A Perfect Man: International Billionaires IV: The Greeks (17 page)

A long finger stole under her chin and nudged her gaze to meet his. His eyes were now serious. No happy memories or thoughts of seduction shining in them. Dejection swamped her. She’d only wanted to make him happy, to pull him out of his mood. However, with some simple, unthinking words, she’d ruined it.

“I’m sorry—”

“Stop talking for once.” His voice came low and rough.

The command automatically made her stiffen. Her gaze narrowed.

He barked a short laugh. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I don’t have—”

His big paw wrapped around her mouth and she garbled to a stop. Before she could smack him, his other arm pulled her into his warm body. Sophie scowled, but that’s all she could do.

“You were right about Melanie.”

Her scowl turned to wide-eyed astonishment.

“I'm covering your mouth because I don’t want to deal with your crowing and gloating.” A crooked grin was his response to more unintelligible garble coming from beneath his hand. “Take the win graciously,
krotída mou
.”

She contemplated biting his hand. After all, she had warned him.

His words stopped her. “Melanie and I weren’t meant to be together.”

The depressed heart inside her flipped over and began beating like a clanging drum.

Beating for what?

Beating for whom?

“
A
re you tired
?” Alex glanced at Sophia as they walked away from the window displays. She sipped on the last of the hot chocolate he’d bought her as if she were going to make it last until New Year’s Day. He’d finished his within a couple of minutes, all the while thinking about her eyes.

Not about Melanie. Not about his admission an hour ago that Sophia had been right. Not about his business or his family or any of the other parts of his life he usually spent his time contemplating.

Nope.

He smirked at himself.

Who would have thought Alex Stravoudas would someday be daydreaming about Sophia Feuer’s eyes? And who would have thought Alex Stravoudas would be turned down over and over again by Sophia Feuer and still not get the message?

His
grand-pere
would mutter the word
débile
under his breath. His father would have roared
ilithios
at him.

A pathetic idiot.

He’d agree with both of them.

But it didn’t stop him from thinking about her eyes. And obviously, it didn’t stop him from continuing to put himself right in front of another Sophia slap.

“Why are you smirking?” Those brown eyes sparked with immediate indignation. “I can keep up with you.”

“That wasn’t the question I asked you. I know you can keep up with me.” The words formed in his head once more like a drumbeat.

I know you can keep up with me
.

He eyed her.

“I’m not tired.” She eyed him back, her usual look of stubborn independence written all over her face.

Sophia Feuer was as mentally tough as he was. She was easily as smart. Plus, her BS detector never failed to call him on any of the customary tactics he used to charm everyone else into his plans.

Amazingly, impossibly, he enjoyed every minute with her.

The realization shocked him because he’d never thought he’d want a woman who was as strong and smart as he was. He’d slid into the role of caretaker after his dad’s death and he’d never shed it. He instinctively took care of every woman around him.

Only Sophia, of all the women in his life, objected to his care and his plans.

Not knowing how to process whether this was good or not, he swept the paper cup out of her hand and drank the last of her chocolate. The liquid was no longer hot, only semi-warm, and the effect made the notes of ginger and spice even tastier.

“Hey.” His firecracker batted his arm. “That was mine.”

“You were drinking too slow.” He threw the cup away and grabbed her hand. “We’ve got places to go,
Mademoiselle
.”

He hustled her all the way to the Seine and didn’t decrease his pace until they got to the cobblestoned pathway running along the river. Compared to the crowds they’d left on Champs-Élysées, there were few people around. The surge of the water's flow could be heard here and the street lamps gave off a cheery gleam.

“Where are we going?” she said, her breath a bit rushed.

Alex slanted a devilish look at her and got her usual annoyed look back. But now he saw the layer of camaraderie too. A bright glow settled inside of him, even though her continued rejection still hurt.

He wasn’t used to rejection.

Instant frustration twisted around the bright glow, making him feel all muddled inside.
She
made him all muddled inside. The knowledge pushed him to accelerate his pace even more.

She puffed by his side and, remarkably, didn’t voice a complaint.

He led her across Pont de l’Alma, its modern lines a contrast to the glory of the ancient buildings surrounding it. Finally, their destination came into view. The tower rose into the sky, bathed in golden light. Just as they hit the Left Bank, as he’d hoped, the tower began its hourly show.

“Oh.” She stopped and stared at the white shimmering lights flickering across the entire tower. “Oh!”

“That seems to be your response to almost everything in Paris,” he teased.

“Not everything.” Her narrowed gaze flashed to him, looking him up and down in a clear message.

A message he should have laughed at, should have simply shrugged off. Still, somewhere along the way into this convoluted relationship with Sophia, he’d begun to care what she thought of him.

Care a lot.

A throb of hurt coursed through him.

Then, she laughed. One of her belly laughs that made him want to snatch her near and kiss her until she was breathless from him and not the pace of his walking.

Muddled was not the word. Muddled gave a person the sense that nothing much was at stake.

Tortured.

The word popped into his head.

A line of sweat immediately coated his spine.

“Come on.” He waved at her, keeping a yard between them, the temptation too great, the fear of what she did to him too stark. “If you’re going to act like a child, I have just the place for you.”

Sophia scrunched her nose at him, but obediently followed as he walked the last few blocks to the park surrounding the tower. As he expected, the fancy, elaborate merry-go-round was there, exactly as it had always been in his childhood visits at Christmas. The organ pumped out a stately tune as the gaily painted horses bobbed up and down in the spill of light. On top of the carousal, a bright golden ball twirled around and around, making him as dizzy as it had when he’d been a child.

“You must have loved this as a kid.” She came up to stand by him.

“As a kid?” He finally let himself touch her, taking her hand, because he’d be safe here in a sea of chattering tourists. “I love it now.”

Laughing, she followed his lead and gamely scrambled onto a white horse painted with a stream of red roses on its neck. His steed was almost as impressive, a black stallion with purple reins and saddle.

The organ lurched into another rousing tune and they began to move, faster and faster. Alex kept his focus on her, taking in her pleasure as her little round face lit with childlike enchantment. As her cocoa eyes heated with warm delight. As her ponytail bounced on her back, a gleam of dark magic.

He wanted her mouth on his.

He wanted those eyes warmed by him.

He wanted to take her hair down and run his fingers through the silky strands.

“What?” she yelled above the music. “Do I have something on my face?”

Alex shook his head. At her. And at his incessant need.

She’d said no to his kiss. No to his cock. No to any licking of any kind.

No. Get it, Stravoudas
?
No.

The organ wound down and the ride slowly came to a halt. They both climbed off their horses and jumped from the platform at the same time, landing too close to each other for his liking. He took off across the dead grass and onto the sidewalk, setting a punishing pace, even for him.

“Where are we going now?” She raced behind him, panting.

“Back to the apartment,” he ground out. Sexual tension boiled inside, blurring his irritated affection into a foaming mass of frustration. He couldn’t be with her anymore. He didn’t want to watch her and want her. Not anymore.

“Hey.” A tiny hand grabbed his elbow and tugged at him.

He kept walking.

“Hey!” The tug became a yank. For such a little thing, she was strong. Baking all day, every day, meant she had sculpted shoulders and firm arms. His imagination instantly took over and blasted him a picture of her naked: her back turned slightly away, her shoulders sloping into languid arms, so loose on her body he saw the beginning of her breasts.

The erection was inevitable.

Again, here he was, walking down a street acting like a fool.

Another yank pulled him to a complete stop and she foolishly poked her face right into his. “What is wrong with you?”

Frustration zipped from bubbling to a full-on boil. But he tried. He tried to be a gentleman. “Let me go.”

“No.” A concerned frown crossed her face. “I want to help.”

“No, you don’t.” His voice came hoarse and he realized he panted too. Like he raced toward a goal he could never achieve.

“Of course I do.” Her bow mouth pouted and he thought the top of both of his heads might blow past the tower looming in the background. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

She didn’t understand his meaning. If she did, she’d be running away from him. Before he could shout at her, tell her she needed to let him go before he took, the wail of a single violin pierced through their argument. Along with it came the whip of the night wind, a sprinkle of rain misting on the edge.

Neither cooled his temper or his lust.

The rain only reminded him of how hot he was for this woman who kept saying she didn’t want him.

The music? The music made it all ten times worse. The violinist stood up the path from them, eyes closed, lost in the song and in the emotion. Alex didn’t recognize the melody, but he did recognize the emotion welling in the tune.

Longing
.

“Nothing is wrong.” He pulled his arm out of her grasp. Turning away from her, he looked around, trying to find his way out of intense desire. To his amazement, there weren’t any tourists near them. No laughing Parisians with their children either. No cover, no crowd to fade into, no hope of keeping this inside.

Only him and Sophia.

And the wail of the violin.

“We’ll dance.” She grasped his arm once more and swung to stand right in front of him.

Instant rage at the memory of another one of her rejections surged into his blood. Leaning closer, he spat the heated words right into her determined face. “You don’t want to dance with me.”

“I do.” A flutter of the same memory must have crossed her mind because her mouth firmed. “I’m sorry I didn’t at our engagement party, yet now I do.”

“You were very clear.” He tried to tear himself away, but her hands tightened on his arm and the anger inside wouldn’t let him leave until he’d spilled it out. “We wouldn’t fit, you said. I remember.”

“We’ll fit now.” Her words were strong.

The violin’s plaintive song rose in a poignant plea. The wind kissed his skin with the soft touch of rain. As he glared into Sophia’s cocoa eyes, all Alex wanted to do was stop this constant tug inside him between want and anger.

She took his hand and lifted her own to his hunched shoulder. “Come on,” she said. “We can do this.”

Moving into the circle of his body, she seemed to slide right into an empty niche he hadn’t even realized he possessed. An empty spot inside himself that had waited for this round, stubborn spirit to fill.

He sucked in a deep breath.

“Alex.” She glanced up, her expression alive with the firecracker soul he’d come to know so well. “Move.”

Her breasts and hips were covered in layers of cotton and wool. His trench coat was firmly tied and he had his own layers of cotton and denim beneath. Every cell in his body felt her warmth and heat, though. Felt her sex and seductive call.

He wanted to move. Move inside her over and over again.

She couldn’t know what she did to him. If she did, she’d be a block away, walking quickly toward the apartment and safety. “Sophia. You don’t want to do this.”

“I do.” Her stubborn chin lifted. “Put your arms around me.”

All gentlemanly walls broke loose inside him. He grabbed her hips in a tight grip, yanking her closer. His glare met two wide brown eyes. “This isn’t about dancing,” he snarled. “Do you understand me?”

The violin suddenly stopped on a discordant chord. The musician coughed before shuffling off into the darkness.

She took a step back. “You ruined it.”

“Right.” He laughed, harsh and low. “Just keep telling yourself that.”

Another step back. “Let go of me.”

“Sure.” Alex dropped his hands like she was a fizzling, out-of-control explosive. “Whatever you want.” Turning, he strode out of the park, past a group of chattering Chinese tourists, down the wide sidewalk.

Her hand grabbed his elbow and wrenched him around once more. “I don’t understand you,” she wailed.

“I think you understand me very well.” He tried to shake her off, but she clung. “I don’t want to dance with you, Sophia. I want to fuck you.”

Her bow mouth dropped open.

“This can’t be a surprise to you.” He jerked his arm again and this time she let him go. “You’ve been clear you don’t want me, however.”

“I didn’t—”

“And that’s fine with me,” he gritted. “It’s not like I don’t have other options.”

His last words were all bravado, but he’d be damned before he gave this woman any more of his pride or himself.

The only thing he wanted to do was go back to his family’s place and drink an entire bottle of wine. Or maybe two. Then he’d forget about the driving need he had for this woman and along with it, the driving disquiet he felt about signing with the emir.
Skatá
, it would be better if he had a large jug of ouzo to drown himself in. He’d be oblivious for days.

He should go to Greece, to his bolthole.

Jamming the thought to the back of his brain, he turned to stalk away.

“Alex.”

He still felt a bolt of shock when she said his nickname. The way she licked it at the beginning and flicked it at the end. The shock stopped him and he looked over reluctantly.

Her plump hands were clenched in front of her, her eyes dark and desperate. Before he could wrap his mind around what that meant, she glanced away, her long lashes hiding her gaze from him.

“What?” His exasperation exploded in the one word.

“That’s the problem.”

He turned to face her fully. “What’s the problem?”

“You have so many other options.” Her hands flew to her mouth as if the words shouldn’t have been said.

He frowned. What the hell? Hadn’t she noticed that since she’d arrived on demand in his life, he hadn’t paid any attention to any other female to the point that all he now wanted was her? “Have I been running around with other women while you’ve been with me, Sophia?”

“No.” She sighed. “But that’s not really the point.”

“It is the point.” He shoved his hands in his pockets before he reached over to shake her. “There’s another point too.”

“What?” Her hands fluttered down to her pockets.