“Please, Dmitri, wait. I want to talk.”
“I’m not used to being denied what I want, pethi mou,” he breathed against the pulse in her neck, while his thigh lodged square against her aching sex. “And I want you, need you more than I need air.”
With that, he moved his leg and tremors spread through her lower belly. Her hands on his shoulders, Jasmine moved, needing that pressure to push her to the edge.
An arrogant, utterly masculine smile on his face, he obliged. And the satisfaction in that male gaze told Jasmine how easily and effortlessly she was playing into his arms. If she didn’t hold her own even a little now, she never would be able to in the future, she realized. However murky the future was right now.
She dug her teeth into his lower lip and pulled, until he looked up with a guttural groan. “I want to talk, so hands off, Dmitri.”
He ran a long finger over his lower lip, his eyes threatening retribution. Jasmine held her breath, knowing that she wouldn’t last a minute if he didn’t back off.
“Please.” She pouted, lowering her voice. “If you let me talk first, then I’ll do whatever you want tonight.”
He turned his neck this way and that, and his broad chest rose and fell. It was like watching a predator take a step back from his prey. “So talk. And tell me why you’re not wearing the diamond set I ordered for you?”
In the face of his ruthlessly direct question, she floundered. God, had she ever thought this man frivolous and uncaring? The intensity of his looks, his touch, even his questions spun her head. She lifted the diamond with not-so-steady fingers. “You already gave me a diamond.”
“That’s all I could afford then. Now I can—”
“It was far too expensive.” She injected some steel into her words, and when he scowled, she added hurriedly, “Really, where am I going to wear it to, Dmitri? I have no need for such—”
“You’ll have lots of occasions.” Masculine satisfaction dripped from every word. “Tomorrow morning, there will be a stylist here. Order yourself a new wardrobe, everything you want.”
“You’re just angry that I steal your shirts, aren’t you?” she quipped, trying to hide her anxiety.
He kissed her then, just a quick touch of their mouths. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything sexier than you wearing my shirt, matia mou. But I—”
“I have some really exciting news,” she said, interrupting what she sensed was another argument she wouldn’t win right now. A thread of unease began to permeate her mood, like the charge that built in the air long before the storm burst.
“What is it?”
“You remember Gaspard.” She covered his mouth when his frown turned into a scowl. “Anyway, he referred me to a modeling agency. The head of the agency, this superstylish, sophisticated woman, she was here this afternoon. She said Gaspard had excellent taste when it came to faces, asked Leah about me, and Leah introduced us. Dmitri, she wants me to come in for a screen test in Athens as soon as I can manage it.
“It’s true I’m older than the models they sign on but she said I had a different kind of face, whatever that means. Isn’t that just great?” Her tone trailed off at the end there as Dmitri’s expression remained the same. “Dmitri?”
“It sounds great, pethi mou,” he said finally, his brow clearing, “but a career in modeling, this is what you want?” His accent suddenly became more pronounced than she had ever heard it.
Her shoulders slumping, Jasmine struggled to keep her voice upbeat. “I’ve no idea what I want, but it’s not as if I have a degree or experience in a worthwhile field, is it? And I’m broke. I thought, why not give this a chance? Eventually, I have to start making a living again and then there’s that gazillion pounds that I owe you.” The last bit she had added with a smile, because her skin cooled as if there was a chill in the room.
The look in Dmitri’s eyes was near lethal. “That debt means nothing between us after what happened two nights ago. As for making a living, I’ll take care of you, Jasmine.”
She tilted her chin. “And I told you that I won’t be your mistress. You can’t just come to me at midnight and send me gifts in the morning. That’s not what I want, now or ever.”
“No, I don’t like that option, either.”
As if he were a magician, he pulled out a small box from somewhere. Her heart slammed so hard that Jasmine gasped. A diamond ring, a princess cut with tiny ones set around it, glittered and winked at her. His gaze remained shadowed as he looked at her. “Marry me, thee mou, and we’ll never talk of debts and mistresses ever again.”
Every inch of her froze as he slid the ring onto her boneless finger and the damning, breath-stealing, soul-wrenching thing was that the ring fit her so perfectly. The cold weight of it felt unfamiliar against her skin, her breath ballooning up in her lungs.
Jasmine looked at the ring for several seconds. Shock and joy roped together in her veins, and beneath all of it, fear pulsed.
She looked up and tried to smile, but it wouldn’t come. Her hands on his chest, she expelled a long breath. “I don’t know what to say, Dmitri. Wow, I just... This is... I...”
Clasping her cheeks, he took her mouth in a long kiss that stole all the air from her lungs again. “Say yes, Jas.” His hands moved to her back and pulled her closer to him, until all she knew was Dmitri and his broad shoulders, and his corded strength and his thrilling words. She felt as if she was floating on a different plane, far removed from reality.
“I have the license ready and we can marry here tomorrow evening. Once we tell them, Leah and Stavros will stay on. Leah undoubtedly will have a dress that’s as gorgeous as you are in her wedding collection, and everything else has already been taken care of.”
Burying her face in his chest, Jasmine willed her racing pulse to slow down, to give her a chance to breathe. And the moment her heart settled to normal, something else followed. “Tomorrow?” Only the one word escaped her.
Stroking her lip with his tongue, he breathed his answer into her mouth. “Yes. I want us to marry as soon as possible. That way...you don’t have to worry about making a living, don’t have to jump into something that you’re not sure about.
“Take a couple of courses at the university if you like. Just take it easy, matia mou. Or if you decide all you want to be is Mrs. Karegas, that’s perfectly fine, too.”
Her head spinning, Jasmine pushed away from him and slid off the desk. “You don’t want me to work?”
He shrugged, his hands in his trouser pockets. “I don’t ever want you to worry, Jas, about anything. Everything I have is yours.”
“Wow, Dmitri. I...I’m drowning here,” she said, feeling dizzy with the number of emotions claiming her.
“All you have to say is yes, Jas. And tomorrow night, we can set off on our honeymoon to wherever you want to go.”
Impulsively, she hugged him, the scent of him pushing the word yes to her lips.
And yet something held her back; something punctured the utter joy of the moment. Panic fueling her movements, she jerked away. “Wait, Dmitri, let me breathe, won’t you?”
He smiled and nodded, his gaze moving hungrily over her.
Rings and diamond sets, dresses and wardrobes, it seemed there was nothing Dmitri couldn’t wait to lavish upon her. But love... There was nothing of love in his words. That was it.
Because she loved him with all her heart, she thought in a daze. Somewhere between knifing him and kissing him, she had irrevocably fallen in love with him, had moved from a childhood obsession to feeling as though she would never have enough of him.
It had been that moment when he had told her about Andrew’s deception. Or maybe the moment when he had called her perfection. Or when he had held her so tenderly as she had sobbed her heart out.
Everything in her life was shifting and uncertain, but how she felt about Dmitri... There was no doubt about that.
Shaking at the realization, utterly terrified now, she looked at him.
He had removed his jacket, and the white shirt hugged the breadth of his shoulders, a perfect contrast to the olive skin. He looked so utterly gorgeous and he wanted to marry her.
He could have any woman in the world. Why did he want her?
Did he love her?
Did he know how she felt about him? She had never really tried to hide her feelings from him, had she?
Questions burned through her head in an endless loop, slowly but surely siphoning off the warmth from her.
But suddenly now she wanted to hide away from him, wished she could give herself time to let the truth sink in.
Why else would he want to marry you? the hopeful part of her, the part that had forever loved everything about him, said.
Her thoughts still scrambled, she turned to him and said the first thing she could think of. “You’ll give up your playboy status? You’ll give up all those women? Because marriage is nothing without fidelity and respect, Dmitri.”
He didn’t seem in the least bit offended by her questions. On the contrary, a smile cut grooves in his cheek as though he wanted nothing but to allay her fears. “I will be the most faithful husband in the world, pethi mou. I’ll give even Stavros a run for it, yes?”