8. Santo
My hand gripped the cyclic, savoring the control beneath my palm. The helicopter’s engine’s vibration thrummed up through my body as we soared over the Aegean toward Thalassía. Heights never made my dick throb, but Tia, sitting inches away, did.
I hadn’t told her how hard I’d fought to get her this contract. My father had been incredulous at the suggestion of hiring a recent graduate for a multi-million euro restoration. It had taken hours of negotiation, promises of personal oversight, and ultimately, a significant concession .
When the project was complete, I would take my position at Olympus Motors and abandon the racing circuit. A steep price, but one I’d paid willingly. Keeping Tia in Greece was the perfect piece of my revenge.
Tia pretended to focus on her diagrams, lips pursed, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration. But every jolt of turbulence made her jump, her thigh brushing mine, her eyes darting to the controls and then quickly away from me. I could almost taste her nerves.
When she’d realized I’d be the pilot, she’d tried to hide her panic. Now, she iced herself behind blueprints and professionalism, but her not having flipped a page once since getting in the air betrayed her.
“You know,” I teased, through the headset, “I have treatments for that.”
She glanced up, a crease between her brows. Her voice was soft, intimate through the headphones. “Treatments for what?”
“Chronic nerdism. It can be cured. I’ll administered the therapy myself.”
Without warning, I slid my hand onto her thigh, my fingers digging into the soft denim. She gasped, but didn’t pull away .
“Santo,” she breathed, her voice hitching as my hand moved higher. I popped the button on her jeans, sliding the zipper down. “What are you doing? We’re in the air.”
“Healing you,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the horizon.
My hand slipped inside her pants, fingers tracing the edge of her cotton underwear. She was already wet, her heat radiating through the fabric.
Her breath came in short pants, driving me wild. “Relax,” I ordered, feeling her tense. “You’re too wound up. Let me make you come, aggelé mou. I want you to scream my name.”
My fingers pushed through the waistband of her underwear, sliding through her wet folds, circling her clit. Her clipboard dropped, her head fell back, and a soft moan escaped her.
“That’s it,” I groaned, feeling her slick heat, her hips grinding against my hand. “You’re so fucking wet for me. I want to make you come right here. I want to feel you explode on my fingers.”
I increased the pressure, my fingers moving faster, sliding through her wetness with ease. She continued to moan while her hips bucked against my hand.
“Santo,” she whispered. “I’m... I’m going to...”
I tore my eyes off the sky to watch her, to see her bite her lip, her cheeks flushed with pleasure .
“That’s it, aggelé mou,” I growled. “Come for me. Scream my name.”
Her body tensed, her hips pressing hard against my hand. Then, with a cry, she came, her body convulsing, her wetness coating my fingers.
“Santo!” Her voice was filled with pleasure, her body shuddering as she climaxed.
“Fuck, you’re sexy,” I murmured, my dick painfully hard, straining against my pants.
Suddenly, the helicopter lurched, banking sharply. Alarms blared. “Shit!” I pulled my hand from her pants, both palms gripping the controls as we tilted, the horizon spinning wildly.
Tia’s scream pierced through the headset as I wrestled the aircraft back to level flight, my heart hammering against my ribs. When we stabilized, her trembling hands fumbled to zip her jeans. Her eyes, still dilated with pleasure, now flashed with anger and residual fear.
“You could’ve killed us,” she hissed, voice unsteady.
I brought my fingers to my mouth, maintaining eye contact as I licked them clean, savoring her taste. “Worth it.”
She stared at me for a long moment, then shook her head in disbelief. “You’re outta your damn mind,” she muttered, but I saw her smile before she looked away .
I wanted to pull her into my lap, let her feel exactly how insanely I wanted her. But I kept my hands on the controls.
As we broke through the clouds, Thalassía came into view, sunlight blazing off the sea. Tia leaned forward, her shoulder pressing against my arm, the scent of her arousal flooding my senses. I could drown in her.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
I watched her, not the island. The wonder in her eyes, the soft parting of her lips, the hunger for something new.
This was working perfectly. Two weeks into my plan, and Tia was falling right into place. Katalina’s daily texts had grown increasingly desperate. I would claim Tia publicly as mine soon, ensuring everyone knew we were a couple.
The best part? Tia’s genuine nature made her the perfect unwitting accomplice. She’d be hurt temporarily when it ended, but she’d move on, while Katalina would never recover from the humiliation.
“That’s the island.”
We landed on the narrow airstrip with a gentle bump. I powered down the engine, and the sudden silence felt almost oppressive after the constant drone accompanying us for the past hour.
“Welcome to Thalassía,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt. “Population. Us. ”
Tia was still gazing out the window, her expression awed. “It’s even more beautiful from the ground,” she murmured.
I slid out, circled the aircraft, and opened her door. “Careful,” I murmured, offering my hand.
She hesitated, then took it. As she stepped down, her foot slipped. I caught her, her soft body pressed flush to mine, fitting perfectly.
I crushed my lips to hers, pushing her back against the helicopter’s side. Her surprise melted into surrender as her lips parted. I pressed harder, pinning her with my hips, one hand grabbing her ass.
Tia’s palms pressed firmly against my chest, pushing me back. She turned her face away, breathing hard, her lips still glistening.
“Santo,” she whispered, voice unsteady. “We shouldn’t. This is—”
“We absolutely should,” I interrupted, tracing her swollen lower lip with my thumb. “You can’t tell me you don’t like it.”
She shook her head. “Kat is my friend. This would be—”
I leaned closer. “Katalina doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”
This time when I kissed her, she didn’t resist. Her hands held on to me, pulling me closer, then suddenly she broke away.
“The villa,” she said breathlessly, smoothing her hair. “We should... check the villa. ”
The path from the airstrip to the main villa was overgrown, wild thyme and scrubby Mediterranean pines encroaching from both sides. Her figure, full and feminine in well-fitted jeans, moved with a natural grace, making the overgrown path seem like a runway.
“So you’ve only been here once before?” Tia asked as we rounded a bend in the path.
“Yes. Illegally.” I stepped over a fallen tree branch. “Me and two friends from boarding school. We borrowed one of my uncle’s boats and made it all the way to that cove you spotted from the air. Got as far as the courtyard before the caretaker caught us.”
“What happened?”
“My father had us picked up by helicopter. Grounded me for two weeks afterward.”
“Serves you right,” she said, pausing to photograph a particularly vibrant patch of wildflowers.
I laughed. “Hey! Watch it.”
We crested a small hill, and suddenly the villa came into full view.
It was larger than it had appeared from the air—a sprawling two-story structure of whitewashed stone with a red-tiled roof and multiple terraces overlooking the sea.
But its grandeur was dimmed by obvious neglect: shutters hanging askew, climbing vines reclaiming entire walls, and what had once been a magnificent formal garden now a tangle of overgrowth .
I’d known what to expect from the photos and reports my father had sent, but I felt sadness as we circled toward the main entrance.
The villa’s condition was a far cry from the pictures in our albums—images where shipping magnates, politicians, and artists had mingled under the stars, where my grandparents had entertained royalty, where the Christakis name had meant something untouchable.
Now, the villa was neglected, dusty and languishing in the memories of yesteryear. Michail had done nothing to maintain the building.
“It’s magnificent,” Tia breathed beside me, her eyes wide as she took in the building. “There’s something so... authentic about it.”
I glanced at her, surprised. Where I saw failure and neglect, she saw potential and beauty.
“You think you can bring this back to life?” I asked, nodding toward the crumbling portico and salt-stained columns.
“Absolutely,” she said without hesitation, already moving forward, her fingers tracing the weathered stonework. “The bones are incredible. This place has soul, Santo.”
As she moved ahead of me, her professional assessment already beginning, I felt something unexpected hope stir in my chest .
“Let’s see the inside,” I suggested, following her up the cracked marble steps toward the imposing wooden doors. “Fair warning. It’s probably worse in there.”
She flashed me a smile over her shoulder, fearless and eager. “I’m counting on it.”
We moved through the villa’s grand entrance hall, sunlight slicing through tall, dust-flecked windows. The air shimmered with motes.
Tia slowed, eyes wide, camera in hand, quietly capturing the cracked frescoes, the faded grandeur of ornate moldings, the marble floors dulled by time and neglect.
“The original craftsmanship is incredible,” she murmured, brushing her fingers along an intricately carved doorframe. “Look at this detail. Someone spent months on this.”
Her voice was adoring, almost wonderstruck. I began to see the place through her eyes, not as a symbol of family strife, but as a potential for renewal.
While Tia meticulously examined the structural integrity of a doorframe, I spotted a grand staircase with a broken banister. I swung myself onto the marble steps, testing each one with a deliberate stomp.
“Santo!” Tia called out, alarm evident in her voice. “That hasn’t been structurally assessed yet! ”
I continued upward, the thrill of potential danger only making it more appealing. “Consider this a preliminary field test,” I called back, jumping to land hard on a suspicious-looking step.
It held, and I shot her a triumphant grin. “See? Perfectly—”
The next step gave an ominous crack beneath my weight, and I barely managed to leap to a safer section. Tia’s worried expression transformed to an ‘I-told-you-so’ look, making me want to take even greater risks to see what other expressions I could draw from her.
We stepped into what had once been a ballroom, its high ceilings echoing faintly with our footsteps. Tia’s phone chimed. She glanced at the screen, and I watched the light drain from her face.
“Everything okay?” I asked, closing the distance between us.
Tia slipped the phone into her pocket, sighing. “My mom’s losing her mind about me staying here.”
“Really?”
“She said if I don’t come home, she’s booking a flight. Thinks I’ve either lost it... or been kidnapped by a cult.”
“You know what?” I said suddenly, pulling out my phone. “I can solve this right now.”
Tia’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
“Calling my our pilot. We can have your mother here by tomorrow evening. Private jet, luxury accommodations—”
“Give me that!” She snatched the phone from my hand before I could complete the call. “You cannot just fly my mom across the world like it’s Uber Black.”
I shrugged, genuinely confused by her reaction. “Why not? It solves the problem.”
“That’s not...” She shook her head, somewhere between exasperation and amusement. “Not everything can be fixed with the Christakis checkbook.”
“Most things can,” I countered with a wink, though I let her keep the phone. “It’s worked for me so far.”
“This is Deanna White we’re talking about. If she hears what Kat pulled, Kat’s getting beat, and so is her mother.”
She started pacing, arms folded tight. “But more than that... this is the first time I’ve ever been on my own. Really on my own. I’ve never been away from her longer than a day or two.”
She stopped, staring at the faded parquet beneath her feet.
“I love her. I do. But after my dad left town, it was just us. She’s always been protective. Too protective. This job is my chance to prove I can stand on my own.”
“So, what are you going to tell her?”
“What I’ve been telling her. That I’m safe, that I’m working on something amazing, and that I need her to trust me.” Her smile tilted, wry and a little sad. “And I’ll send so many architectural photos she’ll get sick of hearing from me.”
“For what it’s worth,” I said, “I think it’s brave. What you’re doing.”
She looked at me then and her eyes softened. “Thanks. That means more than you know.”