Dark Desire in Elk's Crossing [Sequel to Ecstasy in Elk's Crossing] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (14 page)

As they walked, Annika watched a stunning, young brunette, who couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty, walking toward them, literally gawking openmouthed at Joshua. First she stared at his face, then her unguarded gaze went down to his crotch.

You little tramp. Don’t size up my man, trying to figure out how big his cock is. He’s mine. It’s mine. And you can’t have either one. Bitch.

Another stab of jealousy went through Annika, and she momentarily clenched her teeth at the unusual and uncomfortable sensation. It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d been celibate for how long? And then Joshua entered her life, and to her surprise, Sven entered her sex life…and after that, everything changed.

The affair’s over. We’re in Norway now, so whatever Joshua and Sven and you had is over, too. Joshua’s sex life is no longer any of your business. Who he fucks is none of your business. If he wants to amuse himself with some little tramp with tits she got courtesy of a cosmetic surgeon and a rich daddy who spoils her, that’s none of your business.
The thought was so painful to Annika that she actually faltered a step and nearly tripped.
Who he fucks is very much my business. Entertaining his cock is entirely my responsibility. Bitch.

Annika, with some difficulty, turned her attention away from Joshua and toward the direction she was walking. She was conscious of the movement of her breasts as she walked and of the scissoring of her thighs. Whenever she was around Joshua or Sven, she seemed to be intensely aware of her clitoris which, she noted with a high degree of pleasure, seemed to be particularly aroused. In fact, when she was with Joshua and Sven, her clit was almost always on a state of high alert.

It wasn’t easy living with a clit on a state of DEFCON 2, always ready to explode.

“Here we are,” Sven said, standing at the front door to a tavern he had promised made the best Bloody Marys in Norway. It had been in continuous business for well over two hundred years. “A quick round of drinks here, then we go to Sea Spray. We’ll eat there. The salmon filets are second to none. Not just in Norway, mind you. They’re the best anywhere in the world.”

“You’re a confident man,” Joshua said.

Sven let out a laugh that came from his belly. “This is my city. There’s a lot in this world that I don’t know, but this city I do.”

Annika felt a flush of pride at her employer, who was now her ex-lover, but was very recently her lover. He adored Oslo as much as she did, and he wasn’t at all shy in letting his flattering feelings for the city be known to others.

* * * *

Joshua looked at the menu and tried to do the mental calculation in his head, converting kroners into dollars. It took a while for him to figure out that the salmon filet was around sixty-five dollars. The beer he’d ordered was the equivalent of ten dollars. The vodka that Sven ordered for himself was around twenty-eight dollars.

“I’d read that Oslo is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live,” Joshua said, “and now I see that’s true.”

“It is an unfortunate truth about our city,” Annika said, continuing to look at the menu. “But the quality of life here is amazing.”

Joshua glanced at her, admiring the perfection of her face in profile. His gaze moved slowly downward, to the extravagant swell of breasts she tried so hard to minimize by the clothes she chose. When he looked at Sven, he saw that the Norwegian had caught him staring covetously at the woman they had shared in Elk’s Crossing. Joshua raised his eyebrows as though to say, “You caught me.” Sven winked back. No offense taken.

If there’s anyone on the planet who will understand me lusting after Annika, it’s Sven. He’s a good man in a lot of different ways.

“What looks good to you, my dear?” Sven asked.

Annika blushed slightly at the endearment but didn’t comment on it. “I was thinking I’d go with the lobster. I’m not much for salmon.”

“You can have whatever you want,” Sven replied casually, though Joshua suspected his words referenced something more than just an item on the menu.

He doesn’t want it to end with Annika, and neither do I.

The thought, unbidden, made the breath catch in Joshua’s throat. He took a sip of his beer, a Nils Hansen that was brewed in Norway, and then another.

How determined is she to end the affair? God, she’s lovely to look at.
He turned his attention to Sven.
There are a thousand things I wanted to show him at home. I can’t believe there’s not a glimmer of jealousy in me when I watch him with Annika. Two men, each with a long history of having women come and go quickly through their lives, and yet they’re perfectly content sharing a woman. No. Not correct. Not just a woman, one goddamned magnificent woman named Annika Sandstrum.

They ordered and talked of inconsequential things until the meals arrived. Joshua enjoyed his salmon, and Annika said her lobster was one of the best she’d ever tasted. When the meal was finished, they ordered after-dinner drinks.

“Since you were good enough to go American and have a whiskey in Elk’s Crossing, I’ll have whatever you suggest,” Joshua said to the host.

“In that case, we’ll have two Christiania vodkas with ice. It is Norwegian vodka, and the makers claim it’s the smoothest vodka in the world.”

“I’ve never heard of it, but when you’re from Elk’s Crossing, there are a lot of things you never hear about.”

Annika said, “You know, I think I’d like one of those, too.” Both men looked at her in surprise. “What? A girl can’t change her mind? Don’t patronize me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sven replied, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.

At least the affair doesn’t seem to have destroyed their friendship. Sometimes sex screws everything up. Why the hell does Oslo, Norway have to be halfway around the world from Elk’s Crossing, North Dakota?

In a low voice, Annika asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“You seemed distant.”

Joshua shook his head. “I was just thinking about something.”

“Is there a problem?”

Yes, there’s a goddamned problem! You’re ending the affair, and I feel like somebody’s kicked me right in the balls because of it.

“Everything’s fine,” Joshua replied. “I couldn’t be better.”

When the drinks came, Joshua confessed that he’d never tasted a finer, smoother vodka in his life, which pleased his Norwegian host and hostess a great deal. Then Joshua ordered a second round of after-dinner drinks. He realized he was using vodka as a crutch, and he just didn’t give a damn.

* * * *

“I’ll get myself checked in,” Joshua said, sitting in the limousine at the curb of his hotel. “There’s no need for you to come up.”

“Then we’ll see you tomorrow at the office,” Sven replied. “I’ll send the car around to pick you up.”

The two men shook hands, and Annika could feel the camaraderie between them, two men, both powerful physically and capable professionally.

Damn it, I’ve fallen in love with them. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I have.
She felt her eyes tearing up, and she turned her face toward the window to hide this from Sven.
Never let him see you cry. Never. Soon enough he’ll have another woman on his arm and that’ll be that. You had a great time. You’ve had more fun and excitement than you’d ever imagined…and then you had to ruin everything by falling in love.

Sven settled back in the plush leather seating of the Volvo sedan and asked, in Norwegian now that Joshua wasn’t there, “You really don’t mind making a quick trip back to the office?”

“Of course not. I’ve got to see what’s all piled up on my desk since I’ve been gone.”

I missed Oslo when I was in Elk’s Crossing, but now that I’m here, I’m miserable. If only I’d shown the good sense to have sex with those men without falling in love, then I wouldn’t feel like I want the earth to just open up and swallow me. I hope there are a thousand things for me to do when I get to my office. I hope my desk has a million letters that need my attention, because the only possible way I’m going to get through this is if I have so much work to do I won’t have any time left to think about them.

She checked her wristwatch, the little, gold Cartier that Sven had given her when she did so much overtime research on a potential well site that Norwegian Oil Enterprises was considering building for the Russian government. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock. The office closed for most employees at five o’clock, though there were others who stayed around until six. Either way, Annika would have a nice quiet office to spend a couple hours working in solitude.

Which was just exactly what she wanted.

* * * *

Annika checked her wristwatch and sighed. It was nearly nine-thirty. She’d already put in an hour and a half in her office, and she wasn’t a quarter of the way through the mountain of mail that was stacked on her desk. Her computer let her know that she had just under five hundred emails to attend to.

The intercom on her desk buzzed, causing her to flinch. Through the tiny speaker came Sven’s deep voice.

“Annika, would you please come to my office?” Their offices were side by side. Since it was after hours, all the secretarial staff and the myriad of vice presidents had left for the day. The building was dark, with lights on only in two offices.

She touched the button. “I’ll be right there.”

Please, please, please send me on an assignment. Send me to Moscow or Rio de Janeiro or some godforsaken place on this planet that’s got underground oil and is a thousand kilometers away from you and Joshua.

She stepped into his office. Though spacious, in true tradition, the furniture was spare, lean. Sven was behind his desk. Though he had pulled his red, silk necktie loose, he was still in his suit, looking at least as handsome as ever.

“Can I help you with something?”

“Sit down, please.”

Sven made a gesture with his hand toward the chair facing his desk. It was padded leather, wood, and as solidly built as everything else in the room. Annika thought it characteristic of Sven. Steady, stable, not at all flashy, strong, comfortable. She sat.

“What can I help you with?” she asked.
Please, God, have him send me to Timbuktu.

“I think we’ve all made a terrible mistake.”

Annika felt like someone had just punched her in the stomach. She felt the blood drain from her face. She gripped the arms of the chair tightly.

“Oh?” she said. “You’re probably right. What happened in Elk’s Crossing was a huge mistake that never should have happened, but if we’re all adults about this, we can put it behind us.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Sven pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. Annika was once again impressed with his graceful moves despite his incredible size. He walked around the desk then leaned back against it directly in front of Annika. “The mistake was thinking it would be a good idea to go our separate ways when we returned home.”

“I can’t listen to this.” Annika started to put her hands over her ears then stopped herself. “From the very beginning we knew it was dangerous to get together, but even more dangerous to think we would stay together.” She shook her head. “We all agreed.”

“I can’t leave you. I can’t let you walk away from me. I think the best thing that could happen is for you and Joshua and I to all stay together.” Annika had never seen Sven with a more serious expression. “I can’t let you walk away. I simply won’t let it happen.”

“Don’t be silly. What are you going to do, tie me up?”

“If I have to.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

She never should have questioned the courage or resolve of a man like Sven Borg.

Joshua leaned back in the limousine as it moved along with the nighttime Oslo traffic and closed his eyes briefly. He tried to tell himself that there was no reason to get nervous. Yet.

He had gone to his hotel room and undressed for the evening then fixed himself a nightcap. Before going to bed, he wanted some quiet time to think. His thoughts were disturbed when the front desk gave him a call. Would it be okay if he had a visitor?

His visitor was the limo driver. He explained in somewhat halting English that Mr. Borg had sent the car for him, and would it be terribly inconvenient if he drove Mr. Riggs to the office of Norwegian Oil Enterprises? Joshua picked up a sense of urgency, but not of emergency.

The skyscraper office was closed and almost entirely deserted at this hour. Sven was waiting at the guard’s station with a security man in uniform in the high-rise’s main entryway. Sven looked happy and relieved when the chauffeur opened the glass doors so that Joshua could enter.

Sven dismissed the chauffeur, speaking Norwegian, then turned to the guard standing beside his desk. Joshua couldn’t understand the words, but their meaning was evident. The guard was to stay at his station. Sven would escort Joshua up to the executive office level.

When they were alone in the elevator as it ascended smoothly, Joshua asked, “Want to tell me what’s really going on at this hour?”

“Can I wait until we’re in my office?”

“Does it involve Annika?”

“Naturally. Doesn’t everything?”

Joshua chuckled lightly at that, feeling relieved though he couldn’t quite say why. “Yes, I guess it does at that.”

The executive suite level was Spartan, clean, whispering of wealth rather than screaming of it. Joshua liked the style. He had the vaguely eerie sense of being somewhere he shouldn’t be with nearly all of the lights switched off, but he dismissed this as a side effect of being in unusual surroundings and far away from his prairie ranch house.

“Let me remind you, first impressions can often be deceiving,” Sven said as he opened his office door then stepped aside so that Joshua could enter first. “You’ve got to keep an open mind.”

Joshua saw Annika sitting in one of the chairs that faced Sven’s desk. One look in her eyes said she was spitting mad. It took a moment for Joshua to realize that she was holding her arms in an awkward fashion. It took another moment for him to see that around her left ankle was Sven’s woven leather belt, securing her leg to the leg of the chair. Around her right ankle was an electrical cord from a lamp. Obviously, this wasn’t a pre-planned experimentation with bondage, but a rash, impulsive act by Sven.