by Tara Pammi
But his megalomaniac father’s regime was over.
Nikandros felt the rightness of his decision in his bones. This was the answer to the restlessness that had plagued him the last year.
Eleni had been delighted; even Andreas had been smugly satisfied, which in turn unsettled Nikandros. He still didn’t know if he could trust Andreas but he decided to let it be for now.
That Mia had been shocked by it was an understatement. He stroked his jaw with a smile, still feeling the imprint of her hand.
Was she still mad that he’d forced her to accompany him? That she doubted both his intentions and his capability to stay the course infuriated him, but he’d prove himself to her as he would to anyone else who’d once doubted him.
Fierce excitement filled Nik’s veins. Finally, he had a chance to be the man he’d always dreamed of being when he’d been stuck in the hospice for years. When he’d looked up at the tall, commanding figures of his father and brother and wondered if he’d ever have a part in shaping Drakon.
The Hereditary Heir, he knew, could just be in titular capacity, nothing but a symbol of hope for the people, in the face of their King’s dementia. But Nikandros had never been one to rest on the past laurels of his ancestors or his family.
This was his chance, his time, to leave a mark on Drakon. To achieve everything he’d ever wanted.
And he was damned if he’d let anyone—Mia or Andreas, or his mad father—stop him from becoming the Nikandros he’d been born to be.
CHAPTER SIX
NIKANDROS DIDN’T SEE Mia until midnight.
Once he’d finished with Andreas, he’d returned to his suite. But Mia hadn’t been there, although one side of his cavernous closet had been filled with silk blouses and scarves and all manner of feminine things.
A subtle scent of rose had fluttered by his nostrils as he’d stood there.
Mia belonged here with him.
Dark possessive instinct he’d never known sang in his veins. However, he drew the line at smelling her clothes like a lovesick calf. Or pursuing her through the palace if she sought to hide from him.
He’d showered, shaved, dressed quickly and returned to work. Now that he and Andreas were on the same page, he couldn’t wait to begin. The challenge of conquering Drakon, the thrill of putting all his plans into motion, after all these years—the rightness of this was more thrilling than scaling the highest mountain peak or trekking through a dangerous jungle.
The logistics of moving his business to Drakon—the bare bones of it for he had already sold chunks of it—took up most of his afternoon.
By nightfall, Nik was gritting his teeth at the amount of bureaucratic red tape he’d had to get through to find out rights over acres of mountain land that should have belonged to the royal family.
He was meeting with a land surveyor and an architect tomorrow to see two different parcels of land where he intended to build a five-star ski resort and a luxury adventure club. They’d have to ease up on their banking and taxing laws for money to pour into Drakon.
It was well past two in the morning when he’d returned to his suite. He found Mia sleeping on the chaise longue in the sitting lounge.
Had she fallen asleep waiting for him?
The paperback next to her and the steel water bottle she always carried around said she’d intended to sleep there.
If she thought they were sleeping separately...
Feet rooted to the spot, he stared at her.
The thin shawl she’d draped over her body twisted around her, baring long, sleek, honey-gold legs. Legs she had wrapped around his waist to hold on to him when he’d pounded into her heat.
Instant need pooled in his lower belly as his gaze moved up from the V between her thighs where he could see pink panties—Christos, had any woman tormented him like this ever?—up that taut midriff to breasts that had seemed like they’d been made to fit in his hands.
Something else twisted in his chest as his gaze reached her face.
Wavy brown hair settled into a cloud around her face, and wearing a worn-out old tee that said Miami Heat, the name of her old soccer team, she looked incredibly young and irresistibly innocent.
Young and innocent, not words he’d associated with Mia.
With her career success and her much-speculated-over marriage to Brian and the poised quality she’d always possessed, Nikandros had forgotten how young she was.
The women he knew of her age—friends and girlfriends alike—were still experimenting with their career paths. They partied hard, sampling everything life had to offer, flitted just as easily from lover to lover as Nikandros had done. But Mia, for as long as he’d known her, had been incredibly devoted to soccer, had always lived life from behind a wall of cool aloofness as if nothing could touch her.
It was only on the soccer field that the real woman came through—or when she was trading insults with him, he realized. Brian had told him again and again how Mia had frozen him out, but she seemed to have no problem provoking Nik or losing her own temper with him.
And that she was different with him—the blaze that came into her eyes, the faint fury that made her mouth tremble when he challenged her—it entertained him no end.
There was a freshly scrubbed beauty to her features in repose. Long lashes cast crescent shadows on those high cheekbones. The smudges under her eyes told Nik something he wouldn’t have ever believed.
Christos, had she been crying?
Nikandros will leave me twice widowed before I’m twenty-six.
Her eyelids fluttered continuously, like the wings of a butterfly, her sleep as restless as the blood in his veins.
As Nik watched, she shifted on the chaise, pushed the shawl away with an agitated quiver. A soft groan fell from her mouth, a line flitting between those arched eyebrows. Her hand moved to her back and rubbed.
He’d seen enough.
Mind made up, Nikandros lifted her. Instantly, her arms wound around his neck, and her breasts pushed against his chest. In a cloud of warmth and softness, he swallowed at the bolt of lust that arrowed down his spine.
Gritting his teeth, he carried her to his bedroom and gently lowered her onto the bed.
The moment her pliant body hit the bed, her eyes drifted open. Determined to keep her in the bed if he had to bind her to it, he sat down. Her tart mouth stretched into an inviting bow just as her sleep-kissed eyes widened.
A shadow of fear and something else. And a soft mew of sound, edged with pain, fell from her mouth.
She’d flay him for sure, and yet he’d never known such heated anticipation as he waited, such a thrill coursing through his veins that he’d never known the like in all his adventures.
Her nostrils twitched delicately, and she moved up on the bed in a sensuous, silky slither that would have been a sultry invitation from any other woman. “You’re back,” she whispered then. Her smile was still sleep-mussed, her expression not completely awake.
She was dreaming, Nik realized.
Shaking fingers trailed over his face—his temple first, and then his nose, stopped short of his mouth. Lust punched into him, his head swimming in the soft heat of her. She cupped his jawline and traced it with her thumb in slow, soft strokes that reached his mouth every time, and then stopped.
Locking his muscles tight against the overwhelming urge to bury his mouth in the inviting crook of her neck, Nik closed his eyes. As if answering his body’s scream, her fingers moved to his mouth. On and on, back and forth, she pressed and prodded and traced his lips until he felt burned through and through.
When she tugged at his forearms, he went, a slave to the call of her body. Tucking herself into him, her bottom nestling against his groin was pure torture. She folded his arm over her and gripped him tightly. “Don’t die on me, Nikandros. God, please don’t.” Another shiver, another keen cry as if it were ripping her apart. “I won’t be able to bear it.”
Utter stillness came over him. The pain in her words was far too real
to ignore. “Mia?” he said, pushing away a lock of hair from her forehead. “Agapita, you’re having a nightmare.”
“There was an accident again,” she whispered, her words thick and unclear. “You were lying under that wreckage.
“Your body—” she breathed in a huge gulp “—bent at strange angles. And you won’t smile. However many times I call you, you won’t answer.”
She shook so violently that Nik held her down with his arm. “Shh...pethi mou, I’m here, I’m fine, Mia,” he whispered against her temple.
“You are?” As if to answer her own question, she brought his hand to her mouth and kissed the center of his palm. The wetness from her eyes stung Nikandros, sharper than her accusations during lunch.
Was that why she’d slapped him? Had she been worried he would die like Brian? She’d gone through it all alone then. Nik had mourned too and resented her for getting what she wanted—an out from the marriage.
Christos, he didn’t realize how much resentment he’d harbored against her.
His mind whirled in every direction. He’d so easily decided that her marriage to Brian had left no scars. That she’d driven him away, that the failure of their marriage had been solely her fault.
All he knew of their marriage was from Brian. And the news of his affairs.
While every inch of his own body solidified into rock to ward off the desire coming at him in waves, her own body softened. Her breath fell into a deep rhythm.
Nik had no idea how long he waited like that, on the edge of the bed, cocooning her body with his, breathing in the scent of hers.
Only now did he see what lingered under his dirty accusations. He didn’t want Brian’s shadow between them. He didn’t want to know what had happened between them, or who had been culpable. He couldn’t hold the things Brian had told him about her or their marriage.
Every time she mentioned his name, it felt as if the past was on a repeat. As if Nik’s role in her life was murkier. As if he were fighting a ghost from the past.
Which meant he didn’t have the right to pull that punch on her.
When he left the bed in the early hours of dawn, all he had was more doubts about Mia and a raging need for another cold shower.
* * *
Nikandros had no time the next couple of days to ponder his exchange with a half-asleep Mia. All hell seemed to have broken loose around the news that the Daredevil of Drakon had returned. And had brought along a woman.
The same woman who stormed into the bathroom while Nikandros was in the shower. Dressed in a simple shift dress in lemon yellow, she looked like the wild sunflowers that grew at the foothills of the mountain range in Drakon.
Through the stained glass, he could see the tense line of her shoulders, the stillness that had come over her the moment she’d realized where she’d marched into.
Despite the impasse they seemed to be at, Nik grinned. He took a step back and flashed his side at her. “You’re welcome to join me, Mia.”
Her eyes darkened and roved over him, her breath shallow. “This is only an attempt to talk to you. You’re gone before I wake up, you return after I fall asleep.”
He felt like a strutting peacock, not that he minded. “If you want the full frontal, all you have to do is ask.” Opening the door wider, he turned until she could see his front and his raging erection, which only lengthened when her hungry gaze fell on it.
Like a spinning top, she turned around, presenting him with her back. But not quick enough to hide the raw want that had flashed across her face. “I’m interested in a talk. Not a reenactment of Magic Mike.”
“What is Magic Mike?”
“A movie about male strippers. Another career path I’m sure you’d succeed at.”
“That sounds like a compliment,” he shouted at her.
Dialing the water to a cold blast, he cursed her, his body and anything else he could think of. Stepping out of the shower, he walked close by her, and then grabbed a large towel.
Without bothering to cover himself.
“Put on your clothes, Nikandros.”
“You’re the one who barged into the bathroom. And really, Mia, it’s nothing you haven’t seen or touched or stroked or kissed. No, I’m wrong. You didn’t kiss my—”
Her hand slapped over his mouth with such force that he fell back against the wall and she toppled against him. Her hands fell on his cold flesh, her breath heating it up within seconds. The rasp of her nipples against his chest made his erection draw up tight between the heated press of their bodies.
He pushed her hand away and crushed her mouth with his. God, he needed her taste more than anything he’d needed in life.
When she gasped, he took advantage and plunged his tongue inside. Licked the tempting cavern of her mouth. Her moan egged him on, her nails raking over his chest painfully.
Lust rode him hard, sending bolts of pleasure down his thighs.
Fisting his hands in her hair, he angled her mouth the way he wanted it. No, needed it. Mia poured herself into the voluptuous kiss, digging her teeth into his lower lip and licking into his mouth in an erotic game he would never tire of.
No submission. No retreat. No rationality.
Just simple, fiery need.
Christos, she’d learned what he liked. And she was giving it to him with a ferocity that made his balls tight. That made him growl at the back of his throat.
This time, he was going to take her hard and furious, teach her that she couldn’t dismiss him that easily. Not from her body at least.
Her leg wound around his thigh, the apex between her legs pressed against his bare thigh. Sinuous heat pooled low in his groin at the warmth radiating from her sex. He rubbed his flesh against her core all the while licking and stroking every inch of her mouth with his.
Her groan rasped against his senses, the instinctive tilt and thrust of her hips going straight to his arousal.
You’re an incredibly generous lover. Not marriage material.
And yet he could take her again, standing like this, against the wall in the steam-filled bathroom. He could plunge into her wet heat again and again and she would not resist him.
With willpower he didn’t even know he possessed, he pushed her away from him. Gently and yet firmly. It was more painful than a limb being ripped out of its socket. Which had happened to him once.
His breath was bellowing in his ears, his erection painfully hard.
Mouth swollen and parted, eyes glossed over, she stumbled and reached out behind her. Hair mussed up around her face, she was all woman. “Nik?”
He rubbed his thumb against that lush lower lip, the moisture beaded there reminding him of other places on her he wanted to touch and lick. “Would you like me to continue, Mia?”
Deep color suffused her cheeks and her gaze lifted to his. She blinked, and then gasped, and pushed away from him. “I...that...”
“I could take you against that wall, agapita, but I have no more interest in playing your stud.”
She fled.
Inside his closet, he pulled on black trousers, his body aching with a hum that wouldn’t quit. That didn’t feel like a win.
It felt like a cheap trick.
And his disgusting behavior a decade ago notwithstanding, cheap tricks were not his thing.
Yet, somehow, Mia, with an annoying regularity seemed to sink under Nik’s skin, bringing out all kinds of urges he shouldn’t be giving in to.
* * *
She was waiting for him in the bedroom, leaning against the huge bed.
“I want to move to a different suite.”
He was in no mood for an argument, but he’d also seen the flash of fear in her eyes before she’d masked it with that aloofness.
Was she still thinking he would die like Brian?
“My fiancée will sleep in my suite.” He slid a glance over her. There was a wet patch on her chest. The sight of tight nipples pushing against the wet fabric made Nik’s mouth water.
He walked
back into his closet and picked out a neatly folded T-shirt from her side of the closet. He threw it at her carelessly. “You need to change.”
“My dress is perfectly f—” She looked down and clutched the tee to her chest like a lifeline.
Her nipples distended, pushed against the wet fabric. Mia groaned and closed her eyes, willing her body to cool down. But the throbbing he had awoken between her legs wouldn’t ease.
And since undressing in front of him or away from him would become another small battle, she threw the shirt at his broad, gleaming back. Found meager satisfaction because of course, he was right.
It galled her how many things he’d been right about.
She owed him an apology. But all her good intentions fled the minute she neared him. He aroused her, and riled her and yet seemed to be utterly in control.
Mortification painting her cheeks, Mia breathed easy when he buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his trousers. There wasn’t an ounce of extra flesh in his body. Sleek and defined, he reminded her of a finely sculpted statue. With just as fine an ass.
“This is not easy for me, Nikandros.”
“You think it is for me?” Whirling around, he came to stand by her, his chin lifted.
Freshly showered, he smelled of skin and soap and sex.
After a couple of clueless minutes, Mia edged forward to stand in the cradle of his legs. It was impossible to knot his tie without leaning into him, without feeling the rock-hard strength of his thighs against her own.
“Tell me why it’s not.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down when her fingers grazed his throat. “What is not what?”
“Why this—” she moved her hands between her chest and his, and again had the impression that he was tense “—is hard for you when you’re getting your way in everything. When the whole world seems to be arranging itself to your satisfaction.
“Instead of putting it across in more sensible terms, I played into your hands with that cheap remark. Which gave you just enough ammunition to threaten me so ruthlessly.”
“And which cheap remark are you referring to?”
