by Sunniva Dee
“Hi,” I whisper, the first syllable making its way past my lips. It’s surreal to see him so close after how scared I’ve been.
I want to touch him. Feel him warm and alive against my fingertips. This man was always an exuberant orange, but now he’s not his sunny self. The urge to cheer him up is overwhelming.
I see it in the depth of his eyes, though. Deep inside, there’s a flicker of what I saw the very first time I met him, happy-go-lucky, what do the French call it? Oh, yeah—
Joie de vivre.
“I love you.” It’s me saying it in front of other people. His pupils dilate with emotion.
“Inga. What’re you doing here?”
“Wanted to keep you from making stupid decisions. I’m a bit late.”
Cam lets out a chuckle-breath that causes Boss-police Guy to look up from the paperwork. “All right, Mister Falck,” he says. “Be on the lookout for the subpoena.”
“Yes, sir. Am I free to…?”
“For now you are. If you don’t show up in court when subpoenaed, though, you’ll not be a free man much longer.”
“Sir. Absolutely.” Cameron bows as he gets up. And when he turns to me and starts walking, my heart turns into soft sunshine-colored clay.
No one spoke on the way back to the hotel. Dan’s the kind of guy who always keeps a passenger up front if he’s the designated driver, but this morning, he didn’t comment on my arrangement. He drove, and Inga and I sat in the backseat. I couldn’t bear anything else.
Not even the radio played. When we climbed in, it was on, but Dan switched it off as soon as we started driving. I heard him mutter “fucking A” to himself once. That was all.
Crazy how amazing it felt to have Ingela in my arms. For the twenty minutes the drive took, her nose nestled in beneath my jaw, pulling air in against my skin and letting out small sighs of bliss with each exhale.
Lord. So much remained unsaid between us, but I’ve never felt better. If there is a god, more than allowing me to jump the Cloud Bridge this morning, he created Inga for me.
Dan and I have tickets back to Deepsilver tomorrow at ten a.m. Ingela’s flight is—whenever. I’m going to call Patrick and have him change it no matter what. There’s no way she’s leaving this place without me in the seat right next to her.
At the hotel, I instantly grab my shit and move into her room. It’s the way it’s got to be. We’ve got some serious talking to do—and some serious touching.
“The food’s here,” Inga says, now, as I emerge from the shower.
“Nooo,” I groan, and she smiles.
“Did you eat breakfast this morning?” Her voice is much sterner than the rest of her.
“No,” I admit what I’ve already told her. “But, see, I want your pussy for breakfast.”
“You dick,” she laughs out loud, white teeth flashing bright. God, I love her. I let out a sigh and just watch her for a moment.
“You suck, Inga. Where’s your boyfriend?” I ask.
She leans into the doorjamb, hip and temple brushing against the wood simultaneously. With one hand, she hooks into the towel around my waist and pulls me closer. “He’s here, Cameron. Right here.”
A smooth kind of adrenaline swims in my veins. “Bull. You left Bo in Deepsilver?”
The towel drops as she draws me out of the bathroom. “Yes. He’s on a plane back to L.A. as we speak, and plus he hasn’t been my boyfriend since you and I hooked up.”
“Right.” I’m a sucker for punishment and needing to know. Jealousy flares low in my chest, ready to switch gears to high. “I remember now. You don’t need to date a guy to give him some lovin’.”
Any other girl would slap me by now, but this is Ingela, and there’s no way to predict how she’ll react.
My Swedish girl gets up on her toes. She cups my face with soft fingertips and angles me down so her mouth is half an inch from mine.
“Don’t be upset, baby,” she whispers. “I did nothing with Bo, I promise you. We really are over. All he wants is for me to be happy, and he thinks you play a big role in that.”
“After how I went ballistic?”
She kisses me, smooth lips puckering and finding. “Because of how you went ballistic. Means you’re genuinely committed, he says. Also, Bo slept in a hotel while he visited. He drove Maria crazy by ringing our doorbell at the crack of dawn every day. Feel free to double check with her.”
How can a few sentences change your entire outlook on life? This girl has my fucking happiness in the small palm of her hand, and screw me if that isn’t insane, delicious, and—
Painful!
She shakes her head, looking into my eyes.
“Don’t,” she tells me.
I’m lost so I meet her stare and ask, “Don’t what?”
“You’re freaking yourself out. It’s what you did when you came over to beat the shit out of Bo too, isn’t it? Did you not freak out over your own feelings? Cam, I recognize this stuff because it used to be me.”
I dip my head down against her throat. God, this smell. It’s so Ingela, what I crave, more than—
“Don’t be afraid. I thought I’d never dare to feel this way again either, and yet here I am with you. What is there to win if we don’t try?”
All these words. I’m a guy who never went for shit like this in the first place, but the time when sports and easy lays were it is over. This girl, right here, means the world to me. Blown away, I shake my head.
Love. Fucking love, man?
“What about the threesome, Inga?” I won’t let it hang over us. It needs to be dealt with. I’m the devil’s advocate because if I carry her to bed again, there’s no going back.
Inga doesn’t miss a beat. “It happened a long time ago, way before we decided to be exclusive.”
“The night before,” I remind her. I’m pushing my girl to get it out of her system. These are not issues we bring with us any further.
“Yeah. I did some stuff that night too.”
I knew. It’s still a meat grinder to my heart. I puff air out through pursed lips, digesting what she’s admitting to and strangling the damn visual spinning before my eyes.
“It’s how I realized it wasn’t right with him anymore. For the first time ever, Cam, I asked Bo to use a condom.”
That visual. It has to die. Sure, besides the sword she’s wrenching into my gut, what she says is great news. I have to remember that.
I breathe, trying to get in control. “TMI, Inga.”
“What?”
“Too much information. You’re destroying me. I don’t want to picture him doing anything to you. Fuck.”
“Shhh, wait,” she murmurs, backing away from me. “I’ll make you forget, baby.” She turns to her backpack and unzips it. Crouches in front of the chair for easier access. The first thing I see is red fabric. It’s the red lingerie she brought with her everywhere to be with her ex.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” My voice is hoarse with pain. She stands, and for the first time I get a full view of the skimpy piece of lace.
“You don’t like lingerie?” she asks, slipping her top off. Wiggling out of her pants. I’m so confused, lost—why is she doing this to me?
The white bra she wears slips off her shoulder, revealing small firm breasts I adore. Next goes her thong. The pain against my ribs, the way she’s fanning the red two-piece at me—it’s nightmarish. “Inga. I want you to fucking burn everything you’ve ever worn with your ex, all right? Yeah—I do. And let’s start with that piece of crap right there.”
I leap forward, grab the scanty nothing, and stride to the bathroom. I’m about to throw it in the trash when Inga says so close she’s in my ear, “Take a good look at it, baby, before you do that.”
I do. It’s automatic, sucker that I am. I hold it up and study it because she asked me to.
“See the tags? The tape on the inside of the panties? I’ve never used them.” She murmurs it so low, I swallow something akin to a lump in my throat. I
stare. Stare at it. This fucking piece of fabric has been with us every step of the way, and she never even used it?
“Bo hasn’t seen this set, actually,” she whispers. “I bought it thinking of you. It’s just sort of been in my suitcase since that first rushed trip to L.A. This time, though?”
“Hmm?” I sniff. Glimpse her soft eyes in the mirror. She’s bare. So naked just for me.
“This time I brought it on purpose. Shifted it from my suitcase to my backpack for you. You want to remove the tags?”
The sigh I emit as I turn around sounds a hell of a lot like a sob. She tips up on her toes, receiving my embrace, hugging me tight.
“For you, Cam. See? Because you’re my right.”
We stand there as my heart slows to a smoldering, focused rhythm. I kiss her. Wrap her in red lingerie that’s now the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Inga smiles up at me, and I grin back.
I lift her. Knees bend over my arm, willing. Toes curl as I take her to the bed. She sighs, beaming at me. “You are, you know.”
“What am I?” I whisper, needing more from her, much more.
“My right.”
“I’m the right kind of wrong… right?”
“Confusing man,” she giggles, finds my mouth, and latches on. The sensation is so strong it shoots straight to my cock and makes it swell. Fuck, I think my nipples just went hard too.
“You’re so sexy,” I groan as I dump her on the sheets and crawl in over her. “And you’ve got way, way too many clothes on.”
“Yeah? What’re you gonna do about it, hottie boy?”
Hottie boy. I snort out laughing. God, I hope she never learns proper English. “My exotic girl. Hmm, how about I do this?”
She gasps because experience prevails; when I’m in a hurry to undress a woman, I can do it in ten seconds flat, and with a measly lingerie set, I’m done in two.
“Please, pretty baby.” I’m panting like a testosterone-ridden thirteen-year-old. “Just… can I fuck you now? Hard? I’ll—ah—be nice with you afterward. Pet and shit.”
“Are you hungry for me?” she whispers sweetly. “You look at me like you want to eat up me.”
“Eat you up,” I automatically correct. “Yes, yes—I do want to eat you up so there’s nothing left of you for anyone else.”
“Only for you,” she promises. “There isn’t enough of me for more people.”
She’s soft around me, slick when I slide in. I rock hard first, then I slow down because the sensation is so exquisite I want it to last after all. “You are the best bungee jump ever,” I stutter. “You are base jumping the Cloud Bridge times ten. I love you. You’re my love—”
She chuckles at my heated rambling, but she stops when her entire body tenses under me, taking me, contracting around my dick as her hips rise from the mattress. “You… feel… so…”
I hope what’s stuck in her throat is “good.” Albeit I prefer the high notes emerging from her right now. This sound—this is—
Heaven.
She thinks I don’t catch why she’s doing this. It’s so damn obvious, though, my girl’s the only one who finds it subtle. I cross my arms and lean against the bar, staring. That, right there, is the cutest weirdo in the universe.
“Over here!” she yells at Arria, who scoots over one of the small demonstration tables she sometimes uses for Smother’s celebration of random days, like Felt Hat Day. A roll of tape, four boxes of various sizes, and a couple of Sharpies wait on the table.
“So, you’re going through with this, man?” Leon asks with a wiggling toddler hiked over his shoulder. He gives Lyric’s butt a playful slap as he waits for my answer.
“I don’t have much choice, now, do I?” I smirk.
A glimmer of amusement plays in Leon’s eyes too. “Right. She—both of them”—he nods at his soon-to-be-wife—“can be quite persuasive.”
“What, baby?” Arriane asks. Ingela’s still pointing and bossing people around over nothing. Really, this doesn’t need to be an event. Every Smother employee is here minus Tara, of course. She was, as Arriane calls it, “not-so-honorably dismissed” and is now working at the Blood Bank.
“Oh, just saying you ladies know what you want,” Leon tells Arria. She winks and leans in for a kiss. “Because we have to, see? With crazy lads like you.”
“Lads, huh? Well, here’s a lad for you.” Leon passes Lyric over. The baby’s excited. I might have promised him soda if he could keep it a secret.
“Tam isss… POP!” A chubby index finger points straight at my nose. Well then. We’ll work on those secret-keeping skills at a more receptive stage in the young man’s life.
“Nope-nope. No pop.” Arriane smooches him while I mouth, Virgin Bloody Mary. Strangely, she immediately relents. “Okay. Bloody Mary, Lyric?”
“You take the fun out of it. Call it pop already!” Inga shrieks from three feet away. She shoves a crazy bang off her forehead. “Cam. Are you ready?”
“I guess.”
She arranges everyone in a half-circle around me. Inga’s the only one that’s dressed up. She’s wearing a short shiny thing that’s sexy as shit. The rest of us are dressed for an early afternoon on a Sunday when we should’ve been hanging out on the beach, with family—wherever—just not in our closed work place for a ritual no one has ever invented before.
Damn is she pretty, though. Her eyes twinkle like I’m giving her the best gift ever. Which is sort of true. For me, anyway, it’s huge.
“Okay. Open the link on the computer!” she screams at Jason. “Hurry, hurry.” Her stare flickers to the door like she’s waiting for something. As far as I know, we’re way off Santa-season. There might be more to this than I’m aware of. Should I be concerned?
“Champagne!” she hollers to Robin, who’s flanking her. He opens his mouth, wiggling his jaw and playfully popping his ears from the impact of her volume. A few of the other girls line up five bottles. Inga hasn’t skimped on anything, it seems. This is the good stuff, Veuve Clicquot. Now I’m concerned. She really, truly trusts me.
I cross my arms over my chest.
eBay splashes open over the west wall of the main room. Arria and Inga hung a white sheet in front of the pictures so as to see clearly what the projector displays. I roll my eyes.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Inga begins, clapping her hands. Everyone quiets down. Twenty of our colleagues and friends stand around us waiting patiently for Inga’s latest crazy to ensue.
“What do you see on this screen? The winner gets the leftover—if there is any—of Lyric’s Bloody Mary.”
“There won’t be any. Unless you count what’ll end up in his diaper,” I say, and Inga snorts out laughing.
“It’s a red uniform—says wingsuit on it,” Jade informs us.
“Yep! You won the Bloody Mary. Okay. Next question: can anyone see what it reads at the bottom? In red?” she adds as if there’s a lot to choose between below the picture.
“Sold?” Brigitte suggests.
“Yes!” Inga screams. “Yes, yes. My sweetheart sold his wingsuit for me!” Everyone knows already, because my girl isn’t big on keeping secrets. Much like Lyric come to think of it. The room still applauds, acting like she didn’t dance around last night, informing each person on duty—even calling those who had the night off. My buyer in Arizona paid last night. So yes, it’s official. I’m off wingsuit flying. The stuff I do for this girl.
“Pop the champagne,” she screams. Leon steps forward and grabs the first bottle. Tom and—hey, Dan’s here too?—wring the tops off a couple more. Within a single minute, a room full of bartenders and hard drinkers have filled champagne glasses to the brim with sparkling celebration. Dan’s the only one groaning.
Ingela has us trained like soldiers: our circle of friends narrow, raising their drinks high. Then, the clinking begins, and loud cheers and congrats erupt. Ironically, the congratulations are more to Inga than to me. When they fade as people start drinking, a tiny voice complains, “Pop…”
<
br /> “All right, what the heck,” Leon says and whips up a shot glass of Seven Up for his baby.
“Leon?” Arria sounds genuinely surprised. According to my girlfriend, Leon was the one laying down the no-soda rule for Lyric in the first place.
“Just this once. He gets to celebrate too.” Leon puckers a quick air kiss at her while Lyric clears his throat and coughs through his soda. Really, he needs more practice because he’s so not good at this. Eyes watering, he stares triumphantly at his mother.
“Oh, for the love of…” she mutters.
I feel Inga’s arms around my midsection. She has snuck up behind me, and now she’s pressing her chin in between my shoulder blades in one of her patented hugs. Ah, I love her patented hugs. Every one of them, no matter the acrobatics involved.
“Baby? Your turn. Work—work it,” she tells me.
And so I obey. Of course I obey. I line up in front of the little table with all the boxes. “This one?” I ask, lifting the smallest box.
“Noooo,” she giggles behind me. “Too small.”
“How about this one?” I hold up a giant one. She’s gone to great lengths in her box collection.
“Noooo!” sings Lyric even though he has no idea what we’re talking about.
“Right, good boy,” Inga says and places a loud kiss on his cheek.
“Then this must be the one,” I say, selecting the correct size of cardboard. I grab the squirrel suit from the chair next to me, fold it, and put it inside the box. “There. Happy?”
Traffic-light-red lips spread wide over her face as she watches me. “Not quite. Keep working, baby. You’ll get your surprise after.”
“Really? You have a surprise you haven’t told me about yet? Must’ve been killing you.” I spin her in front of me and hug her.
“’Kay. ’Nuff PDA,” Jason says.
“We will kiss in French now,” Ingela informs him. “Watch and learn.” Then, she attacks my mouth.
“Let’s get to the point, shall we?” Leon suggests.
I fake a long sigh and grab the tape. Bundle the box tight and then reach for the Sharpie as Inga barks to Jason: “Click the link to the address.”
