His eyes lock on mine, and this time he’s the one to leave a pause before he speaks again. “It sounds like your husband is a very talented man in the kitchen.”
“He is.”
“Do you miss him?”
I drop my gaze and start fiddling with the cutlery. That wasn’t a question I was expecting him to ask, but I find myself answering it anyway. “We were together a long time. It’s difficult to switch those feelings off, it’s a slow process.” I look back up, my eyes meeting his. “We separated, a few months ago, but admitting that everything we had… admitting that it’s over, it hasn’t been easy.”
“Is it over?”
“That’s another very personal question.”
“I know.”
“And, you don’t care? That you’re asking all these personal questions?”
“No. Because I’ve got a feeling you’re going to ask me some, too.”
I smile. “I might.”
“Why did you come here, Eva? To Sweden?”
I rest my chin in my hand as I look across the table at him. “I’ve had a bit of a love affair with the country, ever since I was young.”
“You love ABBA, right?” He raises that eyebrow again, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Who doesn’t? But I think it’s a bit more than that.”
“You said this wasn’t your first time in Sweden…?”
“It isn’t. I’ve been here quite a few times before but, this is only my second time in Stockholm. The last time I was here – it was just a flying visit. But I always promised myself I’d come back, when the time was right.”
“And, I’m taking it the time is right now?”
I briefly drop my gaze, staring down at the menu. “It seemed like the perfect place to come, to get my head together. To think about what I’m going to do. It’s difficult to think, back at home, when there are so many people giving you so much advice, and none of it feels right. I just needed some space. A little bit of an escape.”
“And what about him? Your husband? How does he feel about everything?”
“I have no idea.”
“You didn’t talk to him?”
“Oh, we talked. It just never seemed to get us anywhere.”
“So, you just gave up?”
I look at him, narrowing my eyes slightly. “I didn’t say that.”
“Maybe you should try talking to him again.”
“Like I said – so many people, giving so much advice…”
He smiles, bowing his head as he fiddles with the napkin in front of him. “I asked for that.” He looks back up at me, and his expression doesn’t waver, his eyes locked on mine. “Maybe I should take some of my own advice, huh?”
“Maybe you should.”
I once more break the gaze, turning away. I look around the restaurant, at everyone enjoying their meals. Their conversation. Company. Am I not enjoying mine?
“Do you miss your wife?”
“Yes. I do. She was the love of my life, and it’s hard, getting used to her not being around.”
My eyes once more meet his. “What happened?”
“It’s your turn for the personal stuff now, huh?”
“I think I’m owed a couple of questions.”
“We grew apart. Our lives started veering off in different directions, it was just one of those things.”
“And you couldn’t find a compromise?”
“It isn’t always that easy.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“Look, Eva, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you…”
“You haven’t. And you really need to stop apologising.” I smile at him, and when he smiles back the atmosphere changes, it lightens, and I prefer it that way. Even though, in a way, talking about all of this – it’s helping. It really is.
I glance down at the menu again, and I frown.
“When did that happen?” I look back at him. “The menu, it’s also in English now.”
“Well, you know, sometimes I listen to people, and make changes, if necessary.”
“You’re quite the man, aren’t you?”
He grins at me, and I check out the menu again. It’s suddenly become more interesting now I can actually understand what I’m looking at. I order chicken salad with redcurrants to start, and cod with beans and bacon for mains. I leave Erik to order the wine because, quite honestly, I’ll drink anything.
I sit back and look around the restaurant again. The fire’s roaring away, the Christmas lights and flickering candles giving the place a truly festive feel, it’s a cosy, comfortable place. I really like it. I do.
“This restaurant… it means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
He arches an eyebrow, again, and this time that tiny gesture kick-starts another round of stomach somersaults. “It’s very special to me, yes.”
“You said it hasn’t been open all that long?”
“No, it hasn’t.” He leans forward, clasping his hands together on the table. “I’ll be honest with you, Eva, I haven’t been doing this all that long, either. Running a restaurant is a fairly new thing for me. I suppose you could say I’ve had a bit of a drastic career change.”
“Oh, really? So, what did you do before you decided to enter the world of hospitality, then?”
“I was a physiotherapist.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Okay, well, I wasn’t expecting that. So, what made you decide to leave all that behind to run a restaurant?”
“My father died, a few months ago, and he – he left me this place. He’d been a chef all his life, and when he opened his first restaurant in Malmo, back in the 90s, that was one of his two greatest wishes fulfilled. His other was to open a restaurant here, in Gamla Stan. It was where he’d proposed to my mother, in a little café just around the corner from here, it became a very special place to him. To both of them. So, when he finally opened this restaurant last year, I think that was when I saw him at his happiest. He got to fulfil that final dream, before he died.”
“But, why would he leave this place to you, if you’ve never run a restaurant before? If you’d never shown any interest in following in his footsteps?”
“Because he spent his entire life wishing I had. And I wasn’t going to let him down.”
“You changed your whole life to follow your father’s dream?”
“Sometimes life pushes you in a direction you may not have planned on going, but it just might be the one you need to take.”
I look at him, right into his eyes, and I smile. So does he.
“My father, he left me the one thing he cared most about, after his family. This restaurant was his baby, and he left it to me. I have a duty to carry on his name. His legacy.”
“Does it not feel like, in some way, that he’s almost forced you into making that choice? Changing everything you know to embark on something you know nothing about?”
“The second I stepped into this place it felt like home. It felt right. And it felt like home because, that’s where I am now. I’m home.”
I stare at him again, and I can see it in his eyes – the passion. The commitment.
“I’ve always believed in following your dreams,” he says quietly.
“Even if it’s at the expense of other things?”
He frowns slightly. “Other things?”
“People.”
His eyes lock on mine, and I feel a burning sensation beneath my skin, I’m so attracted to this man it scares me.
“Is that why your marriage fell apart? Because you put this first and didn’t listen to what she wanted?”
He narrows his eyes a little, but I don’t think I’m overstepping the mark here. We’re strangers. We can say what we like, because in a day or so I’ll be out of here and it won’t matter what either of us said or did or thought.
“Maybe. Or maybe she just didn’t want to compromise.”
“Did you ask her? To compromise?”
“No…”
“Did you talk
to her?”
“Not as much as I should have done.”
Our eyes lock, and it’s there again, that connection. But it’s brutally broken by our starters arriving, and for a few minutes we just enjoy our food, and I listen as he tells me how the dishes were put together, where he sources his ingredients, and how he’s trying to make this little restaurant something his late father would have been proud of.
“This is in your blood, isn’t it?” I smile. “You just didn’t realise it.”
He returns my smile, laying his cutlery down on his empty plate. “I think we get used to things, you know? We become too comfortable. We start taking things for granted, and taking risks – that’s something we stop doing. I wanted to take a risk.”
“One that ended your marriage?”
“I don’t know if that was the reason, exactly, but, maybe. Yes.”
“Don’t you regret that?”
“I don’t know if I can ever regret doing this, coming here, but… I loved her, so much, and for it to end the way it did…” He leaves that sentence hanging, and I turn my head away for a few beats, once more looking out around me. “Do you regret what happened, in your marriage?”
I look back at him. “Every day.”
“It sounds like you still love him. Your husband.”
“Like I said last night, you can’t just turn those feelings off, they don’t fade straightaway. They don’t just disappear, it’s more complicated than that.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
His eyes lock on mine again, and for a few, heady beats we just stare at each other. And he’s the first to break the silence.
“When do you fly home, Eva?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“What if I ask you to stay a little longer?”
I’m flattered, that this handsome stranger with the beautiful face and the hot-as-hell accent wants me to stick around for a few more days, but I don’t think I can.
“I have a life to get back to. I have a job, and they need me back. I can’t stay.”
I take yet another look around this intimate little restaurant with its dim lighting and cosy feel. It’s homely, welcoming, the kind of place I imagine people will come to time and time again. It’ll have regulars, customers who eat here once, twice, maybe three times a week, it has that kind of atmosphere. I like it, and this is only my second visit. Maybe my last visit, for now. I might come back, if I’m ever in Gamla Stan again… No, there’s no if, I will be back, I promised Lina I’d be back. We have plans.
“Eva?”
His voice cuts through my thoughts, and I look at him. “I can’t stay, Erik.”
“Just a day or two more, that’s all.”
“Can we not do this? Please?”
He reaches across the table for my hand, runs his thumb over my knuckles, and I feel my heart start to beat a little harder. But this is crazy, I’m just reacting to everything that’s happened back home, I’m a mess of emotions, and this stranger – this stranger is helping me deal with them, he is, even if it sometimes doesn’t feel that way. He’s helping.
“Stay with me tonight, Eva.”
I’m not shocked, that he said that. I’m not shocked, and I’m not surprised, but I’m struggling to decide how to react. I’m still married, but we’ve separated. My husband, he left me. Even so, I shouldn’t be with this man, and yet, I want to be. Maybe I need to be.
Life’s too short, Lina said.
Remember that…
She’s right.
Tomorrow, when I wake up; when I turn forty and have one more day, one more night in this city – tomorrow, I have to make a decision. That was always the plan. The promise I made myself. Before I fly home, I have to make a decision. That plan hasn’t changed.
Tomorrow’s a new day. The eve of a brand new life? A brand new me…?
Six
I’m back in his apartment but, this time, the atmosphere’s different. Things have changed. Something happened tonight, and I can’t explain what it was, I just know that I want to be here, with this man. And that tells me a lot. It’s helping me come to a decision I’ve been struggling to reach for so long now, and yet, after just a couple of days in this beautiful city, with this beautiful man, I’m closer than ever to making a choice I’d deemed difficult, when it’s becoming clearer by the hour – with each minute more I spend with Erik – how easy that choice could be. Should be.
“Are you all right?” he asks, and I smile, I’ve had such a wonderful evening.
“I’m fine.”
“Good.” He comes closer, his eyes burning into mine, and I feel a shiver run up and down my spine, countless times, and I like it. It’s a new feeling, it’s excitement, something I haven’t felt in so long. Too long. “I just want you to be sure, about what’s happening here, that’s all.”
He stops in front of me, and I watch as he takes a sip of brandy, then lowers his head to kiss me, sending drops of brandy spilling into my mouth, I can barely breathe!
“I’m sure,” I whisper, and all I’m aware of now is hands tearing at clothes, fingers raking over skin, and when he pushes me back against the wall we take a second to get our breath back… that’s when I feel every inhibition I ever had disappear. And I smile, so does he, and the fact I’m alone and naked with this red-hot stranger, in his home, that should terrify me. That should make me run, but instead I’m excited, burning up with a need to become the woman I never had the chance to be before. I should thank my husband for leaving me, not hate him… No. I can hate him. Hating him fuels this.
I drop my gaze, biting down on my lip, he’s hard and ready, and I need this so bad, I need him, so bad. Being with him, it’s like a whole new world is suddenly opening up in front of me and I’m stepping right into it, dangerous or not. I’m taking a risk, a big one, and I’m so okay with that.
I widen my stance, keeping my eyes down because he is just glorious to look at. His body is hard and toned, he’s perfect, and there’s a part of me that’s wondering whether this is just an elaborate dream. That I’ll wake up any minute now back in my hotel room, alone and disappointed because this never really happened. But then he touches me; he slides a hand between my legs, his fingers exploring me, they know exactly where to press, how hard to apply that pressure and I close my eyes, throw my head back as he probes that little bit harder.
His breath is hot against my neck, scorching my skin, he’s leaning right into me as his fingers continue their work, and when he slides them inside of me I can’t stop myself from crying out. It’s like he’s just set my entire body on fire, I’m burning up, his fingers pushing deeper with every thrust. I can barely stop my knees from giving way, but he’s keeping me steady. He’s got me as I crumble in his arms, the force of the climax he’s brought me to engulfing every nerve ending, shooting through me so fast, it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. But it isn’t over.
He lifts me up, and I wrap myself around him as he carries me over to the couch, sitting me down and spreading my legs, and when he crouches between them…
Oh, Jesus, please…!
I throw my head back, let the low moan seep out of me as his tongue takes the place of his fingers, probing and licking and even though every inch of me is sensitive to the touch, I embrace every flinch, every buck he’s causing my hips to make.
I push myself against him, his hands spreading my thighs as wide as they’ll go, allowing his mouth to take as much of me as he can, this is crazy, beautiful sex, and I’ve never, ever had that. Ever. Ten years with someone – eight years of marriage, and not once did sex ever feel like this.
He grabs hold of my ankles, forcing my legs up, once more pushing my thighs wide apart and I cry out again as he brings me to another crashing climax, my body unable to control itself as it shakes with the weight of the orgasm. It sweeps over me, again and again, it’s never-ending. And he doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t lift his head until I’m done. But I keep my eyes closed, I’m aware of him now
, of his body bearing down on mine, I’m just trying to catch my breath. And when he kisses me I taste myself on that beautiful mouth of his and that sends another shiver tearing through me as his fingers slide between mine. The kiss deepens, his tongue invading my mouth, I want him inside me, I crave him. He’s brought me off twice and I’m still wet, so when he pulls me over and I straddle him; when he lifts me up, just slightly, lowers me back down slowly, he slides into me with minimal effort. And I take him deep. I want him, deep.
His hand on the small of my back pushes me down onto him, he wants me to ride him hard, he wants me to grind against him as he sucks on my nipples and scratches at my skin. This beautiful, beautiful stranger, I need the lessons he’s teaching me. I want him to teach me some more. He’s bringing me back to life, and I think I needed that more than anything because, before, I was dying. I was losing myself, losing sight of everything. But I’m starting to see more clearly now.
I grip him tight, raise my hips slightly before slamming back down onto him, so hard I feel him stab my inner wall, something that sets my core on fire, twists it up into a tight knot, ready to unravel at any given second.
Winding my fingers in his hair I pull his head away from my breasts and I look at him, just for a second, before I kiss him. A rough, hard, desperate kiss, I can barely believe I’m doing this; feeling this. But it’s real, it’s happening, and as he finally explodes inside me we both cry out, our bodies moving together as we come, together. It’s like he’s taken who I used to be and tossed her away, erased her. And in her place he’s created this woman. A newer version. A different me. Can two days and great sex with a stranger really do that?
He slides a hand around the back of my neck, pushing my head down so our foreheads touch. Our breathing is still ragged and heavy, still a little out of control. And then he smiles, and I return it, and I wonder how I got here. How my life could change in the blink of an eye; how this man could change me, so quickly.
This Christmas in Stockholm Page 4
