I was restless and edgy. All along, I had been bracing myself for an undercurrent of violence, waiting for its ugly head to finally rear. But even tonight, when I made myself most vulnerable and challenged him to give me his worst, he had come to me with something different. It was hunger, a hunger that needed more than just physical satisfaction.

  I’m won’t stop until I’ve gone too far.

  The words he had whispered were about something much different than violence. Something much more intimate. I was beginning to suspect that I had him all wrong.

  I glanced up at Jonas. Deep creases lined his forehead, and his jaw was clenched. He hadn’t even looked in my direction since we started walking.

  He was retreating back into his thoughts, and by the look on his face, none of them were good. The lights from the Boathouse glowed in the evening. Inside, couples were eating dinner, talking, doing the things normal couples did. I frowned. If we walked into that restaurant right now, the stormy look on Jonas’s face would silence conversations. Even if Jonas and I found our way past one more night, would we ever be one of those regular couples?

  We slowed our pace, both staring into the windows taking in the romantic scene. Jonas’s forehead was lined with deep creases.

  “You’re not disgusted with me?”

  “No,” I said softly. Not at all.

  “Not afraid?”

  I never felt physically threatened by him, if that’s what he was asking. But there was more to be afraid of than brute physical violence.

  I sighed. “Not in that way.”

  Most of the evening light had faded.

  “What do we do now?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Go up to your room?”

  I meant it as a joke, but he didn’t smile.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not interested in another night in a hotel room with you.”

  He was turning me down? The physical connection was our one certainty. And he was rejecting it? He had, in fact, steered us away from his hotel as soon as I arrived.

  My face flushed, and I looked away. I had spent all afternoon agonizing over a decision that he had already made for us.

  Jonas cupped my cheek, gently guiding my gaze back to him. “I’m done with hotel rooms. I want to go back to your apartment and order bad take-out food and talk and kiss and talk some more.”

  I froze. My apartment? No.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  He scowled. “So you’re willing to have sex with me in a hotel room, but I’m not allowed in your apartment?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t understand. My apartment is…” I frowned. “It’s not just you, Jonas. No one comes to my apartment.”

  It wasn’t exactly a rule. It had just worked out that way. I met people out, for dinner or over coffee. My apartment was too tiny and out of the way for anyone to visit. My mother had never even made the trip there. And now Jonas wanted to come?

  His eyes were narrowed, and he worked his jaw. “We’ve done this all before,” he said, gesturing to the park. “Walk around until I get too hard to think straight, then go fuck. I don’t care how much I want you. That’s not what I’m here for.”

  I frowned. “Couldn’t we just go to a bar or something?”

  “And what happens after that?” His fingers glided over my shoulder, stroking my arm. “Because I don’t want to spend another couple hours listening to your voice, touching you, breathing in the scent of you, and then cut it all off again.”

  I huffed out a breath. “And this is all about what you want?”

  He closed his eyes. “No. I’m just being upfront. I want to go back to your apartment and sit on your couch with you. I want to peek at your photos and your bookshelf when you’re not looking. I want to undress you on your own bed, not in another hotel room.”

  More if his words from Paris came back to me. I want everything a selfish prick in jail can’t have.

  “I want more, Alice,” he said, raising his voice. “I’m a messed up asshole with a record. You have every reason to run the other direction as fast as you can. But I’m here on that slim chance that you’re not going to run. That you feel the same connection that I do.”

  I stared at him, trying to register his statement. I had lost myself in this fantasy back in Paris. That this could be something more. But it wasn’t real. We had only spent a few days together. And even if I listened to my body, screaming that these things didn’t matter, he still was offering everything on his terms.

  “What do you mean by more?” I crossed my arms. “You come to my apartment and you look at my photos and browse my bookshelves and lie in my bed. And then you leave tomorrow. Is that more?”

  His large hands cupped my cheeks, and he pressed his lips against mine, letting them linger, our breaths mingling. “I don’t know.”

  At the beginning of the day, I had told myself I couldn’t face this man again. Now, I was considering bringing him back to my apartment. My apartment.

  He ran his hand through his hair and frowned. Then he dug into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled something out. Something small.

  “I’ve been waiting for a good time to do this,” he mumbled, “but it looks like there isn’t going to be one.”

  He opened his hand a little and held out his palm. In it was a rectangular box, all black with white script. In French. My heart jumped.

  “For you,” he said softly.

  My heart squeezed painfully. I took the little box and pulled off the lid. Nestled inside were a pair of earrings, made of long, wispy strands of silver. The ones I had eyed in the Paris window. Beautiful, more elegant than any of the other jewelry I owned. He had bought them for me.

  “I should have gotten them the first time, when we were standing there,” he said.

  I blinked up at him. “You went back?”

  He nodded. “A couple weeks ago. They were still in the window.”

  I fingered the delicate silver strands but didn’t take them out.

  “But you thought I wouldn’t want anything to do with you anymore,” I whispered.

  Jonas closed his eyes and sighed. “You had every right not to. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About how much I wanted to see you again. And once I get my mind set on something, I can’t let it go.”

  I stared at the earrings. Never once when I stood in that Paris window did I imagine I’d actually own them.

  “What would you have done with them if I hadn’t shown up tonight?”

  He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Keep them. Remind myself that there can be a little light in this dark world.”

  Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

  “This hurts,” I said, gesturing to him, the quiet lake, and the dreamy glow of the Boathouse. “I don’t even know why.”

  The corners of his mouth turned down. “All of it hurts, Alice. The last three months have hurt. Let’s make it worth it.”

  The fall leaves skidded across the sidewalk, and the din of the city streets found its way through the trees. I put a hand on my hip. “We don’t even know each other. This is just fantasy and lust. It won’t last.”

  “Maybe.” He nodded slowly, his dark blue eyes fixed on me.

  I had expected him to put up more of a fight, but he didn’t. Did he understand how unrealistic it was to want more? And he still came?

  I shook my head. “We’re not seeing each other clearly. We’re just projecting all our hopes onto each other.”

  He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. He ran his fingers down my neck, sending a shiver through my body. “What are those hopes?”

  “I don’t know.” I squeezed my eyes shut as his touch echoed through my body. It was getting harder and harder to back away.

  His hand rested on my neck, his thumb gently stoking, coaxing. “Don’t you want to find out?”

  I almost said no. But when I lifted my gaze to his stormy eyes, the deep surge of warmth was too much to resist. Did I dare to hope for everything, just once?

  I swallowed hard and let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Let’s go to my apartment.”

  He groaned out a few words, probably in Swedish. Then he came closer, his lips almost touching mine.

  “This, right now,” he whispered. “This is more than I could hope for.”

  He found my hand, shoved in my jacket pocket, and brought it to the warmth of his neck. His pulse beat furiously under my fingers. “My heart feels like it’s going to explode.”

  He brushed his lips against mine, closing the last distance between us. The slow press of his mouth was unbearably tender. How could this be the same man who had kissed me with all the crude lust of a man just out of prison? He coaxed my mouth with luscious strokes of his full lips against mine. The kiss was gentle, full of heartache and deep longing.

  It was as if he spoke a secret language, one I never realized I knew, one that got under my skin and went straight to my aching heart. I and Jonas were stepping off a cliff, falling into the darkness.

  Jonas broke off the kiss and sighed. He reached for my hand and looked around at the winding paths of the park. “How the hell do we get out of this place?”

  4

  WE HEADED TO Seventy-Second Street and found a cab. I climbed in and gave the driver directions, and Jonas pulled me against his large body. He wrapped his arms around me, and I closed my eyes, breathing in his scent, concentrating on the steady rise and fall of his chest.

  Neither of us spoke. Something between us had shifted, and we had found ourselves in a new place together, too fresh and raw to disturb. But it was real. The man from Paris – the man he claimed didn’t exist – was next to me again. Or some version of him.

  The driver dropped us off in front of my building, and the car disappeared down the dark street. I pointed up at the old brick building with its black metal fire escape and dimly lit windows.

  “This is it,” I said and started for the door.

  But Jonas didn’t follow me.

  “You come home alone to this place every night?”

  I turned around. He was still at the curb, looking up and down the empty sidewalk. His expression was hard, almost angry, and his voice was deceptively calm.

  I sighed. “Yes, but it’s usually light. Or I have the driver wait until I get into the building.”

  He frowned but didn’t say anything.

  “Come on,” I said, motioning up the stairs. “You wanted to see my apartment, didn’t you?”

  His expression softened a little, and he rubbed the back of his neck. Finally he nodded and followed me up the steps.

  We walked through the narrow hall, his large body alert, ready for whatever came. For once, I didn’t grab my pepper spray as I rounded the steps to my apartment. The light by my door was burnt out, and I fumbled with my keys. I glanced up at Jonas, and he looked from the burnt-out bulb back to me. He didn’t have to say a word. I knew what he was thinking.

  “I can take care of myself, you know,” I said. “I’ve lived in New York all my life.”

  Jonas shook his head. “There are a lot of sick fucks out there. I’ve met them.” He gestured to the dark bulb and the narrow staircase that blocked a clear view of the hall. “I don’t like this.”

  I stopped fumbling with my keys and turned to face him. “What the hell, Jonas? Are you here to tell me why it’s not safe to be on my own? That I need someone to take care of me? Because I’ve already heard it.”

  I gritted my teeth. Fuck him for making me wonder what it would feel like to live with a man like Jonas, to not be on constant alert every time I left my apartment. Fuck him for making me want to let down my guard, just for a little while. Because he wasn’t going to live here. He wasn’t going to take care of me. We’d never come home together like this after a quiet dinner date. Even if we both wanted those things, the government probably didn’t give work visas to ex-cons. It was a miracle that we even let him into the country at all.

  Jonas closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. He glanced at me, his deep blue eyes wary. “I don’t know how to do this.”

  I blinked up at him, and for a moment he looked lost.

  “Let’s go in,” I said.

  I turned the key, and we walked inside. The hallway was usually just big enough to take off my coat, but with Jonas there, we were up against each other. I raised my eyebrows. “It’s a little tight.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said. He slipped off his shoes and maneuvered around me, his large hands resting on my hips as he shuffled by. He paused, his breath in my hair, before he moved out of the hallway.

  I hung up his sweatshirt, and he wandered into my apartment. My pulse kicked up. The place was tiny, and the only thing younger than me about the space was the coat of paint I had given the walls when I moved in. The linoleum on the kitchen counters was yellowing, and one of the windows had jammed shut long before I arrived.

  But Jonas didn’t seem to notice any of those details. He was looking at my things.

  The problem with having a guest in a studio apartment was the bed. The narrow twin mattress was pushed into the corner, with a pile of pillows right underneath the windows. The fact that I had a bed was no secret, but when Jonas’s gaze went straight for it, my heart jumped. There was no subtlety in inviting a man straight to my bedroom.

  Jonas shoved his hands into his pockets and wandered into the room. He was wearing a t-shirt that did nothing to hide the thick muscles that flexed with every move. I leaned against the doorway, watching him as he invaded my space with his big, irresistible body. He followed the long, low bookshelf along the brick wall, stopping occasionally for a closer look at a title. He pulled out a mystery by another Swedish writer and turned back to me.

  “Per Henrik Högberg,” he said, holding up the book. “He’s pretty good.”

  I nodded. The heat must be on overdrive today. Either that, or I just couldn’t get past having Jonas in my place. Whatever it was, I was getting antsy. I walked across the room to crack the working window, and the noises of the street rushed in.

  “I’m impressed,” he said. “You weren’t expecting me to come over, and your bed is made.”

  I shrugged. “Habit, I guess. My mother put me in charge of cleaning from a young age.”

  “Looks great. I bet the bathroom is even clean.”

  I laughed. Actually, it was. What else was I supposed to do when I woke up at five this morning?

  Jonas smiled. “If you ever stop in to my place for a surprise visit, the bathroom definitely won’t be clean.”

  A surprise visit to Stockholm? He knew I didn’t have money for that kind of thing. What kind of future was he imagining?

  He continued down the bookshelf, coming closer and closer. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the little photo perched where the books ended. A shot of my mother and me at Coney Island from so many years ago. He had coaxed his way into my own, private space, and now he had found the only photo I kept out in my apartment. Jonas was so quiet, so still now. And I was about to burst.

  He picked up the frame and held it in the light. I braced myself for the questions that were bound to come, but he set the photo down without saying a word. Maybe he wouldn’t ask. My shoulders sagged with relief. This was already way too much.

  But then he turned to me, his blue eyes stormy. “What happened with your father, Alice?”

  “My father?” I frowned. Why did he want to talk about this?

  But Jonas’s gaze didn’t waver. “I want to know.”

  “There’s not a lot to tell,” I said. “He was third rate in every way possible. As a father, as a husband, as a thief and a thug.”

  “But your mother took him back,” he said softly.

  I sighed. “Every time.”

  “Was he ever violent?”

  I winced. “Not with me.”

  He lifted his hand to my cheek, caressing with a softness a man like him shouldn’t be capable of. And he waited.

  I sighed. “I’m not sure about my mother. There were times I wondered, when I thought I heard—”

  No. I couldn’t say it. I had closed that door, and I wasn’t going back there. Not even for Jonas.

  His eyes flashed with anger. He waited. But there was nothing left to say.

  He furrowed his brow. “And you’re worried you’ll end up like your mother?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’ll never let myself end up there.”

  If it meant that I was lonely for the rest of my life, so be it. I had told myself this hundreds of times over the years. But it wasn’t until I left Paris that I understood just how lonely the rest of my life could be.

  He slipped his other arm around my shoulder and shifted closer. I stiffened, a little startled. For once, I wasn’t sure I wanted him so close, but he didn’t pull away. I took a shaky breath, and he stroked my side with his thumb. The deep creases on his forehead were still there, and his eyes were vulnerable, full of regret.

  “I told you before that I would never do anything violent to you. And I mean it,” he said softly. “But I’m scared I’m going to make myself crazy over you and drag you down with me. It made me crazy this morning in your office when you walked out. I would have stood in front of your building every day until I found you. If we start this again, I’m afraid I won’t be able to leave you alone.”

  As he spoke, his hand tightened around my waist, his fingers pressing into my skin. “I’m scared as hell of how much I want to be with you. And we’re just getting started. Yes, it made me hard as hell to hold you down in Paris. I wanted to have you and never let you go.”

  He let out a little groan and his intense eyes blazed into mine. He reached down to adjust himself, and his breaths were coming faster. “I’m afraid of how intense this feels. And if I messed up and you left me, I don’t know what the fuck I’d do. I’ll break both of our hearts because I won’t be able to stop myself.”

 

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