the tears she’d been holding back fell and she reached up to swipe them away, one after the other before he could see.
“Why the tears?” he asked, standing at the foot of the bed.
So she hadn’t successfully hid them. She sat taller and swiftly swiped away another, scrubbing at her cheeks to make sure they were now dry. “I didn’t think you were going to come tonight. I thought I’d chased you away.”
“So you don’t believe what you were saying?”
“No, I do.”
“Then don’t apologize. Your problem is that you’re smarter than everyone else.”
She sniffed and swiped away a last tear. “Not smarter than you.”
“I wouldn’t say that. You are certainly book smarter. To be fair, I probably have you beat when it comes to street smarts.”
She settled her nightgown over her knees, and exhaled slowly, trying very hard to bridge whom she was with what a wife was supposed to be. It was a tricky balancing act. “All right, so I don’t apologize for having opinions, but I am sorry if I upset you at dinner. Trying to be a good wife is more complicated than I imagined.”
“Why shouldn’t you speak freely? I do.”
She exhaled in a painful rush, her cheeks heating. “We both know the answer to that.”
“Because men can, and women can’t?”
“You’ve told me that my value lies in me being a supportive wife, not a critical, oppositional one.”
“I actually don’t think I ever told you that,” he said mildly.
“A traditional Greek wife—”
“Isn’t what I asked for. It’s what you said I needed, because apparently I need a meek, submissive wife.” He arched a black brow. “Now, there are things I would enjoy from a submissive wife, but it would probably not be what you’re thinking.”
Or would it? She silently countered, as unbidden images came to mind, images of her kneeling before him, worshipping his body, drawing his thick shaft into her mouth, sucking, licking, making him groan and slide a hand into her hair, his fingers wrapping around the strands, holding her head so that he could take his pleasure.
Kassiani exhaled again, her body hot, her senses stirred. Flustered, she pushed back a heavy wave of hair from her face, feeling overly warm, and more than a little claustrophobic, because suddenly the atmosphere felt charged, the air heavy, crackling with awareness, and desire.
She could tell that Damen felt the tension, too, as the look he gave her was blatantly sexual, as was his slow, possessive perusal, his gaze resting on the jut of her breasts and then lower to the swell of her hips and then finally to the hem of her nightgown where it clung to her thigh.
“Let me see you,” he said slowly, arms folding over his chest.
“What do you want to see?”
“Everything.”
“Then let me see you.”
“What do you want to see?”
“Everything.”
He laughed softly and gave his dark head a shake. “You are a fearless negotiator. I admire that.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Now let’s see how good you are at asking for something. What do you want, Petra Kassiani? What would be your pleasure?”
She hesitated, thinking. “Something new. Something we haven’t done. But something I would like,” she added quickly, fighting her blush.
“Oh, that’s easy, then. I haven’t even taken you from behind yet. I think you’ll like that position very much.”
HE WAS RIGHT. She did like that position very, very much.
She was still trying to catch her breath after the most intense orgasm of her life, and Damen was stretched out next to her, his hand lightly running over her back, caressing from her back to her butt, and then up again.
Part of her was so relaxed but another part of her was already being stirred.
“Tell me something about your boyhood,” she murmured, trying to distract herself. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“None. I was an only child.”
“Why?”
“There were complications during my birth. My mother was lucky she and I both survived the pregnancy.”
“That’s scary.”
“I am sure if we lived someplace else, and had easier access to doctors, it might have been less dangerous.”
“You were poor.”
“Very.”
She curled closer to him, her arm wrapping around his waist. “And yet you have so much now.”
“I made a vow when I was fifteen that I would never be poor again, and it’s driven every decision I’ve made since then.”
“What did your father do?”
“He worked in an olive orchard. My mother did, too. They earned so little that they couldn’t afford child care for me, so from the very beginning I went to work with them, first strapped to my mother’s back as an infant, and then later I ran about, trying to help. I didn’t actually get paid until the year I turned ten. That was a big deal for me, and my family. It wasn’t much compared to what my father earned, but it helped.”
She pressed her hand to his chest, just above his heart. They’d had such different backgrounds, such different lives, and yet here they were together. “When did you find time to go to school?”
“I went seasonally. When I wasn’t needed in the groves or the olive press.”
“It doesn’t sound like you had a lot of formal education, then.”
“I attended off and on until I was fourteen—” He broke off, jaw hardening, brow darkening. “And that was the end of my boyhood. I never went back to school, and within eighteen months, I left our island, Adras, for good.”
“Where did you go?”
“Athens. I got a job in the dockyards and worked hard, and here I am.”
“How does a relatively uneducated boy become...you?”
“Relentless ambition.” He smiled grimly. “And the desire for revenge.”
She pushed up on her elbow to get a better look at his face. “Revenge? Why?”
