Kristoff feels her lips on his cheek, just a flutter, then "You may," and Anna's voice is full of amusement, delight, and invitation. He blinks, and in his chest something swells and bursts, and he's wrapping her up in his arms before he can over think kissing the Princess of Arendelle on a sea dock in broad daylight.
He's held Anna before – several times during their trek through the mountains, in fact – but she was always so cold and felt very fragile, or was entirely distracted by Elsa, or the weather, or the trolls and generally concerned with other things. For that matter, Kristoff remembers, he was too. It wasn't until he thought he might have held her for the last time that it had suddenly mattered more than anything else.
Right now the sun is shining warm on his shoulders, and Anna is soft and vibrant and alive in his arms, shifting contentedly against him with one of her fingers twisting a strand of his hair at the back of his neck. He can think later.
After the markets have closed and the docks are bright with moonlight, Kristoff sits on the pier idly swinging his legs, arms braced behind him, face toward the stars. From the North comes a low breeze that's cool even in summer, lifting his hair and moving the water under his feet. There's just enough light to make out the reflection of sails in the water and the mountains across fjord, and there is a gentle sort of murmuring in the distance, but mostly this part of Arendelle feels empty and calm in the quiet of night.
He takes a deep breath, holds it for a second then lets it out is a rush, falling back against the rough wood with a thud.
Kissing Anna is very nice, and he can't sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, he is reliving the pure happiness of kissing her – everything from the soapy, clean smell of her skin to the soft sounds she made in her throat, and how brightly she had smiled at him after. As kisses go, it was, well, a first, a little sloppy, uncoordinated and unsure…for Anna, Kristoff is reasonably sure it was her first kiss ever. For him, it had been a very long time indeed.
Not that any of his other kisses could even compare. There weren't many, and he certainly had never been kept awake late at night over them, musing under a waning moon like a romantic.
Kristoff is 21 and fully grown up, but when he was younger and in his first seasons of selling ice for himself (with a sled of his own and no overseer, his 16 year-old self had been so proud, and also terrified) there were a few encounters. He remembers a blonde with plump lips and a pretty smile helping run one of the shops who would sneak kisses to him in the storeroom while he unloaded his cart of ice, and later, a serving girl with lots of curly hair and lots of breasts, which she had carefully let him feel in the darkness behind the pub where he'd bought dinner.
They had been nice, in a way. But there had been no longing, no pleasant ache in his chest, no replaying the feel of them again and again. He'd asked Bulda about it once – vaguely, embarrassed and confused – and after she had gone on for a long time about true love, he'd decided that it was better to stick with ice. People, even ones with pretty smiles and nice breasts, were too much trouble to be dealing with. It hadn't been missed, except for the occasionally niggling idea of someday, and someday was always too big a thought for him to get a grip on; it hovered just outside his circle of ice, reindeer and trolls.
Shifting his weight a little, Kristoff pulls his arms behind his head and stretches. Summer is peak season for ice men, and his forearms and shoulders are stiff with work. The feels-good-pain of a solid stretch is comforting in a way – a reminder of who he is and what he does, and what Kristoff-Bjorgman-Ice-Harvester means, even amid the flurry of change and activity and Anna that has turned his world into something wholly new.
Still, new world or not, he will have to go back up the mountain tomorrow. For summer harvesting, earlier is better; if he goes to bed now, he'll have at least a few hours of sleep. With a sigh, he pushes himself up, swings his legs back over land and stands, brushing dust from his sleeves and backside. It's a short walk from the dock to the palace, and inside the palace is a room just for him – another sign of this new world he's living in – and above it, somewhere in the maze of corridors and stone, Anna will be sleeping too.
Kristoff smiles to himself, swinging his arms as he walks. She's there again in his mind's eye: her smile and her laugh and her kisses, the thought of her warming him in the cool air. There may be quite a few days between then and now – he can't really say for sure, the ice-harvester and the princess is such an unlikely fairytale – but still…someday feels much closer, much more real.
Maybe he will even get to kiss her again tomorrow.