Frozen Hearts

An Unknown Foreign Beauty

Chapter 18- Tension

Two months later

Kristoff intended to spend the night with his friends, but three hours after he'd left, he found himself back at his own front door, frowning because his text hadn't been answered. He looked at the watch, which read half past ten, and he was sure that Anna hadn't fallen asleep yet.

His thought turned to the last two months he had just spent, and Kristoff reached up, idly rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, as if he could somehow rub away the discontent and ennui that had plagued him since the night she asked him the question.

Have we ever made love?

His head is losing in the battle over his heart gradually, he could feel it. And his attraction for her was becoming obscene. He spent most of his days outside the house to avoid her. He could not seat with her for a moment without feeling aroused. Whenever he was with her he blushed like a love struck schoolboy. He decided to spend his nights in pubs and in friends' houses.

Seated beside Olaf in the movie he'd paid scant attention to the performers on the screen. In his state of restlessness, everything seemed to either bore or grate on him. Olaf noticed his restlessness, and proposed to go to a pub to freshen themselves, and Kristoff gratefully accepted the offer. They went to the Orken's, and ordered whiskeys, but once the bottles arrived, Kristoff found that he was still worried. Instead of sipping his whiskey he found himself staring at Peebie and his fiancée kissing in a corner, and it made the whole thing a lot more painful. Olaf requested him to stay for rest of the night, but Kristoff left by excusing himself.

But as Kristoff left the pub, he reluctantly faced the fact that he was worried about Anna. It wasn't like that he was in love with her or something like that. And the surprising, irritating truth was that he would enjoy her company tonight far more than he'd enjoyed spending this night with his friends, or watching others kissing their fiancées.

When on earth he began getting jealous in that way? He never felt frustrated, let alone feeling sexually frustrated for anyone, like he did for Anna right now. He always considered sex as a pure thing, made when two people were madly in love. He vowed to keep their relationship completely platonic. And it made the whole thing a lot more painful. But the way he was attracted for her, he was sure that he would fail to keep his vow. She might think they were betrothed, but he damned well knew better, and in the future, he would remember it! One person with a faulty memory was enough! He wondered what would happen if she found out the truth. The ugliness of the fact hit him, and it sickened him. He wished, very devoutly, that she would recover quickly.

May be he didn't….

Wondering when he had developed such a weakness for damsels in distress —and such a bizarre partiality for distressed damsels with red hair—Kristoff carefully unlocked the gate, prepared to do his duty as a faithful fiancé by checking over his houseguest.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he pushed the gate slowly, expecting a grumpy Anna sitting in the garage. Instead he was greeted by a beautiful voice wafting down the staircase from the direction of his flat.

For the first time in forever

There will be magic there will be fun…

Puzzled, Kristoff headed in the direction of the sound, his footsteps echoed on floor of the silent corridor, as he headed towards the flat. He unlocked the door, and pushed it open, making sure that he was hearing right. He followed the voice, and walked towards the kitchen. At the doorway of the tiny overstuffed kitchen, Kristoff stopped short, staring in amused disbelief at the sight that greeted him.

Anna was standing in the middle of the kitchen with her back turned to him, and her both arms were stuffed up to the elbows into a dough which she was molding very carefully. She was singing.

For the first time in forever

I won't to be alone…

The sound of her voice nearly stopped Kristoff's breath. When the notes were low, she sang them with a jaunty earthiness that made him grin, and when the melody climbed higher, she sang it with effortless ease until every corner of the tiny kitchen seemed to reverberate with the soaring beauty of her voice. And the dough rose with the beautiful notes of her song. From the movement of her hands, Kristoff could easily guess her expertise in that field. She was wearing one of his old shirts, which was very big for her, and hung loosely from her shoulders, giving a glimpse of her fair back. Her honey blonde hair was tied in a tight bun….

The picture it made held such a great beauty that it snapped Kristoff out of his distraction, and he stepped forward, inexplicably anxious to banish the image from his mind. "What is it?" he said, strolling into the midst of the cozy scenario.

Startled, Anna turned, and the song ended abruptly. "Kristoff," She quickly wiped her hands in her kitchen apron, and glared, "You are not supposed to be here. Go, enjoy with your friends." Her voice dripped sarcasm.

In the fluorescent light, a few tiny beads of sweat on her forehead were glittering like pearls, and the chocolate smudge on her small freckled nose made her to look more adorable than before. Unwillingly, Kristoff's gaze fell to the chocolate smudge at the corner of her thin lips. All Kristoff wanted to shove his hand in that honey colored hair, kiss her lips, and taste the chocolate. He took a step backwards and swallowed thickly. Not so fast…not so fast….he said to himself. Instead he fixed his eyes on her face.

"Are you ill? I mean you have not texted back…." He scanned her face worriedly.

"What happened to your party?" Instead of answering his query, Anna questioned him back, fixing her angry eyes on his face.

"May be I left early." Kristoff cringed under her stern glare.

"Fine."

Her angry answers hurt him, but he kept his expression bland so that his confused annoyance wouldn't show. He quickly shifted his gaze towards the dough left on the kitchen counter, "Do you need some help?"

"Yes," Anna said, and studied him with a slight annoyance while Kristoff watched the way the kitchen fire glinted on her hair and made her cheeks glow. "I'll be very much happy if you serve the dinner for us, while I take a bath. I feel absolutely filthy."

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When Anna stepped out from the bathroom, she found the whole kitchen table was decorated with candles. The lights were turned off, and the orange glow of the candles reflecting on the white walls gave the whole flat an unearthly look. Wondering if she had just stepped into a wrong flat, Anna took a curious step towards the kitchen, still admiring the handiwork of her fiancé.

"Is it your birthday, Kristoff?"

Kristoff whirled around in surprise and then stopped dead. Choking back a laugh that was part appalled and part admiring, he stared at her as she stood before him, with her pert nose in the air and her blue eyes sparking like two stars in the night sky. Matching to the sweetness her deep blue eyes, she was clad in one of his shirts, which was too large for her, and with the collar slipping off her tiny shoulders, leaving them beguilingly bare. She was clutching the front closed, which lifted the hem just high enough off her knees to expose her bare thighs, and her honey colored hair, still damp at the ends, was spilling over her back and breasts as if she were a Botticelli nude. Biting back an admiring smile, he watched her struggle to maintain her decency by holding the front of the shirt closed, and admired her embarrassed look before his admiring gaze. A vision of her sweet honey colored haired spilling over his chest swirled in his mind, but he quickly shook it off, as she broke the silence, "Have you finished staring at me?"

"I'm actually admiring you."

Anna raised her eyebrows, "Really. I thought you can't admire a girl." Anna looked around herself, and the burning candles adorning the room, "Have I forgotten your birthday?"

"No, a candlelight dinner, maybe." Kristoff replied with a smile.

"Really?" she said with a shrug. "For what?"

"First of all, I want to apologize for all the offensive words I used for you." Kristoff said, "And then leaving you alone."

His honest confession made Anna laugh, "Oh, really." she raised her eyebrows sarcastically, "Thanks for apologizing finally. I thought you never will. "

"No, I really do apologize." He said, fixing his eyes on her face, begging for her pardon, "Can you forgive me, Anna? I really didn't mean to call you that."

"I accept your apology. Now, may I have my dinner?"

"No," Kristoff said, suddenly wishing she was a little more submissive. "I need… no, want… to explain why I did that. I need to explain why we didn't have any physical relationship in the last four months."

She gave him a scornful look. "I'd like to see you try."

Courage was an admirable trait in a man. In a woman, he decided, it was a pain in the ass. "I am trying," he warned.

Now that he'd lost a little of his composure, Anna felt much better. "Go ahead," she invited. "I'm listening."

"Will you sit down?"

"I might. It all depends upon what you have to say."

His brows snapped together and his eyes narrowed, she noticed, but his voice was carefully controlled as he began his explanation. " In the last two months you seemed to be aware that I… that things between us weren't… all that you'd expect from a fiancé."

"I'm highly aware of that." Anna replied sarcastically, shaking her head with a mild interest. "We are always arguing, running and shutting each other out. We never hold hands, never kiss, never have sex. You walked away this evening when I tried to raise the topic. What is your excuse now? Please don't try to claim that you are gay or asexual or impotent. That will make a really lame excuse this time. That Kristina fiasco was intelligent enough."

A slight smile tugged at the corner of Kristoff's lips, "No, I'm not, I assure you."

"Then what is the explanation?"

"There's an explanation for that," Kristoff said, disconcerted by her demeanor. He gave her the only reason he'd been able to invent that seemed logical and close to the truth, because his previous girlfriends experienced the same, but it would also serve his purpose. "We never had sex during our whole relationship and it was what made you angry. You ran away from home to have an accident. I didn't think about rise this topic while you were ill, but when you began talk about that topic, I found it was still on my mind. That is why I may have seemed…"

"Distant?"Anna provided, but with more puzzlement and hurt than real anger in her voice.

"Exactly," Kristoff agreed, hoping that this lie would make her to lose her interest in him. She sat down then, and he breathed an inner sigh of relief that the skirmish and lies were over, but his relief was short-lived.

"But why we never had sex?"

He should have known that a defiant blue eyed girl with a foggy memory would insist on prolonging a disagreement, instead of accepting his explanation and politely letting the matter drop. "Because I had a bad experience with sex in my early life," Kristoff countered smoothly.

"What kind of bad experience?"

Trapped, Kristoff turned toward the dinner tray and reached for one of the chocolate cakes that Anna made for them, thinking of the truth that he never confessed to anyone. "I was abused by my step-father when I was very young." He said, in a very low voice. It was like a big scar, and it made his sex life like a hell. Most of his relationships ended due his reluctance to physical relationship. After finishing his confession, he quickly began to feel bad about what he had just said. At the same time he also hoped this trick would work in this case.

"I'm sorry." Suddenly his head snapped with a hand on his shoulder. He raised his head to find Anna standing beside, her eyes searching his, as if she, too, were trying to reassess him. "I'm sorry for everything happened with you."

"Do you hate me now?"

"Actually I think, I love you more now." Her voice was tender.

Her candid answer made his heart lurch in surprise… and something else, some other feeling he couldn't identify. And didn't want to try. On the other hand, for the moment she was his fiancée, and so it seemed both appropriate, and pleasurable, to lean down and press a kiss to her cheek, despite the fact that he had vowed to maintain a completely platonic relationship with her. What was not appropriate or harmless was the instantaneous response of his sated body when she pressed lightly against him and put her hand against his chest or the tender thought that suddenly sprang to his mind… I missed you.

Kristoff released her as if his hands were burned and stepped back; his face was full of confusion. He sank into the chair again, covering his face with his hands. No, no, he couldn't do this. How could he ruin the innocence of this wonderful girl when their whole relationship based on nothing but lies?

"Kristoff?" He felt Anna's hands on her wrists, and he looked up. "Look into my eyes." She said. Kristoff obeyed, and gazed into her eyes. The love of the universe was shining in her eyes. He saw the invitation in her eyes, as she took his hands, and pressed them against her cheeks, "Kiss me now, Kristoff."

Kristoff accepted her invitation, and in that moment of complete vulnerability, it seemed right, somehow, to respond. Tipping her chin up, he touched his lips to hers and felt the gasp of her indrawn breath at the same time her body seemed to tense. Puzzled by her rather extreme reaction, he lifted his head and waited for what seemed a long time for her to open her eyes. When her long lashes finally fluttered up, she looked confused and expectant and, yes, even a little disappointed. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked cautiously.

"No, not at all," she said politely, "It is only that I seemed to expect something different."

Kristoff was totally surprised, but he asked anyway, "What did you expect?"

She shook her head, her smooth brow furrowed, and her eyes never leaving his. "Something more."

"What?" Kristoff was utterly puzzled. He hoped that Anna would lose her interest after this, but it seemed to make her more and more interested. It was true, he had a limited experience with girls, but none of them left him so much puzzled like this time. So he sneaked his arms around her waist, drawing her close, "What did you expect? This?"

His inexperience made Anna laugh, but his contact already sent sliver down to her spine. Slowly she placed her hands on his chest, and gazed into his eyes, "No, something more." She said seductively.

Kristoff was completely clues, so he looked at her for help. "Let me show you." Anna smiled, kissing his lips. She kissed him slowly, urging him to participate this time, not merely to yield, and Kristoff sensed the subtle invitation. And then the kiss exploded.

His hand curved round her nape, stroking it softly, while his other hand drifted up and down her spine in an endless caress. Her parted lips moved back and forth on his, urging them to open for her, and Kristoff responded with tentative uncertainty. She matched the stroking movements of his mouth, and felt his lips part more. She leaned up on her toes, sliding her hands up the hard muscles of his chest, over his shoulders, arching her body as she brought him closer to her… and suddenly his arms went around her like iron bands, and the kiss became fierce and urgent.

Both of them finally parted for breath. Kristoff reluctantly loosened his grip on her and dropped his arms to his sides. With a mixture of disbelief and amusement he gazed down at the exquisite young beauty who had just managed to drug not only his senses, but his mind. Her face was flushed, her chest was heaving gently with each apprehensive breath she drew, and her dark-lashed eyes were wide with desire.

"You are a really good kisser, Kristoff." Anna admitted shyly. She looked as if she wasn't certain what she wanted to do.

Kristoff smiled at her complement. "But I think it's time we must do something else," Picking her up in his arms he said, making the decision for both of them.

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Elsa was feeling sick. Her stomach felt unsettled since she returned home from the conference in Alaska two months ago. She tried some anti-emetics, but it seemed not having much effect, because she had already thrown up three times this night. She tossed and turned all the night, unable to find any comfortable position, she settled in the bathroom, leaning against the toilet seat, feeling her stomach churn to process something inside before it decided to crawl back up again.

Elsa shouldn't have been so loud, because Hans shuffled in, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He was still in his pajamas, and his face was full of concern.

"What's wrong?" Hans knelt in front of her, holding her hands soothingly. Before Elsa could even answer, another wave of nausea hit her, and she leaned over the toilet seat again. Her shoulders shook with the fail trials of emptying her stomach, and her silver hair was already dump with the sweat. Hans held her shaking shoulders, drawing soothing circles as she tried to empty her stomach. She had nothing more to throw up, because she had already thrown up everything she had eaten. She never felt so sick even when she was a child. As she finished throwing up, she looked at Hans, who was watching her with much concern.

"It's ok, love." Hans said, holding her as she collapsed into his arms, completely tired. "Let me help you." Before Elsa could protest, Hans gingerly picked her up in his arms.

"I..I…" she tried to say weakly, but Hans silenced her. "Shh…" he murmured, carrying Elsa back to bed. Elsa noticed a faint amount of light streaming through the window. "You just lay here, Elsa, and let me call an ambulance for you."

"No…no..." Elsa said weakly, snuggled close to him, holding him for support as another wave of nausea threatened to take over. "I'm fine. I just want to brush my teeth."

Hans obeyed her orders, and handed her the toothbrush. He carried her to the basin again to rinse her mouth. As she began to wash her mouth, another wave of nausea took her over. Elsa held Hans for support, as she tried to empty the contents of her stomach, but nothing came out, except leaving her mouth tasting bitter.

"It is getting real bad now." Hans said anxiously, carrying Elsa back to the bed again. He laid her down in the bed, and pulled the cover up to her chin. Picking up his phone, he said, "Whatever you say, I'm calling the emergency right now."

Elsa had no more in her reserve to protest. She watched him as he began dialing the emergency. The date in his phone was glowing in the dark. It read February 13th…wait…February 13th….A thought suddenly crossed Elsa's mind….Wasn't due for her period on January 13th. She had never been late for her cycle in her life, but this month it was two months late….her hand reflexively fell to her stomach…

"Hans.." She whispered, her voice sounded a bit desperate. Placing her hand on his wrist, she pried the phone away from him, "I'm due for my period on January 13th, but it is February 13th."

Hans stared at her in confusion. "What? Are you trying to pass this illness off as PMS?"

"No," She managed to choke out. "No, Hans. I'm trying to tell you that my period is late."

His facial expression didn't change. It was like she hadn't spoken. "I don't think I have food poisoning," She added.

He stared at her in confusion, "Do you mean…do you mean…that you are…" He couldn't finish his words.

Elsa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes, I think, I am pregnant."

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