‘Kjell—’
‘It’s nothing, he said, interrupting her before she could ask if he was okay. She saw too much. She always had done.
He got up from the table, reaching for her bowl before he’d even asked the question. ‘You done?’
Freya wasn’t stupid. She knew that something terrible had happened and that it was wrapped up in the AAR and the medal. She could have throttled Aleksander: sending her here, knowing that she would do whatever it took to make Kjell accept the medal because she had no other choice was beyond cruel.
The ferocity of the silence Kjell pulled about him was, ironically, the most violent she’d ever seen him. The fight in him at that moment was real and vicious. And while knowing what had happened might make it easier for her to get him to take the medal, it was no longer self-interest that drove her. She couldn’t see him hurt and not want to help. Her heart twisted to see him in such pain.
‘Why won’t you accept the medal?’ The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, but she would not call them back.
He turned from the sink and leaned back against it. ‘Why is it so important to you?’
She stilled, trying not to betray herself. ‘It’s not.’
‘Oh, Freya,’ he said, all mock disappointment as he dried his hands on a towel. ‘And there I was thinking that there were no more lies between us.’ All that was missing was a tut-tut.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she evaded, standing up from the bench, suddenly needing to get away from eyes that saw her too clearly, from a tone that needled her too much and a game she suddenly wasn’t sure she wanted to play.
‘You knowexactlywhat I mean,’ he said, stalking towards her, drawing close enough to trap her between the bench and the table, using his powerful shoulders to crowd her. He’d gone on the attack in the space of a heartbeat and she’d not been prepared. ‘That little hint of desperation you get in your tone when you ask about the medal? The shadows shimmering behind your eyes...?’
She felt his gaze flick to the fluttering pulse beneath her jawline, its touch a physical thing. She knew the arrogant male smirk that pulled at his lips was a mask, even as her core muscles tightened. And lower. A pulse flared to life between her legs and she pressed her thighs together, trying to make it stop.
Not once had he moved his gaze from hers, but she knew he’d caught the movement, saw it in the flare of his irises, the heat that flushed his cheeks, matched only by that of her own. Flames licked up her spine and he’d not even touched her. Her breath caught and she was as unable to look away as she was to move. It was a sensual standoff, neither willing to back down or push them over the edge.
Skin humming and pulse throbbing, she hated that he’d done this to her. He was using her own body against her, to distract her from things he didn’t want to answer, and somehowshewas the one who couldn’t escape.
Eight years ago, she had pursued him. Oh, she was under no illusions, it had been clumsy and even slightly awkward, but there had been a playfulness about it, a gentle innocence. Kjell’s restraint then had required her to claim him for herself. But this? This power, this driving force Kjell had about him now...
Arousal built and built and built, flames pressing against the inside of her skin, wanting out, wanting Kjell. A fist was slowly tightening in her chest, squeezing her heart, her pulse flickering in its grasp. She couldn’t not stare at his lips—the smirk having dropped ever so slightly from them, as if he too was caught in the vortex of their mutual desire. She bit her lip, hoping the sharp sting would cut through the sensual haze clouding her mind.
His gaze snapped to where her teeth pressed against the soft flesh and her breath shuddered in her chest. Fisting her hands, crescent imprints marred her palms as she fought not to reach for his shoulders, to mould them beneath her fingertips, to mark them with her nails...
She was shocked by the force of her want. Eight years had built fantasies and cravings she had never had the courage to consider all those years ago. Desires she was sure he could read in her eyes. Needs she felt pouring from her very soul.
They were barely an inch apart, his lips close enough to hers that if she moved even an inch... She closed her eyes in an act of surrender, of desperation, because she couldn’t take it any more. The sensual tension pulling at her skin, her heart, her soul was too much to bear. He could have it. He could have it all.
But when the unspoken promise of his kiss never came, she only just managed to hold back the sob that racked her heart as much as her lungs. Shame, rejection, hurt, embarrassment swirled in a stomach already roiling from want. When she lifted her eyes to his, his cheeks were slashed with fury not need, his eyes spitting white sparks of indignation.
Kjell was trembling with rage. Seconds ago he’d felt a desire so intense, so powerful he’d nevereverfelt its like. But then she’d closed her eyes in submission and it had sliced through his arousal like the sharpest blade. She had sacrificed her agency in the one moment it would have meant the most, in the one moment they could have beenequals.
He felt fury bleed into his gaze and prised his jaw loose enough to speak. ‘I would never force a woman against her will.’ His words were hoarse, as if he’d howled like the wolves that stalked the nearby woods.
‘But I—’
He’d already seen the truth of it when she’d opened her eyes, and still she tried to evade him.
‘What was that?’ he demanded. ‘Surrender?’
She turned away, shielding her eyes from his penetrating gaze, guilt written in red slashes on her cheeks. He shook his head in disgust. The tension and secrets between them were like an oil slick that turned his stomach.
Nothing felt solid any more. Ever since Enzo’s death four months ago. As if he were still suffering from concussion, a dizziness that caused a slight delay, and Freya was only making it worse. More than just a friend, Enzo had been Kjell’s tether. In a life that had so few constants, their friendship had been a bond that surpassed that of blood. To have that so cruelly taken from him had left him reeling in a way that he’d only ever felt once before. The night Freya had said she never wanted to see him again.
There was only one thing in that moment that would ground him, that he could grasp that would be real. He pressed forward, backing her up against the table without even having to touch her. ‘Why do you need me to take the medal?’ he said, the quietness of his words betraying the brutal demand in them.
‘Aleksander needs—’
‘Why doyouneed it?’