Postcard killers

Chapter 88

Dessie was still astonished at what had happened.

When she accepted his invitation to stay at his place, she had made up her mind that nothing like this was going to happen. Her life was so turbulent just now that a messy affaire was the last thing she needed. Probably the last thing Jacob needed, too.

"Wow?" he replied, and smiled.

Now his eyes were warm again, that crazy blue, completely focused on her.

This real y wasn't good at al. How could it be?

She ought to get up at once and leave and face the damn reporters at her house.

Instead she smiled back.

"Dessie," he whispered. "Dessie, Dessie, you're pretty amazing, you know that?"

She felt a warmth spread inside her, out from her stomach, her core.

"Dessie," he said again, this time in a questioning tone. "What sort of name is that anyway? Dessie? "

She cuddled up next to him. He pul ed her closer so that she could rest her head on his chest. She let her fingers play on his skin, smal, featherlike strokes.

"I was christened Desiree," she said, "the least known of the Swedish princesses."

She could see her mother in front of her, Eivor, her dear, sweet mom, born in 1938, the same year as Desiree Elizabeth Sibyl a, the second-youngest of the Haga princesses, the "Hagacesses," daughter of Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf and his wife, Sibyl a av Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha. Princess Desiree was Eivor's great role model, so it was obvious that that was what her daughter would be cal ed.

"It's a beautiful name," Jacob said.

She laughed.

"You can imagine how much fun it was being cal ed Desiree when you're ten years old and living in Adalen. 'Desiree, have you got diarrhea?'"

"Poor Desiree," said Jacob, stroking her hair, then her face, his fingers lingering.

"It was lucky my cousin Robert from Kalix came to visit sometimes,"

Dessie said, lifting her face to look at Jacob's. "Robert was big and strong, and he protected me."

He kissed her, and she felt an immediate little shiver between her legs.

She felt him react the same way.

She rol ed over to sit on top of him and nibbled gently at his earlobe, then his cheek.

If this was wrong, how come it felt so right?

Dessie kissed Jacob's eyes one at a time.