Chapter Fourteen
T HEY SPENT A week in London, and then they went back to New York. When they walked in, Christos had an expression of naked shock on his handsome face.
“You have hung raccoons on my wall.”
She laughed. Because she had genuinely forgotten that he didn’t know about that. “They aren’t all raccoons. That’s a possum.”
“You say that as if it makes it better.”
“Well, I thought it was stark. It needs a little bit of whimsy.”
He looked at her, his expression stormy. “I disagree.”
“I don’t care.”
She stretched up on her toes and kissed him on the lips, and he softened.
She loved him so much. She knew that he wasn’t in a space to hear about how much she loved him.
But that was okay. She didn’t need him to hear about it.
Not just yet. They were learning what it meant to be together.
Marrying together the years that they had known each other, getting rid of some of the assumptions they had made.
Engaging with some of the assumptions that turned out to be true.
Sifting through the relationship they’d had virtually, and figuring out what it looked like to be together in real life.
Also, they were expecting a child.
It was a lot.
She didn’t need to push him. Not anymore than everything in life was already doing it.
They went to work and talked about their jobs at the end of the day over dinner.
On the weekends, she made him go grocery shopping with her.
“I have a service for this,” he said, adjusting a black baseball cap on his head.
He was doing a sort of low-key, incognito thing. Which she thought was hilarious because a six-foot-four stunningly attractive Greek man was never going to be as undercover as he might like to be.
She thought shopping with him was hilarious, too.
“I admit,” he said, pushing a cart through the produce section, “I have not actually gone to look at food and grocery stores myself since I could afford to buy it. It makes me consider what I might actually want.”
“Food is supposed to be enjoyable.”
“It’s for survival.”
“Christos,” she said, moving around to the front of the cart and stopping it. “You’re allowed to just enjoy things. You’re allowed to like things. And to do them just because they bring you pleasure.” She looked left and right. “You know, things other than sex.”
He seemed to consider that.
They walked home carrying their reusable bags, and she wanted to hold his hand but didn’t.
They weren’t quite at the stage where they engaged in casual contact.
Not like that. They hauled all their purchases into the private elevator, and he sat and watched while she made dinner.
She ended up grateful for her apron, which kept food off her stomach, which was rounding more and more and becoming more of a nuisance.
“I’ll cook for you another night. Although, I don’t know how to make anything good.”
“What do you mean?”
“The time of my life when I was actually shopping for myself, cooking for myself, it was very basic. A lot of hot dogs. Canned chili.”
“Well, does any of it make you feel nostalgic?”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“I’d eat it, if you ever wanted to share that part of your life with me. It must have been happy in some ways.”
He frowned. “It was. I was on my own, but I had the ability to control my life.”
“You’re really very amazing,” she said, dishing pasta onto plates for the two of them. “Very few people could have come out of what you experienced half so functional.”
He laughed, and it sounded vaguely bitter. “I don’t know that I would say I am functional .”
“You’re a billionaire,” she said, smiling at him across the table.
“Ah, right,” he said. “I am.”
“We’re going to have to buy a house,” she said. “I was raised in the city, and I know that it can be a happy enough experience. But that isn’t what I want for a child.”
“And why is that?”
She shrugged. “There was always something missing. I don’t know if it was grass. Not that we can’t go to the park. Maybe it wasn’t a place so much as a feeling. Family. But we are going to be a family, aren’t we, Christos?”
He leaned forward and cupped her chin. “I have promised this, agape .”
She smiled. She couldn’t help herself. He had promised, her difficult, hard man. And she knew he didn’t give promises easily. “I know. And I trust you.”
His nostrils flared slightly, the look in his eyes bordering on feral. “You trust me,” he said, his voice rough.
“Yes,” she said. “With everything. Don’t you know? I was never with another man before you because I felt so insecure about myself. I didn’t feel beautiful. I didn’t feel like I had anything to offer. My mother ground me down into nothing. It might seem foolish to you, but—”
“It doesn’t seem foolish. The absence of a mother in my life ruined me. And no, yours was not absent in quite the same way, but it still leaves scars.”
“Yes,” she whispered. He understood her. That feeling was… This was why she was so drawn to him. It was why she had been so drawn to him over text. And sometimes she found she had a barrier with him in person much of the time, even though this time with him had been idyllic.
But she had given him a part of herself in those conversations that she had never given to anyone, and then she had given him her body.
Trust.
Electric desire shivered over her skin.
She thought back to all those text conversations. They had been edgy. They had promised each other things in those texts that she had never thought she would do in person.
And yet with him everything felt possible. Necessary. Like she wanted to prove this. Like she wanted to test the desire between them and the bonds of trust that they were building.
She closed the distance between them, placing her hands on his chest. “I want you,” she said.
“Sylvie,” he said, his voice deep. “You do not have to give me sex. You are tired.”
“I’m not giving you sex, Christos. I want to show you what trusting you means.” She leaned in, her lips pressed to his. “Have you ever had a relationship like this?”
“No,” he said, reaching up to grip her wrist, holding her steady. “I have never had a relationship.”
“In some ways, you’re a virgin,” she said.
He chuckled. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Have you ever had a woman who trusted you enough to let her do whatever you wanted? Didn’t you once say that you would spank me?”
The heat in his eyes flared, and desire mounted within her.
“Yes,” he said, holding her chin in his hand. “I did say that I would spank you for being bad.”
“You haven’t done it.”
He stoked her face, his dark eyes almost black. “Because you’ve been my good girl. Why does a good girl want to be treated like she’s bad?”
As ever, his affirmation of her aroused her and warmed her all at once. Made her feel so good. So special. Made her feel like she was enough, which nothing and no one ever had before.
“I am your good girl,” she said.
“Yes, you are. So good,” he said, his voice strained.
“I just want you to make me feel. And I want to show you. I want to show you how much I trust you.”
“I believe you.”
“Has anyone ever trusted you?”
“Only you.”
“Mine,” he ground out.
Suddenly, she found herself being put over his knee. The movement was fluid. He moved his large hand over her back, down around her ass. “No,” he said. “A woman has never trusted me with this.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said. “But I would.”
Desire roared through her. She enjoyed this. Pushing the edge of pain and pleasure. Just skirting it. It made her feel reckless and wild. While she was safe with him.
He raised his hand and brought it down on her backside.
She gasped, the glorious sting radiating between her thighs turning her on.
He brought his hand down on her backside again. And again.
She shivered, need racing through her.
He was bigger than her. He could cause harm if he wanted to, but that wasn’t what this was. It was a demonstration of his care, of how she wanted him. All the ways she wanted him. And the way she trusted him to always only make her feel good, no matter what he did.
She was slick and wet and ready for him. She needed him more than she needed to breathe.
He stripped her lovely summer dress away from her body and brought her down to the floor next to the table.
He kissed his way over her skin. Lingering on her pregnant belly. “Mine,” he said.
Primal. Perfect. And when he claimed her she cried out, the sensation of him filling her, taking her, everything she needed. Everything she wanted.
This was family. Their connection. And yet it was more than that. But there were no words typed or spoken that could give more to this moment than him being inside her could.
“Christos. Baby.” She said both names. Because she knew who he was. She knew he was hers.
He thrust deep within her, and she gripped his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin. She wrapped her legs around his lean hips and tried to keep tempo with his movements.
And when they both reached their peak they fell together, shattering, and clinging to one another in the aftermath.
She wanted to freeze time. To stop here.
Because right now, they were happy. Right now, she had him.
She trusted him. But the world was a terrible place, and it had left him with terrible scars.
And she worried about what the future might hold. So she just wanted it all to stop. Because right now, everything was perfect.
But she knew that time would march on.