CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ILONAWOKETODARKNESS, eyes and throat still raw from the storm of tears that had taken her once she had come aboard the yacht. She had cried and shouted and said awful things to Leander.
“I hate you,” she had screamed. The words had rasped from the very depth of her being.
“I know.”
He hadn’t offered any excuses. He hadn’t reminded her that he’d been unconscious the whole time. He wasn’t the one who had set her up to be arrested, but he had let her berate him as though he was.
It wasn’t him she hated. It wasn’t him she wanted to shout at, but he took it and held her when she fell apart. He tucked her into bed when she was reduced to a few stray sniffles and a desire to forget everything in the amnesia of sleep.
And now he rolled toward her in the bed and rubbed her arm. “Shhh. You’re safe. Go back to sleep.”
She couldn’t, not until she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” His hand paused to squeeze. “I knew he would try to disrupt the wedding, but your bodyguards couldn’t stop actual police. I expected an attack on me, not my mother.”
“I’m apologizing for making you think that I blame you. I don’t. It’s not your fault that he’s a terrible human being.”
“But I should have expected—”
“Leander.” She slithered near and something eased in her when he adjusted his position and gathered her close, aligned along his front. It was deeply reassuring and everything she needed when she felt so disjointed and broken.
“We agreed that he doesn’t come to bed with us,” she reminded.
His chest expanded and she thought he was about to argue, but he only let out his breath in a resigned sigh.
“All right. We’ll talk in the morning. Good night.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She was still wearing Hercules’s clothes, but Leander wore only briefs. She slid her hands across the warm planes of his body, rubbing her feet on the tops of his.
“Angele mou.”He caught her hand.
“You don’t want to kiss and make up?” She extracted her hand and caressed his shape through his briefs. Squeezed in the way that made his breath hiss. “It feels like you do.”
He laughed softly and his nose bumped her cheek. His mouth found the corner of hers. “If it will make you feel better, then yes. I do.” He was smiling; she could feel it.
“You’ll make that great sacrifice for me?” This too was love, she realized, as softness and light crept back into her, edging out the day’s darkness of anguish and resentment. It was soft caresses in the night, quiet words and help removing her clothes. It was tenderness and forgiveness and being both hurried, yet not, kissing and caressing and building something beyond tension and arousal. Trust and care and need.
They both gasped as he thrust into her and he held her tight, saying against her ear, “I thought I might never feel you like this again. Your lips still taste of salt.”
From her tears. But his kiss dissolved those lingering traces and they moved and rolled and made so much love. When he brought her atop him, she threw off the blankets and straddled him and ran her hands over his chest, thinking, I love you. I love you.
“Ilona.” He cupped her head and brought her down for a long kiss. Then he rolled her beneath him again, thrusting and thrusting until she was lost to a long, intense orgasm.
His teeth scraped her chin and he coaxed, “Again.”
And that was how the night passed, in a blur of connection and closeness and endless pleasure.
I love you. I love you.
Did she realize she had said it aloud? If she did, was she wondering why he hadn’t said it in return? Had she even been telling the truth? How could she love him when he’d failed her so spectacularly?
He didn’t even know what love was. Not really. Oh, he had loved his parents as a child, but his mother had broken his heart and his father had been, well, a functioning adult, but there had been a certain amount of parenting the parent in their relationship.
To Leander’s mind, love was responsibility. It was duty. It was suffering rejection and accepting their failings. Of missing them and not being there when they had needed him most. Love was intertwined with inadequacy and loss.
Even his most recent conversation with his mother, when they had unknowingly shared her laced coffee, had left him tasting the bitterness of being in the wrong. She had reminded him of the times she had invited him to come for Christmas and other events. Come see my show.