The Dare Collection October 2018. Nicola Marsh

that was minimizing the experience. And Margot didn’t want to do that any longer. No more airs of intellectual superiority to conceal all her worst insecurities. And all the Bechdel tests and feminist manifestos in the world couldn’t change the fact that it was the sex that had changed her.

      And she was unaware of any way that a heterosexual woman could have life-altering sex without a man.

      Which meant, of course, that there was no way not to put a man in the center of her own narrative. It was a notion that should have appalled her and yet...didn’t.

      Does it matter if we were both there at the center? she found herself asking as she walked down the cold streets. Is sex only problematic when it’s not intimate, or is it intimacy that’s the real problem—because it knocks down all these barriers and leaves everyone both more and less than they were before?

      She could almost hear Thor’s voice in her head as she turned that over and over inside her.

      But then, the truth of the matter was that she could hear Thor’s voice in her head all the time, and she wasn’t sure she cared how problematic that was.

      She hadn’t believed in the kind of casual sex Icelanders engaged in before she’d experienced it herself. She still didn’t. It was just that now Margot knew that it wasn’t just hookup cultures or her generation’s approach to dating that she found curious and flat. She had to look back at her entire sexual history and ask herself why she’d never understood that all the sex she’d ever had before Thor had...not been good.

      Of course, she knew the answer.

      She’d thought that the idea that sex could be fireworks and earthquakes, natural disasters and the northern lights all in one, were lies told in romance novels for the benefit of the feebleminded.

      Margot had never imagined for a second that sex like that was—or could be, or maybe even should be—real.

      “You got exactly what you asked for,” she told herself resolutely. “A bit more than that, maybe, but no less.”

      Her lack of imagination was her own damned fault.

      She made herself walk past the coffee shop nearest to her flat where she knew a number of her university colleagues spent their time, because she didn’t want to talk about any of this.

      That concerned her, too, if she was honest. She felt as if Thor had freed her. He’d allowed her to find her voice in ways she never would have imagined possible, but it had left her loath to engage in the kind of conversations she’d used to find so entertaining. She didn’t want to take a tiny point and dig at it, poke at it, tear it apart.

      Her life before that night in Thor’s hotel felt so small now, as if it had shrunk in the wash while she hadn’t been paying attention.

      Was it academics that had gotten narrow over the course of these tenured years? Or was it Margot’s approach to scholarship?

      When had she turned away from big questions and lost herself in the minutia instead?

      It was that old saying that everyone liked to trot out in weary tones, usually after contentious meetings, that academic politics were so vicious because the stakes were so small.

      And Margot couldn’t seem to remember why she’d decided that what she needed from her life was a steady diet of small stakes and meaningless arguments. Especially not now she felt turned inside out and made anew.

      She found herself a seat near the window in a quaint coffeehouse, packed with cozy couches and overstuffed bookcases, and shrugged out of her parka. It was still bright outside and the light streamed in, piercing and blue and maybe a little too intense, but Margot liked the feel of it on her face.

      She’d spent so long in the dark—all those nights out on the Reykjavík streets, or holed up in her flat. Or that long, stormy night in Thor’s hotel, for that matter.

      Or her entire life and field of study.

      Margot had almost forgotten the simple pleasure of sunlight. The warmth of it and the way it washed over her like a caress. The way the light poured in through windows and made it hard to see anything but all that bright, hot sun.

      And maybe that was why it took her longer than it should have to notice the person who came to her side and stood there, backlit by the precious northern sunlight.

      Margot shifted. Frowning by rote, she tried to make her eyes focus on the figure before her. She opened her mouth to comment on the numerous empty seats sprinkled throughout the coffeehouse at this hour on an indifferent Tuesday morning, but stopped herself.

      Because her eyes might have been watering as she gazed into all that miraculous light, but her body knew exactly who she was looking at.

      She felt herself shiver into instant awareness. She felt her pussy clench, then melt.

      She knew.

      Even before she lifted her hand to shade her eyes and really look at him, she knew.

      “Hello, Professor,” Thor said.

      He sounded...not quite angry. Nothing quite so sharp. But he didn’t sound his lazy, disengaged self, either.

      Margot told herself there was no reason for her heart to flip around inside her chest at that notion.

      “Thor,” she said evenly, by way of greeting. “What are you doing here?”

      He moved to the side so she could turn in her seat and look at him without having to stare directly into the sun. Not that it was any better. Thor was brighter by day. His eyes were too blue and the light picked up those impossible cheekbones and the mouthwatering line of his jaw. He wasn’t dressed in that armored suit of his today, preferring boots and more casual trousers under the typical parka. He unzipped it against the heat in the coffeehouse, but he didn’t sit down.

      It took Margot a shockingly long moment to realize he was...whatever awkward looked like on a man like him.

      Her stomach twisted into a knot, then flipped around deep inside her.

      “Are you all right?” she asked.

      “As a matter of fact, no.” Thor stood there over her and she saw to her amazement that his big hands were in fists at his sides. She could hardly make sense of that, but there was no denying the way his eyes blazed when she lifted her gaze to his again. “I’m not all right, Margot. Where have you been?”

      He did nothing to modify his volume or his tone, and Margot felt herself redden at the knowledge that the locals behind the counter might recognize him. Or even Margot, since she hadn’t exactly been hiding her identity during all those late-night interviews.

      She made herself smile. Politely. “I assume you mean that in a philosophical sense. Because I wasn’t aware that I had to report my whereabouts to you. Or anyone else.”

      “You haven’t been on Laugavegur, Margot. You haven’t been accosting my customers. What am I supposed to make of that?”

      “I don’t know why you would care where I am.” It cost her to keep her feelings off her face, but she thought she managed it. “You do remember that you told me to get out of your hotel, right?”

      “We agreed that you would be there only as long as the storm continued. The storm had ended, so it was time for you to get back to your life. It didn’t mean you needed to drop off the face of the planet.”

      “I didn’t drop off the face of the planet.”

      “It’s been ten days.”

      He said that as if he was outraged that she might not know how long it had been, and that made the knot inside her catch fire.

      “Thor.” Margot indicated the seat across from her, nodding toward it, afraid that if she let herself she would...explode. Or something equally terrifying. “Would you like to sit down?”

      “I would not like to sit