What the Heart Wants (Sample)

Chapter Two - A wooden spoon has many uses

I pushed the elevator door open again and stepped out onto the landing of the third floor. The staircase curled around to my right, and to my left, there was the dark landing for the building's two third-floor apartments.

The man walked up to the door opposite mine and began fumbling with his keys. I took a step towards my door and then stopped, staring unabashedly as I got a better look at the guy. Was it...Viking Guy from the park? Or was it another one of his Nordic god look-alikes? I wasn't sure, but the thought of seeing Viking Guy again made my heart jump. I had never seen my neighbor, but on my first night, I had heard him through the walls. And what I had heard hadn't made me interested in knocking on the door to introduce myself.

I continued to stare at him until the clatter of his keys on the ground startled me out of my thoughts. I turned away, thinking he had caught me staring, but he still didn't seem to notice me at all. As he bent down to pick them up, I reached into my own pockets. My keys weren't there.

"Shit. Not again," I groaned.

The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. The man turned around and looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. It was Viking Guy—I was sure of it—and now his clear blue eyes were staring at me again. I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition.

"Du," he said under his breath. Then he asked, "Are you American?"

His eyes were even more intense up close, and their color drew me in. They were not unlike the colors I had tried to capture with my camera only minutes before. In another light, I might not have noticed them, further hidden behind a few days of stubble and a bruise on his cheek that I hadn't seen earlier. But he looked at me again in the same way he had in the park, a way that made me suddenly feel his entire presence. And my own. And just for a moment, I forgot everything else.

I blinked. He had asked me a question. What was it? About being American.

"Yes, I am," I said.

"That's why you didn't say anything," he said softly.

I assumed he was talking about the park, about why I didn't respond to Baseball Cap's provocation. But I didn't want to think about Baseball Cap right now.

Instead, I nodded. "And I forgot my keys again."

While the self-locking door on this flat was supposed to be a helpful safety feature, there were clearly downsides to the set-up. Especially since it was too early to wake up Veronica for the spare key. Luckily, my friend had shown me the trick to breaking in if this ever happened. The door handles were different from the knobs I was used to in my Michigan apartment. These were three-inch rods that opened when pulled down. If the top bolt lock wasn't fastened, a slim arm could slip through the mail slot and reach for the handle. If that arm was long enough. It was time to find out.

Determined to focus on the dilemma at hand and not the formidable man only a few feet away from me, I knelt down next to the door and shimmied my forearm through the mail slot. It barely fit, and the metal scraped at my skin. Suddenly, half way into the process of breaking in, I felt the man's gaze heavy on me. This strange man was watching me with interest. A large man with intense blue eyes. I turned back to him, and he seemed to read my hesitancy.

"Don't worry. There's no way I could fit my arm through there," he said with a chuckle. We both looked down at his long, muscular forearms, easily twice the size of mine. "I just want to see if you can do this."

I stretched my arm out as flat as possible, working it slowly through the slot. Finally, my elbow crossed through to the inside, and I bent my arm up, reaching around. Nothing but the wooden door. After a few minutes of groping, I gave up. My arm wasn't long enough.

Slowly, I dragged my arm out and sighed. Then I looked up at Viking Guy. He was still watching me from only a few feet away with a look I couldn't quite read. Amusement and something else.

"Wait here," he said, as if I had any other choice.

This time, his key found the keyhole, and the door to his apartment swung open. I watched as he retreated down an empty hall. Every Swede I had met so far had spoken English with a sophisticated-sounding British accent, the Swedish school standard, apparently, but this guy's English was clearly American and sounded comfortable. He must have some connection there, I thought, judging from his reaction to my accent. But before I had a chance to think more about it, he reappeared with a long, wooden spoon in his hand.

"Try this. You can hook the handle with it," he said, handing the spoon to me. "Someone might as well get use out of it."

The corner of his mouth twitched up into a little smile, and I couldn't help but smile back. So this guy had a sense of humor.

I knelt back down and wedged my arm through the opening again, spoon in hand, until my elbow passed through to the other side of the mail slot. So far, so good. The handle of the spoon should be long enough if I could get the angle right. I waved it around, but it just swished and banged on the wooden door. Closer. I swung the spoon a little harder, but I hit the handle sooner than I had expected. With a clang, the spoon fell out of my hand.

"Shit," I muttered.

He raised his eyebrows. "I'll be back," he said and disappeared down his hall again.

He returned with a wooden spatula this time.

"It's your last chance," he said, holding it just out of reach. "My kitchen is pretty bare." Then he handed it over. His smile was a little wider this time.

I took the spatula with my free hand and fed it through the slot, grabbing it with my other hand. That hand was the only part of my body that was going to enter my apartment this morning if I didn't get it right. This time, I held on tighter, and after a few more swings at the handle, I felt the spatula connect. I pulled down slowly until the latch clicked. The door glided open, taking my arm with it in a decidedly ungraceful pull. Voila.

"Impressive," he said. He moved closer to lift the metal flap as I extracted my arm from the narrow slot. It was a slow and slightly painful process, but, finally, I was free.

"Thanks," I said. I handed him the spatula and rubbed the raw scrapes down my arm. He released the metal slot and we both stood up. I was close enough to feel the warmth of his body next to mine, but I didn't step away, and neither did he. We were so standing so close. This was probably closer than a strange man should be in the earlier hours of the morning, but nothing about this situation felt threatening. In fact, it was starting to feel like something completely different.

I took another long drink of him and tried to steady my breath. The shoulders I had noticed in the elevator looked even broader from this angle, and his biceps flexed against the sleeves of his t-shirt. The view felt so...intimate. I bit my lip and continued looking up. Cut jaw underneath that scruff, full lips, and those sky-blue eyes.

But he wasn't looking at my face. I followed his gaze down to the scratches on my arm. My heart thumped in my throat as he lifted his hand slowly toward the red marks by my elbow, and the pull between us grew stronger. And stronger. Finally, he touched my skin. A spark of hot desire simmered through me, strong and unexpected. I drew in a sharp breath, and he stepped back immediately.

Whoa. What had just happened between us?

Viking Guy was quickly retreating.

"Let me get your spoon," I said.

"Sorry," he mumbled at the same time, not looking at me anymore.

He turned back to his apartment and slammed the door before I had a chance to turn around.