Chapter Fifteen
I stood in front of the open door to the lanai.
The breeze blew in, fluttering the sheer curtains I’d spent weeks looking for. I’d wanted the perfect amount of transparency, the right shade of white, the hem not weighted so it would do exactly as it was doing now, move freely when I had the doors open.
I’d been so complacent.
I wasn’t free, and now none of it mattered.
The breeze wasn’t just ruffling my curtains. It was drowning me in a humidity that used to feel like a soft blanket but now only felt like exactly what it was—oppression. Salt brine mingled with the distinctive scent of the intracoastal and filled my nostrils.
My stomach twisted.
What kind of life had I been living?
Surrounded with beautiful paintings, beautiful clothes, and beautiful furnishings… only to miss the one true beauty in this world. Now I was stalked, hunted and threatened by a madman, and nothing I’d surrounded myself with made any difference.
I wasn’t looking at my coveted view, appreciating my good fortune.
I wasn’t feeling the three-ply silk of my dress shift around my thighs.
I wasn’t watching the curtains flutter, relishing in the promise of an afternoon coastal breeze.
I was thinking about his lips on mine and how much I had missed.
Strong arms. An intent stare. A knowing smile. The heat of an embrace .
I’d missed so much that my body ached for it.
“Ms. Paradis?” the tailor asked. “Does that work for you?”
I turned. Not knowing what he’d said before my name, I simply nodded. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Sherman. That’ll be fine.”
“Excellent.” He smiled. “I’ll have it delivered this afternoon. Always a pleasure, my dear.”
I smiled appropriately as he took his leave.
In a moment of unusual stillness and quiet, Genevieve watched him go. “Well.” She looked to me after he closed the door behind him. “That’s a first.”
“What is?” I asked absently, thinking about the man in the hallway who’d picked me up after my car exploded.
“You didn’t hear a word he said.” She smiled. “Can’t say I blame you. That’s a lot of muscle out in the corridor.” She gave a small laugh. “A whole lot.”
Feeling like an imposter in my own life, I mentally shook away my melancholy. “I’ll leave for the gallery in a few minutes. Let me know if there’s anything else that needs my attention.” I scanned my yard for the fifth time, wondering where the stalker was.
“Yes, of course. But Ms. Para—”
“Calandra,” I corrected, interrupting her.
Genevieve blinked twice. “I thought Sophia was your name?”
“My middle name.” I turned to face her. “Calandra is my first name. Actually, Princess Calandra Sophia Paradis Spiros of Naximos is my full title.”
Her mouth popped open, Genevieve stared, but no words came out.
“Naximos is a small island in the Aegean Sea, next to the Greek Islands,” I explained.
“Oh.” She nodded, forcibly. “I know. I just thought, I mean, holy shit .” Shuffling her constant array of devices to one hand, she waved the free one, palm up, at me. “A princess. Princess .” She shook her head. “Things I should’ve known.” She let out an embarrassed laugh. “Wow. ”
“I didn’t withhold information from you on purpose. I just don’t advertise my… background.”
Still looking shocked, she swallowed. “I can image. Naximos is only like, the hot spot. The playground of choice for the world’s rich and famous. I mean—”
“I am aware of its reputation.”
“Right, right.” She nodded enthusiastically. “Of course.” She jammed a thumb over her shoulder in the general direction of the door to the hall. “Is that why all the muscle? Are you… required to have extra security for events like these? Because if I’d known, I swear, I would’ve made sure to be on top of it.” Heat hit her cheeks. “I mean, not on top, but you know, I would have hired extra security.”
“This is another matter.” My hands twisted in front of me. “Mr. Tyler is… my date.”
Her smile was wide and uncluttered by poise. “ Wow. That’s great.”
“Yes, well.” I closed the door to the lanai, belatedly thinking standing in front of an open door, even with Damian and his friends in the hall, was not smart.
Genevieve held her hand up and almost dropped her tablet. “I get it, I get it. No need to explain.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I unnecessarily snapped.
The door opened and Damian’s intense stare cut right to me. He smiled, but for the first time, it didn’t reach his eyes. “You ready to hit the gallery, gorgeous?” He pushed the door wide. The blond man with a baseball cap was behind him, but the larger, scarier man was gone.
I glanced at Genevieve, and her cheeks flushed as she stared at the blond-haired man. “Yes, all set.”
Damian tipped his chin toward his coworker. “Sawyer will stay behind.” He glanced at Genevieve. “He’ll help out with the setup for tomorrow.”
Before I could say anything, Genevieve beat me to it.
“I got this. I don’t need help,” she protested with a nervous laugh. “ I do this all the time. Table arranging is my specialty.” She dropped her cell phone.
Sawyer silently picked it up, but he didn’t give back to her. Instead, he gave Damian a look that said he would rather be anywhere but here.
Ignoring him, Damian held his hand out to me. “Ready, babe?”
Reluctantly, eagerly, I didn’t know which, I stepped forward and took his hand.
Warm, strong fingers firmly grasped mine, and he led me through the door then released my hand only to wrap his arm around my shoulders.
Awareness raced through my body like a new and consuming drug.
Leaning down to my ear, Damian’s minty breath landed on my cheek a second before his lips met my temple for a brief brush of a kiss. “Incoming. Old man, ten o’clock.”
Nikolas stepped out of the kitchen as Damian took us toward the front door. “Calandra, if you are going anywhere, I will drive you.”
Nikolas never offered to drive me anywhere. I always had to ask.
Damian saved me from having to respond. “Got it covered, old man.”
Pursing my lips, I inwardly cringed at Damian’s dismissal of Nikolas. “We are going to the gallery to check on a few last-minute details. Mr. Tyler can drive me.”
Nikolas’s eyes narrowed. “Where is your vehicle?”
“I traded it in this morning for a newer model.” The lie rolled off my tongue as if it were nothing, and I felt even farther away from the carefree curtains blowing in the wind.
Damian saluted Nikolas. “The boss speaks.” He whisked me out the front door then touched his ear and his voice went all business. “Collins, report… Copy. Leaving for the gallery now.” He glanced at me. “Address?”
I told him the location of my gallery.
He repeated the information to whoever was listening through the communication device in his ear and opened the passenger door to the Escalade for me. “Inside, Princess.” He scanned the driveway .
My hand went to the side of the black vehicle, and suddenly I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t be the person who’d just stood complacently and looked out over her lanai. I couldn’t be the woman who denied the best life had to give. I couldn’t take another second in the life I’d so carefully made for myself, because I was drowning in the loneliness of it.
Not knowing if my life would be over the second the beautiful man in front of me turned the key for the ignition, not knowing if my time left on this earth was measured in mere minutes. Not certain of anything the future held, I did know one thing. I didn’t want to live how I’d been living.
Nerves coursed through my body like wildfire as I turned to face the one thing I wanted to hold on to.
Scanning the grounds, Damian wrapped a hand around my upper arm, and urged me to get in the vehicle. “We don’t stall out in the open, sweetheart. Inside.”
I reached for his hand.
His shoulders went stiff and he instantly dropped his gaze to me. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know how to do this.” The shameful admission whispered from my lips as I put my other hand on his chest.
Deep blue eyes full of life zeroed in on my hand then traveled up to my face. He reached up to his ear. “Comm going off.” His deep voice vibrated my hand as he touched the small device in his ear. Then he cupped the side of my neck. “Just you and me now. What’s going on?”
“Did you mean what you said?” About wanting me, about after, about all of it, I silently asked.
“You need to be more specific, sweetheart.” His thumb slowly rubbed over my throat.
I swallowed, feeling the pressure of his touch. “About me.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Every word.”
Out of nowhere, I was seeing the explosion all over again, but suddenly, it took on another layer of impact. My hair, my clothes, how I looked, I’d never stopped to check, never even glanced in the mirror in the bathroom. Doubt rushed in.
His grip on my neck tightened. “No you don’t, gorgeous. Retreating isn’t an option after a question like that. Spill it.”
Without thought, the words came. “My hair, my clothes, I haven’t even checked to see what I look like.”
No smile, no waver in his intense gaze, he gave me his own special brand of honesty. “Your hair’s had my hands in it, but your dress is still the same fantasy-inducing white it was when I first laid eyes on you.” He stroked my neck with his thumb again, but this time it felt like an electric shock wave. “You’re more beautiful for it, but less princess than the woman who walked into Luna’s condo.” He leaned closer. “Now tell me what this is about before Collins is on our six in the Escalade parked behind us.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered again.
“Do what?”
Inhaling sharply, I stood on tiptoe and did something I had never, ever done. I reached for a man, wrapping my arms around his neck.
That was the extent of my forwardness.
His dominance took over.
Leaning down, angling his head, angling mine, he stepped into me and our mouths crashed together like perfect chaos.
His heavy, thick tongue stroked through my mouth like pure sin, and every nerve in my body came alive. Groaning, his, mine, our bodies slammed together as his kiss touched every inch of my flesh. Grasping at his neck, at his strength, I pressed my body closer to him than I had with any other man, and I forgot to breathe.
I forgot to think.
I forgot about everything except the fire he stoked with every dominant stroke of his tongue.
Cursing the clothes between us, hating the miniscule distance that two layers of fabric caused, I wanted to crawl up his body and lose myself in his expert touch .
But just as the thought took hold, he ripped the drugging intoxication of his lips from mine and gripped a handful of my hair at the back of my head.
Pain spidered across my scalp and wetness surged between my legs as his erection, long and thick, pressed into my stomach. The grunt that came from my lungs was unlike any sound I’d ever made.
His gaze bored into mine. “Every second of that, we’re gonna repeat. But not here, and not now.”
I sucked in a breath I didn’t realize I was withholding. The second air filled my lungs, reality hit.
Oh God.
Oh God .
“No,” he growled, gripping my hair tighter. “You don’t get to second-guess that. We both know what that was.”
Adrenaline, regret, an explosion, a life wasted—all of it, none of it—I didn’t know what that was. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Every safe wall I’d built around me was crumbling faster than I knew how to stop it. “Damian—”
His lips landed back on mine. But unlike seconds ago, every nuance was a completely different sensation.
Soft, gentle, but somehow demanding and dominant, he pressed a single kiss full of promise to my lips. Pulling back just enough to look into my eyes, he spoke as if he knew me better than I knew myself. “Don’t give this over to regret or circumstance, Calandra. This was here before that explosion.”
I bit my bottom lip, needing to feel the sharp twinge of reality.
He shook me once. “You hear me?”
“Yes.” No. I didn’t know.
His hand on my lower back pressed against me, and my hips were pushed into his.
I gasped at the hard length I wanted to shamefully rub against.
“You feel what you’re doing to me.” He ran his nose up my cheek as his lips coasted across my ear. “I feel the response in your submission.” His teeth dragged across the soft part of my ear then he nipped me. “I smell what I’m doing to you.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“I’m going to make you come like you’ve never come before.” He pulled on my hair at the same time as he pressed hard on my back.
My head fell back, my hips crushed into his, and I barely refrained from asking where, when? “Damian,” I pleaded, begging for something I’d never had.
“And not a single second of it is going to have anything to do with this bullshit going on around us,” he continued, grinding his hips once. “I’m going to kiss every inch of this gorgeous body, and I’m going to love every second of watching you come apart in my arms. And you will come apart, Princess, and it will be fucking spectacular.” His growled promise sent a shiver up my spine before he abruptly released me. “Now get in the car.”
My legs unsteady, my world upside down, my panties soaked, I did exactly as he said.