“We’re both orphans. I mean, I am. Is your mother still alive?”
“She is, but I haven’t talked to her in years.”
“And yet, when I teased you about treating me like a girl, your first response was that she raised you to be a gentleman.”
Malin was right; however, Dutch didn’t feel like diving too deeply into whatever Freud might think that meant.
“Looks like it’s going to clear up,” he said, motioning to the patches of blue sky that peeked through the clouds. The rain tapered off, and he’d stopped listening for thunder. “Should we head back?”
When Malin stood and stretched, the shirt she wore rode up, exposing her tummy. Dutch leaned forward and kissed her belly button. He held her close with his hand on her behind and nuzzled his face into her. She put one hand on his shoulder and the other in his hair.
“I like this life, Malin. I like being able to put my hands on you. I hope you like it too.”
—:—
Like it? It was every dream she’d ever had of Dutch come true. While she’d just told him she wasn’t a girly-girl, when she was with him, she felt all woman. She’d teased him about being out of shape, but the man was far from it.
His sinewy physique was rock hard, and when his arms were around her, she felt safer than she had since she was a little girl and her father pr
omised to slay her dragons and keep the monsters from under her bed away.
Dutch would slay her dragons too. Whether she asked him to or not.
Should she ask him, though? Should she tell him how she wasn’t just afraid, she was terrified of what was going to happen to her when the powers that be found out what she’d uncovered? It would mean telling him things she hadn’t even told Sergei, who had found out enough of it on his own.
The dragons and monsters would soon be beckoning; she felt it in her bones. She’d gotten used to slaying them on her own, but this time, they would come in a force so strong that even with Dutch’s help, she doubted she could overcome them.
“What’s on your mind, Malin?” Dutch asked, taking his hands off her body and standing. “Is this too much?”
She put her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. “Not at all. I don’t like our pretend life; I love it. It’s just that there will come a time when the pretending will end, and I’ll be forced to face real life. I’d rather keep it at bay a while longer.”
“No reason to stop pretending today or even tomorrow, is there?”
She smiled. “I’d like to go longer than that.”
“Me too, baby,” he said before covering her lips with his. “Let’s get back to the house and pretend we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
“That, we don’t have to pretend.”
* * *
“Are you hungry?” Malin asked when they walked in the house.
“Always, but right now, it isn’t for food.”
“Good,” she answered, leading him by the hand toward the staircase.
“Let’s stay here,” he said, resisting her pull.
She let Dutch lead her back through the kitchen and to the room that was opened to the piazza on one side and looked out over the sound on the other two.
He moved her so she stood in a place where the sun’s rays streamed inside, and drew her shirt with the built-in sports bra over her head before pushing her shorts down her hips along with the panties she wore under them. When she stood naked in front of him, he took a step back, grabbing a pillow and throw from the sofa.
He laid both out on the floor in the direct path of the warmth. “Here,” he said, motioning to her.
When she knelt down, he did the same, but when she tried to remove his shirt, he stopped her.
“Dutch?”