Handy for you, p.19
Handy for You, page 19
Kari took a breath, then another. The muscles in her shoulders and neck eased a little. “It’s just…I’m used to having a small, orderly life. I’m good at that. An expert, in fact.”
Rob found a knot a little lower on her back and dug into it. “How so?”
She hissed at the pressure, then dropped her head, succumbing to the massage. The knot softened. “I had a job and an apartment and a car. That was it.”
“And now you have a job and a house and a car.”
“And a new relationship and a niece who inherited a farm that had belonged to our family.”
“The relationship I can see would be a pain. I mean, I’ve met the guy. He’s a pushy, noisy jackass. Completely beyond the pale. But the rest of it?”
She brought her head up, rocked it side to side, laughing softly, and he stroked his thumbs down the long muscles in the back of her neck. Her breath shuddered in her back, supported by his chest. “Sam’s all the family I have.”
“Is it just occurring to you that everything seems to be okay with Sam?” His voice was soft, gentle. As if he didn’t want to spook her.
“It’s just occurring to me that I nearly screwed everything up again with my snit about selling Litengård.”
The stroking, probing fingers stilled, then resumed their soothing massage. “What’s your connection with the farm?”
“Hardly any. But Mor used to tell me stories when I was a little kid.”
“Stories? Like fairy tales?”
Kari closed her eyes and let a dreamy smile float across her face. “Pretty much. They did start with ‘Once upon a time…’ Mor would tell me about the cattle they had, the kitchen garden with its vegetables in the summer, the long winter nights when the family would sit and make things in the candlelight.”
“It sounds idyllic,” Rob said.
“It sounded very hygge.” Kari’s brain was fuzzy now, drifting with the fatigue of a tense, emotional evening and the soothing of Rob’s hands.
“More Swedish Chef-speak?” Rob teased, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
“It means…cozy. But more than cozy. I’m not sure I could explain it properly even if I had more than a smattering of Norwegian. It has to do with companionship and creating a congenial space and…” She spread her hands, running out of ways to describe a concept she had only the most tenuous grasp on herself.
“Sounds like what you’re trying to create here in this house.”
Kari’s eyes flew open and the fuzziness vanished as the truth of his statement struck her. “You’re right. That’s part of the reason why I’ve always wanted a home of my own. You can really make it yours. You can’t paint an entire wall, let alone do that in most rentals.” She pointed at the motif over the entrance to the dining room. “And if you can, you know you’re going to be moving on eventually. That kind of impermanence made me not want to put the effort in to make a space truly hygge in the way I want to.”
“Is this…hygge,” Rob said, the swooping Norwegian vowels going flat in his mouth, “something you can do in a ‘small, orderly life’ that doesn’t include more people? It seems to me that you need people to accomplish it. It seems like you might have gotten there this evening, in fact.”
Rob felt the moment when Kari’s breath arrested, her back stiffening against his chest. Had he overstepped something, or hit the nail on the head?
“How often are you alone, Kari?”
“A lot,” she said, her voice small.
“And yet you seem like someone who naturally loves to have people around. You created a beautiful dinner tonight. You made a lovely evening for Sam and Gray. And me.”
She let her head rock back and rest on his shoulder. He transferred his massage to her scalp, fingers threading through her fine hair, and she groaned. “You say that even after my gaffe?” she asked.
He refrained from shrugging, not wanting to disturb her. “We hadn’t talked about how open we were going to be with them yet. You were being cautious and I was being an asshole because my blood sugar was low and I have impulse control issues.”
“You’re being generous.”
“No, it’s true. I had my daughter in my head berating be for letting what she calls ‘hangry’ get away from me. But I’m trying. Will you let me?”
She took in a deep breath. It shuddered a little in her chest. “I’ll try to.”
Rob retraced the thread of their conversation. All roads seemed to lead back to Litengård. “So the farm was a fairy tale to you.” He could imagine that fairy tale, with her as the heroine, sitting in a Norwegian farmhouse, her pale skin and hair made luminous by candlelight as she knitted something. It was a beautiful image.
Kari nodded, her head rocking against his collarbone. “For a while. Then the stories dried up. I’d ask Mor to tell me more about it and…she’d wave a hand and say, ‘Forget about it. It’s gone. We’re Americans now.’ I think now she realized I was idealizing it and she wanted me to be more realistic.”
“Or maybe she had hoped the farm would be restored to her family somehow and then lost that hope.”
“I don’t know how. When she was so sick and told me about her first husband—well, her only husband—she told me she’d written to the Johannasens to notify them of Einar’s death, and then again to let them know about Bjorn’s birth. That’s probably how Sam’s great-uncle knew to look for her. But now I wonder if she wanted to shame them into returning Litengård to her family. ‘Look! There’s an heir! A boy child to work the land and make you proud!’” Her voice went flat and bitter at this last.
“You think your mother didn’t value you as a daughter?” The words caught at his throat, made him want to bite.
She shook her head. “No, I think the Johannasens didn’t value her. She basically sold herself to them. She married their faithless Einar and he betrayed her. They all did. And then Einar brought her here. A place she never wanted to be. We cremated her, you know.” She said this like it was something that should mean something to him.
“Yes?”
“Sam and I scattered her ashes in the Atlantic on the Eastern Shore. She told me she wanted to swim back to Norway. She never wanted to be here.”
Rob’s fingers flexed on Kari’s shoulders. “But it sounds like she made a good life here for you. She found love. She raised children she loved.”
“But she always thought of Litengård.”
“And now Sam’s letting it go.”
She nodded. “And Sam should let it go. I’m glad she didn’t get the same stories that I did. She doesn’t have the same fairy tale feeling about it. And she shouldn’t. It’s not paradise. It’s a rugged farm in a cold, harsh country, far from everything she’s ever known. Even if she moved to Norway to run it—I can’t even finish that sentence. She has no idea how to run a farm. Neither do I. The idea of either of us trying to take it on is ludicrous. We don’t even speak Norwegian.”
Kari’s natural practicality reasserting itself was both reassuring and heartbreaking. She was letting go of a real-life fairy tale in front of his eyes. Rob wrapped his arms around her, resting his cheek against hers, inhaling the light scent of her shampoo, the warmth of her skin.
“Would I be a benefit or a burden in your bed tonight?” he asked.
Kari’s eyes fluttered closed. “Benefit. Oh, please be a benefit.”
“I’m on it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Rob’s arms tightened around Kari. She wished she and Rob could be in two places at once: on this couch, the massage going on far into the night, and in her bed, driving each other wild.
In her bed.
In her house. Her house.
Wow. With all the stress she had experienced over purchasing her own home, there was something groundbreaking about this thought. Having sex in her own home for the first time. Like christening it or something. A fresh start. Even the queen-sized bed was new, her previous one being too cheap, too old, and the veteran of too many moves to survive being broken down and reassembled one more time. She still marveled at how solid the new one felt, not swaying and creaking when she got into or out of it.
Yeah, that old bed would never have survived another move, let alone even the thought of what she wanted to do. To have Rob do.
Rob’s hands slid down her bare arms, the warmth from them giving her a paradoxical shiver. The shiver was echoed lower, as her body gave a little anticipatory pulse, the nerves of her clit faintly zinging. She got to her feet, Rob following her lead, threading his fingers with hers as they left the living room for the bedroom. Inside, Kari turned on one bedside lamp, its glow illuminating the soft green of the walls.
“Thanks for this,” she said, indicating the color as she turned and walked into his open arms.
“Any time.”
“Better be careful of how you throw that word around. I have a few more rooms in here.”
“Good. Gives me an excuse to be near you more often.” The future stretched before her now, more comforting with Rob in it, no longer alone and more than a little apprehensive.
“You need an excuse?”
“Maybe not anymore.” His gaze dipped to her mouth. “So, is now the time I tell you I’ve been thinking about kissing you on and off all evening?”
“On and off, huh?”
A corner of his mouth tugged up a little in a crooked smile that made her heart thump. “Okay, I think the only time I wasn’t thinking about kissing you was when we had our little…argument.” He smoothed a thumb over her lips as she started to apologize again. “Shh. Not necessary. And I’m just as culpable and just as sorry. Besides, any more talking delays the kissing.”
“We couldn’t have that,” she said, and pressed her lips to his.
Kari’s eyes sank closed as she leaned forward, pressing into Rob and deepening the kiss she had started. His breath caught in his chest and his heart started an erratic thump. She traced the edges of his ears with the lightest of touches and it seemed that entirely new nerve endings sprang to life in his body, an electric current running down the back of his neck, through his spine and down his legs, making his knees weak. He tightened his arm around her waist, spearing his fingers into her hair with his other hand. Kari’s head tilted at the same time as his did and their mouths met more firmly now, lips parting, tongues teasing, exploring. Rob’s hand on her back slid down over her butt and she inhaled as his fingers flexed.
“Mmm. I like it when you gasp like that,” he whispered against her mouth.
“You do?” Her voice shivered with laughter. Or arousal. Maybe both.
“Yeah. It makes your breasts press into me. Very nice.”
“You like my breasts?” Where had the tinge of doubt in her voice come from?
He rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed. “Why wouldn’t I?” Good lord. They were soft and responsive and…well, hell. They were breasts. That alone would be very nice. But Kari’s breasts? On Kari’s body? Was she kidding?
She shrugged, another thing that made her body move in interesting, enticing ways. “They’re…not what they once were.”
“They’re beautiful.” He kissed her again. He couldn’t conceive of what her breasts must have been once. The idea of younger Kari and younger Rob meeting had the ability to short-circuit his brain entirely. He was glad, in fact, that he hadn’t met Kari when Mia was still growing up.
This woman potentially had the power to make him throw away every principle he held dear.
He waited for terror to strike him in the wake of this realization. Instead, he was swamped with lust. His cock was stirring, hardening. Like Kari’s body, his didn’t have the same spring and responsiveness it once had had. But it still worked. Oh, yes, it worked.
“This dress…” he mumbled against her mouth. “It’s very pretty.”
“But you want it off?”
“Yes please.”
“Can you do my zipper?” she asked.
“How did you do it up yourself?” He found the tab at the nape of her neck with his fingertips, pulled down, making himself take it slow, tooth by excruciating tooth.
“With much contortion and effort.”
“You should have called me. I’d come over and do you up.”
“Would you?” She leaned back, a wicked light dancing in her pale eyes.
“Well.” His eyes slid to the side. “I might have been tempted to undo you before doing you up.”
“Or do me before you…did me up?”
A surprised snort of laughter caught in his throat and the slow descent of the zipper became a rush. His fingers brushed bare skin, warm and soft. A tiny, feral smile flickered across Kari’s face and her eyelids sank a little. His cock hardened further and he shifted his weight, trying to ease the constriction of his pants.
“Problem?” she asked.
“Only temporarily. I think.”
She nodded. “Yes. Definitely temporary.” Her lips nipped at his and then she leaned back, her hands leaving his body to slide the dress over her shoulders, down her arms until it slipped past her hips to the floor. His mouth went dry and he swallowed. Kari was wearing a bra and matching panties in light blue lace, almost the exact color of her eyes. He traced the scalloped edge of one cup, the lace pushing her breast into a plump mound. The edge of one areola was just visible. The entire effect was an unholy combination of innocence and temptation.
“I’m glad I didn’t know about this all night,” he said, his voice coming out in almost a croak.
“No?” There was a wicked light in her eyes and her mouth curved in a tiny, self-satisfied smile.
“Socializing would have been torture. Dinner would have been torture. Everything would have been torture.”
“And what is it now?”
“Whatever the opposite of torture is.”
Kari kicked her dress to the side, sending her shoes in the same direction with flicks of her ankles. “Come here. I want some of that opposite torture too.”
Kari’s fingertips tingled with the desire to get Rob out of his clothes. She popped buttons out of their buttonholes as fast as she could, tugging his shirt free of the waistband of his pants. He caught her wrists, holding them lightly.
“You’re in a hurry, speedster.” Lines fanned out from his dark eyes, humor glinting from them in the low light.
Her hands clenched into loose fists. “I can’t want a little escape after a tense day?”
“Sure. Want away. But let’s slow down. We’re not kids. We have time.”
“I’m sick of adulting.” Kari was aware that she was being petulant but she didn’t care. “Besides, you got me practically naked in one move. It’s not my fault you’re wearing more clothes.” She leaned into him, letting her head rest on his shoulder. Her wrists slid out of his hands and her hands spread across his chest, pushing his shirt off. Fingers curling into the soft cotton of his undershirt, she dragged it up, letting her touch trail over his sides, relishing how the contact made him shudder. He reached behind his neck and grabbed the shirt, pulling it off. His head emerged, hair mussed, eyes sharp on her.
“Fine. You want to play like we’re kids?” His hands slid around her waist, then down past the waistband of her panties, cupping her bare ass and pulling her into his chest.
“Yes,” she mumbled into his skin. “I want to be a goddamn adult with a mortgage and a car payment and still play.”
“So let’s play.” His hands skimmed up her back and paused. Her bra’s band loosened and she took an unfettered breath. His breath huffed in an almost-laugh. “You really hate those things, don’t you?”
“I really do,” she said, pulling away so he could remove the hated garment and toss it on the floor.
“It is pretty, though. Matches your eyes.”
“Then it has done its job and it can die now,” Kari said, her fingers working at Rob’s belt buckle, freeing the leather strap and going to work on his fly.
“I don’t know how you can wonder that I think your breasts are beautiful,” Rob said, his hands cupping them, lifting them back to the plumpness that the bra had given them.
They sag now. They aren’t young. Aren’t perky. But any more thoughts of this kind fled when he ducked his head and sucked, tongue swirling around the aching nipple. His hand pinched and teased at the other one. His caresses sent an aching desire arrowing through her, her hips swaying toward him eager for contact, friction, connection.
Maybe her middle-aged breasts weren’t so bad after all, if they could still make her feel like this. She pushed at his pants, urging them down his legs, limited in what she could do without making Rob pull away, and she didn’t want to stop him creating those exquisite sensations.
He did pull away and Kari suppressed a groan. But he pushed his pants down, toeing off his shoes and stumbling a little as he freed his feet.
“Smooth,” he said, shooting her a crooked grin that made her heart seem to melt and dribble through her ribcage. She captured his face in her hands, her eyes searching his face.
“I don’t want smooth.”
“What do you want?”
She swallowed. “Real. I want real.”
The crooked grin spread and his hands skimmed up her ribcage, cradled her breasts again. “I want real too.”
Kari swallowed, her eyelids fluttered closed.
“I want you, Kari.” Rob’s voice was soft, coaxing. His fingers teased her nipples, his lips traced the side of her neck. “You’re real and you’re brave and you’re…oh. You’re so fucking beautiful.” His lips met her skin and she gasped. “Yes.” He pinched her nipples and her half-lidded eyes closed. “I love that. Your reactions.”
She swallowed and closed her eyes. She needed to engage. To act. Not just react. She stroked her hand up the hard ridge of his cock over his boxer briefs. He inhaled, shuddering from the teasing touch. She stepped closer and hooked her fingers into the waistband, pulling his underwear down his legs until they fell around his ankles.
“Time for you to lose the drawers too,” he murmured in her ear, his breath fanning her nerves into flame. He bent, dragging the lace slowly down and her eyes flew open as his lips pressed against her clit. Her knees trembled as he brushed her curls aside, the tip of his tongue probing, ever so gently.
