“Milonia.”
Her name was a prayer on his lips to the one god he had known his entire life. One who could be as cruel as they were kind. This particular prayer was for mercy. If she kissed him, he wouldn’t stop. And if he didn’t stop…
He would be hers.
Milonia met his gaze.
Exhaled.
“Yes?” A whisper. A prayer of her own.
Dimitrios traced the lines of her cheekbone and jaw. She turned her face into his palm, filling it. Her eyelids fluttered shut, stripping him of their shine.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
She did. Lids flaring wide, then turning languid.
He continued to memorize her face with his fingertips. The arch of her brows. The swell of her lips.
Milonia closed more of that precious space. Her nose skimmed up one side of his, then down the other. She breathed out, and he took it in.
Dimitrios threaded fingers into her hair, holding her steady…
His mouth brushed hers, feather soft. The shock of it stunned every part of his senses. He’d forgotten what this felt like. The newness of a woman’s lips.Twoyears—more than that—since he last experienced this sensation. This connection to someone else.
Milonia eased him deeper into the kiss. Tender. Exploring. Her lips parted, and he could only follow her lead.
The heat of her mouth crossed into his first, then her tongue.
She tasted like peaches and thyme-drenched honey. Sunlight and slow-simmered sweetness. He fed greedily from her, chasing the heat, the melting softness of her mouth against his.
She moaned, and heunleashed.
Dimitrios needed her. Closer, deeper,wilder.
He dragged her body across his. She straddled his lap—her heat sank through his pants. Blood rushed from his head, straight to his building erection.
His attention was all over the place, devouring her touch. The way she clawed into his hair. The depth of her tongue. The deep roll of her hips.
He could be inside her in under a minute. All he had to do was?—
“I need you inside me.”Sophia’s desperate voice slammed into him, a long-lost heartbeat.
Sophia hovered over him. Hair a curtain. Lips swollen and wet. And because he could never deny her, he rolled her soft, naked body beneath him and entered her tight, warm heat.
This was immediately followed by another time he held his wife. Her heaviness. Her absence.
Dimitrios gasped out of the kiss.
Blinked.
He held Milonia away by the shoulders, and her breath came fast, an almost exact match for his.
Her eyes darted, searching.
She wouldn’t find the answers here. None that she liked.
Dimitrios squeezed his eyes shut. What had he done? What right did he have to this woman? What right did he have to take from her warmth when he still reeked of grief?
