“I don’t hold you responsible for any of this. I just don’t trust you to tell me if Tyler contacts you.”
Lexi clamped her mouth shut. There was no point in even denying it. He knew her too well. “Okay, fine. But I don’t have a phone and I don’t think I can even sneeze on the island without you knowing, so can we stop with you dragging me around like unwanted baggage?”
“Unwanted baggage, thee mou?”
“You look at me as though you want to open a space portal and throw me through it. Do you understand what it took for me to say those words to you last week?”
He tugged her hands higher and tighter as his lower body pressed into hers. Lexi closed her eyes and fought for some much-needed oxygen. Her skin felt as if it was on fire, her limbs molten with longing. “Ever since I realized what a pathetic idiot I have been all these years, I have also realized that I’m not completely without appeal.”
He grinned and she pressed on, growing bolder. When he smiled like that, she wanted to roll over in the warmth of it. She wanted to press her mouth to his and revel in it. “I might not be packing in the boob and leg department and probably hold little attraction to a man with refined tastes like you, but there are other fish in the sea. Cute, dimpled, down-to-earth fish like Piers, for example, who find me attractive and wouldn’t dream of calling me any names in a million—”
His muscled thigh lodged between her legs and Lexi whimpered. For a man so big, he was so incredibly well-coordinated. Just the thought of all that finesse and power focused on her had her tingling in all kinds of places. “Who the hell is Piers?”
“Piers is the bartender who’s been serving me cocktails.”
“And he likes you?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
His teeth clamped tight, he nodded. And she had the strangest notion that he hadn’t liked what she had said. Intensely. “So help me understand, thee mou. Just any man with a working...” His gaze glimmered with a dark amusement. “Any man will do for this new risk-taking life of yours?”
She pushed at him, fighting the heat spreading up her neck. She was not going to back down from this. So she just evaded. “You’re being purposely crude.”
“Sex is all you want from me?”
“I... Yes, of course.” She was getting good at lying. But then it was easy, because she didn’t know what else she wanted from him. And she didn’t want to know, either. She had never feared her feelings before or what they drove her to. But with everything she had learned about Tyler, with everything Nikos made her face, she preferred to not have any feelings right now. “You said it yourself. Sex should not be complicated.” And she wanted it with the most complicated man she had ever met, whatever he thought of himself.
Nikos ran his thumb over her lower lip, his gaze drinking her in. Stepping back from her, he shrugged off his leather jacket. The V-necked gray shirt stretched tight across his muscled chest hugged his lean waist. “There should be a sign somewhere here. Find it.”
Frowning, Lexi stared at the door. Shaking her head, she looked around the lounge. Tension pinged across her skin as she found it.
Do Not Disturb.
Her heart jumped to her throat. She held up the matte sign just as Nikos walked back in.
Meeting her gaze, he smiled. “Hang it on the doorknob and close the door.”