Crowned for the Drakon Legacy

by Tara Pammi

  Hands bunched in his shirt, she tugged at him. “I’ll mind that very much. I can’t stand the thought of you with other women. I couldn’t even bear to see those—” she moved her hand in the general direction of the field “—women looking at you. So, no, that would not be okay.”

  A fierce glitter filled his eyes then and his mouth lost that tight curve. “And?”

  “Next time, I’ll be on your team. Even though you’re obviously the better athlete and Andreas needs—”

  “Andreas is going to be the bloody King, agapita. He can find his own damn coach, for all I care.”

  She nodded like a good girl. “I’ll only cheer your manly prowess and stare only at your extremely well-formed calves and other...parts of your anatomy.”

  Color rode high on his cheeks, his mouth twitching. “Ahhh...so you have a weakness for muscled calves and what other parts?”

  “Tight asses,” she said, tongue in cheek.

  Brows lifted, mouth held tight, he stared at her with wide eyes. Nothing had ever felt so satisfactory as shocking Nikandros. Or as exciting.

  His hands clutched her arms, and a growl vibrated from his chest. “Mine better be the only tight ass you were staring at, Mia.”

  * * *

  Nikandros knew he was reacting like a petulant teenager about the friendship he’d seen emerge between Andreas and Mia. It had come to him one evening during dinner when they had all argued about a historical soccer game—how similar they were in temperament. Both played their cards very close to their hearts, and both had seen something in the other to allow them to let that guard down.

  Though Nikandros had his own estate in the city, they would all be working in close quarters for years to come. That there was a tenuous bond between his future wife and his ruthless brother was a good thing, he’d reminded himself a million times.

  And yet the way Andreas gained her confidence, the way Mia saw the cracks beneath that imperturbable facade of his, something even Eleni had missed—it made jealousy burn in Nik’s chest.

  Damn it, he’d spent so much of his life being second best to his brother. It didn’t matter that Andreas himself had never treated him as such. It didn’t matter that Nikandros had made a name for himself.

  The irrational feeling that he was competing again, was in the same race, resenting Andreas for no fault of his... This whole situation with Mia was slowly driving him crazy.

  Heat from her body made that subtle scent of roses that she preferred rise up toward him. Christos, he was going to implode from his desire for her.

  Her fingers rested on his abdomen, and his muscles instantly clenched. The pink of her dress brought out all the warm tones of her honeyed skin. She looked like a voluptuous rose, her skin dewy smooth and petal soft. Her brown eyes shone; her face had lost that wraith-like look she’d worn the last year.

  Being in Drakon suited Mia. She was forever hiding in the library or on her knees in the garden patch she’d asked for, her gaze following him around when she saw him with a mixture of concern and that artless desire.

  And having Mia around, even when they were playing cat and mouse, he realized, suited him. Even when she and Andreas had been talking strategy, her presence had been a lodestone.

  Her throat moved.

  He followed the elegant line of it, to the delicate crook of her neck to her breasts, to the indent of her waist that the dress neatly delineated. He ran a finger tracing the curve of it and inhaled deep. “I haven’t asked how you’ve been feeling of late.”

  “Hungry. Sometimes hormonal. But good. I found an ob-gyn that I like.”

  “Good.” And then he asked what he’d been dying to do for days.

  “Can I touch you?”

  She nodded, eyes wide in her face. Slowly, he laid his palm flat on her stomach and frowned. “You feel the same.” He moved his palm to the sides, and only then felt the subtle convexity of her stomach.

  Breath punched into his throat.

  He could feel even that small change because she’d had such a flat, toned abdomen. A band of tight muscles that he’d licked on his way to other inviting places.

  She put her hand on his and held it there, a glow like he’d never seen in her face. “Some women just show it slowly—that’s what the ob-gyn said.”

  He nodded. It sank in now, what they’d created together. Only now, he realized how momentous this was. So many things could go wrong but, Thee Mou, he wanted to do this right. He wanted to be a good husband, a good father, he wanted to treasure what Mia had brought into his life.

  He would do this right.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MIA WRAPPED HER arms around Nikandros, hoping he would hold her. She so desperately longed to feel his strength around her, longed to banish whatever demons drove him to work at that breakneck pace.

  Between ordering a new wardrobe, figuring out a new regimen for exercise and finding a new gynecologist in the city, the more she learned of Nik, the more Mia realized what a complex man he was.

  That she had compared him to Brian, she was realizing, was an insult to the man who was so much more than he’d ever been.

  And Mia with each passing day was being twined into his life. The worst was, she’d begun to care less and less about it, a future away from Drakon and Nik becoming more and more vague.

  The shudder that went through him as his hand stayed on her tummy was slight but she knew exactly how he felt. How inconsequential everything else felt when they considered the tiny life they’d made together.

  He pulled back from her just as abruptly as he’d held her. Ran a hand over his forehead and then his neck, and turned away.

  “You were right. You should move to another suite. I’m working a lot of late nights to sign this deal with this new investor Gabriel Marquez and I will only disturb your sleep.

  “Eleni has told me that you’re tiring soon these days.”

  Her throat tight, Mia tried to understand her own feelings. She felt like the flower she’d spent months tending to had suddenly died on her.

  The sense of loss was so acute that she automatically ran a hand over her tummy.

  She stared around the suite with the lovely drapes and the massive king bed. The veranda that offered a gorgeous view of the spectacularly maintained gardens. The suite had become more home to her than the apartment she’d shared with a colleague or even the beachfront property Brian had insisted they needed.

  But it wouldn’t be home without Nikandros.

  She hadn’t known one since she had walked away from her parents. But this was her home, wherever Nikandros was.

  Nothing in her life was going to be the same without him in it. But for once, the fear that came with that realization was submerged by how strongly she wanted to be with him. To experience the intimacy of that night again.

  There had been an openness between them that night, an urgency because they thought they would never see each other again.

  She wanted that Nik again. She wanted to be that Mia again.

  She wanted all their nights to be like that night. And she was damned if she didn’t at least fight for it.

  “You’re the one who insisted that we should work on our relationship.”

  “I’ll still be in the palace, Mia. I’ll have the staff coming and going all the time. It’s better if you—”

  “You work like a demon. With the soccer game over, we don’t even have practice and I’ll hardly ever see you.”

  “We’ll still have dinner every night.”

  That helplessness slowly morphed into anger. Why was he pushing her away, just when she was beginning to see what she wanted? Just when she was learning to reach for it? “Andreas and Eleni will be there. That’s not the same as—” She moved to block him, copying his own move earlier. “I don’t want to sleep alone. I’ve gotten used to waiting on the chaise for you.”

  A fire smoldered in his eyes then. And for the first time in her life, Mia understood what was going on. He was wound up as tight
as she was. Then why was he bent on putting distance between them?

  “It’s not good for your back. Just sleep on the damn bed. I’ll come and check on you every night.”

  “But—”

  “Thee mou, Mia, don’t make this hard.”

  Her temper splintered like the crack of thunder. “I’m making this hard? Damn it, Nik!

  “You pretty much kidnap me from Miami. You insist that we do the right thing by our child. You damn near make it impossible for me to resist you.

  “And now, now...when I can’t go through a single hour in the day without thinking of you, when I’m damn near combusting because I want to kiss you and touch you so badly...now...you want to keep your distance?”

  “Mia...”

  “No, you listen to me!” She was shouting now, like she’d never done. Her throat was raw with unshed tears, her heart so achingly full.

  She’d never needed anyone in her life as she did Nikandros, with this quiet desperation.

  “I don’t want to sleep alone. I don’t want the little time we spend with each other diluted by Andreas’s and Eleni’s presence. And I sure as hell don’t want you to shut me out in the guise of work and your bloody deal.

  “Which, by the way, has completely consumed you so much that you have dark circles under your eyes and you walk around like a grumpy bear chewing the head off anyone who dares to speak to you.

  “I want you with me here.” She bent her head to his chest, a twisting ache moving through her. “Please, Nik.” Her hands moved up the rigid line of his spine to the tight clench in his shoulders, up his nape, and sank into his hair.

  He felt so good in her hands, so wonderfully solid and male around her. She never wanted to leave his embrace. Even with the fear that he would crush her heart, Mia still wanted to run toward him.

  Scrunching his hair around her fingers, she tugged until he was bent toward her, until she could look into those blue eyes that had begun to mean the world to her. Pressing her mouth to his jaw, she breathed him in. Found the furor in her gut calming. When had he become her anchor?

  “Won’t you make love to me again, carino? I need you quite desperately. I feel as if I’ll unravel if you won’t kiss me, Nikandros.”

  A tight vein pounded in his temple as he tugged her face up. His fingers twisted her hair with something close to pain, his breath pulsing like wildfire against her skin. A conflagration began in Mia’s body, setting every nerve ending on fire. “If we do this, there’s no going back, Mia.”

  His hot mouth moved over her jaw, down to her neck. The drag of his teeth over the pulse in her neck.

  A rush of wetness pooled between her thighs. Instinctively she clenched them to hold that ache there but he shoved a muscled thigh between hers.

  With the rub of her tender folds against his thigh, a sob burst out of her throat.

  “No, glykia mou. That shiver between your thighs is mine. Your arousal, every little quiver of your body, every inch of you will be mine from now on, Mia.

  “No more time to be had before you get used to the idea of marriage.

  “No more second thoughts.

  “No more running scared.

  “For the rest of your life, you’ll be the Daredevil Prince’s wife and the mother of his children.”

  The stark possessiveness of his statements twisted through the deepest recesses of her heart, smashing through any armor she’d left against him. Instead of terrifying her, his words sent an illicit thrill through her. She nodded, the idea of never withholding anything from this man forever releasing her from her own fears.

  “Children, you said children,” she whispered against his neck as he carried her to the bed. She licked the strong pulse there and tasted salt and soap and skin.

  The taste of him exploded on her tongue and she did it again.

  Felt his chest rumble at her side when she dug her teeth into a tight shoulder.

  With nimble fingers, he pulled her dress off and stripped his own clothes.

  Sunlight kissing the hard planes of his body, he was a sight to behold. Fingers gripping her ankles, he pushed her onto the bed and climbed over her. “You didn’t think we were going to stop with this one, did you?”

  Mia barely comprehended that he was answering her question with one of his own as his palm splayed on her tummy before moving onto the seam of her panties and pulling them down.

  “We’re not?” she somehow managed amidst the drum of her heart in her ears.

  “No, we’re not,” came his gruff answer.

  His torso twisting sideways, he threw the wadded ball of the silky fabric, giving her a glimpse of a tight butt cheek. She’d been so intent on what he revealed of her that night that she hadn’t feasted on the masculine splendor that was his body.

  Flesh stretched tight over his chest that tapered to lean hips. His thighs—Mia swallowed, remembering the corded strength of those long muscles when he’d pushed into her the last time. Like her own body, his had been honed, and that contained power of his sent a thrum through her.

  He turned around. His shaft was long and thick, protruding out.

  Heat rose through Mia, tingling from head to toe, merging into an ache at her sex. With her elbows, she pushed herself up and wrapped her fingers around him.

  Such hardness encased in such velvet silk—he was beautiful. She fisted her hands and pumped up and down. The veins in his neck stood out in stark relief before his fingers clamped over her wrist.

  “Not today, Mia. No playing today. No slow loving, agapi mou. I need you too much and I’m going to take you hard and fast.” Even his deep rasp couldn’t hide the question.

  “You inside me, Nik, that’s all I care about.”

  “Good.”

  And then he pushed her back onto the bed, his hands roving over her restlessly.

  “We’re going to make our own football team and you, Mia Rodriguez Morgan, are going to be the coach.”

  “Don’t I have a say in whether I want a brood of little daredevils to run after the rest of my life?”

  His fingers stilling on the straps of her bra, he looked into her eyes and burst into laughter.

  God, she could spend all eternity like this, listening to the sound of his laughter. An eternity soaking in the warmth of that smile. “Little daredevils? You’ve only yourself to blame for putting that image in my head, pethi mou.

  “Now I’m even more determined.”

  Her bra came off, his rough fingers pinching the taut nipples.

  Back arching off the bed, Mia pushed into his touch. Eyes glittering, he bent his head and licked one dark bud. That sculpted mouth pressed wet kisses around it. “I’m sure I can persuade you of the merits of the idea,” he whispered, and then closed his mouth over her nipple. The relentless flicks of his tongue sent pulses of sensation pounding to her core.

  And made that rhythmic motion with his mouth rend her in two with blinding pleasure.

  Panting and sobbing, Mia tried to move her lower body. He didn’t let her.

  He tugged and sucked and licked and stroked until she thought she would die from the pleasure of it. Whorls of pleasure eddied in her lower belly and she pressed her wet sex wantonly against one hair-dusted thigh.

  A trail of hot kisses between the valley of her breasts followed. Fingers twisting in the sheets, her pelvis rocking against him, Mia was mindless with need.

  With his hands on her knees, he widened her.

  Mia stiffened.

  “All of you... Mia.”

  Desire pinching his features, he pushed until she relented. Her thighs fell away as his fingers tested her dampness. Her flesh closed over his fingers eagerly when he penetrated her, like a flower furling its petals tight.

  “You’re so perfect. So damn tight.”

  With a raw groan, Mia held on to his shoulders as he settled heavily between her legs. His long fingers gripping her thighs roughly, he lifted her pelvis and entered her in a deep thrust.

  Stars exploded at the
back of Mia’s eyes. He was hot and hard inside her, sending swirls of ache. He tilted her and went deeper, filling her with that thickness.

  Mia screamed at the tight friction and came in a violent burst of pleasure. And still, there was a knot in her chest, a tight pit of fear that made her shudder all over.

  The pleasure and the intimacy—it made fear bubble up inside her.

  A mixture of panic and something else flared deep in her as he began to pull out. She curled her fingers around his arms, desperate to never lose him just as her pelvic muscles clenched tight around him.

  “Slow down, Mia. Open your eyes, and look at me.”

  * * *

  “You’re going to be end of me.”

  Her eyes remained tight shut. She’d never felt so raw and vulnerable. Every part of her heart stood naked in his arms.

  If she opened her eyes, he would know. He would see how deeply she had fallen in love with him. He would know how much the thought terrified her. She tilted her head to the side, fighting against the tears seeping hot against her eyelids.

  “Will you not look at me, Mia? Will you not share this with me completely?”

  Her eyes flew open. “I’m here, Nik. All of me.” Her throat rasped to get the words out. With a shaking hand, she traced the proud lines of his face, cradled him in her palm. Her heart felt like it would never stop expanding in her chest. “More than I’ve ever been present in any moment in my life. And this...how good it feels, the magic of this moment...it terrifies me, Nik.

  “If anything happens to this...whatever it is we share, I couldn’t bear it. I would shatter completely.”

  “But nothing will happen to this, Mia. I won’t let it,” he said, peppering soft, slow kisses against her temple.

  And then he began to move inside her again.

  Deep and fast, with a visceral need that destroyed her and remade her.

  He took her with no reprieve, with no false gentleness. He pounded into her welcoming flesh, as if he too, like her, was trying to still the moment here.

  Fingers digging into his buttocks, Mia tilted her pelvis the next time to meet his thrust.