He closed his eyes. “Benji is like a brother to me. I’m staying to protect you. Having sex isn’t…appropriate.”
She moved towards him and he tensed, bracing for her nearness, knowing it brought with it a certain danger.
“Even if I want to?”
He closed his eyes. “No.”
“Do you have any idea what my life is like?”
He met her eyes and held them, his gut twisting with the force of his desire.
“I work, non-stop. I train hard. I focus entirely on my career. I haven’t had a relationship in a really long time. I don’t sleep around. I don’tfeelwhat I just felt, and Ilikedfeeling that way. I like it when you touch me. When you kiss me. I want to sleep with you.”
Holy crap. He felt his insides harden, felt all the energy in his body rush to his balls. “No.”
“You think I’m going to fall in love with you or something?”
“I think you could get hurt, and I’m done hurting people. A long time ago, I was careless with sex. I didn’t give a shit who I hurt, so long asIfelt good. So long as I had a great night, what did I care if they maybe wanted more from me? I’m not like that anymore. And you know why not? Because of Benji. He saw me at rock bottom and urged me to get help. He changed my life. I owe him more than this. It’s not going to happen.”
The air between them hummed with electricity, his fingertips tingled with a need to reach out and touch her, but he refused to weaken. “I would love to sleep with you. Losing myself in you would be one way to push back my grief, to thaw out the parts of me that feel completely numb right now.” He gripped his hands by his side, his past luring him, drawing on him. “I’ve got a lot of experience blotting things out with sex, alcohol, drugs. I came to Croatia tofeel. To face my grief. Sex with you would just be a crutch.”
The sympathy extended to her lips too, which softened into a small grimace of comprehension.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“No.” The rejection was swift. Once again, he turned his back on her. “Nothing’s served by wallowing.”
“I thought you said you came here to feel?”
“To feel my waythroughthis, not to steep myself in it. He died. It’s sad. I’ll miss him, always. But death is an incontrovertible part of life and I must learn to live mine without him in it. We all must.”
Despite the charged atmosphere between them, and the tension both felt, she moved closer, slowly, careful not to stress her ankle. “I’m sorry,” she said, simply, repeating the platitude but with so much sincerity he felt it break through the ice of his chest and wrap around his heart. “I’m here if you want to talk.”
“I won’t.” He hesitated. “And I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Mila couldn’t helpbut study him. He was fascinating. Even before she knew of his father’s passing, he’d captivated her senses, but now, as the sun dipped low in the sky, bathing the cabin in shades of orange and gold, she found her eyes roaming his body when he was distracted, drinking in the sight of him. He had worked all day. Head bent, flicking through documents, typing on his laptop, frowning at the screen. Every now and again he’d look up, but not at her.
Never at her.
His gaze would rest directly ahead, focused on the kitchen, eyes glassed over, so she knew that whatever he was thinking it was a faraway thought.
He was determined not to act on the chemistry between them. It made sense, but God help her, all Mila could think about was stripping him naked and delighting in every inch of him. She’d become utterly fixated on someone who was determined to keep her at arm’s length.
Mila tried to concentrate on her book, and then, when she was tired of being ignored, she told herself she should stretch some more. She knew it was a childish endeavor, to draw his attention back to her, but it failed. He stayed resolutely focused, and she remembered his earlier proclamation, that it would be easy to exist alone together, side by side but not interacting.
Mila didnotfind it easy.
Frustration crept into the fabric of her soul as she stared out at the ocean, moving slowly towards the window and pressing her forehead against it, the cool of the glass a welcome balm to the frenzied heat in her blood.
She hadn’t been with anyone in a really long time.
Her focus was legendary, her determination well beyond the ordinary athlete’s. Mila wasn’t just fighting herself and her own records, but those of her mother’s as well. The comparisons were inevitable. Lately, though, the pressure had built, and there were a thousand blades inside her whenever she thought about bettering her mother’s achievements. She’d wanted it for so long, but there was no salvation for her once she’d achieved it. Her mother wouldn’t suddenly take back all the hurtful things she’d said. It wouldn’t really change the twist of fate that had left Lorraine Monroe pregnant and alone and no longer able to skate at a professional level.
A tangle of anxiety permanently knotted in her gut. She was hard-wired to want to do well, but at the same time, feared her success now. She feared, even more, the question of what came after.
This injury had shown her frailties, her vulnerabilities. She knew the toll this sport took on her body was profound. At twenty four, she was young, but not foolish. Things were changing. For how long could she remain at the very pinnacle of figure skating?
A sigh fell heavily from her lips without her realizing but Leonidas heard it, and slid his eyes towards her, surreptitiously. “Problem?”