CHAPTER 8
NERO ZANTHOS
The smile spreading across Nina’s face tells me my answer is good enough for her, and her willingness to believe it nearly draws a laugh out of me.
She is so… effortless.
My mind doesn’t like the word it finds, but there isn’t another that describes the complete lack of armor with which the woman smiles, talks, or simply exists.
There is no manufactured mystery in Nina Marchesi. No disguised sensuality. No pretense of being something she isn’t. Being in the company of someone like that—someone who isn’t one of my brothers—is an experience I haven’t had in a very long time.
If I’ve ever had it at all.
I didn’t lie about my reasons for inviting her. I may not be able to justify the desire, but it existed—more than once. That isn’t what I tell her, though.
“You need to start showing a few claws, Little Fae.”
She looks away.
A completely different reaction from the other times I’ve used the nickname my brothers and I gave her back when we were children.
Nina lets go of my hand and takes a few steps deeper into the garden. Her head tilts back as she lets her gaze drift into the Khione sky.
“It was the second time today someone treated you poorly and you didn’t defend yourself,” I continue. “You can’t always wait for a savior. In real life, Knights in shinning armour. Only the horses do—and they usually come with the sole purpose of helping trample you.”
Silence.
Nina doesn’t bother to take her eyes off the sky for long minutes. I step closer again, stopping at her side and looking up, trying to find what’s holding her attention away from me.
There’s nothing but the same familiar stretch of stars.
“That’s not true,” she finally says, lowering her eyes to focus on my face.
“What isn’t?”
“That princes don’t arrive in real life. You came to my rescue both times today, didn’t you?” she asks, and I don’t stop the smile from settling at the corner of my mouth.
“Are you saying I’m a prince, Little Fae?”
Nina bites her lower lip and looks away, as if only now realizing what her words implied.
“Just for tonight,” she concedes with a shy smile.
I let out a low laugh, feeling—what must be the thousandth time today—utterly charmed by this woman.
“Then dance with me?”
I extend my hand to her, inviting her with the gesture as much as with the words.
“Before the clock strikes midnight and you turn into a pumpkin?”
I tease, and she lets out a delightful laugh.
“I never said I was a princess.”
“Then be one?” The request comes from nowhere and rolls off my lips with unsettling ease. “Just for tonight?”
Nina studies me, searching my face for any sign of irony. When she finds none, she takes my hand.
She startles when I pull her body toward mine, bringing us nearly flush, unwilling to let the moment that began in the garden end.
The urge to press myself against her is overwhelming, as if there’s a magnet drawing my body toward hers. Suddenly, I’m hyperaware of everything about her.
The softness of her body.
The sweet, pleasant scent of her skin.
The heart-shaped lips she just moistened with her tongue.
The brightness in her eyes—completely unmalicious.
The absolute opposite of the desires that abruptly invade my mind.
Still, I content myself with simply looking at her face, trying to understand what it is about this woman that’s making me act unlike I ever have.
“Are we dancing here?” she asks, laughing.
I narrow my eyes at her, unimpressed by how little she’s taking me seriously.
“We are. Unless you’d rather go back inside.”
“I don’t want to. But we don’t have music.”
I pull my phone from my pocket. With a few taps, a soft melody fills the space around us.
Nina bites her lip and shakes her head, but follows my lead as I begin moving us through the garden.
The steps are short—ones that wouldn’t fit on the dance floor—but here, in this unexpected moment, they feel perfect.
It doesn’t take long before I stop resisting the magnetism between us. Our bodies draw closer until they’re pressed together, and at some point, holding her gaze is no longer enough.
Discovering what her lips feel like becomes an unstoppable need.
I lower my head slowly, giving Nina time to pull away. To reject me.
She doesn’t.
Instead, her breath catches in anticipation. Her shoulders relax as they curve inward, toward me, and her head tilts back just a little more.
She gives me every sign that she wants this as much as I do.
I abandon restraint.
I touch her mouth softly at first, testing. When she receives mine in a perfect fit, I slide my tongue over her lower lip, then the upper, before sucking them in the same order.
Her tongue seeks mine—and when it finds it, it wraps around it in a wet, delicious kiss I absolutely did not imagine I’d be giving when I left the house tonight.
“Give me your phone,” I ask, keeping my forehead pressed to hers as I pull our lips apart and open my eyes, drinking in the sight of the flushed, breathless woman in my arms.
She smiles brightly before answering.
“That kind of violates our deal. The agreement was that I’d pretend to be a princess only tonight.”
I laugh again.
She definitely has claws. She just needs to learn how to show them more often.
“Then it’s settled.”
“What is?” she asks, pulling her head back slightly to look at me more closely.
“Tomorrow, we’ll just be Nero and Nina. And I’m still going to call you.”
***
“I’ll go ahead,” Drako announces as we leave the association, as if that were even a possibility.
I shoot him a tired look over my shoulder as I open the front passenger door for Nina.
I couldn’t pick her up—but there’s no chance I’m not taking her home.
Unfortunately for her, that means putting up with Atlas, Apollo, and Drako a little longer. The smile on her face, however, suggests she’s enjoying it.
“That’s not going to happen,” I say.
Nina looks at Drako with a mocking expression, which he returns with narrowed eyes and crossed arms.
She gets into the car, but through the open door, the two of them maintain their silent duel.
Finally, Drako huffs, opens the back door, and throws himself into the seat, condemning Atlas to sit between him and Apollo.
I close Nina’s door and walk around to the driver’s seat, sliding in just in time to hear Drako’s final complaint.
“She just got here and she’s already sitting by the window,” he grumbles like a child.
I roll my eyes.
“You’re also sitting by the window,” Nina points out, turning her head back after fastening her seatbelt.
“Perks of having boobs…” Drako mutters.
Apollo bursts out laughing while Atlas hides his face in his hands and shakes his head.
I pull out of the parking area and onto the road.
“What?” Nina asks.
“That’s the only thing you have that I don’t—and it guaranteed you the best seat right away.”
“That’s not the only thing I have that you don’t,” Nina shoots back before I have time to warn her not to poke Drako.
He has no limits.
But his response tells me he has fear—and that’s enough for me.
“If I said the other thing you have that I don’t, I’d get kicked out of the car, and I really don’t feel like walking home. There’s no Uber on this island, and all the taxi drivers are probably drunk in their beds after the party.”
Now it’s Nina’s turn to throw her head back in laughter.
“I was talking about my pretty smile,” she says, winking at him.
Drako nods with a dopey grin on his face—the same one I saw her bring out of Apollo several times tonight, and even shadow Atlas’s expression.
The drive to Nina’s house takes no more than ten minutes, filled with constant conversation about everything and nothing among the five of us.
Nina is excited to be back home after years away, and I find myself wanting to know everything about that time.
What did she do?
What did she plan?
Was she happy?
What does she want for the future?
Unexpected questions.
I store them away for another moment—strangely unwilling to share the answers with my brothers.
And I’ve always shared everything with them.
I park in front of Nina’s house. She unbuckles her seatbelt and says goodbye to the guys with a smile and playful words.
Drako jumps out and opens her door before I get the chance—not out of courtesy, but because the moment the seat is empty, he occupies it, earning another laugh from Nina.
She walks around the car, and we head toward the steps of her house together.
She stops on the first step, facing me, while I remain on the sidewalk. It nearly evens out our heights.
I lift my hand to touch her face, and the soft skin of her cheek is warm and smooth beneath my fingers.
“Thank you for tonight,” I say.
She smiles with that bold little look I’m discovering I love seeing on her face. Nina gives a loose curtsy before replying.
“It’s always a pleasure to be a princess.”
I laugh out loud before closing the small distance between us, leaning in and watching her blue eyes lower slowly.
I kiss her cheek, even though the desire to kiss her mouth crawls beneath my skin.
I don’t trust my friends not to make fools of themselves—and the glance Nina shoots toward the car tells me she wouldn’t feel comfortable either.
I catch one of her hands with my free one, needing to touch her just a little longer.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“And we’ll be Nero and Nina.”
“Nothing more than that.”
“Nero will have to work hard if he wants to outdo the prince.”
She gives me a wink before turning and climbing the steps.
I laugh loudly at her audacity—and before she reaches the door, I reply:
“You shouldn’t have challenged me.”