He placed the paper slowly on the nightstand and turned her until she was straddling him. Having her this close was nothing short of torture. He held off the liquid longing at bay with sheer determination. This—this sexual desire, this situation between them, it was still under his control. It had to be. Never before had this kind of control been so important to him. “I don’t think she’s all that different from you.”
“I clung to Tyler all these years. I let Faith walk all over me. All for what? For a few crumbs of affection, to feel like I have someone who loves me? Ms. Havisham is—”
“She might be packing in the boob and leg department,” he said, using her words, and she instantly smiled and swatted his shoulder. “And she might be a badass with that gun, but all those are outward things, Lexi.” He placed his palm on her chest, and her heart thundered under his touch. The words flew out of him on a wave, and he could do nothing to curb them. “Here, you’re just as strong as her or even more. No one else could have lived your life and retained the good you have, the warmth you have. You don’t have to rewrite your story, yineka mou. It is already an extraordinary one.”
Lexi swallowed at the raw honesty that rang in Nikos’s words, the tenderness shining in his gaze. She had been drawing for as long as she could remember. It had started as a comfort, and somewhere down the line had become more than that. It was her lifeline, her way of controlling things she couldn’t change, her way of righting the things that had gone wrong in her life. In her bleakest moments, it had been the only way she could hold on to a life that had been nothing but lonely and sometimes, even cruel.
She had always meant for Ms. Havisham to kill Spike. But ever since she had begun the actual sketching, the story had taken on a life of its own. And the man staring at her with liquid desire in his gaze, with a tenderness that threatened to pull her under, it was him.
He had changed the course of her story and that of her own life.
How was she supposed to remember that this was just sex when he made her heart ache for more, when he looked at her as though she was the most precious woman in the world?
How was she supposed to walk away when it was time?
She threw her hands around his neck and kissed his jaw, choking back the tears catching in her throat. She breathed her thanks into his skin, explored the tangy taste of him with her tongue. The depth of emotion roiling inside her scared her.
She took a bracing breath, willing her heart to slow down, willing her mind to take control, willing herself not to ruin this glorious moment with this wonderful man with unwanted fears.
Only then did she realize the absolute stillness that had inched into Nikos.
He was so rigid in her embrace that she wondered if he was even breathing. Pasting a smile on her face, she pulled herself back and looked into his eyes. “Sorry,” she whispered, forcing a levity she didn’t feel into her tone. “Talking about my stories and sketches always makes me emotional.” As cop-outs went, it was a good one.
She pressed her mouth to his, not waiting to see if he believed it or not. Because the desire she felt for him, the need that was already unraveling inside her—that she understood and she used it to root herself in reality.
With a groan, he dragged her closer until her aching sex rubbed against his erection.
She instantly parted her legs and moved over the hard ridge, wanton hunger rising to the surface. Her time was limited with him. And it made her desperate.
She tugged her T-shirt off with trembling fingers. He threw his head back and laughed. A gravelly sound that abraded her skin. Rising to her knees, she attacked the band of his black trousers. But he stilled her hands on them.