by Jane Kindred
Millieeeeee. The breathless growl hadn’t come from Ares. I scrambled for purchase against a door that was suddenly no longer solid, at least not in the sense I was used to.
Strength and yielding. Pressure and grace. One with the frame. One with the house. One with the earth beneath it and all its children, arms stretched wide in protective strength.
Millie.
Strength and yielding. Pressure and grace.
Millie!
Heartbeat. Heartbeat and skin and heat and need and your hands over every inch of me, your heat inside me. “God, yes. Please fuck me!”
I stumbled forward into awareness—and into Lukas’s arms. My underwear was lost somewhere in the hollow through which I’d stepped, my jeans at my ankles, my shirt open, my bra pushed down under my breasts. And every inch of my exposed skin was pressed against Lukas’s, standing naked and hard as wood before me. We stared into each other’s eyes in shock, breathing rapidly. His arms convulsed around me as if locked in a battle between holding me tighter and letting go.
“Millie,” he whispered.
“Please fuck me,” I whispered back.
Desire roiled in the moss green of his eyes, and with a sound of pain as though he were twisting his own limbs the wrong way about, Lukas lifted me off my feet and whirled me around, tossing me onto a bed rumpled with his restless night, and nearly falling on me. He tugged at what remained of my clothes, fear in his eyes now, as if every second’s delay was giving him a chance to think. To stop. I kicked off my pants and yanked my arms from the sleeves and straps, clutching him to me so he couldn’t get away.
“Don’t leave me, Lukas,” I pleaded.
“Do you want me?” he whispered, his chest heaving, his engorged cock pinned against my hipbone so hard it was going to leave a bruise. I could see what he was asking—did I want him, or was I just so riled up by Ares’s foreplay that I didn’t care who fucked me? It was a bit insulting in the abstract, but in the here and now, my heart ached that he would wonder.
“I need you, Lukas. I want you.” My breath caught, but I forced the rest of the words out. “I love you. And I know that’s wrong, but I don’t care.” Love is never wrong, Millie. Lumi’s words echoed in my head. Maybe love wasn’t, but what I wanted was. And I was going to have it anyway.
“I never stopped loving you,” he whispered. He rose up on his elbows, and I was afraid he meant to pull away, but he cupped my face in his hands and brought my mouth to his to kiss me as he lifted his hips to slide down between my legs and enter me. I moaned into his mouth, wrapping my legs around him, ankles crossed behind his ass, feeling the power of his thrusts both deep inside me and in the tightness of his glutes.
My body remembered his rhythm, and we rocked and swelled into each other like waves and stone on the beach below at high tide, and then rolled together as one so that he was beneath me. I sat up, staring down into that deep green as I rocked in his lap, stroking my hands over his chest while he cupped my ass and used his hold to pull me down harder and thrust deeper into me. A tingling precursor to orgasm rushed over my skin, and I arched back, clasping my arms over my head as if to hold myself together, biting my lip to hold back the mounting symphony of sound building inside me.
Encouraged, Lukas pulled me to him even more rapidly, our bodies striking and slipping together, and then I brought one hand down and covered my own mouth as my entire body began to sing with the release of energy shuddering through me like a tuning fork struck and held aloft to vibrate out a single note.
“Millie,” gasped Lukas as the vibrations shuddered down. “I need to pull out. No condom.” Shit. Reason had utterly abandoned me.
With a moan of regret at the break of contact, I swung off just in time to watch him tense, fist around the base of his cock, and spatter his abs with his release.
Lukas covered his eyes as he lay back with a groan of satisfaction tinged with dismay while I melted beside him trying to catch my breath. After a moment, he moaned, “Fuck. What did we do?”
I curled into his side and rested my head on his chest, one arm stretched across him to dangle my fingers next to his. As I’d hoped, he took my hand, threading our fingers together. “Can’t we just not think about it for tonight? Let’s just have this moment,” I whispered. “We can hate ourselves tomorrow.” I tried not to think about the fact that Ares was probably hating me plenty right about now.
“It’s different for you,” he said. “You’re not the—the transgressor—”
I lifted my head, resting my chin on his chest. “What are you talking about? What transgressor? Nobody’s transgressing against anyone.”
“I’m the older male. I’m your uncle, for God’s sake.”
“You were seven when I was born, and we never even met until we were adults. You can’t transgress against me, so just forget it. Quit trying to cast yourself as the villain.”
Lukas’s fingers tightened against mine. “I’m no better than Ares,” he growled. “What he did to his own sister—”
“Ares?” I propped myself up on my elbow beside him. “Lukas, it wasn’t Ares. You’ve gotten everything wrong about them.”
He took his hand from his eyes at last, brows drawn together. “What do you mean, it wasn’t Ares?”
I realized this wasn’t my business to tell, but it was too late. He’d understand on his own in a moment anyway. “It was Aristos.”
“What?” He let go of my hand and raised up on his elbows. “No, you’re mistaken. He was only a boy.”
“Costas insisted. He thought he could ‘cure’ Aristos and have his pure Apostolou blood heir at the same time.”
“Cure him? Of what?”
“Of nothing, since there’s nothing wrong with him. But Costas obviously believes homosexuality is a disease, and that abusing both of his children simultaneously by forcing them together would somehow make Aristos straight.”
Lukas sat up, the expression of sheer bafflement on his face priceless. “Aristos is gay?”
I laughed, rising to sit back on my heels. “Jesus, Lukas, where have you been?”
He shook his head, and then with a grimace as he looked down at his abs, he grabbed the bottom end of the tousled sheet and wiped himself off. “You’re sure about this? It was Aristos?” I nodded and Lukas’s expression grew grim. “My God. No wonder she…” He trailed off, glancing away from me. “If Costas weren’t on his deathbed, I’d kill him myself.”
“Probably not a good idea to say that where anyone else can hear you.” My attempt at gallows humor fell flat, and I reached for Lukas’s hand, wanting to feel close to him again. When he didn’t take the offered hand, I began to feel self-conscious sitting naked beside him, despite the fact that we’d just had sex. And I’d told him I loved him. Which probably wasn’t the wisest thing I’d ever done. Neither was disappearing through a hollow to have sex with one man in the middle of getting busy with another. I was sure there would be hell to pay for that move.
“You called me here, Lukas,” I said softly.
His shoulders lifted and fell with a heavy sigh. “I felt you. With him. You must have been”—he gritted his teeth before he went on—“up against a wooden surface, and I went to my door. I didn’t mean to call you out, but I—”
“I’m glad you did.”
Lukas looked at me finally, a sort of puzzled “lost boy” look in his eyes. “But you were with him.”
“You told me to go to him.”
“I told you to stick close to him, not to fuck him.”
My face blazed with heat, and I slipped off the bed and began gathering my clothes, but Lukas rose and closed his arms around me from behind.
“I’m sorry. Stop. Don’t go.” His chin rested on my head as he enveloped me. “I don’t want tomorrow to come yet. I may go to hell. Or prison. Or prison and then hell. But you’re right. Let’s not think about it now
. Any of it. Let’s have this moment.” He turned me about, and I dropped the shirt and bra I was holding and slid my arms around him. “Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever the consequences are, Millie…I—”
I stopped him with a kiss, and he didn’t object. He didn’t need to say it again. Neither of us needed to say it. Wrong or not, we knew what we felt. And what I felt at that moment was the incontrovertible evidence of his desire for me, already rising between us. Lukas steered me toward the bed and this time, took his time with me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Reluctantly, I slipped away to my own room before dawn, grateful that I hadn’t jumped through the hollows completely nude. The memory of Lukas’s touch made my body sing and my heart ache, wondering whether it would have been better not to have known it once more, but grateful, despite the shame, that I had.
Running into Ares over breakfast, however, was beyond awkward. Without Karolina, the morning meal was a subdued affair, set out like a buffet at a bed-and-breakfast for members of the household and its guests to graze at as they chose during the morning hours. I had the misfortune of choosing the same time Ares had in coming to get something to eat.
“If it isn’t Cinderella.” The sharp, sardonic comment came from behind me, making me jump in the midst of spooning oatmeal into my bowl. I froze and felt him move closer, stepping up to stand at my shoulder. “You left so suddenly, you stepped out of this. Shall I have you try it on and see if it fits?” He dangled my panties in front of me.
I snatched at the garment, but he whisked it out of my grasp.
“He reaped the benefits of my efforts, didn’t he?” Ares’s breath tickled my neck.
I exhaled slowly. “It wasn’t something I planned.”
“Was there role-playing involved? Vella told Alexis he could be surprisingly domineering when he wanted to be. A little spanking, perhaps?”
I jumped as his hand clutched my behind. I sucked in a breath and drew up my shoulders to face him, ignoring the heat in my cheeks. “I’m sorry. Honestly.”
He studied my face, and then his gaze traveled over my body and back to my eyes. “You owe me a rain check.”
“Ares—”
“After your abrupt departure, I engaged in the most angry masturbation I’ve ever experienced. I think I may have bruised myself.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said again, and then couldn’t help a strangled stutter of laughter at the perturbed look on his face, which I immediately stifled with a hand over my mouth and an apologetic, helpless shake of my head.
The voices of Clara and Signe preceded them at the entrance to the salon, and Ares shook the underwear at me once more before stuffing it in his pocket before I could grab it.
“I’ll just hold on to this for you, shall I? You can ransom your ‘slipper’ at a later date.”
The arrival of Signe in the room sent my embarrassment to the back burner. The conviction that had struck me yesterday at my mother’s tree came back to me full force. She’d murdered my mother.
She nodded to me coolly. “Emilie. You look well. I hope your friend is doing better.”
My stomach churned with guilt, and I stared down at my oatmeal, no longer hungry. “I haven’t checked on him yet this morning, but I think they would have called me if he’d come out of his coma.”
“Well, he has my best wishes.” I had to wonder what Signe’s best wishes might actually be. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to have them.
“And how about you, dear?” asked Clara while Signe busied herself with getting her breakfast. I was almost surprised that she addressed me. She seemed so often to fade into the woodwork. Perhaps literally.
“I’m better,” I said. Ares snorted, piling bacon onto his plate, and I did my best to ignore him.
“We haven’t gotten a chance to get to know you properly yet with all this misfortune and sadness in the house.” Clara glanced toward Signe as if waiting for her to agree, but she said nothing. “If you haven’t seen the vineyard yet, perhaps I can give you the tour, and we can chat after you’ve finished your breakfast.”
I wanted to talk to her again about what she’d told me, and this was the perfect opportunity. “I’d love to,” I said, and Clara beamed as if I’d made her morning.
* * * * *
The day was bright and sunny as we set out on foot half an hour later. Clara turned out to be in surprisingly good shape, walking at a brisk pace that I had trouble keeping up with without getting winded.
“You get used to walking a great deal out here,” she said, smiling at my efforts. “When I was a girl, we’d join my father inspecting the grapes and overseeing the harvest. I can remember walking row after row of trellises until I had blisters on my feet.”
We’d reached the vineyard, and Clara showed me the denuded vines, pointing out where the different varieties were grown. “Lukas is quite a master at it,” she said, showing me the vines for his pinot gris. “Of course, not the vintner Sebastian would have been, but a fine one nonetheless. But then Lukas has always had to work harder to prove himself, which I think gives him an edge our Bash might never have had.”
“Because of growing up in the shadow of my father’s memory?”
“That,” said Clara, “and the fact that he’s only half a Strand, where Sebastian’s blood was pure.”
I looked up from the vine I was examining, hoping I was misunderstanding. The wind tugged at my coat, and I clutched the collar. “Pure?”
Clara smiled. “Per fathered both of them, naturally. But the firstborn must always be a pure Strand. I gave him that.”
I swallowed, trying not to shudder. “You?”
“Of course. Signe couldn’t, you see.” She leaned toward me conspiratorially. “She’s not really a Strand.”
Still trying to process the fact that not only was Clara my great aunt, she was also my grandmother, I shook my head in confusion.
“I know. We look a great deal alike. We did even more when we were girls. We met at school, and everyone thought we were sisters, so we used to pretend. And then her parents died while we were away at school and we took her in, and she’s been a sister to me ever since. When Bash was born, she loved him just as much as I did.” Clara frowned, pacing along the row of wintering vines. “It’s why she was so threatened when Beverly came along. I think she’s come to believe she really is my sister. Sometimes I think she even imagines herself to be Sebastian’s mother.”
My mother’s exhortation about her ashes echoed in my head. “What happened to Beverly? After. Was she cremated?”
Clara turned and gave me an unsettled look. “Why would you ask that? She was killed in a fire.”
“I know, but…there were remains, weren’t there? Did her family claim them?”
“We didn’t know who her people were.” Clara turned and began walking swiftly back toward the winery.
I hurried after her. “But surely the sheriff’s department would have been able to use her social security number to locate a next of kin—”
Clara whirled on me. “You must stop asking questions, Emilie. It isn’t safe.”
“Safe from whom? From Signe? Is she the one who’s been hurting people?”
“I can’t tell you anything more!” Her eyes held panic, darting about as if she were afraid Signe might be lurking nearby.
“I’m not going to say anything to anyone about it,” I assured her. “I’d just like to know where she’s buried, or to have her ashes. She was my mother, after all.”
“Her ashes must remain where they fell. Let it go, Emilie. There’s nothing more to tell.” With that, she left me in the vineyard, outpacing me easily as I struggled to keep up. I lost her somewhere among the rows and gave up, heading back to the manor on my own.
* * * * *
When I arrived, there seemed to be an odd pall over the house. Something had happened.
<
br /> Roger appeared as I slipped out of my shoes in the foyer. “Ms. Lang. Mr. Strand has been trying to reach you, but your phone seems to be turned off.”
My heart began to hammer, my hand dipping into my pocket belatedly and closing around the phone. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid he’s been arrested. He asked me—discreetly—to tell you to check your messages.”
I felt sick to my stomach. The worst had come to pass. “Is there anything I can do? Where’s Konstantin?”
“He’s with Ms. Strand.”
Dread settled over me, my skin prickling with gooseflesh. “With Signe?”
Before he could answer, Alexis came charging from the direction of the guest suites. “Millie, I need to speak to you at once.” She grabbed my arm and gave Roger an icy stare, leading me away from him. “That woman is refusing to let us see Koste. She’s gotten it into her head that we intend to snatch him and return to Thessaloniki without waiting for the custody hearing.”
“Custody hearing?” I put my fingers to my temples, trying to still the threatening panic attack. “Lukas—”
“Murdered my sister, regardless of what your hormones would have you believe, and is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. And Lukas’s aging aunts are not fit guardians for him.” Despite the fact that Lukas had said much the same to me, her presumption sparked my outrage.
“He hasn’t even been arraigned yet, let alone tried! Stop talking about guardians!”
Her fawn gaze, the ghost of her sister’s, narrowed on me. “Ares felt certain you’d defend him, but that’s irrelevant. On this particular matter, Lukas Strand and the Apostolou family are in agreement. You’re the only logical choice.” I gaped at her as she continued. “We have no idea what the consequences would be of taking him away from the Grove. We intend to divide our time between Thessaloniki and the States until he’s old enough to make his own decision about whether he wishes to make the attempt. But we want him with you when we’re away.”