Taunt Me (Rough Love 2)

I took her to the Parliament Building and the National Theater. We spent a couple hours talking, pointing, discussing, taking things in. We posed with the statues in Vigeland Park, the naked men and women carved in stone. We grabbed food from a takeout place and headed to the City Centre to look at the ships. She was cold. I knew she was cold but I didn’t want to go back to the hotel where we’d retreat to our separate rooms, leading our separate lives. I tried to sit where I shielded her from the wind. My leg pressed against hers as we hunched forward, scarfing sandwiches and cake.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” she said when we finished eating. “And for showing me around Oslo. It’s a beautiful city, and I know this trip is costing you a lot.”

“It’s nothing.”

She gave a little laugh and looked out at the harbor. The cold pinked her cheeks, or maybe she was blushing. “It’s nothing to you, with your big, fancy architectural business, but it’s a lot to me. I never imagined…” She pursed her lips and blinked. “I’ve never really thanked you for everything you’ve done. Not just this trip, but everything. I’m sure these words are way too late in coming, but your generosity changed my life. So…thanks.”

Her shy, clumsy gratitude made me feel ridiculously pleased. She was so close I could have kissed her. I didn’t.

“If I had to pick a life to change,” I said instead, “I’m glad it was yours. You’ve capitalized on everything I’ve done for you. You impress me every day.”

“I impress you?” She shook her head. “That’s difficult to believe. You’re the most impressive person I know.”

“You don’t know enough people.”

“Seriously…” She put a hand on my coat and my whole body tensed. “You do these amazingly difficult things, and you make it look easy. You design buildings, you create bridges out of thin air, out of your mind and your imagination. You make all this money and you use it to help people, not just Norton, not just me. You give money to dozens of charities in dozens of countries.”

“I’m not perfect.” She ought to know that better than anyone else. “Don’t make me into a saint.”

“Not only that, but you speak Norwegian like a native. You just…” She moved her hand, waved it in the chilly air. “You just speak it, and everyone understands you.”

“My grandmother made me learn it. It wasn’t that hard.”

“What other languages do you speak?”

“French. Spanish. German. A little Mandarin.”

She put her head in her hands. “I don’t know,” she said between her fingers. “I don’t know how you do all this stuff, how you’re so good at everything. I guess you’re a genius.”

“I’m not a genius. I got lucky. I was born to rich parents and I’ve always had everything I wanted.” Except for you. I don’t have you.

She shook her head, just sitting there bent over with her forehead on her knees. A whole minute went by. I wondered if she was crying. I took off one of my gloves and touched her nape. I don’t know why I did it. Because I’m not a genius.

She sat up and looked at me, but she didn’t say anything like “Stop” or “One hundred percent professional.” I curled my fingers around my glove to keep from touching her again, touching her cheek, her hair, her knee that was so close to mine, encased only in department store jeans.

“Are you cold?” I asked.

“Sort of.”

“Do you want to go back to the hotel?”

Her lips parted like she was going to speak, but then the lower one trembled. I couldn’t hold her gaze. I could only watch that trembling lip and think about kissing it.

“I don’t want to go back to the hotel,” she said.

She blinked, the winter sun shining through her lashes. And I know, I know, she was the first one to lean toward me. She was the one who opened her hands on my coat and slid them up to my collar, and shook back her hair and looked at me, but I was the one who kissed her, nipping that trembling lower lip between my teeth. Thoughts rampaged through my brain. She’s kissing me. Pull her closer. Her hair, her warmth, her scent. She’s skittish. She tastes like berries and marzipan.

People walked by us, right by our bench, but she seemed oblivious, and I didn’t care. I scooped her into my lap and held her cold cheeks between my palms, and simply existed in the reality of her embrace. Her hands slid inside my coat and around my waist. I kissed her harder, clasping her to my front. My cock went rigid, trying to fight out of my pants even in near-freezing weather.

So that was all I’d needed to do to melt her reserve. Bring her to Norway, feed her cake by the harbor. Ask if she was cold. I wasn’t cold at all. I burned. I was on fire after all my waiting and lust. Kiss me. Touch me. Berries and sugar. Starshine, with sun through her lashes.