“Hey, Chef,” I say in a raspy whisper.
“Where’d you go?” she asks. “I woke up and you two were gone.”
I chuckle, my smile stretching across the screen. “You fell asleep.”
“Did I wake you?” she asks.
“No, I just crawled into bed,” I reply. “Want me to get Julian back on the call too?”
She yawns, and I prop my phone up against a pillow so it’s like she’s lying right next to me.
“Let him sleep,” she replies. “It’s nice being just us.”
“It is. What’s keeping you up?” I ask.
As she stares back through the phone line, I feel the connection between us deepen. She needs me, and the sensation of that digs deep in my chest. I have never wanted to be needed before,but my feelings for Freya are growing, and this craving for protecting and nurturing her is so intense already.
I’ve never met anyone as pure and real as Freya. I see the battles she’s fighting in her mind, and I may never know firsthand the struggles she faces, but I want to be the shoulder she leans on.
“I don’t know,” she says on a sigh. “Maybe a little homesick. Maybe a little nervous about tomorrow. Maybe afraid I don’t fit into this scenario.”
My brows furrow at that. Sure, things are going a little fast. And no, I’m not very good at relationships to begin with, but hearing her say that about us makes me tense.
Suddenly, I jump up out of bed and snatch my phone off the pillow.
“I’m coming over.”
“What?” she shrieks into the phone.
Snatching a shirt out of my dresser, I pull it over my head with a wince. “I won’t let you be alone.”
“Archer, it’s late. You really don’t need to?—”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
She giggles sleepily while I’m getting dressed in a rush. “You’re wild.”
“Literally,” I reply with a wink. “See you soon.”
Hanging up the phone, I quickly order a ride and jog out the door. My head still hurts, but not nearly as much. The prospect of seeing her soon eases the pain a bit.
I pull up to Freya’s building exactly eighteen minutes after our call ended. The Paris streets are much quieter in the middle of the night.
Freya lives above a real estate office in Montparnasse. It’s quieter in this stretch of the city. I ring her apartment number, and the main door buzzes a moment later.
Taking the steps two at a time, I rush up to her floor and wait outside for her to open the door. The moment she does, I takein the sight of her in a long Grateful Dead T-shirt. Her hair is braided down her back, and she smiles softly at me in front of her dark, quiet apartment.
“You really came.”
“Of course I did.”
For a brief moment, we only stare at each other. Then she opens her arms, and I collide into them. With a tight grip around my neck, she leans her weight into me as I hoist her off the floor and carry her into her apartment. Her legs wrap tightly around my waist as she buries her face in my neck.
“You’re spoiling me,” she whispers as the door slams behind us.
I’m not familiar with her apartment so it takes me a moment to find her bedroom, but when I do, I carry her over to the bed and gently lay her in it.
We’re heated and passionate, but not in a sexual way. More of a magnetic way. As if we can’t keep our hands off each other, even when sex is not on the table.
