by Tara Pammi
As night drove away the remnants of the lovely day, small lanterns lit on the tables threw faces into shadows. Strings of lights illuminated the grounds, marking paths.
Dinner was a lavish affair, with guests calling out for speeches. Theseus made one about Maria while she looked up at him adoringly and smiled. Helena made one, though it was mostly about the legacy Theseus would leave, as if he were already gone.
When Kairos raised his glass, a palpable hush fell over the crowd. “To Theseus and Maria...you are...” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Clearly, he was battling with his own emotions. “To another fifty years,” he finished simply.
Maria burst into tears, her arms loosely wrapped around Kairos’s waist from the side. The entire party came to a silence as if the moment were frozen in time. Helena frowned. Theseus kept his hand on his wife’s back, concern lighting his eyes.
But it was Kairos’s reaction that made Tina’s chest so tight that she could barely breathe.
He had become utterly still the moment Maria had wrapped her arms around him. His shoulders painfully rigid, his jaw so tight that he might have been cast from marble. Only his eyes glittered with such raw emotion, such depth of pain that Tina had to look away. Seconds piled on into minutes as Maria silently sobbed, her face buried in Kairos’s chest.
Tina took his free hand in hers and shook him slightly. “Kairos?”
Awakening from whatever held him in its ragged grip, Kairos awkwardly patted Maria’s back while Theseus pulled her to him.
Theseus stood up again, raised his wineglass and announced his retirement. A pin dropped could have sounded like thunder in the thick silence.
“It is something I should’ve done years ago,” he said, holding Kairos’s gaze, an apology and something else in his tone. “I announce Kairos Constantinou as the new CEO of the Markos group of companies.”
Applause thundered around them and yet as she saw Helena’s face, dread curled around Tina’s spine.
Helena hated Kairos and the depth of it terrified Tina. But even beneath that fear throbbed the sinking realization that he had what he wanted.
He was the CEO.
Which meant he had no need of Tina anymore.
While she...she had only just realized how desperately she was in love with him.
* * *
Midnight had come and gone by the time Tina went upstairs. Theseus had tired soon and Tina had convinced him and Maria to retire. Since Helena had been missing in action for several hours, she had taken over as the hostess. And stayed with a smile on her face until the last guest had departed.
But now as she dragged herself up the stairs, her feet hurt and a headache was beginning to throb at her temples. The staff had already cleaned up most of the debris from the party. Utter silence reigned over the villa.
Kairos was nowhere to be seen.
She took a quick shower and dressed in pajamas. Urgency and anxiety together made a nasty cocktail in her head. But she held onto the belief that he would come to her. He had to. He felt something for her and she would make that enough. She would make it work. They belonged together.
She drifted into sleep, the same thought running circles around her head.
* * *
Tina awoke suddenly, consumed with a feverish sense of urgency.
Pure darkness blanketed the room. The curtains that would have let in the moonlight were closed. Her skin prickled with awareness. She scooted up in the bed and turned on the lamp on the night stand.
Kairos was seated in the armchair in the corner. A bottle of whiskey lay unstoppered next to him. Half empty. And no glass. Tall legs stretched in front of him drew her gaze to his muscular thighs. His tie was gone. Jacket discarded.
The white shirt was unbuttoned all the way to his abdomen. Golden olive skin dotted with sparse dark hair beckoned her touch.
And yet it was his face, wreathed in shadows, that drew her breath in serrated puffs. Dark brows winged over deep-set silver eyes perfectly framing his face. The thin, cruel slash that was his mouth. The strong column of his throat. His nostrils flared as he seemed to wait for her to acknowledge him.
“Kairos?”
“Your negligee is loose.”
“What?” It took her a few seconds to comprehend his words. Heat swarming her cheeks, she tugged the strap that had fallen off her shoulder, baring most of her breast. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not allowed in our bedroom?”
“Of course you are,” she said, swallowing down the panic rising through her. Something was wrong. The way he stared at her, the stillness... He hadn’t looked like that even when she’d told him what Helena had planned. Now...whatever had happened in the evening since, he looked unraveled. Completely undone.
And yet he had sought her out. He had been waiting for her in the dark, pain etched on every feature.
“I meant, why are you sitting there? In the darkness. Alone.”
His tongue flicked over his lower lip. Her pulse raced. He stared at her for a long time before he responded. “I was wondering if I should wake you or not.”
“Wake me?” she repeated, still grappling with the dangerous quality surrounding him. It seemed as if her mind couldn’t concentrate on his words. Only on the vibe that radiated from him. “Is something wrong with Theseus or Maria? She did seem off all evening, I wondered if she was ill or if...”
Her words fell away as she reached him. Something about his stillness discouraged touch. Her hands hung loosely at her sides.
Silvery eyes raked down the length of her with a thoroughly possessive intent. She hadn’t brushed out her hair before falling into bed. Now her braid was half undone, thick strands falling over her shoulders.
The negligee she’d picked was one she had bought after their wedding, a soft pink silk that hung loose around her chest now. Falling several inches above her knees, however, it bared most of her thighs and legs.
A sharp laugh from him startled her and she instinctively jumped back.
Her hand shot to her chest, rising and falling heavily. “What is funny?”
“Your legs.”
“My legs are funny?”
“Did you pick that negligee on purpose?”
Her cheeks heated as the memory of all the provocative nightwear she’d worn to entice him. “I...was too exhausted and honestly I didn’t think you’d be coming to bed anytime soon.”
“You make it hard, Tina. You always make it so damn hard,” he whispered, almost to himself.
She could no more stop her gaze from moving to his crotch than she could stop breathing. The shape of his arousal spiked her heartbeat.
He laughed, again, and she hurriedly pulled up her gaze to his. “That, too, glykia mou.” Wicked lights danced in his eyes. “I always rise to the occasion, ne?”
“Si, always.”
It was impossible not to laugh, even in the fraught moment. He looked young and charming and careless then, as if the tight grip he held over himself had snapped finally. It was a stark contest to the focused, always strategizing man she’d come to know.
What had snapped it?
“Kairos, how much have you drunk?”
Without answering her, he took the heavy bottle and took a huge gulp again. “You don’t drink,” she said softly.
“Usually, I don’t. My mother...” His words didn’t quite slur, though he seemed to lose focus. “I told you about her, ne?”
Her throat burned at the affection in his voice. “Si, you did.”
“She hated what she was forced to do to...feed me. So every evening, as she got ready for work, she would drink. She would drink after she came back. For years, she drank to drown out her reality. In the end, her liver was so damaged that she drifted away into nothing. I hate alcohol. How it promises to dull things down and yet it doesn’t.”
He stared at the bottle in his hand, and plunked it down with such force on the side table that the thick glass instantly shattered, and his hand plunged into the broken shards
with the force of it.
Valentina gasped and reached for him.
“Oxhi, Valentina!” His hands held her hips in a bruising grip. “There are shards everywhere. Your feet are bare.”
Blood from the cut on his hand painted his shirt. “Kairos?”
“Yes, agapita?”
“Your hand...will you please let me dress it?”
He nodded and released her.
Tina darted into the bathroom, and came back with the first-aid kit. In silence that pulled her nerves, she finished dressing the deep cut, and wound it with gauze. She put the kit away, and pushed the broken fragments under the table and stared down at him.
He was staring at her as if he meant to devour her. And didn’t know where to begin.
She was arrested between his wide legs, his face scant inches from her belly. Heat from his body hit her in powerful waves, the thin silk of her negligee no barrier.
“Christos, you smell like heaven,” he said, pulling her closer. “Like you’re the only place I can land, Valentina. But that is a mirage, too, ne? You’re dangerous, glykia mou. Always a threat to my sanity.”
Tina sank her hands into his hair to steady herself while he buried his face in her belly. He nuzzled her, as if he meant to burrow into her, setting every nerve ending on fire.
“Kairos?”
“I need you, agapita. So badly... I need you tonight.” There was a ragged question underneath the demand that twisted her heart. He was not sure of her and she had only herself to blame for it.
“I’m here, Kairos. I’ve always been here, for you.”
But there was no tenderness left in the moment. No humor. Only his need. Only the pain in his eyes and the frantic urgency she felt in his breath, in his movements to escape it.
His hands circled her waist restlessly, settling on her buttocks, and pressed her harder into his face. Molten heat spread from his mouth. The wet patch stuck to her skin. A heaviness filled her breasts, pooling into damp warmth at the juncture of her legs. The tension in his frame multiplied as he held her like that.
Then his hands were teasing the backs of her legs and thighs. Sneaking under the silky hem, cupping her buttocks, dragging her higher up against him. Higher, higher, lifting her with those sinewy arms. Until she was half standing, half draped over his shoulders.
Until his face was flush with her mound.
Tina swallowed the sound that rose to her lips, her trust absolute. Willing him to take whatever he needed.
His hot breath fell in puffs against her.
She jerked at the sudden surge of sensation so sharp that she almost fell backwards. But he didn’t release her. He held her as if he would never let go.
As if she were his salvation.
Her fingers crawled from his hair to his neck. When he pressed a warm, wicked kiss against the silk pooling at her sex, she dug her nails into his neck.
He growled and burrowed his mouth into her folds. Her spine arched, the knot in her lower belly so tightly wound. Her breath became fire. His fingers bit into her hips, the pain coating the pleasure with a sharp contrast that made it unbearable.
A thousand little tremors exploded when he opened his mouth, when his teeth dug into the lips of her sex. Violent shivers that she couldn’t contain. Moans and whimpers that she couldn’t swallow. Up, up, up went the silk. Until she was bared to him utterly and there was not even a flimsy barrier between his wicked mouth and her willing flesh.
Rough fingers dragged over her hips, her buttocks, stroking, kneading, clutching. No thoughts marred the pure lights of sensation darting up and down her body.
And then his tongue was there at the place where she ached for him. Always. Stroking, licking, laving. Pushing her higher, higher, higher onto the cliff. Driving away everything else from her body except him, and what his mouth, and his wicked tongue did to her.
Insistent. Raw. Relentless. She moaned and rocked into his mouth, clutching onto him as if he were her everything.
She was transported to that wanton place only Kairos could take her. And then the knot in her belly broke apart, her muscles clenched long and deep, pleasure splintering through her. Her thighs shook from the pressure, every inch of her trembling.
Arching into the warmth of his body, she pulled the negligee off and threw it away. His cheeks were flushed with stripes of color. Fingers trembling, she somehow undid the clasp of his belt. Unzipped his trousers. And then he was in her palm. Hard and hot. Thick. Lengthening.
“Inside you, Valentina, now.” The open need in his words was a balm to her soul.
Straddling his thighs that spread her indecently wide, she pushed down. His hips jerked up, and he thrust into her with one smooth stroke, fingers holding her hips grounded against him.
A long curse ripped out from his sinful mouth.
Tina gasped. Her body felt invaded even after the release he had given her, shivers of a different kind building over her skin. He was so deep. So hard inside her. Entrenched inside her body just as he always was in her heart.
A slow panic began to build inside her. She would never be free of him now. Never come out of this intact if he pushed her away.
“Shh...agapi mou...” he whispered against her temple. Long fingers stroked her damp skin softly. Soothingly. Until the tremors quieted.
A soft kiss against her damp lips. A featherlight stroke against her cheek. He nuzzled his stubble into her neck as if he had all the time in the world. As if just being inside her was enough.
“I didn’t forget for one second how tight you feel around me. But I didn’t realize that after so many months...you would be...” He sounded so adorably puzzled that Tina laughed. “Am I hurting you?”
Arms wrapped around his shoulders, she looked at him. His hair was damp and sticking to his forehead. His mouth pinched with the control he exercised. Skin pulled taut over his hard features, the depth of his need glimmered in his eyes. “Si,” she whispered, unable to stem the truth from falling from her lips. She’d forgotten how huge he felt inside her, but it was the panic running amok that she wanted to control. “Give me a moment.”
His hands tightened around her hips. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No! I... I just need to get used to you again.” She wriggled her hips in a small movement. The tightness was still there but something else fluttered beneath it.
A soft kiss against her breastbone. “Take all the time you need.”
She hid her face in his shoulder, blinking back the tears that rose. Did they have time? Did he want forever, like she did?
Anchoring her hands on his shoulders, Valentina arched her spine, then moved up and down. The tightness eased. In its wake came little flutters of sensation. She pushed against the sensation, chasing it. Lips pulled first at one nipple and then other, sharpening the little jolts that went to her groin.
Clasping his stubbled jaw, she took his mouth, hard and possessive, letting her kiss speak what she couldn’t say. “I want your skin, Kairos. All of you.”
In a blink of movement, he brought her to the bed. In the next, he had stripped his shirt, boxers. And then he was prowling on to the bed and she watched him to her heart’s content.
The sleek lines of his body. Velvet-rough skin stretched taut over rippling muscles. When he covered her body with his, when he thrust into her, Tina was ready this time.
The drag of their sweat-slicked bodies against each other brought familiar pleasure racing along her nerves. When he thrust, she raised her hips. His grunt of satisfaction made her growl in response.
Hands on her hips, he held her down and yet he was slow, taking his time.
Driving her out of her own skin.
“Faster, please, Kairos. Harder,” she urged him on, knowing what he needed. What he desperately craved. Wanting to be everything he needed.
No, not wanting to be.
She was everything Kairos needed already. She understood him, she loved him so much, and there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t face fo
r him. No one she wouldn’t fight to be by his side.
All she needed was to make him realize that. To make him understand that she belonged with him.
The realization flew through her veins, turning the moment into so much more than pleasure. He was hers and she would do anything to keep him.
She stroked his broad shoulders, his chest, dug her fingers into his buttocks, tasted the saltiness of his skin. Bit the arch between his neck and shoulders. Possessively, she drank him in.
He pressed a kiss to her temple, his rough thighs grazing her soft ones. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. I can take whatever you give me, Kairos. Don’t you know that already?”
As his thrusts became rougher and faster, as his breath hitched, as he growled and his body shuddered on top of her, Tina kissed his temple, breathing the sweat and scent of him.
Whatever his ambitions, whatever had made him into what he was today, she loved all of him. And she would fight for him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KAIROS COULDN’T HELP HIMSELF. Gathering Valentina to him, he kissed the slope of her shoulder, the skin still damp from their shower an hour ago.
He had pushed her body relentlessly tonight, craving release after release, a need for escape riding him hard. He’d barely soaped her and himself after he’d pushed her against the wall and taken her. Much less toweled them both dry before they had tumbled into bed.
He felt like he had run a triathlon, so sore was his body.
Valentina had, as usual, fallen asleep and nuzzled into him but sleep had evaded him. He’d wanted to leave the bed and her.
Intimacy was always hard on him and the more he’d been determined to limit his increasing need for Valentina to bed, the more she had undone him there.
But last night he hadn’t wanted to go. He hadn’t wanted to be alone. No, that wasn’t right. He was not going to lie to himself now.
He hadn’t wanted to leave her. The haven she provided against the cruelty of the world. Against the pain that had filled him.
She was warmth and fire and heaven.
He’d seen her slave hour after hour to make it up to Chiara, to find her place in the fashion world.