He pushes himself inside me.
It hurts, a little. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least.
But it’s him. All of him. It’s what I wanted.
I try to keep it from my face but he pauses, kissing my lips, my jaw. “Are you okay? Do you want me to stop?”
I shake my head, wincing, pressing my hands onto the hard muscles of his back. “Don’t stop.”
We can’t stop what’s already in motion.
10
Shay Now
I’m dreaming about a swimming pool. My tears filling it, spilling over and drowning the whole world. Then there’s knocking. Always knocking, like someone is at the bottom of the pool, wanting out.
Anders.
I groan and roll over, scratchy wool on my cheek.
Where the fuck am I?
The knocking again. Louder now.
Here.
Not dreaming.
“Shay?”
The sound of a door creaking open.
I roll over again and try to sit up, to open my eyes. The room is hazy grey, on the cusp of darkness. I see a familiar silhouette in the doorway.
“Are you awake?” Anders asks, his throat extra husky in the dim of morning. “It’s five. I gave you fifteen extra minutes to sleep in.”
Good lord am I ever tired. And disoriented as fuck. I’m only now realizing I’m at his house in Todalen. Still don’t know why he’s waking me up at this ungodly time.
Oh right. I was buzzed last night and told him I’d like to help with the farm chores.
I am such a moron.
“Uh,” I say, my throat feeling stuffed with cotton. I cough. “I’m up. I, uh…was in a very deep sleep.”
“I can let you go back to sleep,” he says. “I won’t think less of you.”
“I’ll think less of me,” I tell him, even though I already hate myself for being so stubborn. I fumble for the light switch on the bedside table and flick it on. Even the low glow burns my eyes and I quickly cover them with my hands. “How do you do this every morning?” I mumble.
“Imagine only getting two hours of sleep, in a smelly bunk, in a rolling ship, in the freezing cold, day after day,” he says. “This is a piece of cake.”
I peer at him through my fingers. He’s fully dressed in jeans, a forest green flannel shirt and a brown waxed cotton jacket, a black beanie pulled low on his head. He’s holding two cups of what I pray is coffee in his hands.
“If you get up,” he says, raising the mugs. “You can have one of these. It’s coffee, it’s hot, and it’s strong.”
“Sold,” I say, about to step out of bed but then realize I kicked off my pajama pants in the middle of the night. I’m just in lace hip-huggers and a camisole. “Uh, maybe you could bring it over here, I’m not that decent.”
He gives me a wicked grin that causes some serious shivers down my back. “Oh really?”
And I know what he’s thinking—it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.
I give him a pointed look until he comes over, placing the mug in my hands. “You have five minutes to get ready. We get to eat breakfast after.”
I couldn’t even imagine eating right now anyway. I’m supposed to be asleep.
He leaves the room and I sit in bed for another minute, drinking as much as I can of the coffee without scalding myself, praying it will wake me up. Then I get dressed in a jiffy, slipping on jeans and several layers under a sweater. I can feel the cold against the single pane windows.
I finish the rest of the coffee and hurry down the stairs, noting that Lise and Astrid’s doors are closed, the lucky bitches probably sleeping soundly.
“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he says, standing in the kitchen and pouring coffee into a travel mug. “This is for the road.”
He strides out of the kitchen to the foyer and I follow him out into the morning.
I’m surprised at how bright it is outside, to the point I should have brought my sunglasses. The sun is already peeking over the tops of the mountains and shining on dew drops.
“Jesus,” I say, “what time does the sun rise here?”
“Four a.m.,” he says. “By the time June rolls around, it comes up at two.”
I shake my head. “That’s nuts. No wonder you Norwegians are crazy.”
He laughs. “That we are.” He hands me to the travel mug of coffee. “Come on. My Uncle’s tending to the lambs, so we’ve got the cows.”
We walk toward the barn, the morning air chilled. Birds sing from the pines at the corner of the property, and when I crane my neck back to stare at the shadowed mountains, I almost have to hold on to something. Their mass and height are so overwhelming, I’m slayed by vertigo.
“Ever been on a motorbike before?”
I look forward to see Anders standing by what looks like a dirt bike/motorcycle hybrid resting against the side of the red barn.
“Uh, what?” I ask, coming forward.
A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips and he affectionately pats the bike.
“This is how we round up the cows.”
He grabs the bike by the handles and pulls it forward before swinging his leg over it and turning it on. The engine roars and sputters loudly.
“You seriously expect me to get on that?” I ask. I’m reminded of my time in Capri. My friend Amber was dating a motorcycle racer (they’re now married) and I would often see them zipping all over the island. I have to admit, it did look like fun, but hanging onto some hot Italian guy while zipping past lemon groves and crystal clear coves is a lot different than hanging onto your ex-boyfriend while bouncing across a field dodging cow pies.
Not that Anders isn’t a hot Norwegian guy. I mean, as he’s straddling the bike, large tatted hands on the handles, staring up at me with a wicked glint in his stormy blue eyes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a manlier, hotter specimen in
