They both knew it was a compromise, and it was one he didn’t feel particularly comfortable making. But how could he argue with her logic? How could he question her strength? She wanted to fight—for her life, her lifestyle, her right to live freely. He couldn’t fault that. But he could fight alongside her.
“A week,” she repeated, moving closer as she let out a soft breath. “Will it be long enough?”
It was difficult to know what she was referring to. For her to recover? For her stalker to be caught? Or for the chemistry that burned between them to run its course?
The latter took on a whole new imperative for him. He had been fighting it for what felt like a long time, even though it had been a matter of days. But no more. He knew he couldn’t—shouldn’t act on this—he knew what he owed Benji, and yet, standing there like that, so close, it was just the two of them, his best friend was far from Leonidas’ mind. He knew he’d regret it, he knew he’d hate himself, but he couldn’t fight this any longer.
With a sound that came from the bottom of his soul, he kissed her. Hard, hungrily, a kiss of total, desperate possession, his need exploding when their lips connected, so his tongue pushed into her mouth, teasing hers, then dominating it, spiking inside of him, leaving him breathless.
She made a noise of surrender, a moan of desperation, and then her hands were lifting, running through his hair, pulling down his back, finding his shirt and lifting it so her hands could connect with his naked back. She groaned as he pushed her into the room then towards his sofa, his whole body hard with the need for her, each step deliberate and determined. She tumbled back onto the soft leather of the seat, and he moved after her, kissing her as though everything depended on this.
And perhaps it did. Grief was a funny beast and his own was rampant in his blood, holding him hostage, removed from the real world, to some extent. Desire was accessible. It was tangible. Little wonder, then, that when he kissed Mila, he felt alive again, fully a part of this world, seeing it in colour for the first time since his father’s death.
She was so beautiful and so soft, like the petal of a rose, so he wanted to take this slowly, to feel every little piece of her, to kiss her all over, to touch her everywhere and delight in the sensation of her skin lifting in goosebumps beneath him, but he also wanted to drive into her and make her fully his, to erase the words he’d seen scrawled in the cabin from both of their minds, to prove to the stalker that Mila was his, Leo’s, and no one else’s. The possessive thought was a red herring, totally unexpected, and he pushed it aside immediately.
Mila belonged to no one.
She was certainly not Leo’s, except in one way: she was his to protect. Duty did not equal obligation.
“I want you,” he growled against her ear, pulling up and staring at her with an intensity that burned in the depths of his eyes. “Tell me you feel the same.”
Her eyes widened and her throat shifted.
“Tell me you want what I do.”
“Do I need to tell you?”
“I want to hear it.”
“Is this ego?” She asked, her breath coming in pants. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“You’re scared,” he said, hating that doubts were starting to take over. This was not like Leonidas at all, and yet, Mila was nothing like the women he usually had sex with. She was different, in fact, in every appreciable way.
“Not of you.”
“You’re vulnerable,” he said with a tightening about his lips.
“No. I’m strong.” She gripped his shirt with her hands and pulled him down, strong, just as she’d said. Their eyes were a mere inch apart. “And I know what I want. I always have.”
It was enough. It was more than enough. This was her decision, no one else’s.
Relief surged in his chest like a blade as he sunk into their kiss, his weight on her so she writhed and pushed her hands over his body, trying to loosen his clothes, to touch bare skin. He wanted her, but he’d also intended simply to kiss her, but their bodies were acting under their own ministrations, flooded with their own needs, so they acted almost without knowledge or forethoughts. Instincts took over. Limbs entwined, his large, hair-covered, hers fine and leanly muscled, her fitness apparent with every movement.
It was as though a spell had been cast; he couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t think at all. He could simply move and do, and take and possess, so that regardless of what he’d promised himself earlier, as he separated her thighs, the only words that he could grasp, words that went around and around in his brain over and over again like an incantation, were ‘you are mine’.
There was no comparison.
When he pushed into her, so hard and fast and deep that she cried out, Mila knew she’d never experienced anything like this. Nothing remotely on the same page. She dug her nails into his back and whimpered, because the pleasure of his possession reached through her like tendrils, spreading into every limb, weaving through every cell, overtaking her, strengthening her and weakening her all at once. Changing her.
He moved as if he understood her on a cellular level, their bodies completely in tune, so that they pulsed at the same frequency, his hard, hard arousal driving her so close to the edge that she cried out, and saw stars, biting on her lip so hard she tasted the tang of blood. She swore softly, then laughed, all quickly, and then, she was tumbling over the edge, pleasure tearing her apart and rebuilding her anew, differently, strangely, so the world felt altered. But there was no time to take stock of those changes, for Leonidas was right there, watching her, his body over hers, his face so close, studying her, reading her, triumph in his eyes as the noises of her orgasm peeled from her lips, his own heavy breathing filling the room, the weight of him intoxicating, essential.
Before she’d drifted back to earth, he began to move once more, stoking the flame that burned in her, so she trembled all over as he drove her higher and higher, towards another climax, and this time, he rode the wave with her, driving into her harder and faster, so deep she felt him in places she’d never known touch, so deep she felt he became a part of her, and as he reached his climax, she dug her fingers into his shoulders and held on for dear life, as a pleasure so intense it was almost painful made her wonder if she’d died and gone to heaven?
The wave kept rolling her, over and over, soaking her, so she was heavy with the power of what she was experiencing, her limbs lifeless, her body unable to move beyond the trembling, involuntary response to the way he made her feel.
“Leonidas,” she whispered, her voice barely recognizable. It too was heavy, like her arms and legs, the words weighed down by something indefinable. She sucked in a breath, then smiled, slowly, because his chest was against her, and the simple act of breathing reminded her of his strength and control, his proximity. His chest brushed her nipples and sparks of electrical current travelled through her in response.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever felt like this. The high was incomparable. Not even an Olympic gold held a candle to this feeling.