Chapter 11 Niko
NIKO
The suite is perfect.
I've spent the past two hours adjusting every detail. Dimming the lights, lighting candles, scattering petals across the California king, and chilling a bottle of Dom Pérignon.
Long-stem roses sit in vases in the entryway, kitchen, living room, and bedroom. All for her to enjoy.
I've even got soft music flowing through hidden speakers, strings mostly, because I noticed how she closed her eyes when a violin played at the restaurant in Dublin.
Nothing is left to chance. Nothing is less than exquisite.
My eyes drift to the black velvet box sitting on the nightstand. Small, but carrying everything I've felt since that first night in the cottage.
I roll the sleeves of my dress shirt up to my forearms and pour myself two fingers of whiskey. It burns, but not enough to quiet the restless energy coursing through my veins.
Our last forty-eight hours in Ireland together after that pastitsio disaster is all I've been thinking about.
We'd barely left the bed those last two days. Her skin against mine, her body arching beneath me. The way she looked up at me that final morning, dawn light catching in her hair, the cloth wrapped around her throat.
That was two weeks ago.
Two fucking weeks since I've touched her. Since I left that damn cottage with her scent still on my fingers and her taste on my lips.
Keira had helped us. Warned us when she and her family would be arriving. Calli wasn't ready for Keira's brothers to know anything. Hell, she wasn't ready for anyone to know. So we got just enough time to pack up the evidence, say goodbye like strangers, and pretend nothing had happened.
I hadn't argued. This was her life, her rules. I would play by them. For now.
Since leaving, the texts between us have been constant. Flirtatious at first, then explicit. This progressed to late-night confessions and vivid descriptions of what I wanted to do to her. What I would do to her. Photos of me shirtless that left her imagination to fill in the details.
Her responses grew bolder. A picture of her collarbone.
Her lips around a wine glass. That shot of her in the bathtub with just her shoulders visible above the bubbles, and then, I pause and take a sip of my whiskey, the FaceTime calls.
Damn those calls. Twice I almost flew back to her, my cock hard in my pants.
Then Keira worked her magic. Clever girl with her loyalty to Calli and her understanding of what was building between us. She convinced the Kastaris brothers, Ares, more likely, that Calli needed "girl time" with her once they left Ireland and flew back to Boston.
A perfectly innocent sleepover that would give us the freedom to be together without suspicion.
Three nights. That's all I get with her before she heads back home to Chicago. I will make them count.
I check my phone again. She should be here any minute. I down my drink and pluck a petal that's begun to droop from one of the five long-stem rose bouquets I have set throughout the suite.
And then, I hear it. Three soft taps that stop my breath in my chest. A goddess summoning me.
I walk across the room and pause in front of the mirror next to the door. I adjust my shirt, run a hand through my hair, and look around the suite one more time just to make sure.
I open the door, and there she is.
Calli stands in the hallway in a black trench coat, her hands gripping it tightly closed like she's afraid it might come undone on its own.
Her hair falls over her shoulders, her face is flushed, pink creeping up her neck, and her beautiful hazel eyes are wide with a mixture of nervousness and excitement.
She's breathless, like she ran here. Or like she's been working herself up in the elevator.
"You came," I say.
Her throat works as she swallows. "Of course. I said I would."
I lean against the doorframe, drinking her in. The way her lips part slightly. The way she looks at me.
“What do you have hiding under that coat, Calli?” I ask, my voice low, intimate.
She hesitates, biting her bottom lip. Then, with a quick glance down the empty hallway, she opens the coat just enough for me to catch a glimpse. Black lace barely covering her breasts, the curve of her waist, matching panties, and those fucking heels.
Heat slams through me. I reach out and grab her wrist, pulling her into the suite before anyone else can see what's mine.
"I wasn't going to," she says as I close the door behind her and lock it, "but all your dirty texts and those pictures? You wore me down," she continues as I back her against the wall.
I smile. "That was the plan."
She rolls her eyes, but I catch the way her gaze travels over my body, taking in the fitted shirt, the rolled sleeves, the deliberate casualness that took me twenty minutes to perfect. "Also, Keira told me I had to. She literally drove me here. I was so embarrassed."
I laugh, dipping my head to bring my lips inches from hers. "Remind me to thank Keira," I say, and then kiss her.
The kiss is hungry and desperate. Two weeks of longing compressed into the slide of tongues. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat that sends heat spiraling through me.
God, I missed her.
"Come with me," I say against her ear, then step back and take her hand.
I lead her further into the suite, watching her eyes widen as she takes in what I've prepared. The candles flickering. The champagne. The roses. The petals scattered across the bed.
"Niko," she says, turning to me. "This is—"
"Not enough," I finish for her. "Nothing would be enough for you."
Her eyes swell, tears of joy threatening to spill over.
"I don't know what I did to deserve this," she says and squeezes my hand, "to deserve you."
I bring her fingers to my lips and kiss them. "By just being you. And I know I've told you over text, but I wanted to reassure you. I'm all in on this, Calli. You. Us."
She smiles.
"Before we do anything else," I say, walking with her into the bedroom and toward the nightstand, "there's something I need to give you."
Her brow lifts, curious.
I pick up the velvet box. "I've been thinking about this since our first night," I say, handing it to her.
Her eyes focus on the box, and she looks at me curiously with narrow eyes.
"Open it," I say, nodding at the box.
Her lips part, but she says nothing. Her finger hovers, then slowly, she lifts the lid with trembling hands.
Nestled inside lies a collar. Supple black leather, diamonds embedded all the way around, meticulously crafted.
The inside is lined with soft black suede.
A small gold ring is in the front for a leash, if I ever want it, but dangling from it now is a single platinum lock, engraved with the words: Orea mou.
She looks up at me, eyes wide. "You had this made? For me?"
I nod. "Only for you. Only for us."
"It's beautiful."
I step behind her, taking the collar from the box.
"I thought about how good you looked with that wrap around your throat," I say, brushing her hair over one shoulder and kissing the back of her neck. "And I knew I needed to give you something real. Something only I could put on you."
The collar opens on a hidden hinge, and I bring it around her throat, the soft interior resting against her skin.
The lock clicks softly into place, and I bring her hair back around her shoulders.
"Perfect. Now, turn around."
She does, and her eyes meet mine as her hand comes up and plays with the lock.
"How does it feel?" I ask.
"Right," she says with a smile. "Because I'm yours and I love the feeling of belonging to you."
Then, without breaking eye contact, she lets the trench coat fall to the floor.
The lingerie is even more stunning than I glimpsed before, her body more delicious than I could ever imagine.
And the way she's standing there, chin slightly raised, now wearing my collar.
Christ.
She bites her lip and tilts her head slightly. "Do you like what you see?"
I reach out and hook my finger through the small loop where the lock dangles. "That's my good girl," I say, voice rough with need, and pull her toward the bed by the collar.
"Let me show you how much I like what I see," I say, and I know I'm about to ruin her in every way she wants to be ruined.