Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dimos
As my lips finally grace hers again, I feel like a horny teenager who’s lost all sense of restraint.
My hands find the hem of her dress, and I lift it to gain better access to her.
Her hands dive into my hair, and she pulls tightly, as though she desperately needs something to hold onto.
I fist the hair at the nape of her neck, getting better control over her, as my other hand dips beneath the lace stretched across her hips.
I can feel the rapid beating of her heart against my chest as I slide my fingers through her already dripping wet slit and deep inside of her. Swallowing her sweet moan, I can taste the alcohol on her breath, and I know I should stop this.
God, but that’s the last thing on earth I want to do right now.
With every ounce of willpower I have inside of me, I stop the onslaught from my fingers as I reluctantly break our kiss. I watch as her eyes shoot open, and a whine escapes her mouth.
“Are you drunk?”
“What?”
Her sluggish blink tells me everything I need to know. She’s had a lot more than the one shot I saw her take a moment ago.
Fuck.
I take a deep breath as I remove my fingers from inside of her. Not wanting to waste this small moment, I make a show of licking them clean before I pull her dress back into place.
“What are you doing?”
Rubbing a hand over my mouth and down my chin, I think about my next move. There’s no way she can go back out there. She’ll only get more drunk, and who knows what could happen to her.
“We’re leaving, let’s go.” I take her by the hand.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do!”
She tears her palm away from mine instantly. After what just almost happened, I thought she’d come willingly. Then an idea hits me.
“Tell me you don’t want to go home with me, and I’ll leave you here. With that little boy you were just grinding your ass all over.”
“I was not.”
A sly smile crosses my face.
“Were you thinking about me while you were dancing with him?”
She swallows nervously but doesn’t answer. I step toward her, eliminating the space between us once again. Placing my hand—the one that was just three knuckles deep inside of her sweet pussy—against her cheek, she closes her eyes, relaxing into it.
“You were, weren’t you?”
I press my body against hers, and I know she can feel my rock hard erection against her stomach. She still doesn’t answer, but the feeble moan that escapes her throat is telling.
“Come home with me tonight, Carley. No strings. No expectations. I just want to take care of you.”
Finally, her eyes open, giving me the answer I’ve been aching for.
* * *
Saylor tried to get her to stay. She slurred some not very nice things at me across the table when we went to say goodbye.
I deserved every one of them, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
Finally, the guy she was with told her that Carley is an adult and can make her own decisions.
Maybe she’s actually found a smart guy for once.
Carley was quiet on the ride home. She sat next to me, staring out the window with her arms and legs crossed. It’s her defensive position. It’s the same one she had earlier today in my office, and it’s the same one she had when that idiot tried to invite her to the bonfire in Greece.
It’s the same way she’s sitting in the chair in my living room when I bring her a bottle of water.
“Here, drink this.”
She looks at me almost like she wants to tell me off again, but she says nothing.
“I mean, if you want to. I’m not telling you what to do. Only suggesting.”
I take the chair next to hers.
“Then maybe you should phrase your sentence as a suggestion and not a command.”
I love her smart mouth. Even when every other word is slurred from a drunk tongue.
“Would you like some water, Carley?”
I hold the bottle out for her to take, which she does this time. I’m relieved to see a slight smirk on her face as she takes it, too. I turn my body so I’m facing her with my arm resting along the seat back.
She’s actually here.
I was beginning to think she was merely a figment of my imagination.
“What?” she asks softly.
“I just can’t believe you’re sitting here.”
“You didn’t give me much choice,” she scoffs.
“There’s always a choice, Carley.”
“You blur the line between choice and coercion pretty well.”
“Only when I know you need help admitting what it is you want.”
She narrows her eyes at me again, but both she and I know I’m right.
“How do you feel?” I inquire.
I really do want to know the truth. Because I’d like to talk to her, get to know her more. Have the conversation we never had in Greece before we tore into one another like starving hyenas.
“Fine.” She shrugs her shoulders.
“Are you up for talking?”
She takes a deep breath before she answers.
“I honestly don’t know if I have the mental capacity to discuss what happened this afternoon and where to go from here, Dimos.”
“I don’t want to talk about that either, I just meant maybe we can get to know one another a little better.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Okay.”
She rotates in her seat so her body mirrors my own. Her elbow resting on the back of the chair and her head gently laying on her closed fist.
“I’ll go first this time. I know you struggle with easing into a conversation.” She smirks again, making light of the vicious way I began questioning her earlier today.
“That’s fair.” The corner of my mouth raises slightly. “Ask me anything. I’m an open book.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“I have a younger brother, Enrikos.”
“Are you close?”
“Very. We don’t talk nearly as much as we used to, as we’re both busy with our businesses, but when we need each other, we’re always there.”
“That’s really nice,” she smiles.
“What about you? Any siblings?”
“I have a half-brother named Elias who is twelve years younger than me.”
“What about your parents. What are they like?”
She narrows her eyes at me and takes another deep breath followed by guzzling a lot of water, giving me the sense I’ve already breached a touchy subject.
“Wow, I’m sensing a little tension,” I laugh sarcastically. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s okay. I get along great with my dad. But my mom and I aren’t really close anymore. I’ll tell you as long as you can keep up.” She closes one eye and cocks the brow of the other as she slurs another sentence.
“My mother,” she wrinkles her nose before continuing. “Gianna—”
“Wait a minute. Hold on … Change of subject for a second. Are you telling me the whole time we were … together … I was moaning your mother’s name?”
“Unfortunately,” she cringes.
“I bet that was awkward for you,” I laugh. “Out of all of the names you could have chosen, why on earth did you settle on that one?”
She starts cracking up, and it’s one of the most endearing things I’ve ever seen. To see the joy on her face, knowing she’s experiencing it as a result of a conversation we’re having, means more than I ever thought it could.
“Well, first of all, I didn’t expect we would end up doing even a fraction of what we did that night.
Second of all, it’s the name I give out all the time to strangers.
I’ve never jumped into bed as quickly as I did with you.
And I honestly didn’t think I would ever see you again, so I didn’t think telling you my real name actually mattered. ”
“I remember you mentioned that earlier today, about not giving your real name to strangers. What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I met this guy once, who ended up being a total creeper.” The casual way she brushes off what happens doesn’t fool me. My thoughts immediately turn dark, and I’m ready to go out and find the asshole who hurt her.
“Nothing super bad happened, thankfully,” she explains.
She must have sensed the air around me shifting.
“But he did stalk me for a little while. Eventually, he got arrested, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“My god. Is he still in jail?”
“I honestly don’t know. Saylor and I have moved since then. I think I’m safe.”
I don’t like knowing there is a possibility that someone is out there who could hurt Carley. I’m going to need to look into this guy, but for now, I want to continue our conversation.
“So I’m sorry. You were telling me about your family before I interrupted you.”
“Right … okay, in a nutshell …” She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs completely with air.
“My mom cheated on my dad with her life-long best friend. My mom never told George—my dad—she was pregnant, and he thought I was just the lovechild that developed as a result of the affair. When I was sixteen, the man I was raised thinking was my father, Lucas, died in a car accident. My mom, wanting my dad back now that she was alone again, finally told him about me.”
She explains it all in one breath before stopping, and I honestly don’t know how she got it all out without tripping on her words from the alcohol.
“Were you able to follow that?” she giggles.
“I think so,” I nod my head slowly.
“Not to mention, at Lucas’s funeral, I also found out that he’d been cheating on my mother with his assistant.
My mother had known about it for a few years and, instead of leaving him, decided to blackmail him for control of his company in lieu of public disgrace.
I was infuriated at Lucas, but there wasn’t much I could do about my anger …
But, that’s when I stopped trusting anything that came out of my mother’s mouth and how I developed my deep-rooted hatred for liars and cheaters.
My relationship with my mother has never recovered. ”
Now it’s my turn to swallow nervously, but I try my best not to let my unease be known. I’m torn between relief I didn’t tell her about what happened with Emma and grief.
Whether I would have told her or not, either way I’m both a liar and a cheater.
Unable to think of what to say, I ask her for more details about her parents.
“So what does your dad do?”
“He owns Manford Financial Holdings.”
“Your father is George Manford?”
“You know my father?” she deadpans.
“No, not personally. But he and Ez haven’t always gotten along. They’ve become rivals in their industry.”
“Actually, now that you mention it, I have heard my dad grumbling about the nefarious dealings of Martinique Enterprises before,” she jokes, cupping her chin and tapping her lips with her finger.
The way her eyes flash and her nose flares as she speaks makes my dick twitch.
“Well, anyway,” she continues, “what about your parents? Hopefully you get along better with them than I do with mine.”
“Yeah, we’ve always been close. Not geographically—they still live in Miami. They own a mom-and-pop grocery store and deli.”
“Oh, that’s neat.”
“Yeah, they sell a bunch of different Greek dishes and desserts. It’s small, but they’ve found a lot of success there, which is all I could ask for.”
Sincerity in her smile at my statement sends warmth through me, and I hope she’s able to see the compassion I do possess.
“We grew up dirt poor, and they brought us to America with the hope that we would find whatever it was we were looking for here.”
Before I continue, I think about all the hardships we overcame in the years after getting here.
“And did you? Find everything you were looking for, I mean.”
She looks at me through her thick lashes. Her hair is still slightly a mess from our brief encounter in the bathroom at the club. She’s breathtaking no matter if she’s pristinely put together or a disheveled disaster.
“Yeah, I did.”
I stare deep into her striking blue eyes as I utter the words. I found her, and she is everything I’ve ever wanted.
Her eyelids are getting heavier the longer we sit here.
“Good,” she whispers, finally shutting them and letting the alcohol and fatigue pull her under.
I carefully lift her from her chair and carry her down the hallway to the guest bedroom. Pulling back the comforter, I lay her down gently before removing her shoes. When she’s free of them, I cover her up and stare down at the beauty she is.
There isn’t one thing about her that screams deviant, and for the second time today, I realize how utterly and truly stupid I was for even thinking she’d be capable of doing what Kati did.
She’s the epitome of innocence, and I pray to God when she wakes up tomorrow morning, she doesn’t regret coming here tonight.