One Night to Risk It All (9 page)

“No,” she said. “But I think that’s why it worked.”

She sat down and grabbed the bottle out of the bucket, eyeing the cork warily. “It has a cork.”

“Yes.”

“These things freak me out. You do it.” She handed him the bottle and he took it, working the metal cage off the cork so that it popped up. She winced at the sound. “Gah. I always expect it to fly out and poke someone in the eye.”

He laughed. “Not likely. But then, caution isn’t a bad thing.”

“That’s certainly been my motto in life.”

He arched a brow as he poured her a glass of the sparkling juice.

“It has been. For...a while. Because...because bad things happen to you when you put yourself out there, you know?”

He nodded slowly. “No,” he said, the words at odds with the gesture. “I don’t. Because I never put myself out there.”

“So you never have girlfriends, do you?”

“No. One-night-stand stuff. Sometimes women who hang around for a couple of weekends. Nothing more than that.”

Strangely, it didn’t really bother her to hear him say that. She would have been more disturbed in some ways if there had been a woman in his life that he loved.

And she really didn’t want to know why that was.

Silly since she’d been in love before. Even if it had turned out badly. Sillier still because she didn’t love Alex and she didn’t want him to love her, either. But nothing about her feelings for him were logic-centered. None at all.

“That seems smart,” she said. “I mean, in some ways. It wouldn’t really work for me, I bet, because the guys would go to the press.” She hadn’t meant to tread that close to the truth of her past.

“It must be inconvenient. For my part, as rich as I am, only financial magazines seem to care.”

“It surprises me because your face would sell magazines.”

“I’m content out of the spotlight.”

Her heart bumped into her breastbone. “If you’re seen with me...I mean, when people find out...you’ll be in the spotlight. You know that, right? Your anonymity is sort of over.”

“I can deal with that,” he said, pulling the covers off of their dinner to reveal some sort of fish dish. It had crispy skin. And a head. Oh, Lord, it had a head. She didn’t mind fish, usually, but after spending so much time in Greece and then on his island, she was concerned she was going to grow gills.

“I love the sea,” she said. “I’m underwhelmed by seafood, to be honest.” She poked at it with her fork. “Daaaaang. It has a head.”

He laughed at her, then bent across the table and took her plate, and his, and put them back by a nearby tray. “Hold that thought.”

He went back into the hotel room and she couldn’t help but watch his butt as he went. She looked away and back down into her drink and she didn’t realize he’d returned until he spoke. “I ordered a pizza. What’s the point of all this pretension?”

She laughed. “A pizza?”

“I was promised it would be here in ten minutes.”

“Tell me there are no anchovies on it, because if there are, we haven’t solved any of my problems.”

“No anchovies. Promise.”

“Good. What did you get?”

“Pineapple.”

“I love!”

“Me, too.”

A strange sort of calm settled between them, and it felt more disturbing than the tension from earlier. This wasn’t like it had been a month ago. Not entirely. There was an edge of comfort, of domesticity to this that hit a nerve in her.

They tried to make clumsy small talk until they heard the knock at the door and he went off for the pizza, setting the box on their table.

She laughed. “So much for romance.”

He shrugged. “This is better. It’s real, anyway.”

“True.” She flipped up the lid on the box and took out a piece of pizza, chewing through the burn of the first bite. Worth the pain to get the cheese at the optimum point. “So,” she said, after she swallowed. “Do you get pizza often?”

He looked down, then back up, and she was hit, once again, with the full impact of his beauty. “Do you want to know a secret?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He leaned in, the look in his eyes intent. “After I left my...the compound, I didn’t have any money. So I slept where I could and ate what I could, and I still felt better about it because I wasn’t a part of that horrible place.”

“I can understand that.”

“But once I started making money, and I got my own apartment...I didn’t want to buy filet mignon or lobster. I’d had all that. Living in that house... It was the darkest pieces of glamor and excess. Junkies throwing up in the halls, people having sex in public. But then we’d sit down to some formal dinner like this insane family or something. Anyway, I never wanted to revisit that. I’d never just had a pizza. I ordered it almost every night for a...a long time.”

He looked down and took a bite of pizza, the gestures and expressions boyish now. It was strange; sometimes he seemed so young. Sometimes he seemed about a thousand years old. And she could relate, because sometimes that was exactly how she felt, too. Too young, too old and never just right.

“What did you have on the first one?”

“The pizza?”

“Yeah,” she said, her stomach tight. “I’m sure you remember.”

The left corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Yeah. Pepperoni. Black olives. It was New York style. Of course, at the time I’d only dreamed of New York. I live there now. The pizza’s much better than this.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I know. I spent at least half my childhood there. Most of my adult life. I’ve been fortunate to travel a lot from an early age.”

“I barely left the Kouklakis compound until I was fourteen.”

“What?”

“There was...nowhere else to go. And they didn’t really want anyone talking to us. Questioning us. There weren’t very many children. The ones that were there had to be careful. Careful to try and go unnoticed by anyone who might want to use us, people who came for parties and things. Careful about what we said. The wrong words could set the police down on Nikola and that would have been unforgivable. Death for certain.”

“He would have killed...children?”

“He would never have gotten his own hands that dirty. But he would have used someone else’s. I always knew that my life was in a tenuous place as long as I was there. I always knew.” He took another bite of pizza. “But I got free. I got pizza. It has a happy ending, yes?”

“Does it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s not over yet. Right now we’re just sitting here eating pizza. It’s not going to fade to black or anything.”

“True.”

“There are a lot of potential outcomes for all of this. And I’m not sure if any of them are wildly happy.”

He grunted, a short, frustrated sound seated in the back of his throat. “Because you’re looking for something I can’t give you. You could be happy if you just—”

“If I what?”

“—compromised. You were willing to do it for Ajax and you didn’t even want him. You weren’t having his baby. Well, you are having my baby, and you do want me, so I don’t see any reason that you shouldn’t want to marry me instead of him. What changed?”

She looked down. “I think I did. Or maybe I didn’t change, maybe I just became more afraid of what might happen if I kept living my life as someone else, someone safe, and less afraid of what might happen if I made an effort to find some happiness.”

“I think I made you pretty happy for extended periods of time in bed,” he said.

She coughed. “Well, there’s that.”

“I want you, Rachel.”

“What...now?” She looked around them, at the blue-tinged air slowly falling darker as the sun sank below the horizon line.

“Every moment since the first time I saw you. And that’s not me lying to keep you here, that’s me telling you the truth. That’s me confessing. Frankly, I know this isn’t going to get me anywhere with you so you have to believe that it’s honest. Because I know that it doesn’t mean anything to you that the moment I saw you, I forgot Ajax’s name, and every thought I ever had about revenge. Because all I could think about was getting you naked then and there. Not romantic, maybe. But all I know is that it didn’t matter then who you were. I mean...not in the sense of who you were to Ajax, or the media, or what your marriage had to do with him acquiring Holt. It only mattered...who you were. Which I know sounds stupid, but in my head it made sense.”

Rachel’s heart was pounding hard, echoing in her head. She leaned forward, grabbed his collar and tugged him to her, kissing him on the mouth. She didn’t know what she was doing or why. Only that she couldn’t stop.

And along with her heartbeat, his words reverberated through her.
It only mattered who you were.

He cupped the back of her head and pulled her in harder, taking the kiss deeper, his tongue sliding against hers, sending a wave of lust down through her body. Nothing was settled. And she shouldn’t be kissing him. Shouldn’t be making things confusing by throwing a match on their simmering physical chemistry.

But he’d said he wanted her. And everything in her responded to that. It fought to break free, to push past the boundaries she’d placed around herself, a neat little fence that kept her safe and hidden.

Because he wanted that part of her. He didn’t want her to hide it. Didn’t want her to keep it behind a locked door. Didn’t want her to keep her passion from him. And she wanted to give him that. Wanted to give it to herself, this moment of freedom. Another chance to grab it. To try and feel something.

She’d spent so long not feeling. This was like coming to the surface of the water and breathing in air, filling her aching lungs when she hadn’t even realized what she’d been missing.

She hadn’t realized how much pain had been caused by holding herself under. Because it had been a slow-growing pain, easier to deal with than the idea of having herself exposed to the media, of being used by a man she’d thought she loved.

Still, it hurt. And she was only now seeing just how much.

“I have garlic breath,” she said when they parted, breathing hard and hoping it wasn’t too offensive.

“I probably do, too.”

“Well, I didn’t notice so I guess we’re good.”

“Stop talking, Rachel.”

She nodded. “It would be for the best.”

She moved away from him and away from the table so it wasn’t between them anymore. He rounded it, pulled her to him and kissed her like he was starving. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clung to him.

He tightened his hold on her, propelling her backward until she was pressed up against the rough stone wall of the hotel. “I need you,” he said, kissing her cheek, her neck, her collarbone. “Rachel.
Theos,
how have I survived this long without touching you?”

She wanted to cry, and she wanted to come, and she couldn’t figure out, in the end, which need would win out. It all felt too big for her, too much. Too much for a girl who was used to hiding in her shell, to feel stripped and exposed like this.

But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t.

She pulled his shirt open, not caring that it scattered buttons everywhere, not caring that she could hear the sounds of traffic below, that they had nothing to cover them. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and ran her hands over his chest, the hard muscles, the rough hair.

“You’re so hot,” she said.

“We’ve had this conversation before.”

“I know, but I have to say it again because it’s all I can think about when I see you. When I touch you. You make me... Alex, I don’t understand this. I didn’t think this was how I was. Not anymore. I thought it was gone.”

He dipped low and kissed her, forcing her head against the wall, the hard surface behind her the only thing keeping her from melting into a puddle on the ground. One of his hands slid low, down to her thigh. His fingers dug into her skin, his grip tightening as he lifted her leg and held it up over his lower back, bracing her with his hand and the wall behind them.

He moved against her, the hard ridge of his arousal hitting her in just the right spot. She tightened her grip on him and moved with him, amping it up, pushing herself closer and closer to the edge.

He pressed a kiss to the center of her breasts, his tongue tracing a line down to the edge of the fabric of her dress. Then he continued down, still holding her leg as he lowered himself, draping her thigh over his shoulder as he settled onto his knees.

He pushed the skirt of her dress up, exposing her to him. “Remember, I told you I liked foreplay, but that first time...I took you too fast. I need to make up for it now.”

“I... Oh.” He slid his finger beneath her panties and stroked her where she was slick and so very ready for him.

She could feel his breath against her skin, hot and tantalizing. He ran his finger over her flesh, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. “Good, baby?” he asked.

“You told me not to talk,” she said. “And now I can’t. So don’t ask questions. It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair is the fact that I’m shaking,” he said, tugging her panties to the side, leaning in closer. “You do that to me, you know?”

She’d suddenly forgotten how to do anything but lean against that wall. “I didn’t... I—”

Then his lips made contact with her bare skin and she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and she definitely couldn’t speak.

His tongue slid over her slick flesh, teasing her clitoris, sliding down deep inside of her. She flattened her hands against the wall, trying to find something to hold on to. Her fingers scraped against the stone, the rough surface biting her knuckles.

He moved his hand, his large palm cupping her butt, pulling her harder against his mouth as he intensified his attention on her body, his lips and tongue working dark magic on her, driving her closer and closer to the edge.

She put her hands on his shoulders, clinging to him, in an attempt to keep herself anchored to the earth.

He slid a finger deep inside of her and she tilted her head back, the stars in the darkening sky blurring, then he added a second and everything seemed to combust, the bright lights overhead bursting into a million fireworks.

He released her then stood, his body pressed against hers as he kissed her deeply, the evidence of her own desire on his lips. “Inside,” he growled.