Island Getaway, An Art Crime Team Mystery (20 page)

“We were on a scooter,” she said. “I guess
it must have blown past and gotten caught.”

Likely story. Nick let the leaf drop to the
floor. “Where did you go?”

He had a feeling she wanted to ask him what
business it was of his—once she loosened up and became comfortable,
she probably wouldn’t be as meek as she seemed right now—but maybe
she was afraid of the answer, because she didn’t. Or maybe she
simply wanted to share with him. Who knew?

“Martebo,” she said. “It’s a small village
about thirty minutes north of here.”

Nick nodded. Martebo was where her father
had grown up. “Did you see the lights?”

Her eyes widened. “How do you know about
that?”

She sounded so amazed at his vast knowledge
that he couldn’t keep his lips from quirking. “Everyone knows about
the Martebo lights. There have been stories for centuries.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip again. “That’s what
Curt said. I just didn’t... I thought maybe he was joking.”

Nick eased back a fraction of an inch and
relaxed his posture. “Is he the type who’d do that? Joke?”

She shrugged, a bit jerkily. “I think...
maybe? He took me past the Maiden’s Tower last night. And told me
the story about the girl who was walled up alive for betraying
Visby to Valdemar Atterdag.”

“That’s hooey,” Nick said bluntly.

She blinked. “I figured it was. I mean, I
don’t believe in ghosts. I mean... how do you know?”

“The Maiden’s Tower wasn’t there in 1361. It
wasn’t built until more than a hundred years later. By then, any
girl who betrayed the city to Valdemar was long dead.”

“Oh.” Annika blinked again. “Why do they
call it the Maiden’s Tower, then?”

“Because at one point it was used as a
prison for the local prostitutes,” Nick said, and watch her color.
“That was much later, though. And I don’t think any of them haunt
the place.”

“So he lied?”

“So it seems.”

“Why?”

Nick shrugged. “Maybe he hoped you’d be
scared enough to need comforting.”

She blinked. “Men do that?”

“Some men do. Some don’t need excuses.”

“Oh.”

It was barely more than a squeak, and as he
watched, those even white teeth sank into her bottom lip again.

“So what did you think of Martebo?”

“It was...” She stopped to reconsider.
“There was nothing there. Just a few houses and a church.”

“Did Curt try to scare you by telling you
it’s haunted?” When he reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind
her ear, he could feel her shiver. The outside of her ear was
delicate under his finger, and the hair was just as soft as he’d
expected.

“I told him I’m not afraid of ghosts,”
Annika managed.

“Good girl. You need comforting, you come to
me.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just bent his head to catch her
lips.

Just before he got there, she said
something. He stopped and looked at her. “What?”

“I learned something today.”

“What?”

She swallowed, her eyes enormously large
behind the glasses. “My father was a thief and a murderer.”

“What?” Who the hell told her that? If it
was Johan Steen, he’d personally ensure—or have Fredrik ensure—that
the chief of police was bumped down to traffic duty for the rest of
his time with the force. “Who said that?”

“A woman at the library,” Annika whispered.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you... I just thought...
before... that you should know.” Her lip started quivering, and she
bit down on it, and that was his undoing.

“Listen to me.” His voice was rough, even in
his own ears. “I don’t care what your father did. I don’t care what
you’re doing. You can have the entire contents of the treasure
chamber at the Visby museum hidden in your underwear drawer at
home, and I couldn’t care less. All I care about right now is
kissing you. And if you keep dropping things like that on me, I
can’t.”

“I’m sorry...”

“Don’t be sorry. Just kiss me back.”

He didn’t wait for her to agree, just bent
his head and captured her lips. And then he was kissing her. And
she was kissing him back. And her lips were just as soft as he’d
imagined, and when he grazed her bottom lip with his teeth, he
could feel the jolt run through her body all the way down to her
toes.

He stepped back. He had to, because if he
didn’t... If he didn’t, he wouldn’t, not until it was too late.
Even so, it took him a few seconds to get his voice to cooperate.
“I’m sorry.”

She blinked up at him. “I’m not.”

“About your father.”

“Oh.” She went to bite her lip, but
something must have struck her as different, because instead her
tongue darted out to lick it, and a bolt of pure lust hit Nick low
in the stomach. God, she was tasting him, and it made him want to
leave more of himself with her. On her. Inside her.

Her voice pulled him out of his increasingly
X-rated fantasies. “Is that why... um...?”

“No.” No, it wasn’t. He hadn’t stopped
because of who her father was. He couldn’t care less. “It isn’t
fair to take advantage of you when you’re upset.”

“I’m not that upset,” Annika said.

No?

“And you wouldn’t be taking advantage. I’m a
grown woman. If I don’t want you, I’ll tell you so.”

“Not sure I could handle the rejection.” He
smiled, but it was the truth. Not only was he not used to being
rejected, but the idea that she—especially she—might not want him
was somehow devastating.

She looked at him, head tilted. And then she
smiled. And took a stop closer and went up on her toes so she could
brush her lips over his. She kissed him.

She.

Kissed him.

The surprise was such that for the first
second or two, he just stood there. Her lips were soft, and she
smelled of fresh air and something summery and light. She had
braced herself with her hands on his shoulders, and they were light
too, and cool through the fabric of his shirt. And then she opened
her mouth against his, and those small, white teeth scraped against
his lip, and Nick woke up.

Growling, he caught her to him, one arm
around her waist and the other hand tangled in her hair. It was
soft and slippery like spider silk, and he twisted his fingers in
it to tilt her head back. When he crushed his lips over hers, she
moaned against his mouth, and her hands on his shoulders held on as
she tilted off balance.

She wasn’t the only one. Nick felt like he
was about to crawl out of his skin. He had to get her upstairs and
undressed
now
, or he wouldn’t answer for the
consequences.

Who’d have thought this timid, innocent
librarian would turn into liquid fire when he kissed her? She was
plastered against him, little squeaks and moans escaping her lips,
with her breasts crushed against his chest, and one smooth thigh
inserted between his. He wasn’t sure whether that was his doing or
hers, since one of his thighs was between her legs, too. She was
naked almost all the way up, those tiny shorts leaving very little
to the imagination. When he dropped his hand from her waist to
caress her thigh, her skin was as cool and smooth as satin against
his palm.

She gasped at the touch, her head falling
back, and Nick took the opportunity to do what he’d envisioned
earlier: ran his tongue down the length of her throat and followed
it with his lips.

“Oh!”

The soft sound of surprise went straight to
his groin. Making it up the stairs in his current condition was
going to be agony, but they couldn’t stay where they were. Another
two minutes, and he’d have her naked on the floor, and what if
someone walked in on them?

“Upstairs,” he muttered.

“What?” Her voice was dazed.

“We have to go upstairs. Before I take you
on the floor.”

“Oh.” She flushed a bright red, and again he
felt that jolt of desire as he watched her bite her lip. That lip
was going to be his undoing one of these days. If he was lucky,
today.

“Can you walk, or do you want me to carry
you?”

“I can...” But she swayed. Nick chuckled and
picked her up.

“Just hold on. Wrap your legs around my
waist.”

She did, clinging like a monkey, and the
apex of her thighs rubbing against his zipper didn’t make climbing
the stairs any easier. On the other hand, it was a powerful
motivator to get upstairs quickly. He turned into his own room,
first to the right at the top of the stairs, and kicked the door
shut before crossing the floor to lay her down on the bed.

She blinked up at him, owlishly.

“Do you need those?” He pointed to the
glasses.

“Depends on what I’m doing.” Her voice was
uneven, a little breathless. “I’m nearsighted. I need them to see
things in the distance.”

“All you’re gonna be looking at tonight is
me.” He reached out and plucked the glasses from her nose, and put
them on the bedside table. “And I plan to get very close.”

She blushed again, a wave of heat coloring
her cheeks. It was crazy. He’d just kissed her senseless, and had
almost embarrassed himself carrying her up the stairs, and she was
blushing because he told her he intended to get close to her.

He had no idea how she’d react if he started
undressing her, so he chose the less dangerous option, and began
undressing himself instead. One button after the other, standing
there by the side of the bed, watching her watch him. By the time
his shirt was unbuttoned and he had pulled it out of his pants, her
eyes had darkened to slate blue and her lips were parted in
anticipation.

He shrugged out of it and dropped it on the
floor. And joined her on the bed. “Your turn. I can’t wait to see
what you wear under this thing.” He plucked at the T-shirt.

She swallowed nervously, but when he skimmed
it up over her breasts, and over her head, she lifted her arms to
help him. Nick took one look at her and felt like he’d been smacked
across the face.

“Christ.”

He’d expected simple white cotton. Instead,
he got pale blue satin, the perfect compliment to the translucent
lightness of her skin. Her breasts weren’t big—which was fine by
him; he’d always noticed a woman’s legs before he noticed her chest
anyway—but they were set off to perfection in the tight fabric.

It was his turn to swallow. Twice. And try
as he might, he couldn’t keep his gaze from slipping down across
that smooth stomach to the shorts she still had on. Was she wearing
blue satin under those, too?

She must have realized what he was thinking,
because she reached to unbutton the shorts, and then to pull down
the zipper. And although he was sure she didn’t do it
deliberately—or maybe she did; after seeing her underwear, he
wasn’t sure of anything about her anymore—her movements were
agonizingly slow. It took a century before she’d pulled the zipper
all the way down. And then she hesitated.

Nick’s mouth was so dry it was hard to get
the words out. “Don’t stop now.”

She bit her lip. But she also arched her
hips and pushed the shorts off, and down those long, long legs. And
she
was
wearing blue underneath, but it was lace, not satin,
and although the boy-cut panties were more than decent, Nick could
feel himself turn dizzy. All the blood left his head—the one on top
of his body—and went to the one below.

Damn, she was gorgeous. Had he really
thought he’d known more beautiful women? What the hell was wrong
with him? She was stunning, with her hair flowing over her
shoulders and her lips red from his kisses. Once he got her out of
those ugly clothes she’d worn when he first saw her, and into
something decent—or better yet, into nothing at all—she took his
breath away.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

His voice was thick, and when he went to
kiss her, her soft whisper against his lips threw him irrevocably
over the edge, with no hope for return. “Thank you.”

God, no. He should be thanking her. She was
trusting him with her body, trusting him to make love to her, when
he was willing to bet she hadn’t trusted many men. She probably
wasn’t a virgin—how many twenty seven year old virgins were left in
the world?—but she also didn’t have the experience of the women he
usually bedded. She was too soft, too yielding. There was innocence
in the way she touched him—the fingers combing through his hair and
stroking the back of his neck were tentative, as if she didn’t know
what to do, or as if she were waiting for him to tell her to stop.
And the sound she made when he reached up to cup her breasts
through the slippery satin—the half sigh, half moan as her head
fell back against the pillow—went straight to his groin.

He would have happily taken the rest of the
night to love her thoroughly, to learn every inch of her body with
his hands and his mouth, but she didn’t seem like she wanted him
to. She squirmed against him, her legs twisting around his, her
hands petting, stroking, driving him crazy. He pulled those lace
panties off with hands that shook, and the sound she made when he
bent his head to taste her, the mingled shock and arousal of it,
threatened to undo him.

She was more than ready, so he didn’t waste
time. Shucking his slacks and underwear, he fumbled in the pocket
for a condom that he barely managed to don before positioning
himself between her thighs. One of these days—if she’d have him
more than once—he’d love to pull her on top of him and watch her
ride him into next week, but for now, the good old-fashioned
missionary position was probably safest.

She gasped when he began pushing his way
inside, and it was hard to blame her. Christ, but she was tight. By
the time he was fully seated inside her, he had beads of sweat on
his forehead, and his body was shaking from the strain. And that’s
when she blinked up at him, with amazement and wonder in her eyes,
and asked, “Is it always like this?”

“Only if you’re lucky,” Nick managed,
through gritted teeth.