Tiana (Starkis Family #3) (10 page)

Me.
Not a playboy billionaire. Not Demetrius Starkis’s troubled child. Not Deacon’s messed up brother. Not the paparazzi’s money shot or a woman’s meal ticket. Just me. And I loved her for helping me find my way back to the person I’d been before I’d realized the world expected me to be someone else.

I glided in and out of her warm body, telling her how incredible she was, how beautiful she was, how amazing she made me feel. I felt her scale the peak, and knowing the crescendo was imminent, I picked up the pace, holding her tight and refusing to let her go in search of escape. It was intense. There was nowhere for either of us to run. Nowhere to hide. And I didn’t want to.

“Open your eyes,” I whispered when I could tell she was on the verge. “I want you to look at me.”

“Damon, I—”

“Just do it.” It was a challenge with no means of withdrawal. I knew she couldn’t look me in the eye in the midst of the most vulnerable act possible and pretend she wasn’t feeling exactly what I was. She tried to close her eyes, but I withdrew, holding the climax she longed for just out of reach. “We’re going to do this my way.” I thrust inside her hard enough to punctuate my point. “No more hiding. No more running. Complete transparency.”

My conscience called me a hypocrite, and I knew I was, asking for transparency when I couldn’t give her the same, but I needed this. I needed her. My gut told me she needed me too. Whether she was ready to admit it or not.

Her eyes locked with mine as her mouth slipped open on a gasp, her body tensing and clenching me hard as her tremor tore through me. She throbbed around me, sending shocks through me as I swore softly and spilled inside a scrap of latex, wishing it were her.

***

After another round as intense as the last, I sat up, my head spinning.

She giggled when she saw me reach for the nightstand. “Get up too fast? Let me—”

“No,” I said, touching her shoulder. “Just lie down. Relax. Let me get you a drink.” I sat on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair off her face, and felt a jolt course through me as she closed her eyes and reached for me.

“Thank you,” she whispered in my ear, her arms wrapped around my neck. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

I didn’t know if she was referring to taking care of her sexually, and in that moment, it didn’t matter. I’d clearly done something right in her eyes, and I intended to bask in her gratitude as long as she’d let me. I’d never aimed to please a woman before, but the way Eleni looked at me, as if I continued to surprise her in the best possible way, made me want to give her everything she’d never had or known she wanted.

“I’d love a shot of liqueur,” she said, laughing when I smirked. “Grand Marnier, if you have it.” She laughed harder when I gave her a questioning look. “You didn’t think I was going to ask for a water or soda, did you?”

I knew what she was doing. I’d seen her do it before. Alcohol was her crutch. When she was nervous and hoping to retreat, she did a shot. I’d asked Mia about it once, hoping to gain some more insight into the way her best friend’s mind worked, but Mia had merely shrugged and told me it was another of Eleni’s many defense mechanisms.

“You don’t need that tonight,” I said, easing down beside her. “Not here. Not with me.”

“But I—”

“You don’t need a drink to relax you. That’s my job.” I pulled her into my arms, spooning her, but instead of relaxing her, it had the opposite effect. I felt every muscle in her body tense up, and she tried to pull away.

“Uh, Damon, I’m not big on cuddling. I don’t spend the night either. I hope you’re okay with that.”

Of course I wasn’t okay with that. I wanted to hold her through the night and share a shower with her in the morning. I wanted to tease her about her bedhead and make her breakfast. I wanted to feel like a real couple, even if it was only for one day.

“You’re upset,” she said, turning in my arms until we were face to face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just think it would be best if we set some ground rules, you know, so neither one of us has unrealistic expectations about where this is going.”

It couldn’t go anywhere until I figured out how to be a father to my daughter, but that didn’t stop Eleni’s words from sending an icy chill through me.

“We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other from now on since your brother is marrying my best friend, and I just don’t want things to be weird between us.”

“Why would they be?” I asked, needing her to spell it out. No matter how uncomfortable facing her feelings made her, I needed to hear her say the words.

“I’ve been with a few guys who said they were comfortable with a casual relationship, but when it came down to it, they expected more.”

“You mean like Miles?” I didn’t want to think about him, much less talk about him, when I was lying in bed with her, but I knew he wouldn’t go away unless I told her how I felt about his presence in our lives.

“Um, yeah, I guess.”

“Look at me.” When she obliged, I said softly, “I need to know how you feel about him.”

“He’s a good guy,” she said hesitantly. “I like him.”

“Could there be more?” I hated to think of them together, though I agreed that Miles was a decent guy. On paper, he was probably a better match for her than I was.

“No. In fact, I was thinking about telling him I couldn’t see him anymore,” she said, gliding her fingertip over my chest.

“I like the sound of that.” I grinned when she rolled her eyes. “But of course it has to be your decision.”

“It’s not because of you,” she said too quickly to be convincing. “I just don’t want him to get the wrong idea. He’s getting a little too intense for my liking, and I don’t want to encourage him.”

I understood how Miles felt. Being intimate with Eleni without wanting more was difficult. “Are you two still…?”

“Sleeping together?” She playfully pinched my side, grinning. “No, we’re not.”

“Good.”

“How about you?” she asked, rolling onto her back as she stared at the ceiling. “Anyone special in your life?”

“Yeah, you.” I propped my head in my hand as I leaned on my elbow, looking at her. “I knew you were special the first time I saw you, and not just because you’re beautiful. You’re tough too. I like that.”

She blushed as she looked at me from beneath a veil of dark lashes. “I’m not all that tough. I cry at sappy movies and turn to mush whenever I see a puppy.”

“I know.” I thought of her fondness for Mia’s little furball, Rosie. “You made me sit through that chick flick marathon when we were dog-sitting Rosie, remember?” Technically Eleni had been the one Mia and Deacon had asked to dog-sit when they’d gone out of town for the weekend, but I’d brought over a pizza and a bottle of wine, intent on keeping them company. “By the end of it, you were a sobbing mess.”

“I was not!” She laughed. “Okay, maybe I was.” She twisted her lips, looking as though she was struggling with something she wanted to say. “Just because I don’t believe in all that happily-ever-after B.S. doesn’t mean it isn’t nice to pretend sometimes.”

“What made you so cynical?” I knew her parents had separated when she was a kid and her mother had died shortly after, but beyond that, she never talked about her childhood or her family.

“I’m not cynical,” she said, looking at the full moon through the crack in the drapes. “I’m a realist. People leave. They disappoint you. If you learn not to expect anything from anyone, you can’t be disappointed.”

I wanted to prove to her that people could sometimes exceed your expectations, but given the double life I was currently leading, I was pretty sure I would one day reinforce her belief that people were devious and unreliable. “Tell me about your parents. Your father, is he still alive?”

It was like she’d pulled a shutter over her face when I mentioned her parents. Her eyes turned dark and cold, telling a story she would obviously rather forget. “Last I heard, he was. I haven’t had anything to do with him in years.”

“Why’s that?”

“He traveled a lot for business when I was growing up, so he hired the lady next door to take care of me. She was this sweet grandmotherly type, a retired librarian who couldn’t have any children of her own. When my mother left, I spent all of my time at her house.”

I could tell I was venturing into dangerous territory, but I wanted to know where she’d come from and what had helped her become the woman I’d fallen for. “Did you still have a relationship with your mother when she left your father?”

“No.”

I skimmed the back of my knuckles over her shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, feigning indifference. “They used to argue all the time.” She laughed, the sound hollow and harsh. “Fortunately for me, they argued in Greek, so I didn’t understand half of what they said.”

I knew she had a working knowledge of the language but wouldn’t have described herself as fluent. “I understand what that’s like. My parents used to argue a lot when I was a kid too.” I hoped that if I shared my story, she would be more willing to open up about her own childhood. “That was before my mother realized she couldn’t change my father. Now they barely speak at all. Honestly, I don’t know which is worse.”

“I know what you mean.” She closed her eyelids when a sheen of moisture clouded her big brown eyes. “The silence used to stretch on for days between fights. Sometimes I just wished they’d say something, even if they were screaming at each other. I hated the silence.”

That was why I appreciated what I had with Eleni. We communicated. I’d never had that kind of relationship with a woman before. Since I’d never had a healthy example growing up, it had taken me a long time to realize this was how healthy relationships were built, on the grounds of give and take.

“It must have been tough growing up without your mom. How old did you say you were when she left?” She’d never told me. We’d never delved this deep into her family history, probably because we’d never been this intimate.

“Ten.” I was about to ask where she’d gone, why they’d lost contact, when she said, “She didn’t leave voluntarily. He kicked her out. It was the middle of the night. I woke up to the sound of him throwing her suitcase out of a second-story window.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “I wanted to get up, to beg him to stop or at least ask her to take me with her, but I knew he’d never allow that. As far as my father was concerned, I was the one weapon he could use to hurt my mother.”

“That’s rough, being caught in the middle like that.” I was careful not to add too much to the conversation. If I did, she might stop talking.

“I wasn’t in the middle. I was firmly on her side. My father knew that. That’s why he hated me.”

“I’m sure your father didn’t hate you, baby.” I nuzzled her cheek as I tried to shoulder some of the immense burden she’d been carrying for years. “But I understand what it’s like to live with a rigid man who believes his is the only opinion that matters. Demetrius is like that.”

“He hated me,” she said, threading her fingers through mine. “That’s why he threw her out. He knew he would be punishing both of us. He killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

“If you and your mother were close, why didn’t you stay in contact?”

“When he kicked her out, she left with the clothes in that suitcase. She didn’t have any money. According to him, he made the money, so it was his. She didn’t drive and barely spoke English.”

“So she had nothing?” My gut clenched. I could only imagine how terrified that poor woman must have been.

“No.” She shivered, prompting me to pull her into my arms. “It was winter, just a few weeks after Christmas, and he kicked her out with no money, no car, no job, and little more than the clothes on her back.”

“Son of a bitch. And I thought my father was ruthless.”

“Yeah, well, my old man takes the prize in that department.”

“So what happened to your mother, sweetheart? Where did she go?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“I guess she couldn’t get a job with no home and barely speaking the language. She probably went to a shelter for a while, but of course you can only stay there for so long.”

“Right.” I knew that because I donated large sums of money to several homeless shelters in the area as a small way of making amends for being a selfish bastard. I wanted to believe that when I met my maker, he’d look past some of my indiscretions if I could claim I’d done a few good deeds.

“Eventually the police showed up on our doorstep. Apparently she still had some I.D. because they’d found it on her when they picked up her body.”

“Oh God.” I kissed the top of her head as I closed my eyes. As bad as my family was, given the option, I would have taken them any day over the monster Eleni had grown up with.

“She froze to death.” She’d choked on her words, barely able to get them out.

“I’m so sorry, baby.” No words could accurately describe the sorrow I felt on her behalf.

“She was alone out there with no one to turn to for help. She had no family, no friends. We were all she had. And I let my father kick her out on the street with nowhere—”

“Stop,” I said, pulling her closer when she sobbed. “It wasn’t your fault. You were just a kid. You had no control over what happened.”

“Mrs. Heiss, the lady next door, helped me look for her for a while. We called different shelters and pinned up flyers. We even tried to file a missing person’s report, but the police said there was nothing they could do because she’d left voluntarily.”

“She never tried to reach out to you?” I didn’t want to worsen her pain, but it was difficult to imagine a mother who loved her child walking away for any reason.

“I think she was afraid. My father threatened her and me. And I think she knew he didn’t make empty threats. He was a control freak.”

“I hate that you had to go through that. No wonder you have difficulty trusting people, men specifically.”

“Did I say that?” she asked, appearing dazed. “I trust men, just not with my heart.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, trying to ignore the niggling voice telling me I had no right to ask her to trust me.