“Taking you to bed.”
“But we need to—”
“My bed, Lexina.”
“But the mediation questions—”
“Will still be there in the morning.”
“But I told you I’ve never—” She was babbling now, words tumbling out in a rush she couldn’t seem to stop. “And you’ve had six years of practice with someone who probably knew exactly what she was doing, and I’ve only ever read about this in books, and those are probably not even accurate, and what if I’m terrible at it, what if—”
He stopped walking.
Right there in the hallway, her still in his arms, her back coming to rest against the wall as he pressed into her, his forehead dropping to meet hers. This close, she could feel his breath mingling with her own, could see the flecks of gold in his tawny eyes, could feel the way his chest was rising and falling just as unsteadily as hers.
“Lexina.” His voice was rough in a way she’d never heard before. “Stop talking.”
“But—”
“Stop.”
“I just think we should discuss—”
He kissed her again, softer this time, a question instead of a demand, and when he pulled back his lips brushed against hers with every word.
“Do you want this?”
The question settled over her like a weight, pressing down on all the places she’d kept carefully numb for eight years. Did she want this? She thought of every time she’d watched him leave for Milan and pretended it didn’t matter, every time she’d smiled for photographers at charity galas while something small and starving curled tighter in her chest, every night she’d spent alone in their Athens penthouse wondering what it would feel like to be touched by someone who actually wanted her.
“Yes.” The word came out smaller than she intended, so she said it again, stronger this time. “Yes.”
Something in his expression shifted, cracked open, and then they were moving again — through the door of his bedroom, across the floor she’d never set foot on in eight years of marriage, until her back met sheets that smelled like him and his weight settled over her and the rest of the world simply ceased to exist.
“Breathe,” he murmured against the hollow of her throat, and she realized she’d forgotten how.
His hands were patient in a way she hadn’t expected from a man who commanded boardrooms and never asked for anything twice. He learned her slowly, tracing paths along her skin that no one had ever traveled before, and every touch felt like a revelation—his mouth at the curve of her shoulder, his palm sliding beneath the hem of his own Oxford shirt that she was still wearing, the sound of his breath catching when he discovered just how much she wanted him.
When she trembled, he steadied her with quiet words she couldn’t quite make out.
When she tensed, he waited, his forehead pressed to hers, his thumb stroking her cheekbone until she softened again.
When she whispered his name—just once, barely audible—something in his careful control finally snapped, and the patience gave way to hunger, and the hunger gave way to something that felt like desperation, and Lexy stopped thinking entirely.
There was pain when he finally made her his. Brief and sharp, a bright flare that made her gasp and dig her fingers into his shoulders. But he stilled the moment he heard her, his jaw tight with the effort of holding himself back, his eyes searching hers for permission to continue.
She gave it without words.
And then there was only him—the weight of him, the heat of him, the way he moved like she was something precious and breakable and his, entirely his, and maybe she always had been.
When it was over, they lay tangled in sheets that had been crisp and white an hour ago and were now beyond salvation. The Manhattan skyline glittered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, indifferent to the fact that Lexy’s entire world had just rearranged itself into something she didn’t recognize.
She stared at the ceiling and tried to remember how to think in complete sentences.
Beside her, Leonidas was silent, his hand resting on the curve of her hip like it belonged there, his thumb tracing absent patterns against her skin. Circles, maybe. Figure eights. Her name, if she was imagining things.
She turned her head.
He was already looking at her.
