Protecting Venetia and becoming the Demakis CEO. And he would do both at any cost.
Renewed determination pounded through his blood. Switching on his mobile, he placed a call to his assistant and ordered him to arrange a meeting with Theo Katrakis.
* * *
“You will go blind drawing in the dark.”
Lexi gasped and looked up, the growly rumble of Nikos’s words pinged across her skin like sparks of fire. She did it so fast that that the pencil flew from her hand. Her legs ached under her, from their position on the hard concrete floor of the garage.
She had sneaked in, wondering what the structure was, and seeing Nikos, naked from the waist up, working with a furious energy on the car behind him, she had stopped still, feeling the familiar itch in her fingers to reach for her sketch pad. Every time he had crawled under the car, her breath had hitched in her throat.
Obviously, she hadn’t realized how much time had passed.
Nikos’s hand dangled in front of her. The veins in his forearm stood out thickly, his fingers shining with grease. “How long have you been here?”
With a sigh, she gave him her hand and let him tug her up. Her legs, sore from sitting in that position for so long, gave out from under her.
His arm going around her, he steadied her against his chest. Molten heat swathed Lexi inside and out. He smelled of sweat and grease, an incredibly strange combination that cut off her breath effortlessly. Sinuous muscle tightened under her fingers and she jerked back, the warmth of his skin singeing the pads of her fingers.
He looked nothing like the suave businessman that had mocked her that first day. This Nikos was more down-to-earth but no less intense.
Lean muscle covered up by glorious olive-toned skin. Tight, well-worn jeans hanging low on his hips. A chest that could have been carved from marble, despite the sprinkling of hair. Washboard abdomen and Dear God Of All Glorious Things, that line of hair that disappeared into those jeans.
Her breath came hard and fast, a permanent shiver on her skin.
His dark brown eyes glittered with unhidden amusement and something else. Something that sent hot little flares of need into every inch of her. “Would you like me to get completely naked?”
Yes, please...for my art, y’know...
Hot color rose to her cheeks and she looked away. She bent over and picked up the loose paper and pencil. A sharp knot in her right shoulder told her she had been sketching him for far longer than she had planned to. She clutched the spot with her left hand and turned back. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
His hands landed on her, gentle and light. He turned her around. And she went, without protest, her skin already singing to be in such close contact with him. “Here?” he whispered near her ear, his fingers tracing the tight knot in her right shoulder.
She nodded, her throat dry.
His warm breath caressed her skin as he rubbed at the sore spot with long, pulling strokes. He was like a furnace of heat behind her. Only it was the pull-you-into-it kind. The pressure was relieved by his fingers, only to flood the rest of her body.
“Relax, agape mou. Remember what we talked about?”
Lexi nodded. Because much as she puzzled about it, there was nothing sexual about the way he rubbed her shoulders. She’d seen him with the other women. He wore his sexuality like a second skin. His being sexy was like...her ability to draw. Only she had no idea how to handle the relentless assault. Her skin prickled with awareness, the rough grooves of his palm rasping against her skin.