She tensed against him. “Don’t lie to me, Damen—”
“I’m not.”
“But what about all those calls you took that you never wanted me to hear—”
Again, Damen groaned, his lips brushing against hers in a silent apology. “It was Willow. My editor. I’ve been talking to her for months about the book. She ghostwrote it for me.” He grabbed her hand, pressing it to his heart. “Feel it. I’m not lying. I’ll never lie to you again,” he said fiercely. “Tomorrow, we’ll go to Willow’s office. We’ll watch the CCTV footage so you’ll see the number of times I’ve been there. I’ll get phone records to show—”
Mairi pressed one trembling finger against his lips. “I…believe you.” Her voice caught. “But I didn’t know then…you were so good,” she said in a tear-choked laugh, “at keeping your surprise that when I saw you talking on the phone and it was obvious you did not want me to hear you, I thought you were talking to Alina all those times. I thought you had fallen in love with her but couldn’t make yourself leave me because of…the past.”
“Nothing’s ever happened between us, Mairi,” Damen gritted out vehemently. “I swear it.”
“Even…before? Even when I was with Drake?”
His jaw clenched, any mention of the time Mairi had spent with the other man killing him. But that would always be his penance, his cross to bear, and Damen strove to keep his tone level as he answered, “Never. There was no other woman for me the moment I had my engagement ring on your finger.”
Mairi hesitated.
The unspoken questions lurking in her eyes made Damen prod softly, “What is it? You can say anything. Ask anything. I have nothing to hide—”
She took a deep breath. “Alina…met me at the airport when…when I came back to Miami. She told me that when we were apart, she and you—”
A sick look crossed his face as Damen realized what Mairi was implying. “Never,” he said flatly. “I don’t understand why she would lie about such a thing, but I never ever touched her. I swear it on my life, Mairi.”
Her chest eased. “I believe you.”
The disappearance of doubt in Mairi’s eyes had his own chest easing as well. But still he said, “We’ll go to Willow’s office tomorrow anyway. I’ll never give you any reason to doubt me again.”
A tremulous smile was his answer, and then Mairi was taking his hand and pressing it to her heart. “That’s good…because I want to promise the same.” Tightening her hold on his hand, she said unevenly, “I want to talk about Drake.”
Damen stiffened. “There isn’t any need—”
Praying he wouldn’t hate her, Mairi said, “I lied.”
Damen wanted to close his eyes. If he ever saw a lingering affection in Mairi’s eyes when she talked about the other man, he didn’t know what he would do. Let her go? Kill the other man?
“Look at me—”
Damen rolled her on top of him and pressed her head to his chest to keep his gaze over hers resolutely. “Don’t push me, Mairi.”
She tried to lift her head. “Damen—”
Jealousy had him snarling, “No.” He tried to keep his voice level because he knew what had happened wasn’t Mairi’s fault. It wasn’t even Morrison’s fault. It was all his. He fucking knew that, but it didn’t mean he could bear having the knowledge shoved at him like a stick in his ass all the time.
Still, his wife persisted, as if she didn’t think he had paid enough for his sins. When she tried to raise her head again, he let her this time. If Mairi thought he needed to die all over again by making him listen to every single fucking detail about the time she had spent in another man’s goddamned arms—
So be it.
Because he loved her.
The hard look on Damen’s face made her heart ache painfully. If she had ever needed proof of how much Damen truly loved her, then it was that look.
And she wanted to cry because it was also proof that her long-ago dream of finding her own Greek billionaire to love and be loved by him had really come true.
Lifting herself up, her elbows on his chest, she repeated, “I lied.”
He forced himself to ask. “About what?”
“I can’t…I can’t deny that we’ve been intimate, but he never…we never did it.” She bit her lip, shame engulfing her. “I wasn’t even thinking of hurting you when it happened. I just wanted to give myself a reason not to come back to you. I wanted to prove to myself that I was no longer…yours.” Her head dipped after her confession, a part of her fearing Damen’s reaction. Hearing herself say the words made Mairi realize how wrong she had been. How that shouldn’t have ever happened—
“Did it work?”
Her head snapped up, and she wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly. “W-what did you say?”
Damen said between clenched teeth, “Did it work?” He knew he had no right to ask it, knew he was probably setting himself up for more pain, but he couldn’t help it. He had to fucking know. “Did it make you feel you were…his?”
She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “Even Drake knew that…all the time it happened, my heart wanted it to be you—”
Love had him hauling her up so he could kiss her, Mairi’s words beyond everything he had hoped…or deserved. Even when she had been at her lowest, even when Damen had been at his cruelest, Mairi had still been unable to stop herself from loving him.
Damen cut the kiss so he could look into his wife’s eyes and she could look into his as he said, “Even if you had, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Mairi started to cry again.
“I would still beg and fight for you to be mine.”
She pressed her lips to his even as she sobbed, “Thank you.” Their lips brushed against each other, their tongues dancing. When she pulled away to look down at him, she couldn’t stop herself from crying again. “Thank you for loving me.” She lifted her eyes to him, wanting Damen to see every emotion swirling inside her. “And thank you so much for the book.”
“I’d write a new one every year if that’s the way to keep you with me.” Damen was only half-joking.
A teasing smile flashed on her lips. “Before that can happen, I think I’ll need to go through this one first. There may be untruths in it. Or inaccuracies.”
Damen deadpanned, “There is something missing in it.”
“There is?” Mairi blurted out in surprise. She had skimmed the book, and everything had seemed perfect. “Like what?”
Instead of answering, Damen gently pried himself away from her, and she watched in confusion as Damen twisted to his side so he could reach for something inside the bedside drawer. When he turned back around to her, Mairi’s jaw dropped.
Damen was holding a vibrator.
“Ummm…” She had totally no idea where he was going here.
“The book lacks sex,” Damen explained ever so innocently. “And you must agree that sex is one of the best ways to catch a Greek billionaire, ne?”
“Umm…”
“So what do you say we try an experiment tonight, matakia mou? Let’s see if taking you in two ways simultaneously will make a Greek billionaire an ‘easier’ catch.”
Oh. My. God.
And then there was no time to talk, to think, or even breathe. Damen was kissing her, claiming her lips and her breasts with his hands and mouth.
Damen took his sweet time arousing his wife, wanting Mairi gushing wet so that his penetration wouldn’t hurt her. He used her own wetness to lubricate her other hole and when she was bucking desperately against him, Damen knew it was time.
Flipping Mairi to her side, he switched the vibrator on before sliding it carefully inside Mairi’s pussy.
Mairi moaned, and she kept moaning as the thick pulsing vibrator found a steady deep rhythm inside her. When Damen reached around her to play with her clit, her moans turned to uncontrollable whimpers and she squeezed her eyes shut in tense and excited anticipation as she felt Damen’s cock nudge against the curve of her buttocks.
Damen carefully lifted Mairi on all fours, making sure that the vibrator was still in place. “Ready?” Damen asked as he stroked her clit with feathery soft movements, making sure she was aroused but not too close to having an orgasm.
“Yes,” Mairi gasped out and no sooner than she did, she felt Damen’s fingers spreading the cheeks of her butt open.
Pressure, familiar in its sweet raw intensity, built inside her as Damen slowly pushed his cock inside her, inch by inch.
Another gasp was torn out of her as Damen managed to lodge his cock fully inside her, deep enough for her to feel like the two cocks were rubbing against each other.