Chapter Twenty-One

Viktor

It’s been a couple of days since Maggie arrived in Stockholm.

I would love to say the days have been bright and easy.

But that’s not quite the case.

The moment that I showed up in Tehachapi I knew there were two hurdles for me to jump. One was to convince Maggie to come back with me to Stockholm. This, I assumed, was the biggest hurdle of all.

But it didn’t take as much convincing as I thought. Probably because Maggie is somehow in love with a sorry sap like me, just as much as I am in love with her. When I finally convinced her, it felt like an anvil was lifted off my chest and that the hardest part of our relationship–the will to continue it–was over.

Then she got here. And already on her first day landing in Stockholm, she was alone. I had engagements and dinners I couldn’t get out of without a huge guilt trip and though I’m not always susceptible to guilt trips, I also knew I had to pick my battles. There would be many battles on the horizon.

Even so, I didn’t get back home until she was here and delirious with jet lag.

Which of course, because she went to bed earlier, meant she got up at two in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. When I finally woke up at seven a.m., I found her wandering the halls of the estate. In the dim light after the snowstorm, she looked like a ghost, but she was more than content, just soaking in the history of the place and happy to be here.

It made me realize that she’s a lot more interested and excited about my new role, and all that comes with it, than I am.

But as the days went on, I became busier and busier. I tried to shake most things but unfortunately, so many of them were part of my job. Even just showing up counts. You make a speech, you cut a ribbon, you pose for pictures. If you aren’t there, the world will notice, and the world will talk, and they won’t be saying nice things.

Though Maggie was still coping with jet lag in a big way, she’s also very independent. On the days I had engagements, I had Nick take care of her, driving her anywhere she wanted. He became her companion in some ways. Not quite a bodyguard but more like a tour guide. I know in the future that Maggie’s freedom here might be more constricted but for now, she could do what she wanted, go where she wanted. Even in -11C weather, even in the snow. She went out and braved it all.

I am feeling bad though.

I’m not connecting with her as much as I would like.

I want her to feel that I’m here with her, not just some tired thing that stumbles in late at night. Someone that’s too overworked and overwhelmed to even take full advantage of this beautiful woman in my bed.

I swear it’s creating a bit more distance between us than before. We connect on so many levels, but we communicate best with our bodies. I need to be inside her, need to feel that contact, that love, that desire.

That understanding.

I need her more than I can bear.

I’m in the car, halfway to a lunch I’m supposed to attend with a Croatian diplomat, when my thoughts turn to the creaminess of her skin, the peach softness of her lips, the way she melts underneath my touch.

I can’t stand it anymore.

She’s here to be with me.

And one day she will be gone.

If I don’t take advantage of that, I’ll hate myself forever.

I tell the driver to turn around and take me back, all while sending a text to Freddie and telling him I don’t feel well. Freddie knows, of course, all about Maggie, even though he hasn’t met her yet.

He also knows I’m full of shit.

I don’t care.

The need to be with her is overpowering.

Within twenty minutes I’m dropped off back at the estate and storming through the halls looking for her.

“Where is Maggie?” I ask Bodi, who is dusting a painting.

“I believe she’s in the study, sir,” he says.

The study is on the main floor and actually just a living room, just on a cozier scale. There’s a desk and a couch, some arm chairs and a fireplace. A large bar cart. It’s a place to unwind with guests, so I can’t imagine why she’d be in there alone.

I walk inside and see her curled up on the couch with a book in her hand. She’s wearing fuzzy black leggings she’s calls her long underwear, as well as a soft gray sweater that falls off one shoulder, exposing her creamy skin. Her feet are encased in fluffy slippers.

“Oh hey,” she says, putting the book down. “Did you forget something?”

“Yes, you,” I tell her. I stride over to the couch and glance down at the book. It’s an old worn classic in English. “Watership Down?”

She smiles sheepishly which makes her cheeks extra rosy. “I remembered you telling me about having rabbits as a child and naming them after the book. When I saw this at a used bookstore the other day in English, I couldn’t help myself.”

“If you got it in Swedish maybe you could learn the language.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you would make a better teacher…”

She doesn’t have to finish the sentence.

I could teach her…if I were here.

She tilts her head and looks at me. “So, why are you here? Was it cancelled?”

I nod. “Yes. I cancelled it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d rather be with my lover than with a stuffy diplomat. That’s why.”

She stares at me for a moment and then takes the book, putting it gently on the coffee table beside the couch.

“Lover?” she questions. “Is that what I am today?”

But I don’t even have to answer her because she’s already taking off her slippers, then her leggings. Briefly her eyes flit over to the study doors I’d already closed.

“No one will come in here,” I tell her, my voice already growing rough with impatience. I have no doubt Bodi knows what’s happening behind those doors.

She reaches down and pulls her top off her head. I hadn’t even noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra until now.

“Helvete,” I mutter, taking my dick out of my pants and giving it a long hard stroke as I stare down at her. She stares up at me with those dark, wide, almost nervous eyes, her lips parted, her silky dark hair across her face. Her nipples are hard pink peaks against her full breasts. Her stomach leads smoothly to her hips and thighs that just beg for my teeth to dig into them and make marks along her creamy flesh.

The sweet pink flash of her persika.

“I’ll do more than that,” she says, getting up on all fours and facing me. “I always remember what you said about my peachy lips that you like so much.”

A grin spreads across my face. “Which ones?”

I move closer to the couch while she reaches up for my cock, slowly wrapping her long fingers around it. The pressure reverberates along every inch of me, and I let out a harsh groan, the desire slamming into me.

“Lick me, sakta,” I tell her, my words coming out thick.

She flashes me a wicked smile. “Sakta? Is that Swedish for suck it?”

“It’s Swedish for slowly,” I tell her. “As in, go slowly. Please.”

“It’s been too long, I guess,” she muses in a teasing voice, sticking out her tongue and licking around the dark, swollen tip. My head goes back and my eyes close, giving into the feeling, even though I desperately want to maintain eye contact with her.

Her tongue slides down to the bottom of my shaft and everything inside me tenses. I’ve never felt like this, this white-hot blistering lust that penetrates every last nerve. This is what I get for waiting, sleeping beside her for days on end and being too tired to do anything.

The tension inside me builds and builds into something more than primal, and when I finally open my eyes, practically panting, her sly eyes glance up at me with excitement. With her dark hair spilling around her milky shoulders, she looks like a fucking goddess that men would have died trying to paint.

But she’s nothing but real, nothing but here and now as she takes me into her mouth. Her lips are wet and plush, like a ripe juicy peach.

Persika.

I make a fist in her hair, tugging on it just enough for her eyes to widen, and she sucks me harder in response. It would be so fucking easy to just come hard down the back of her throat and watch her swallow, watch her accept me.

But I’m not about to come now. I want to be inside her again, to feel every hot squeeze of her around me. I need that connection again. I need to remind her of why she’s here in Sweden, why she came to be with me.

She came here because I can’t be without her and I want to show her just how much I need her.

“Hold on,” I pant, pulling back. My cock pops out of her wet, wet mouth.

Helvete.

“Turn around,” I tell her, my voice shaking with need.

She does as I ask, and I grab her hips, tugging her back into me, teasing the crack of her bum with my glistening cock. Then I lean over and take a quick nip of her ass cheek.

“Ow,” she says, shooting me a deliciously dirty glance over her shoulder.

“Jag är ledsen,” I mutter. Which means I’m sorry. And I’m not really sorry at all. She knows how rough I can be.

Even so, I lick over the bite marks, making her relax, soothing any surprise. I want to know how wet and eager she is, so I part her cheeks and stroke my fingertips over her pussy, and I’m nearly salivating over how slippery she is.

I push my finger in and bite my lip at how she holds me. So tight. Her breath hitches and she lets out a breathless moan that shakes me to my core.

You’re mine, I think. And only mine.

You’re here with me.

That’s all that matters.

Suddenly the urge, the pure need to be inside her is overpowering and I’m nearly trembling at the hunger pulsing through me. It’s this animalistic drive that sneaks up, like I’m being reduced to nothing but basic instinct around her. She’s not just Maggie, my Maggie, she’s this woman I need to claim, to take rough and hard and fast until I can’t remember my name, until I can’t remember who I am and what I do.