flashed him a blinding smile. “I loved it.”
Tom smiled. “Have you ever needed to use any of what you learned?”
“Only mentally. I’ve never been in a really tight spot.”
“That’s the most important part, the mental toughness.”
Ambra gave him a skeptical look. “Really?”
“Yeah. Survival is about knowing which risks are worth taking, and that’s something you can learn.”
“How?”
“Simple things really. Pausing. Accepting the new conditions. Exploring what options you have.”
“And then what? Scream for all you’re worth?” She smiled, and her eyes got caught in his. She turned away and moved on to the next object she found. It was hard to think rationally when he was looking at her so hungrily. “What’s this?” she asked, and she realized that she sounded slightly breathless. It was a small plastic toy, and it seemed completely out of place in its masculine surroundings. “A bear?”
When he took it out of her hand, his fingers brushed hers, and she felt a tingling rush. “I got it as a gift when I left my unit. It ended up here with a lot of other things from my office. It’s a grizzly bear.” He was silent, twisting and turning the little toy before he said, “That was my codename in the special forces. Grizzly. No one outside of Karlsborg knows that.”
“No one?” she asked, thinking of Ellinor.
But he shook his head. “No one but you.”
She studied him for a long moment. “Grizzly suits you,” she eventually said. He put the bear back onto the shelf. “Maybe I should go home,” she said reluctantly. It was snowing more heavily now, and it was getting late.
“Do you want to?” he asked quietly.
She slowly shook her head.
“I like talking with you,” he said, and his eyes moved across her face, lingered on her mouth. He smelled faintly of coffee and mint, and she loved that he had clearly brushed his teeth when he went out with Freja, that he smelled so good. All she wanted was for Tom to kiss her.
Their dinner, the entire evening, had been leading up to this moment. He ran a finger down her temple and then stopped and looked at her. She leaned forward and he kissed her. Ambra closed her eyes. Let all the other senses take over, noticed his smell, his taste, his roughness
. She loved his mouth, his lips. His tongue, oh yes, definitely his tongue. Tom kissed powerfully. Not gently, not awkwardly, there was no question there, just a kiss that took control. He raised a hand to the back of her neck and pulled her toward him. She did the same, her other hand on his bicep, and trembled slightly when she felt his muscular arm. There was something so primitive about these kisses, and it was divine. He shook his head.
“Damn, I don’t know what to say,” he said. His dark eyes were impossible to read.
Nothing, she thought spontaneously. Don’t say anything, keep going. She was completely overwhelmed by the attraction she felt. And he felt it, too, that much was clear.
“Ambra,” he said. It sounded so sexy, her name in his mouth, though they should be kissing more and talking less. She looked at him and tried to show all those feelings in her eyes. Kiss me.
His rib cage, rising beneath his tight shirt, his pecs, his biceps—all his damn muscles. And then he kissed her again and Ambra clung onto him and let herself be swept along.
She placed her hand on Tom’s chest, and he groaned into her mouth as she pressed herself against him, pressed her entire body against his hard arousal, urging, encouraging, and finally, his enormous palm moved to her breast and the effect was almost electric. Ambra felt his hand through the thin material, heard his breathing in her ear, took in the scent of him, the smell of fire and wood, coffee and winter. He brought her cheek to his warm skin. He was breathing more heavily now, his thumb moving deliberately over her nipple. His hand snaked in beneath her shirt, over her bra and then under that too. Ambra couldn’t hold back a pant. He cupped her breast, bit her ear gently, and mumbled something she couldn’t hear. She pressed herself against him, dragged her nails down his chest, over his T-shirt. Tom wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her tight, panted . . .
And then they were interrupted by a bottomless howl. It was Freja, who had positioned herself by their feet and started to wail. A deafening sound that made it very difficult to kiss.
“Quiet, Freja,” Tom said, though he laughed as he said it. “I’m sorry. I forgot she needed to go out again. It’s usually pretty urgent when she sounds like that. Might as well get it over and done with.”
High Risk Page 29