Chapter 22
She didn’t come to Greece just for this, but . . . she’d be lying if it wasn’t part of it.
The way Xavier touches her, how he seems to know exactly where to put his mouth and his hands to draw the most perfection sensations out of her body . . . he should get another doctorate just for that alone.
There’s a brief moment of panic when his fingers tug at the string at the back of her neck, holding her romper in place, but then he murmurs against her skin, “We’re too high up. No one can see.”
She wants to make some kind of smart quip, have some kind of retort for him reading her so easily, to try and get the upper hand again, but when his hands drift from her waist up to her breasts, massaging firm and deep into her body, her only coherent thought is more.
Turning in his arms, she pushes up onto her toes just as he ducks his head and when their mouths meet something settles into place in her chest. This is right. This is where she belongs. Not in Los Angeles or Greece or wherever their lives take them, but in his arms.
She buries her hands into his hair and deepens the kiss, his mouth hot and open over hers while his hands slide down over the curves he seems to love so much, grasping her to him and then lifting her easily as he turns them toward the massive bed.
When he drops her onto the mattress, she stares up at him, and tilts her head when he hesitates.
“Still can’t believe you’re real,” he rasps as he joins her, crawling up the bed toward her, covering her body with his as he dives back in for another searing kiss.
How do people settle for less than this? Less than being with the person who loves you this way, with his entire body, with his entire soul, who wants you for your body and your soul, whose mind matches yours in every way that matters.
She can’t imagine it. Doesn’t even want to try. It’s this, with Xavier, forever. Or nothing.
With his mouth at her breasts and his fingers sliding between her legs, she can’t do anything except let him know just how perfect he makes her feel.
“Yes, Xavier, just like that,” she calls out, but she knows she doesn’t need to.
Her body is telling him everything he needs to know and as her thighs start to shake, her toes curling against his calves, he says, “Missed this. Missed you. C’mon, boss. Let go.”
It’s easy then, falling, letting him catch her. Just like he always has.
And as she comes back to herself, his mouth is burning a blazing path down her body and that scruff is familiar on the inside of her thigh and this time he draws it out, slow and sweet, drawing her to the edge before pulling back, a torturously sweet frustration, her body slick with sweat, his hands at her hips keeping her from pressing closer.
She loses sense of her body, where he begins and she ends.
“Please,” she finally begs, burying her hands into his hair, twisting just enough to get her point across.
She feels instead of hears the rough chuckle from between her legs as a simple twist of his tongue brings everything crashing down around her.
White-hot thunder pounds through her veins, and the answering lightning flashes behind her eyes while the storm rolls through her, and vaguely she hears him, her name soft and sweet against her ear, calling her back to him.
“I swear I didn’t only come here for this,” she says again when it feels like her soul is finally anchored to her body again. His only answer is another chuckle. “But honestly, no one would blame me if I had.”
That he has an answer to. “Not done yet,” he insists and who the hell is she to contradict him?
Lazily she opens her eyes when he slides off the bed, and rolls to her side to watch him lift his shirt up over his head, his hair even more a wreck after what her hands did to it, and she lets out a snort.
“What?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow at her.
“Nice tan lines.”
He’s already got a very obvious farmer’s tan from his mid-bicep down and his chest is way paler than his face and neck.
“I could stop,” he mock threatens, eyes dancing at her. Bianca pulls her smile back and opens her eyes wide and innocent, so much so that he groans. “Shit, never do that again.”
“What?”
She doesn’t hear what he says under his breath; she’s too distracted as he finally shucks off his pants, boxer briefs tight against his hips and thighs, an outline of just how aroused he is clear across the front, and she sits up on the side of the bed, reaching for him, but he gently catches her wrist.
“You touch me right now and I’m going to lose it in five seconds,” he warns and takes another step back from her as he draws in a long, steadying breath. She bites her lip and he groans. “Shit, don’t do that either.”
Laughing, she covers her face with her hands. “Okay, how about this? Is this better?”
For a second and then another, there’s nothing, but then his hands cover hers and lift them away, cupping her face and pressing a soft kiss to her lips.
It’s almost chaste, something exchanged at the end of a first date or as a tentative question, wondering if there’s a connection worth exploring, but they’re well beyond that now.
Still, it’s sweet, to be kissed like this as his arms wind around her, lifting her just for a second to place her further onto the bed so he has room to join her, and she can’t help but smile against it.
“No more hiding,” he says simply when he pulls back, his smile matching hers. “Okay?”
“No more hiding,” she agrees.
The promise is real and deep and everything feels like it’s shifted into something different and wonderful and so heart-rendingly hot, she can barely catch her breath.
His hands, which know her so well now, move slowly, reverently over her heated skin while her mouth explores the hard planes of his chest, kissing whatever part of him is within reach while he moves himself over her, the sweet stretch of him inside of her both familiar and new.
Bianca revels in it, the feel of his breath against her cheek, how one hand falls to her hip to hold her steady, while the other gently reaches up to brush her hair out of her face, how his eyes meet hers, fierce and tender at the same time, holding himself back, waiting for her .
. . just like he always has . . . just like he always will . . . if she lets him.
At her slow smile and nod, Xavier doesn’t waste time.
She knows he’s close and, always the top of his class, he finds that spot again, the one that sent her spiraling the last time, still, his pace measured, creating the sweetest drag inside of her as she quickly catches up to him.
Her mouth finds his shoulder as she tries desperately to anchor herself when her arms aren’t enough, and the feel of her teeth against his skin makes him lose his rhythm in the best possible way; their bodies collide and send her ricocheting into a mess against him.
She doesn’t know how long she falls, but when he starts to pull away, she shakes her head. “Stay with me. Stay.”
Xavier lets out a soft huff of a laugh that she feels down to her toes and everywhere in between. “You said that once before.”
“I meant it,” she whispers, “back then too. Stay with me?”
His hand spans her back, holding her close as he rolls them over. “I’ll stay,” he promises.
Tears prick at the corner of her eyes and she presses their foreheads together as she moves her hips in time with his. His arms wrap around her, warm and solid, their eyes locked together until he tenses against her, his hands falling to her waist, holding her to him as his body finally gives in.
When she finally lifts herself off him, there’s no awkwardness or fumbling or averted eyes.
She just quickly moves to the bathroom, feeling his gaze follow her, and when she comes back a minute or two later, he’s right where she left him, sprawled on the middle of the bed, looking wrecked in the best possible way.
As she climbs in to join him, he lifts his arm and she falls naturally against his chest.
“They were,” he starts talking and she blinks up at him, confused for a second until he continues, “they were supposed to be there for you, not . . . not talk you into following me. I . . . I didn’t ask them to do that.”
“I know you didn’t,” she breathes out and she snakes an arm around his waist to hold him closer. “And they didn’t talk me into anything, not really.”
“You never do anything you don’t want to do,” he agrees. “They threw you the party?”
“Yeah, but . . . we never really got to the party part of it. I told them everything . . . turns out I didn’t have to. I should be really pissed at you, you know.”
He freezes, almost pulling away before she tightens her grip just a little.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I just wanted them to understand what they put you through.”
“They did . . . they do.”
“And I wanted you to have the celebration you deserved and I wanted to . . .” He trails off.
“No more hiding,” she reminds him gently.
“I wanted you to have your people around you in case . . .”
“In case? In case what?”
“I just knew how destroyed I’d be by leaving you and you know me, I do better on my own, but I wanted to make sure, in case you were feeling even a little bit of what I was, that you’d have your people, that they’d be there for you, the way you always are for them.”
“You don’t though.”
“What?”
“Do better on your own,” she manages, as the first tear falls and then another.
“Shit, boss, don’t cry.”
“I only ever cry around you.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“No,” she manages to say, pulling away just enough to look into his eyes again. “It’s not because you make me cry. It’s because you’re the only person I’m okay with seeing me like this.”
“And why’s that?” he asks, brushing away her tears with his thumb as gently as he can.
“Because I love you and I think I’ve loved you for years and I’m so sorry it took me so long to realize it.” Silent seconds tick by. “Xavier?”
He lets out a ragged breath. “I’ve loved you for so long, I don’t remember what it feels like to not love you. You know that, don’t you?”
“I think I did, but it was too much. You were . . . are . . . If I let myself feel it, really feel it, I knew what would happen and I just couldn’t . . .”
“What would happen?”
“I’d get my heart broken.”
“That’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.”
“You don’t have to want to break someone’s heart to do the job. In fact, I’m pretty sure the less someone wants to, the more it hurts.”
“So . . . you came here to tell me you loved me?”
“I did.”
“God, you’re so much fucking braver than I am.”
“Don’t do that, don’t make it a competition. I just . . . hid it better, I think.”
“That you love me?”
“Yeah. I learned from the master,” she says gently. “Five years is a long time to hide something like that.”
“That’s . . . pretty close to the truth,” he admits.
“I’m sorry it took me longer.”
“I’m not.”
“No?”
“It might have, I don’t know, scared me? Made me defensive. I didn’t want to be in love. I tried so hard to fight it, but if I thought you loved me back . . .”
“You tried to fight it?”
“Fuck yes, I did. Love never made any sense to me. The way people described it, it sounded like bullshit, especially when those people fell out of love almost as fast as they fell into it. And then I met you and you fucking leveled me, boss. Like a wrecking ball, and it pissed me off.”
“I know how much you hate to be wrong.”
“My least favorite thing, but it wasn’t just that.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No, I knew, even if I hadn’t admitted it to myself yet, that you were it for me. And I’d spent my entire life up until that point knowing that love wasn’t what I wanted.”
“After your parents?”
“Yeah, I couldn’t undo that particular coping mechanism, probably not even if I wanted to, and I didn’t want to, at least not yet.
And then I just . . . couldn’t make myself stop.
Every time I thought I managed to work past it, there you were again, stunning me with your brilliance and tenacity, calling me out on my bullshit while being the hottest fucking thing I’d ever laid eyes on. ”
She laughs at that, but he shakes his head.
“It’s true. So maybe it was lust at first sight, but it was love . . . terrifyingly fast.”
“So all those times you asked me to partner up . . .”
“Oh, no, that was just academic survival. I knew if we worked together we’d kill it. Being able to be around you was just a bonus. I’d . . . shoved it to the side mostly and then at the end, I needed space because I was leaving and you . . .”
“And I just pretended like it didn’t exist.”
“You were protecting yourself. You’re so independent and strong and I know what it took for you to come here, to let yourself be vulnerable like this. Shit, it was so brave.”
“God, we wasted so much time.”
“Did we, though? Five years not together, but . . . you were there, in my life, and I was in yours.”
“Not . . . not how you should have been.”
“So we make up for it now.”
“But how . . . You can’t leave and I . . . I guess I could . . .”
“Absolutely not. You’re not giving anything up for me. We will figure it out. I love you. You love me. Anyone who says that isn’t enough is full of shit. There is literally nothing we can’t do if we decide we’re going to do it.”
“I don’t know how . . .”
“Me neither, but we’ll figure it out. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He reaches out and lifts her left hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her fourth finger against the metal band, holding her gaze as he whispers, “I should have done this right the first time. I should have gotten down on one knee and asked you to spend the rest of your life with me, whatever what looks like, wherever we are in a year or five or ten or fifty. Marry me, Bianca Dimitriou, someday .”
“Yes.”