Chapter 37 #2
Dimitrios stood at a distance, unsure if the ground beneath him was solid or ready to collapse.
“That night,” he began, “when I pushed you away...”
Her shoulders stiffened.
Guilt slammed into him. “I didn’t want to. You can’t imagine how—”
“I know why you did it.” Milonia faced him, composed. Looking directly into him for the first time. “You’re a king.”
“I’m only a man, Milonia. Just a man.” He stepped forward. “A ghost who’d long forgotten what it’s like to wear skin. To breathe. To look at and be looked upon.”
Dimitrios took her silence as an invitation and backed her into the marble table.
Milonia gripped the stone edges on either side of her hips. Swallowed. Gaze searing into him.
“I love the way you look at me,” he whispered.
“What way?”
“I feel… You make me feel…”
Words failed. But what more was there to say? Hadn’t he been walking the world like a cold shell of someone who once laughed and loved?
Dimitrios slid a hand over her soft cheek and into her hair. “You make me feel.”
Milonia left his touch, spinning one full rotation out of reach.
“You may think yourself a mere man, but you’re also one with power.
Few women survive such ambition, especially ones in my position.
” A great chasm of distance filled her eyes, and she was no longer seeing him.
She was somewhere else entirely. “I have Caius to consider.”
The boy’s name was a knife to the chest. Not out of resentment, but understanding. His own son never took his first breath. His wife died believing their child would live. He’d held their lifeless bodies, and no amount of prayers or tears or screamed curses changed their circumstances.
But Caius… That boy laughed. He looked at Dimitrios like a man who was more than his title. And Milonia, this fierce, beautiful woman, had shattered the glass around his cold heart.
Dimitrios didn’t remember deciding to move. But, suddenly, he was there. Staring through the storm raging in her eyes to something deeper. Darker. Unspoken.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “We haven’t crossed a line that can’t be—”
“I am begging you—don’t finish that sentence.”
Her lips parted, and for a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Dimitrios closed that last inch of space between them and traced the curve of her jaw. Her face turned into his palm, as if it had always belonged there.
Their eyes met.
The weight of unsaid words shattered beneath the force of that stare.
The tension was electric. A trembling heartbeat between kiss and collapse. And when his lips finally found hers, it wasn’t gentle.
It was a reckoning.
Milonia clutched Dimitrios’s tunic, this man who was an unleashed storm. His wind swept her up, and she let it take her. Unraveled into his grip. Trusted he wouldn’t let her break against the rocks.
They stumbled blindly into the marble table. Her back arched, breath shattering on contact, as his mouth trailed from her jaw to the hollow of her throat.
“Dimitrios.” Her fingers threaded through his thick, blond hair. “We’re playing with fire.”
He rose from her neck, his blue eyes like a released flame, pupils blown wide. He fisted the hair at the nape of her neck.
“Burn me.”
Milonia surged forward, crashing her mouth into his.
Tongue desperate. Plunging. Claiming. She tore at his tunic, clawing her way toward his skin.
Together, they stripped him bare, and for one suspended moment, she drank him in.
Every line. Every scar. Every inch of man shaped by labor, not luxury. A life lived. A life earned.
She had no right to be here.
Shouldn’t want this.
But he was here, in her hands. Real and raw. Looking at her as if she were the light, and he was trapped underground.
Dimitrios took her by the waist and set her on the table. She scraped up her skirt, baring herself. Offering her full surrender. She guided his hand to where she ached most.
“Touch me.”
His finger sank inside her, and his mouth dropped open on a soundless gasp.
A cry trembled loose from her throat.
He took her mouth, swallowing the sound like it was sacred.
A second finger hooked inside with the first, and his palm pressed expertly against her ache. Kneading. Unrelenting.
Her head fell back, and her legs quaked.
Dimitrios’s mouth came down over her ear. “Tell me what you want.”
Whispers curled inside her, dark and insidious. He’ll learn who you are, and what then?
She shoved that thought down. Buried it.
Later.
Later.
She met his eyes. “More.”
Milonia reached for the bulge straining his pants and stroked him. His hips bucked to meet her, each thrust a silent plea. She shoved his pants down his hips, freeing his hot length into her waiting palm.
He hissed, and his eyes rolled back at her touch.
“So this,” she breathed against his throat, “is what it feels like to hold the power of a king in the palm of my hand.”
Dimitrios chuckled, breathless. His answering smile unraveled the remaining barriers around her heart.
He’d never smiled before. There’d been hints that he might. Sharp glints in his eyes. Never this. He was unleashed.
The very sight of it set her on fire.
Whatever he saw in her expression, it dimmed his light and brought him closer. He threaded fingers into her hair and set his forehead down on hers. “You’ve got a lot more of me than that, I promise you.”
She circled his nose with hers. Their breath mingled. “Show me.”
She guided him to her entrance, and he pushed into her slick heat. Slow. Stretching her walls around him. His depth nearly shattered her restraint.
She couldn’t breathe. The entire world tipped, and she gripped the table’s edge.
Dimitrios didn’t move. Not yet.
“Breathe,” he whispered, voice like gravel. “I’ve got you.”
She met his eyes. Heart at war.
He had her. And he had no idea what it might cost him.
Milonia kissed him. It was the only way to quiet her conscience. Breathing him in, taking him full to the hilt, was the only way to get lost. To forget.
They moved.
Together.
Explored and worshipped. His mouth found her nipple and took it between his teeth. He pulled moans from her that were half-pleasure, half-despair. Every kiss, every touch, he asked for a part of her soul.
And she gave it to him.
Willingly.
Their pace turned frantic. She clawed with her nails. He gripped to bruise. They clung to each other, desperate to keep from coming apart.
But she was already undone.
Worship filled his eyes. Need. And something she refused to name, wild and dangerous.
Dimitrios pulled her to him by the hair, eyes fierce. “You’re the most exquisite woman I’ve ever seen.”
His words broke inside her. Still, she kissed him as if she could pour all her secrets into his mouth. As if their shared desire could cleanse her. Forgive her. Break her from her father’s chains.
Milonia’s body began to sear and tremble. A slow, rising tide. The orgasm rolled over her so suddenly that she forgot to breathe. Her eyes stung, and she screamed without sound, and he held her through it as she shattered in his arms.
Dimitrios followed her, rocking into her aftershocks, until finally, he emptied everything he was into her.
They clung, panting, bodies trembling, hearts racing in unison.
Souls aligned.
And bleeding.
Milonia stroked his hair. Kissed his cheek. His chin. His lips, slow. Soft.
Not a word passed between them.
In that silence, she dared look into the future. To the kind husband. The gentle father. The king who saw the individuals, not just the whole.
But the truth curled like a serpent into her chest.
He had no idea who she truly was.
And gods forgive her, she was falling in love with him anyway.