How could I have been fantasizing about him? He’s barely more than a kid! And all that stuff I’ve been picturing...my god! I masturbated to him.
It’s immoral.
The problem is, how do I shut all that shit off? I don’t want to think about him but that’s not how my twisted brain operates.
It doesn’t matter how wrong it is, how young he is, he’s still got the body of a lion god and the face of a dark angel.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Can I get you something?”
“I’m fine. Really. I’m totally fine.” I’m lying, of course. But, it’s not like I can tell him what’s really wrong. That I’ve been having sexual fantasies about him from the first moment we met and that I am now officially a cougar. It’s downright humiliating.
Thank God his cousin appears at the open door with another platter of food. She carries it to the table and sets everything out, providing a moment of distraction.
However, she’s gone too soon, leaving Nicolai and me alone again. He opens a bottle of white wine to accompany the meal and I busy myself with heaping aromatic food onto my plate. I have no idea how I’m going to eat it, with my burned mouth and troubled stomach, but I’m going to do my best to pretend everything is normal. Totally normal.
The first thing I do to try to encourage normalcy is to ask about his grandmother. In retrospect, I should have asked him about her before. I’d meant to. I really did. But my philandering thoughts took over. Remember?
“I was hoping to see your grandmother when I arrived. I’ve thought of her often over the years.”
I know what’s coming before he opens his mouth. It’s apparent in his expressive eyes and the serious set of his mouth. “Grandmother passed away a year ago.”
“Oh no.” My lapse in judgement over Nicolai is completely forgotten by my shock at this news. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” He stands. “I have something for you. I’ll be right back.”
Nicolai returns within minutes and places two books on the table in front of me. They are tied together with yellow ribbon. I undo the bow carefully, as if I’m diffusing a bomb, and then stare transfixed at the titles. The first is The Love Songs of Sappho. The second is Daphnis and Chloe.
I open the covers to see my name printed there. I’d left these books behind when I’d departed seven years ago. Having no fixed address, it’s what I do. I leave things I don’t need anymore, hoping others will make use of whatever it is.
I never expect to get these things back.
Seeing my own handwriting in books that once belonged to me makes me feel something strange and unnamed and the melancholy I thought I had under control as I drove into Molyvos, returns.
“She saved these for you. In case you should ever return.”
I’m overcome. I glance up at Nicolai and find him watching me with an expression that is completely indecipherable.
“She saved my books,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
“She told you she had them?”
“Yes. You were...special to her.”
There is an enormous lump in my throat that is making it impossible to swallow. “I should have come back sooner. I should have—” I cover up the fact my lips are quivering by taking a drink.
“You’re here now,” he says and his hand moves as if to touch my arm, but he stops himself and quickly pulls his hand back.
The seriousness of his news and my feelings subdues my rampant lust, allowing the two of us to catch up like we’re old friends. After he tells me a bit about his grandmother’s illness and passing, I am struck by how fluent he is and on the fact that he doesn’t sound Greek.
“Your English is excellent,” I say. “But, why do you have a British accent?”
“My mother died when I was ten. Afterwards, Grandmother sent me to boarding school in London. The summer you were here was the first time I’d been home in four years.”
I think back to the gangly teenager who is now barely recognizable in the man sitting across from me. I suppose his English would have been excellent even back then, but he was so shy and quiet, I don’t know if I ever heard him speak.
I ask him about what it’s been like running the guesthouse this past year in his grandmother’s absence and then we discuss the recession and austerity measures taken by the Greek government. I tell him what I do for a living and propose that I look at his books and business plan, offering to do anything I can to help.
“I’m afraid no amount of planning can help, Ms. Savage. All of Europe is suffering. Tourism is non-essential and is the first thing people give up when times are tough.”
“How are you surviving?”
“The last three summers we’ve earned just enough to get by. In the winter months I take on odd jobs, labor, construction, anything I can to earn extra income to keep the guesthouse running. I keep the costs down by only hiring part-time staff, mostly family, when I can’t manage on my own.”
I look around. The guesthouse is in beautiful condition. There’re no chinks in the stonework, no cracked tiles, everything is clean and welcoming. I’m impressed by what I see, so much so that my next question pops out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop it. “Nicolai, how old are you?”
His hazel eyes flash. “Old enough.”
“Come on. You can’t be more than twenty, maybe twenty-one.”
Looking away, he says. “I’ll be twenty-two next month.”
I sigh. Oh, to be twenty-two again. I’d snap Nicolai up in a heartbeat, he is divinity personified. Despite my best intentions, my wicked imagination takes me back down that road of immorality, imagining his youthful strength and endurance.
Oh shit.
And I was doing so well.
“Ms. Savage,” Nico says, breaking into my fantasy of youth revisited. “I don’t know what your plans are for the evening but there’s a play tonight up at the castle that I thought you might be interested in.”
I love the castle. I’d attended a number of performances up there when I was here last. Musicals, plays, even rock concerts, I loved the dichotomy of old and new melding together. “What is it?”
He points to one of the books on the table. “Daphnis and Chloe.”
“What time does it start?”
“Forty-five minutes.”
“Perfect.” I begin to gather our empty plates.
“Please, Ms. Savage. You’re my guest. Leave the cleaning to me.”
“But aren’t you coming to the play?”
His movements appear as if in slow motion. He stops what he’s doing and slowly turns his head, meeting my gaze. There is a conversation going on between our subconscious selves, I feel the tingle of it in the back of my skull. I’m afraid I know what my subconscious is telling him. I’m not sure I trust what I think his is telling mine.
“Would you like the company?” he asks softly.
“Yes.” I answer, just as softly.
“Then, I would love to join you.”
***
I’m a wee bit tipsy and a whole lot turned on during the walk back to the guesthouse after the play. Based on how quiet the town had seemed earlier, I didn’t expect there to be such a large turnout for the production. However, the performance was just one of the many events going on in celebration of the weeklong International Women’s Festival. Busloads of women who are staying down the road at Skala Eressos, the hub of the festival, came to watch the play. Based on the party atmosphere, they may not have come to watch so much as they came to drink, talk, laugh, and make-out on blankets on the grounds of an ancient fortification.
Nicolai and I shared a bottle ourselves. Hence the tipsiness.
The horniness? Well, that’s sort of my perpetual state of being of late. But the play didn’t help matters. The story of Daphnis and Chloe is a romance written in antiquity and set on the island of Lesvos. It’s about a young man and woman who were abandoned as babies and raised by shepherds. They fall in love and are overcome with physical pa
ssion, but don’t know how to follow through...if you know what I mean. So neighbors, friends and the odd Greek god help them figure their shit out. There’s even an older woman who takes the two under her wing and tutors them in intercourse.
Now that scene was a feast for the senses!
The actors spent most of their time naked or semi-naked...but mostly naked. And, from where I was sitting? It sure as hell looked like they weren’t just pretending during that threesome scene, but actually doing the deed.
If the intent was titillation, it worked because my whole body is throbbing right now. All that nudity and live, graphic sex? That alone could have put me over the top. But, what didn’t help was that I was cozied up on a blanket beside young Nicolai with the lion-eyes. We sat close, so very close that I could smell his virile scent, hear each breath he took, feel the heat emanate off his big body. But we never touched. By the end of the night I was so hyper aware of him, I ended up drinking way more wine than I should have and now my wicked thoughts are ten times worse than before.
I look up to find Nicolai waiting for me a few steps ahead. “Are you okay?”
I’m so caught up in my naughty daydreams, I find myself leaning up against a wall instead of walking toward the guesthouse.
“I’m fine,” I say, hurrying to catch up but stumbling in the process.
Miraculously, I manage to keep from falling. “Okay, I’m a little unstable. Give me your arm.”
He stands completely still as I thread my arm through his. The man is not only tall, he’s ramrod straight. Of course, that could all be an illusion because I’m so floppy at the moment.
It’s embarrassing.
Looking up, I try to pretend I’m more sober than I am. “Sssooo, what did you think?” Unfortunately, my slurred words give me away.
“What did I think of what?”
I give him a playful hip check. “The performance, silly.”
He glances down at me with one of those expressions I find hard to read. “I enjoyed it. I always like to see modern adaptations of the guesthouse’s namesake.”
He’s not slurring. This bothers me. How can I be drunk when he isn’t? It’s not fair.
I form my next words carefully, committed to sounding as sober as him. “So, how was this one different?”
“For one thing, in the original story the older woman, Lycaenion, doesn’t teach both Daphnis and Chloe how to have sex, she only teaches Daphnis. She’s in love with him and wants him for herself. In fact, she tells him he shouldn’t have sex with Chloe because it’ll hurt her.”
“Hmm,” I say, thinking about the erotic, threesome sex scene—again. I clear my throat and try to sound scholarly instead of overly aroused. “What do you think of the premise? I mean, I have a hard time believing that the two main characters wouldn’t be able to figure out sex. They were shepherds for God’s sake. I’m pretty sure they witnessed copulation before.” That’s how the sentence sounds in my head. But apparently I got my words confused.
“Capitulation?” Nicolai gives me one of those odd looks.
“Did I say capitulation? No. Copulation. Cop-u-lation.”
Nicolai clears his throat. “It’s a romance written in the second century. It’s not meant to be taken literally. I’m sure it was meant to be a story about the rite of passage from youth into adulthood.”
“Can you imagine?” I persist. “Having these feelings and not knowing how to act on them?” I try to imagine, but I can’t and it’s not just because I’m tipsy. It’s because it’s been so long since I didn’t know what to do in the sex department.
When I look up, I’m startled by the expression on Nicolai’s face. It’s heated and piercing. “What?” I ask, wondering if I’ve somehow offended him in my drunken ramblings.
He shakes his head and opens the gate of the guesthouse, holding it so I can pass through first. Damn. The kid’s a real gentleman. I think I want to kiss him. I turn and give him my I-think-I-want-to-kiss-you smile.
He furrows his brow.
What is wrong with me? Besides being drunk and horny? I’m not twenty, far from it. I’ve got to stop flirting with him. He is not Daphnis and I am definitely not Chloe. Lycaenion, maybe. But I don’t want to be the older woman in this scenario.
Once we’re inside, I look up at him, resolved to behave myself. “Tonight’s been lovely. Thank you.”
I can tell he wants to say something, so I wait. I see his eyes move to the stairs behind me. “Let me escort you to your room.”
He must realize I’m drunk and is afraid I’m going to fall down the stairs.
Bless him.
My legs are more unsteady than I expect as I lead the way upstairs to the door of my suite, overly aware of the man—no, not man, boy, dammit! Boy—following behind me, smelling deliciously of sweet grass and ocean air. I unlock the door and stand in the opening. “Thanks again. Good night, Nicolai.”
“Tessa?”
“Yes?”
He is staring at me with this weird expression like he’s going to say something really serious, I don’t know, like he has a terminal disease or something. That’s how serious he looks.
“May I kiss you?”
What? Don’t tell me the I-want-to-kiss-you smile, worked?
I am not prepared for this and unfortunately my head bobs up and down giving assent before I mean to.
Even in my drunken state, I know this is a mistake. I know I shouldn’t allow this to happen. But I can’t help it. Nicolai is exuding pheromones and, in my uninhibited state, I’m exuding them right back. His question, stated in his marvellously accented voice, fans my arousal to unbearable proportions. Not to mention, he has this killer serious look in his tawny eyes that tugs on some warm part of me deep in my abdomen.
I want him.
I need him.
It is impossible to say no.
I don’t want to say no.
I should say no...
“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes.”
Chapter Three
His head moves down and his lips find mine and...
It’s all wrong.
His mouth is stiff and unmoving. When I go to hold onto him, because quite frankly, I’m about to topple over, his body is hard and unyielding. He doesn’t reach for me, he doesn’t wrap his arms around me, he doesn’t lift me up or press himself against me.
Confused, I look up and realize we’re standing in the doorway—the doorway that is too low for him.
Of course, he’s uncomfortable, so I grab the front of his shirt and pull him inside the room toward the bedroom. It takes me a moment to realize he’s saying something. I think it’s Greek. The saying, “It’s all Greek to me,” flashes through my mind and I giggle like I’m a teenager.
That’s what this man does to me, he wipes a decade and a half off my actual age and makes me feel stupidly young. I’m so busy tugging him toward the bedroom and giggling like an imbecile that I don’t pay any attention to the strange expression on Nicolai’s face.
He stops just outside the threshold of the bedroom.
“What is it?” I ask.
His eyes flick over my head to the canopied bed behind us and then he shakes his head and says, “Nothing,” before following me through.
Strangely, he avoids touching me, so there’s no frantic stripping of my clothes, like I’m doing to him. No tossing me onto the bed, either. His hands remain frustratingly chaste and he keeps watching me with this tortured look.
“Nicolai?”
Forcing a smile, he licks his lips, ducks his head and once again, presses his mouth to mine. I flick my tongue along the closed seam of his lips and his body jerks. I run my hands up his oh-so-gorgeous chest and he gasps as if my touch burns him.
The problem is, I can’t tell whether my touch burns in a good way or a bad way.
If only I was a little more clearheaded, I’d be demanding that he tell me what the problem is. But I’m not clearheaded so I press on as if nothing’s wrong.
Dra
gging him to the side of the bed, I give him a shove so he falls back onto the mattress. I pull my shirt up and over my head, revealing my lacy, pink bra. It’s a pretty bra and I take a moment to admire it...with my hands...touching myself.
Beneath lowered lashes, I watch Nicolai’s expression.
His eyes widen, but his look is more concerned than aroused.
Does that stop horny-toad-Tessa?
No.
I crawl on top of him and spread his shirt wide open.
Oh heaven! His chest is...well...he’s beautiful. He’s so lean and strong and his skin is so warm and there’s a sweet patch of dark curls in the center of his chest and it’s all so delicious and the hair is so silky and his skin is so hot and all hard and soft at the same time and I press my lips to his sternum and move lower, kissing and tasting like I wanted to from the moment I saw him, following the delicious line of dark hair down, down and down some more until I’m at the waistband of his jeans.
Does Nicolai thread his hands through my hair?
No.
Does he guide my head to the place he wants me to kiss him most?
No.
Do I care?
Apparently not.
I unsnap his fly and his body goes rigid.
I reach an inquisitive hand inside and touch his gloriously erect flesh.
He grunts and mutters more Greek. This time louder.
I slide his zipper all the way down, giving his cock room for release. Holy hell! He may still be covered by his shorts, but that’s one impressive erection. I press my hand against the amazing length of him. Oh, he’s lovely. Rock hard. So hard. So fucking hard!
I want to strip him and straddle him. I want his fucking hard cock inside of me...fucking me, hard.
I press a kiss against the thin material of his shorts and am about to reach beneath the cotton when Nicolai convulses on the bed and rolls out from under me.
What the hell?
He looks tormented and angry and he’s speaking to me in Greek. No. Not speaking, yelling—I think. It’s really hard to tell with this Greek language, it all sounds like yelling to me.
“What? What did I do?”
Seduction in the Sun: Adult Romance Box Set (9 Sizzling Tales with BBW, Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males) Page 40