Saint Kate of the Cupcake: The Dangers of Lust and Baking (12 page)

I loved our children, but I also missed who Jack and I used to be—that fun-loving couple who laughed a lot and went on great adventures, traveling the world. A younger, freer, and more spontaneous us. I sighed and went to the bathroom to take off my makeup and brush my teeth before climbing into bed. The lights went off with a click, flooding the room with darkness and causing Jack to stir and roll over, putting his arm over me and spooning in. I felt his warm breath on my neck as I drifted off to sleep, to dream slightly disturbed dreams about circuses.

The next morning dawned clear, cold, and crisp—another perfect day for skiing. We rose and half-dressed in our ski gear to grab breakfast, which was set up smorgasbord-style in the common room. It would be too hot to get all the way dressed, but easier than having to change completely again before heading to the slopes. I was just making toast while Jack poured the coffee when Anders walked in. His blond hair was still damp from the shower, his cheeks pink and scrubbed. He looked like a sexy grown-up cherub.

“Hello!” he said cheerily. “You must be Katie’s husband, Jack. Anders.” They shook hands. Seeing them standing together, I was struck by how physically similar they were in build, at least, though one light and the other dark. Jack was the more slender of the two, but I could see that I clearly had a type.

“Anders joined us for dinner last night,” I explained as briefly as I could. “He’s just arrived from Oslo.”

“Are you here on your own?” Jack asked.

“Yes, unfortunately the friend I was coming with had to pull out at the last minute. His wife was sick.”

“I’m sorry. Will she be okay?” I asked.

“Yes, I think so. I’ll have to go and hire a guide this morning, though. The Alps are a bit dangerous to ski on your own.”

“Why don’t you come along with us?” Jack asked, and I could have kicked him.

“Sure,” Anders said with a happy grin, eyes flashing in pleasure. “That would be great!”

I plastered a smile on my face and went to get my gloves and goggles which I had forgotten back in our room. Grateful for a moment of privacy, I gathered myself together. I just had to not make a fool of myself for a couple of hours, which I should be able to manage.

I cared about my husband enough to not cause him pain by making eyes at another man in front of him, even if he
was
Anders Larsen. Did “celebrity out” clauses really exist? Could I possibly call this one? Somehow I doubted that the real world would let me off on such a flimsy excuse, and I knew Jack would hardly accept that as a justification.
Get yourself together, woman!
I told myself.
It’s not like you haven’t had sex recently
. I scanned my memory for our most recent encounter, but then I realized I couldn’t actually remember the last time we’d had sex. More than a month? Less than six, sometime in the last few months, anyway, though it hadn’t been exactly memorable, just functional. It had really gotten away from us. I would blow the dust off my lady parts and seduce Jack tonight to get whatever excess hormones were in my system out. Otherwise, Anders could be a serious danger, or rather, I might become a danger to him in my obviously sexually frustrated state. Unable to put it off any longer, I went down to the ski locker and put on my boots, hefted the skis onto my shoulder, and met them at the door, standing side by side waiting for me.

Jack and I were good skiers, but Anders was a whole other level. His skis were like an extension of his large feet, and not once did I see a moment of indecision or loss of balance. Jack’s ski technique was more aggressive and slightly less elegant, founded on confidence and natural athleticism rather than finesse. I lay somewhere between the two. Unfortunately, unlike me, Jack had no compunction about following straight behind Anders, which is when he got into trouble.

Moguls were never his strong point, and the uneven small mounds of snow were trickier than usual. The conditions had turned, and the warm weather had softened the top snow, making skiing down the lower part of the run like sliding through porridge. Jack was going too fast and clipped the edge of one of his skis, losing his balance and falling awkwardly and, at that speed, twisting his knee.

He lay grimacing in the snow, moaning slightly, for he was a true Englishman and would never cry, even in intense physical pain. We hurried over to help him, discarding our own skis at the side of the run where they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. Anders and I got Jack’s skis off, and I carried his equipment while Anders put his arm around him and helped him hobble to the medical center, which was fortunately not too far from the end of the run.

“Are you right with him now?” Anders asked after getting Jack seated in a chair in the waiting room.

“Yes, thanks for your help. I don’t know how I would have gotten him here by myself.”

“Are you going back out skiing? I can take your skis back to the chalet,” Anders offered.

“No, I’ll stay and look after Jack. I’ll take them; you don’t have to go all the way back to the chalet.” I felt guilty putting him to so much trouble, as well as feeling like I was a bit in his debt.

“It’s no problem. Besides, you’ll have your hands full helping Jack.” He had a point there, so I nodded.

“Well, I’ll see you later,” he said and turned to go.

“Thank you again for your help.”

“You are welcome.” He smiled, then turned and strode out the door. Damn, he had a great walk. He even looked good walking away.

After a bit of a wait, the doctor pronounced, much to our combined relief, that there was no significant damage and Jack just needed to rest it for a day. Knee bandaged and armed with painkillers, Jack was released from the medical center. I helped him back to the lodge, where he went to bed, slightly woozy from the drugs.

With Jack crashed out in bed, I was otherwise alone in the chalet. I tried to read a particularly trashy novel I’d bought at the airport but was feeling restless and unable to concentrate enough to get into it. For lack of a better option, I decided to make use of the sauna. It smelled like a pine forest, and the heat was bliss.

It was close to the intense heat of my childhood summers, though the smell was not quite the same. I missed the scent of eucalyptus sometimes, and days so hot the air had texture. Plants that were gray-blues and shades of brown, none of the extravagant greens of England, or only in the well-tended lawns of the urban elite. During dry summers of water restrictions, even those went dry and crispy and would crunch delicately underfoot.

After we got engaged, it was never really considered that we would live anywhere but England. Jack would never move to Australia, but even if he had considered it, I’m sure he would have hated it. He didn’t even like it for a holiday; it just made him tense. He thought it was too far and had too many dangerous spiders, snakes, and sharks. I think he’d watched too many of those sensationalist nature programs where Australia seemed to have the most venomous everything, despite the fact that my parents’ house was in the middle of a densely populated area with little discernible wildlife. He was simply English to his core, and to imagine him living anywhere else was impossible.

I should take the boys back for a holiday soon
, I mused as I lay down, relaxing into it with a sigh of pleasure. I had the primal need to recreate some of my childhood for them, and they seemed to enjoy it whenever we went. Traveling along these thoughts, I had drifted off into a daydream when a noise from outside the door filtered into my consciousness. I sat up quickly and grabbed the towel from the bench beside me.

“I’m in here!” I called out, slightly panicked as I hurriedly wrapped the towel around me. I thought Jack and I were the only ones in the lodge. Certainly no one had been there when I’d come into the sauna what felt like only a few minutes ago. It was a bit after midday, and I counted on everyone still being out enjoying the fine day’s skiing. Feeling a bit naughty, but secure that there was no one to see me, I’d decided to throw caution to the wind and go naked—an impulse I was now regretting.

I stayed sitting against the wall, my legs out in front of me along the bench, not sure if there was a less-revealing position. At least the towel covered me from chest to mid-thigh, which was more than a swimming costume did, though it felt far less secure.

Instead of whoever it was leaving me in peace, the door creaked open, letting in a gust of cold air and Anders. I pulled the towel tighter and tried not to look at his perfectly muscled chest, revealed in all its naked glory. Only a small white towel covered him from his hips to mid-thigh, his long legs showing like a gladiator’s under the short skirt of the towel. The blond hair on his legs glistened, wet from the shower he took before coming in.

“Hello,” he said, his Nordic accent slightly more in evidence than last night.

“Hi! I thought everyone was out.” I tried to not look as uncomfortable as I felt. If there was anyone I shouldn’t be naked and sweaty in a sauna with, it was Anders.

“I came in early,” he said, stretching out with a yawn as he took a seat on the wall opposite. I swear if I looked I’d be able to see everything, as he sat with his legs apart. My eyes started to do laps of the ceiling to stop me looking, though it was ridiculously tempting. I was curious to see what he looked like, but I was better off not knowing the truth or my fantasies might take on an uncomfortably life-like quality.

“What are you doing?” he asked, sounding puzzled. I glanced at him and realized that it may have looked like I was having a fit of some sort.

“Just trying to preserve your modesty and not look up your skirt. I don’t know if you realize, but if you sit like that, I can see everything.”

“That’s okay, then,” he said, unwrapping the towel. “If you’ve seen me already then I don’t have to worry about this.” I swear my jaw hit the floor before I jerked my gaze skyward again. “It’s so Anglo to worry about nudity,” he continued. “In Norway, no one worries about it. I have no problem with being naked. You can take your towel off again if you like.” His voice was all innocence, but he was clearly laughing at me, which fired up my backbone. I lowered my gaze to look directly at him and then up and down, examining him thoroughly. After I had studied him, I returned to his eyes and raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Your turn,” he said, eyeing me challengingly, daring me to do it.

“Fine,” I said, feigning nonchalance and leaning back against the opposite wall. My legs firmly crossed at the ankle, I let the towel drop to the sides. I wasn’t uncomfortable with my body—Bats’ influence had paid off, and our hard work running and at the gym had more than offset my indulgences—but even though I’d gotten off fairly lightly from being pregnant, things were definitely softer and more rounded, as well as further south, than they had been. I felt his warm gaze like a featherlight caress and watched him watch me. His eyes became slightly hooded, and I could see him stir.

“You are beautiful; you should not be ashamed to show your body,” he said, his blue eyes intense.

“I’m pretty sure that even in Nordic countries you aren’t supposed to openly look. Isn’t that a huge faux pas?” I said, nodding toward his lap.

“You’re not supposed to notice either, but I find you attractive, and we are alone…” He shrugged. “It is only a mistake if it is unwelcomed.” He looked at me questioningly. “Is it unwelcomed?”

I should have said yes, but I was a bad liar at the best of times.

“Are you suggesting…?” I started.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I would very much like to sleep with you.”

Oh…dear…Lord. For a second I almost had to pinch myself. While none of my fantasies with Anders were set in a sauna, maybe this was a new, very vivid one. In my fantasy, though, he would now be moving over toward me and taking my nipple in his mouth. Instead, he was still sitting against the wall, his eyes like blue fire. I had the chance to make my fantasy a reality, something few people ever get to do. If you ever fantasized about someone in the movies or on TV, the odds of ever even meeting them one-on-one were slight. The likelihood that they would want to sleep with you, even if you wanted to, was almost non-existent.

“So…” he said, and I realized I still hadn’t responded.

“I’m still thinking,” I said, running through the pros and cons in my head. It should have been an easy answer: “No, I’m married.” But somehow the easy answer was still not coming out of my mouth. Here was the offer of exciting, potentially amazing sex, and it sent a shiver down my spine, in a good way. He wasn’t after anything else—an introduction, a leg-up socially or career-wise, money—he just saw me as desirable and fuckable, and I really wanted someone who wanted me. It had been a long time since I’d been intimate with Jack on anything but a perfunctory basis, and I missed being touched.

Anders laughed. “Take your time,” he said, waving his arm. I looked at him, gorgeous, desirable, and surprisingly attracted to me. I knew I should say no, but I didn’t want to, even though it was also impossible to say yes.

“I like that you have hair. It’s kind of unusual.”

I did a double take. “Sorry?”

“It’s just that it’s been a while since I’ve seen pubic hair on a woman,” he said conversationally.

“You’re kidding, right?” I looked at him skeptically.

“No, really. Everyone seems to get it removed now.” That finally snapped me out of it. What was I thinking? He was clearly someone who could and did sleep with anyone they liked, and I couldn’t compete with younger women whose job it was to be beautiful and hairless, and he was clearly going to compare me to them.