Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Naomi
I sighed and inhaled the fresh morning air as I leaned against the half-wall on my apartment terrace.
The summer heat waited to scorch the streets over the horizon and gave me a few moments to enjoy a cup of coffee following my morning workout and shower without burning my retina from the sun’s rays.
These few moments I took every morning before I stepped into work mode were my favorite. The peace and quiet settled me and helped me deal with the million fires I handled throughout my day.
A pang of guilt hit me. We were a month into this new try at our relationship, and I felt as if I wasn’t keeping my end of the deal with Cassius. He’d said he wanted our relationship out in the open, but my parents still weren’t aware of him.
Technically, it wasn’t my fault.
Since I’d made the statement about his Lykaios status giving him social media interest, Cassius had wanted to prove me wrong.
So he decided to let people find out about us on their own.
We would live our lives like any other couple and see how long it would take for the rumor mill in Vegas to catch wind of the goings-on with the newest Lykaios, including our families.
However, since keeping Cassius a secret from my parents had been such a big deal, it felt wrong.
Then there was the fact Papa hadn’t fully gotten over Tarak and Mia’s wedding plans, replacing his dreams for Tarak and me.
What a clusterfuck.
Pushing the thoughts aside, I chugged down my coffee and let the caffeine hit my system.
“You owe me a sexual favor of my choice.”
Well, that definitely would stop my brooding.
“Is that right? I thought I took care of that before your workout?”
I turned to find Cassius standing in the section that used to separate his penthouse terrace from mine.
Dear God, the man knew how to awaken a girl’s libido.
He wore lounge pants low on his hips, and almost immediately, a low throb ignited deep in my core. Water beaded his chiseled shoulders, and the cords of abdominal muscles bunched and flexed as he worked a towel through his damp hair.
I licked my lips when my perusal landed on his growing cock, and I had a vision of how I’d woken him up this morning.
Cassius cleared his throat. “Eyes up here, Ms. Kumar. I have something serious to discuss.”
I reluctantly lifted my eyes, locking them with his amused sapphire ones.
“You were saying, Mr. Lykaios?”
Thinking of him as a Lykaios no longer bothered me. I knew that agreeing to see where our relationship went meant I had to let go of the resentment.
For the most part, it had worked.
“It’s been over three weeks. I won the bet. I told you, I’m not as interesting as the others in the family.”
“I think it may have something to do with both of us being workaholics and ending up locked in one of our penthouses because we’re too exhausted to go out.”
“Not a chance.” He moved in my direction. “If anyone cared to look, they’d notice that whenever I’m out, it is with you. Dinners, clubs, just out running errands. One would have to be blind not to know you’re my woman.”
“Your woman, huh?” I lifted a brow.
He dropped his towel on a nearby table, slid an arm around my waist, and tugged me toward him. “Irrevocably mine.”
“Like I said, Neanderthal.”
”You get off on it.” He shrugged. “So I don’t see a problem with it.”
I trailed my fingers over his shoulders, up the column of the back of his neck, and into his hair. He closed his eyes briefly, enjoying the sensation of my nails scraping along his scalp.
“True, I deal with it for the dick.” When he glared at me, I added, “Hey, you said I get off on it. I only agreed with you.”
“Time to get serious.”
“Go ahead.”
“First, let’s get comfortable.”
He lifted me into his arms, carried me to a lounge chair, and sat, pulling one of my legs across his lap to straddle him.
My robe gaped open, revealing my breast. I tried to adjust the fabric, but Cassius grabbed my belt and tugged the knot free, exposing my naked body.
“This has to be serious if you need me naked to have the conversation.”
“No, I just like the view.” He slid his palm up my abdomen to the lower swell of my breast. “Am I different from the man you knew in Mykonos?”
His thumb circled my nipple, causing it to pucker and ache. “You’re still just as arrogant.”
He frowned and cupped my breast, pinching the tip in a deliciously wicked hold. I couldn’t help but arch into the incredible sensation.
“What else?”
“You’re still just as possessive.”
“That was never going to change. You’re mine.”
“No, let me correct that statement. The Lykaios version is twice as insane with this claiming, possessive thing.”
Hunger filled his cobalt gaze, sending a shiver down my spine.
“If you say you’re not just as possessive”—taking the silk, he brought my wrists to the hollow of my lower back and then tied them together—“I’ll call you a liar.”
“Is this discussion about me or you?”
Instead of answering, he pushed his pants down to free his thick, hard cock, lifted me enough to align himself with the slick opening of my sex, and then thrust deep, making me catch my breath.
“Dear God, you still fuck like a machine,” I gasped, reveling in the exquisite feel of his hardness inside me.
“It’s more than the sex, Naomi.” He gripped my hip and my bound hands as I rode him up and down. “Tell me you’ve had this with anyone else.”
“I can’t.” I swallowed, the overwhelming emotion of everything burning the back of my throat.
Why wouldn’t he let it stay physical and easy?
Because it wasn’t his way.
He fisted my hair, tugging my head back, forcing me to stop the movement of my hips. “S’agapó. You have to know this.”
My heart clenched.
Yes, I knew he loved me. What scared me was to love him back and then have my heart broken again.
Who was I kidding? No matter the name he bore, I’d never stopped loving him.
“Say it.” His sapphire gaze held mine. “I see it in your eyes. I feel it when we’re together. I won’t hurt you again.”
He meant it.
It was time to stop holding back. I couldn’t move forward with our relationship if I kept the hurt from the past locked inside.
I released a deep breath and whispered, “I love you too.”
A smile touched his lips, and then his mouth covered mine. The kiss was all-consuming and raw, as if a tidal wave of need exploded out of us.
Cassius untied my wrists, and immediately, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, drawing him closer to me.
He stood with me in his arms, keeping his cock buried deep in me. He carried me inside toward my bedroom and laid me on my bed, coming over me.
“Now that I’ve finally gotten you to admit you love me, I’ll have to work on convincing you to marry me.”
“You’re relentless.”
“No, I’m Cassius Dimitri Lykaios.”
* * *
“Naomi, tell me it isn’t true.” These were the words I heard in my native language of Gujarati the second I answered the call from Papa.
After the twelve-hour day I’d just endured, the last thing I needed was another lecture on how I could possibly be okay with Tarak and Mia’s marriage.
Bracing my arms on the desk in my onsite trailer, I said, “First, you have to tell me exactly what is going on before I can verify if it is true.”
“Are you dating your boss?”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.
After that morning with Cassius, I’d called my mother, confessing the truth of everything that had transpired over the last three years.
As always, in her no-judgment way, she said she’d suspected I was keeping something from everyone and then told me she would inform Papa about it and that he would call me.
It had taken him a full two weeks.
“No, he isn’t my boss. His family’s company hired my company.”
“Do you understand that this is your reputation on the line? You can’t date a client. What will everyone think?”
“Papa, I was dating him before I knew he was a Lykaios.”
“Don’t lie to me. Everyone knows every Lykaios.”
“Do you know every Lykaios?”
Ignoring me, he asked, “Is this why Tarak and Mia are together? You broke his heart?”
Oh, for the love of God.
“No. Tarak and I have only ever been friends. Tarak sees me as a sister, nothing more.”
“I will not accept it. You have an example to set for the rest of the children in the family. You moved to Las Vegas to work, not find a boyfriend.”
“You’re saying that you accept Mia’s relationship but not mine.”
“I don’t have a choice in the matter. They are engaged. Plus, he is a boy I know.”
“You can get to know Cassius too. I love him.”
“How can you love someone that you just met?”
“I’ve known him for three years.”
He remained silent for a while, and something told me Mummy had left that tidbit of information from him.
“What do you mean, three years? All this time in Greece was with him?”
“No, Papa. I was working on the resort there. It’s my job. I met him there.”
“You were dating your boss for three years.” The outrage in his voice made it seem as if we were going in circles.
“You aren’t listening.”
“You lied to us. All these years, you let us believe that you would marry Tarak.”
“I didn’t lie. I never said I would marry Tarak. You planned my life for me. Not once did you ask me what I wanted. And I kept Cassius from you because I knew you would react exactly like you are now.”
“This isn’t like you. You do what we tell you,” he muttered to himself. “It’s because of Mia and Tarak, admit it.”
What the fuck? Had he just erased the conversation from seconds ago out of his memory? I loved Papa with all my heart, but he believed the narrative he created in his head and would stick to it until he turned blue in the face.
Releasing an exasperated breath, I said, “I’m only saying this once more. Mia and Tarak have nothing to do with my relationship with Cassius.”
“Are you picking him over us?”
“You can’t be serious right now.”
“I don’t even know this boy. Money doesn’t make him good for you.”
“You’ll like him if you give him a chance.”
“I don’t have to do anything. I don’t care what your mother says. It is either your family or this new love of yours.”
I couldn’t believe he’d thrown an ultimatum at me. Papa said things out of anger and rage, but this wasn’t like him.
He’d mentioned Mum. That meant she’d taken my side against him. So this was about him, not me, about him losing all his dreams and wishes and me being the cause of it all.
An ache like nothing I’d felt before formed in my chest.
Taking a shaky breath, I whispered, “Papa, don’t do this.”
“I’ve made my decision. You need to pick what’s more important to you.”
The line went dead, and a horrible lump formed in the pit of my stomach.