Chapter Nineteen
Bannerman drove her straight, without stopping, back to her condo to a waiting Kandy.
The sisters hugged, then Rick kissed her cheek and told her he’d check on her during the week. Once alone with just her older sister, Gemma collapsed in tears.
Over several hours, and fortified with an entire bottle of much needed wine, Gemma relayed everything that had happened to her for the past week, including how her relationship with Ky had gone from professional to personal. As she had for their entire lives, Kandy listened quietly, asking simple questions when she needed clarification, and held her younger sister’s hand. She hadn’t judged, offered advice, or asked Gemma what she was going to do next.
When Gemma’s eyes started to drift closed, Kandy put her to bed and called Josh to come pick her up.
It was the next afternoon by the time Gemma opened her eyes again.
For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, she reached for her phone. Kandy had plugged it into the bedside charger before leaving and when Gemma typed in her password the phone began chirping incessantly, announcing all the messages and e-mails she’d received while she’d been out of touch.
Gemma silenced the sound and took a quick glance at the screen.
She couldn’t possibly have a thousand e-mails and text messages.
A quick scan through the scores of texts showed nothing from Ky. Gemma sighed and tried not to think about what that meant. Next to the charger was a glass of water with two aspirin.
“God bless you, big sister.”
A long, hot, and steamy shower later, filled with memories of the last time she’d showered with Ky, Gemma dressed and then hit the kitchen.
The stocked refrigerator was a present from Kandy, but Gemma wasn’t hungry for all the delicious food her sister had stuffed it with. She grabbed a bottle of her favorite diet soda and chugged it down.
Within seconds the caffeine hit her bloodstream.
Showered and caffeinated, she took a look around her, happy to see that her living space had been put to rights and cleaned up from the previous attack. With another bottle of soda in her hand, she went into her home office and started answering her e-mails.
Eight hours later she looked from the computer screen to see nighttime descending through the window. She’d answered a good deal of her e-mails, most of it scheduling requests, called her editor at the publishing house and explained about the delay with the Faces book, had spoken with her mother, Kandy, and the rest of her sisters who’d all been worried sick about her. Promises of lunch and shopping dates satisfied their questions that she was, indeed, home now, the threat eliminated.
She paid the bills that had come in while she was gone, checked her bank balance for any Internet transactions and payments deposited in her absence and then realized she was hungry.
Dinner was a bowl of Kandy’s fish chowder and a couple slices of sour dough bread, after which exhaustion once again dragged her to bed.
One day home and no word from Ky. Before she fell asleep Gemma told herself he was busy righting all the wrongs Ritandi and Tiege had created. He’d call when he could.
Day two she awoke with more energy. When her phone was still empty of any word from Ky, she pouted, got ready for the day and decided to work.
Now that she’d joined the land of the living and employed again, she needed to pay attention to all her projects. She dug out her cameras and hooked them up to her home computer.
The images she’d taken of Ky in bed popped up immediately, filling her screen and kicking her pulse into high gear.
He truly was a magnificent man. Every curve and dip in his chest and abdomen, where the muscles grouped and flexed, was perfection. Memories of all that power and strength above her, surrounding her, inside her, shot to the front of her mind. Gemma closed her eyes and sat back, just letting them play through.
She missed him. Pure and simple. Alone in the privacy of her home, safe and secure from any threats, and free to let her mind explore, she could finally admit what she truly felt for him.
And it was more than the simple longing she’d tried to convince herself it was.
Much more.
Was she was in love with him? She’d never been in love with any man before, so her reference for what she was feeling was nil. But there could be no other explanation for what she was going through. Her mind drifted to his image no matter what she was doing. His was the last face she saw before falling asleep, the first thing that popped into her head upon awakening, and her dreams were filled with him. His voice, his expressions, the way his eyes stared at her when he was inside her, as if he could read her thoughts.
He’d snuck past her all her defenses, sidestepped her protective nature, and grabbed hold of her heart with his hands.
It wasn’t just the physical part of him that she craved, either. Oh, that was great enough. Gemma was a woman who knew the benefits of physical pleasure and she enjoyed sex. Sex with Ky was amazing. He’d approached it the way he seemed to everything else in his life: calmly, thoroughly, and with full commitment. The way she’d felt when he kissed her, as if he owned her body and soul, had been a heady experience, and she’d remembered thinking what unbelievable and complete power there was in surrender. It sounded crazy, but to give all her control over to him, to trust him with everything she was and had, was stupefying.
Physically, they were a near-perfect match. In so many other ways, though, they were as well. He was a competent straight man to her many snarky remarks, able to toss out a dead-aimed zinger of his own now and again. They both enjoyed martial arts, and what she might lack in body strength, she more than made up for in skill. Ky had even admitted she was masterful with weapons. They both liked to cook, although she easily conceded he was the better chef.
Family had come first, last, and always to her, and it did to Ky as well. The way his eyes had gone soft and loving when he’d spoken of his siblings, or quoted his mother or grandmother, showed her he was the type of man who valued those he loved.
Every way she looked at him, inside, out, physically, mentally, and spiritually, Kyros Pappandreos was a man—the only man—she could picture giving her heart to and entrusting him with.
She hit the scroll button on her laptop and stopped at every photo she’d taken of him. In the garage while he’d been pummeling the punching bag, drenched in sweat and looking like a powerful machine; seated on the couch while he’d been hatching his plan with Rick, thoughtful and pensive; the pictures of him naked and spread across the bed, a sheet covering him from the waist down, a look of drowsy sexual satisfaction in his eyes. Satisfaction from what they’d just shared.
A single tear slipped down her cheek. Gemma laughed out loud, not missing the irony of crying over a man when she’d spent a lifetime protecting herself from ever doing just that.
Work was the one thing she knew would take her mind off missing Ky, so she squared her shoulders and got to it. The coffee-table book wasn’t going to produce itself.
She had her memory discs, minus the Calafano pictures, and all the other photos she’d already taken around New York City.
Time to make some magic.
Hours later she stumbled back to bed, and, fully clothed, settled under the covers.
* * *
The number displayed across her screen was unfamiliar. Thinking, hoping, it was a certain special agent sent her pulse into race mode.
“Hello?”
Good Lord, was that breathless anticipation really her?
“Gemma? It’s Jon Winters.”
“Hi.” She tried to infuse some warmth into her voice. It wasn’t his fault he was the wrong agent calling her.
“We need to bring you in so we can get your statement about everything that went down.”
She’d been expecting the summons. “When?”
“Is today good?”
She told him it was. “But you don’t have to pick me up. I can get myself down there.”
“No can do. I’ve been ordered to make sure you get here safe and sound.”
Gemma wondered who’d ordered that.
An hour later he met her downstairs at her condo and helped her into another black Escalade.
“I’m beginning to think this vehicle is made exclusively for the FBI.”
Jon chuckled. Seated next to her in the second row of seats, he peered at her for a moment, then asked, “So, how are you doing? Really?”
Gemma shrugged and gave him a smile. “It’s good to be home. I’ve been working nonstop, after sleeping for about fourteen hours that first night back.”
“The adrenaline drop,” he said, nodding. “Happens to us all the time when a case is finally done. Exhaustion sets in and then after a day or so back to reality, you’re looking for the next shot of it to hit your bloodstream.”
She didn’t think she’d ever heard the experience described so well before.
“We should be there in a few more minutes. Let me tell you what’s gonna happen.”
He took her through the steps of her testimony. Barly insisted she be videotaped and he would be present to conduct the questioning.
“Don’t worry about him,” Jon assured her. “He’s a bit of a blowhard, and he might come across as an asshole, but you’ll be fine. He already knows all about the plan with Tiege. I told him before it ever went down what we were going to do. When your friend Bannerman contacted me that was the first thing Ky had wanted.”
At the mention of his name Gemma’s body went on alert. She desperately wanted to ask how he was, where he was, why he wasn’t the one bringing her in, but somehow, she couldn’t get the words out.
“Ky’s stuck in DC, by the way,” Jon offered. “The director needed to go over some things concerning Tiege and our division with him, otherwise he’d be the one with you today.”
“Oh,” was all she could manage to say.
He cocked his head as his gaze traveled across her face. In the next moment he said, “We’re here.”
Five hours later, tired and drained, he dropped her back at the condo with a kiss to her cheek and a promise to call if anything else came up she was needed for.
* * *
Two more days passed, and she still hadn’t heard from Ky.
Her mind was cluttered with thoughts of why, but the one that she gave the most space to was the simple fact that he didn’t want to see her.
She was no longer in danger and his duty toward her was done. Done with the case, and with her.
The physical closeness they’d shared had been nothing more than a reaction to two adults experiencing simple desire in enclosed quarters, during a stressful time.
That had to be it, because if it had been more, if Ky had felt one tenth for her what she had for him, he would have contacted her. Would have been here with her. Would have made the time.
All her thoughts that what they’d shared was different from anything else she’d ever experienced with a man were true. Unfortunately, she now realized those feelings were one-sided. Hers.
She dragged herself from bed, forced herself to take a shower and eat. She wouldn’t cry over him again or let his unexplained absence rule her life. She had clients lining up for appointments; she had the book to finish, and another to start. Tasks to keep her busy. Work to keep her from thinking about him.
She worked on her computer, editing photographs and e-mailing clients without stopping until late afternoon.
Just as she was finishing up and about to make something to fill her growling and insistent stomach, the doorbell chimed.
Without first looking through the peep hole or asking who it was, she pulled the door open and gasped.
“Ky!”
He looked…wonderful. Exhausted, but wonderful. About three days’ worth of amber, honey-blond stubble lined his jaw, dark, half-moon shaped blotches circled under his eyes, and it looked as if he’d been wearing the same clothes for a while. He leaned against the doorframe, as if he needed it to keep him upright. Gemma wanted to wrap her arms around him and cuddle away all the pain and weariness she saw in his eyes and on his face. Then, in the next breath she remembered she was mad and wanted to punch him for not getting in touch with her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?” he asked. Even his voice sounded close to the edge of collapse.
Gemma pulled the door open wide. He let out a breath, placed his jacket over his forearm, and entered.
“Thanks,” he said when she shut it behind her. “I wasn’t sure you’d be home. I took a chance without calling or texting first. I hoped,” he shook his head, “I hoped you’d be here.”
She led him into the living room.
“This is nice,” he said absently, glancing around, his eyes tired but alert. “I wasn’t paying attention the last time I was here.”
The day she’d been attacked. The day they’d met.
Lord! Was it really just two weeks ago?
“Would you like something to drink? Or eat?” she asked. “I was just going to fix myself something.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a beer if you have one.”
“I do. Sit.” She pointed to the sofa. “You look about ready to drop.”
He nodded. While she went into the kitchen to get them drinks she heard him settle down and sigh.
Her heart stuttered at the bone-weary fatigue in the sound.
She laid a hand across the quivering muscles in her stomach and set about making him a sandwich.
“Here.” She handed him the beer she’d poured into a glass and set down the small plate with the ham and cheese she made on the cocktail table, and then sat down on the opposite side of the sofa.
“Thanks.”
He took a long draught, tipping his head back as he drank.
Such a profound craving to reach out and run her mouth along his exposed jaw and neck pounded through her, she squirmed in her seat and settled her butt firmly into the cushion so she’d stay put.
When he leaned forward again, his gaze shot to her.
“How are you doing since you’ve been home?”
She shrugged. “Fine. Busy. Getting my life back in order again.”
“No nightmares, trouble sleeping? No anxiety about what happened?”
“None.” She mentally crossed her fingers against the fib.
Ky nodded. “Jon told me you gave your taped deposition. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for it. For you.”
Her heart gave a little shudder at his words. She bit down on the inside of her cheek before she asked, “How about you? Is the investigation closed now? Officially?”
“Almost. I’ve been tied up with the director and attorney general. I just got off the plane about an hour ago. I haven’t even been back to my apartment yet.”
So he’d come directly to her. Interesting.
“Was it bad?”
“It wasn’t good.” He blew out a breath. “The attorney general went on a rampage when he was told Ritandi was dead. He blames me.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’d think he’d be happy the man was brought to justice, no matter how it was accomplished.”
Ky shook his head absently and took another drink of his beer. “He wants answers to questions and now he can’t get them. With Ritandi dead we can’t find out much more about his organization. There’s still stuff we haven’t been able to tie to him to, and now it looks like we won’t be able to. And then there are the millions of questions about Tiege. How did Ritandi get to him? What was the leverage? Is anyone else involved? It’s been a nightmare. My tech guys have been combing through Tiege’s home and office computers since we got back.”
“Have they found anything?”
“Nothing of use other than confirmation about the account Bannerman found with Tiege’s wife’s name attached to it. If there is anything it’s buried so deep we may never find it. Tiege was assigned to the cybercrimes division for ten years before he was made SAC. He knew how to cover his virtual tracks well.”
“Can’t you ask Theo for help?”
He stared across the length of the sofa at her, his eyes half closed, his brows almost kissing. She’d give anything to know what he was thinking with a look like that.
“Unfortunately, I can’t. Not officially. And if I did it unofficially and he found something, I wouldn’t be able to use it since it wasn’t legally discovered. Lawyers love that phrase: fruit from the poisoned tree.”
“I thought privilege like that didn’t follow you once you were dead?”
“Typically, it doesn’t. But discovery from a non-agency source is grounds for survivors to contest. Possibly sue. The bureau doesn’t need that kind of headache.”
“Rock, meet hard place,” Gemma said.
One corner of Ky’s mouth kicked up. “My life for the past three years.”
He finished his beer, placed the glass back on the table, then scrubbed his hands down his face and yawned.
“Anyway. It’ll work itself out in time.” He turned to look directly at her again. “I didn’t come here to discuss all that with you.”
“Oh?” She tried to ignore the little stab to her heart. She’d hoped he was here because he missed her, realized he couldn’t live without her…loved her.
Wishful thinking.
“Do you want another beer?”
She rose, but Ky’s hand shot out to grab her arm.
“No.”
The touch sent an electrical frisson through her body. His long, strong fingers wound around her forearm, holding her in place. Gemma didn’t know whether to sit back down or stay rooted to her spot.
Ky solved the problem when he gently tugged on her arm and brought her down next to him.
He slid his hand down her arm to lace their fingers together. Utter warmth spread through her from head to toes.
“Gemma.”
Had her name ever sounded so sweet on any other man’s lips?
“We need to talk.”
Oh, God! Here it comes: the letdown, the brush off.
Historically, Gemma had been the one who always told the man she was with it was time to move on, that things were over between them. It was one of the ways she’d always been able to keep control of the relationship. She’d start it. And she’d end it. Her heart would remain unscathed.
But she couldn’t bear to hear the words come through Ky’s lips. It would break her in two.
“No, we don’t, Ky. It’s okay. I know what you’re going to say, and it’s okay. Really.”
The corrugated lines in his forehead deepened as he regarded her. “What do you think I’m going to say?”
Pride, ego, and self-preservation bounded through her. She wouldn’t let him see her come apart. Couldn’t let him know her real feelings. She needed to dig deep for that lifelong cord of control that she’d never needed more than she did right now.
“Gemma?”
She sighed and placed her free hand over his, patted it, like she would a child who needed reassurance. “Like I said, it’s okay. You don’t have to say it. We’re both grownups.”
“Just what is it you don’t think I need to say?”
“Ky.” She shrugged.
“No. Really, Gemma. I need you to tell me, because I sure as heck don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, all right.” She tugged her hand from his, intending to stand and move away from him, but he wouldn’t let it go. In fact, when she pulled, he squeezed harder.
She took a deep breath and looked over his shoulder at the lamp next to the couch. She couldn’t look directly at him without coming undone.
“Look at me, Gemma.”
From any other man’s lips, that command would have sent her back shooting up straight as a pin. That she did exactly what he told her to in an instant was an indication of how much power he had over her.
“Baby, look at me.” His voice softened with the endearment and, God help her, tears threatened to drop.
She swallowed them back, looked up at him and said, “You’re going to tell me that since this case is done, and I’m no longer in any kind of danger, that, well…”
Gemma sighed, all the fight going out of her. “I’m trying to tell you I understand. We were in a dangerous situation, adrenaline gets flowing, emotions and urges get acted upon…”
He continued to stare at her with confusion on his face.
Did he really not understand what she was saying?
“We slept together, Ky. We used each other to get through a bad time. To give us each a little comfort, a little diversion. But it’s over now and we can get back to our lives. Back to the way things were…before.”
“You think I used you for comfort? For sex? Because you were, what? Available?”
She nodded, as one single tear broke loose and slipped down her cheek. Gemma cursed her weakness.
“I’m saying we both used each other. And then it all got to be too much, between us,” she said. “I realize that. You were just doing your job, trying to keep me safe. Everything you did, everything you said, was because you were doing your job. I was the one who, well, made it go further than it should have.”
Saying it out loud made it sound so real, so final.
“Gemma, look at me.”
She did.
“In all the time we’ve spent together, through everything, the shootings, the running, everything, do you really think that I would have made love to you if I didn’t want to? That you basically forced me into it?”
“N-no. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“It’s what you implied when you said you let the situation between us get out of hand.”
“I did. If you remember, I was the one who came to your room, not the other way around. I started this…this…thing, between us. I made the first move, not you.”
“Only because I thought you couldn’t stand to be in the same room as me.”
“What?”
“From the moment we met, you were pissed off at me and didn’t hide it. At the safe house it was worse. You were all sweetness and light to Jon but when you looked at me I felt like you wanted to squash me under your shoe like an annoying bug.”
Gemma had the grace to blush, knowing how true his words were.
“Believe me,” he said, his mouth quirking up in one corner, “if I’d known what you were thinking, what you wanted, I would have been in your bed after the first time we grappled together in the basement.”
She blinked. Several times. “You would have?”
He laughed. “Baby, I was so hard when you were on top of me, even an ice cold shower couldn’t calm me down.”
“Really?”
With one tug on her hand she was in his lap. “Yes, really.” He cupped her cheeks and leaned in to kiss her.
How had she lasted five days without this? Without his touch? Without his kiss?
Ky pulled away and stared hard at her face. “The minute you turned around on that street corner and I saw you the first time, I wanted you. That’s never happened before.”
She traced his bottom lip with her fingertip.
He sucked it into his mouth. Then he circled her wrist and pulled it out, biting gently down on the pad.
Gemma was glad she was sitting because she lost all feeling in her legs from her thighs down.
“The night you came to my room I’d been trying to work, but all I kept thinking about was that kiss in the kitchen.”
“It was all I could think about, too. That’s why I went to you. I wanted more.”
He laid his forehead against hers. “Thank God you did.”
Gemma nuzzled his jaw and set her head down on his shoulder. “I thought you didn’t want to see me any more now that everything was resolved. You didn’t call, or text. Nothing. Not one word since I got home.”
A breath pushed passed his lips, slow and deep. “I apologize for that. The truth is, aside from being tied up twenty hours a day for the past five days with every government alphabet agency imaginable, I knew if I called you I’d never be able to finish what needed to be done. All I’d want to do was come to you and forget everything else. So I kept going, sat through every tedious, long, maddening meeting and interview I had to. I slept on the couch in my office at the FBI for the past four nights.”
He pulled her head up and stared into her eyes. “The minute I was cleared of the investigation into Ritandi’s shooting I hopped on a plane. I came straight from the airport hoping you’d be here.”
When she cupped his cheek he turned his head into her palm and kissed it. “All I knew was I had to get here. To you, Gemma. And I’m not leaving for any reason, so you’re still stuck with me whether you like it or not.”
This time his kiss was urgent, wanting, needing. It was everything Gemma had remembered, and promised so much more.
When she came up for air, she wound her fingers into his hair and said, “I like it. Very much.”
“Good.”
* * *
Later, much later, she rolled to her side on the bed and curled into the crook of his arm. His fingers absently stroked her side, both their breaths still fast from their recent lovemaking, but slowly calming.
“I missed you.” She kissed his chest, dragged a lazy finger across his nipple, and giggled when it came to a peak.
“Baby, you’re gonna kill me,” he moaned, then chuckled. He pulled her closer. “I missed you, too.” A gentle kiss to her temple had her sighing.
“Oh, speaking of getting killed, take this back. I don’t need it anymore.” She pulled out of his arms, sat up, and lifted his St. Michael’s medallion from around her neck.
Ky took it and rubbed the raised impression between his fingers. “I have to thank Dini for giving me this again the next time I see her. It allowed us to track you without Tiege knowing it.”
Instead of putting it back around his own neck, he tossed it over onto her bedside table.
“Even though I knew you were able to monitor where he was taking me, I was still a little scared,” she admitted.
“Come here.” He tightened his arms around her when she melted into his embrace. He kissed her cheek.
“We were never more than a minute behind you the whole time. I still can’t believe he didn’t spot us following. You did a good job, by the way. Tiege really bought your act.”
“He kept saying how Jon had given him irrefutable proof that it was you. That I’d been tricked into believing you were a good guy. That the whole bureau had. I was so mad I wanted to hit him more than once during the car ride.”
Gemma felt his jaw tighten against her.
“I’m still pissed at myself that I never considered he was the one responsible for any of what happened. If I’d had even an inkling, maybe my men would still be alive.”
It was Gemma’s turn to tighten her hold on him. “Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself.”
His sigh was deep and troubled. “I do, though. There’s no way around it. They were my men, my team. I’d handpicked every one of them the day we started the investigation.”
Gemma sat up again and stared down at him. The exhaustion she’d seen earlier was joined by sorrow and anger now. “They were all seasoned agents, like you, right? Had been on the job for a while?”
He nodded. “I have the most time in, Jon next, but yeah. I had no newbies. I needed guys with history and experience in the bureau. Why?”
“Then they knew what to expect from the job? What might happen? What could go wrong?”
“Sure.” He shrugged and then folded his arm around his head, cradling it on the pillow.
“So, knowing that something could go wrong, planning for it even, they still wanted to work with you, right?”
He nodded. “What’s your point?”
Gemma considered what she wanted to say. While she did, she slid her legs over his abdomen, straddling him, her hands resting on her thighs.
Ky’s hands moved immediately to settle on her hips. He was already half aroused and she could feel him swelling more now against her.
“My point is that these men were professionals who knew what they did was dangerous and did it anyway of their own choice. You didn’t get them killed. You’re not responsible for what happened. And despite the AG being mad that Ritandi is in a box and not a cell, I think you killing him was totally and completely justified.”
She trailed her hands up over his pecs and rested them there. The steady, solid beat of his heart against her hand picked up when she wiggled and settled down against him.
For a moment he looked as if he was going to argue with her. Then, his lids went half closed and he nailed her with that hot, drowsy, sexy gaze of his that made her toes curl.
He slid his hands from her hips, lightly across her outer thighs to the inner skin sitting on top of his body. Gemma’s breath caught when he pushed his thumbs along the tops of her legs and pressed into her flesh, spreading and exposing her most intimate, private part for him.
His full lips pulled up in a wicked grin. “Gorgeous, talented, successful, and,” he swiped the pad of his thumb straight across her clitoris, circling it, “smart.”
Gemma felt the pressure from his finger shoot a bullet of pleasure straight up her spinal cord.
“Everything I’ve always wanted in a woman,” he added, slipping two fingers inside her.
Gemma threw back her head and arched her spine, giving him more than ample space to continue with this task, unheeded.
While he pumped his fingers in and out of her in a slow, thorough rhythm, she felt him grow larger and harder against her butt. Reaching back a hand, she fisted him and watched his eyes close, his mouth open on a moan when she tugged up his length and then slid down again.
Her laugh filled the room when he murmured in Greek.
“I don’t need you to translate that. The meaning is universal.”
In a heartbeat he reversed their positions. He made a nest for his hips in the cradle of her thighs, while she wound her long legs around his waist to cross at his back.
With his weight on his elbows, his shoulders pressed back, he looked down at her. His beautiful ocean colored eyes were sparkling, his long lashes glistening with moisture, as he whispered, “Gemma. Se agapo.”
She went as still as stone.
This phrase was new, different, more.
She was terrified to ask what it meant and terrified not to know. Instinct told her it was something profound. Something that would change her and…them.
“Gemma.” He swiped her bangs back from her forehead and kissed her eyes closed. She opened them when he shifted his mouth to her cheek, then ran it along her jaw.
“Not going to ask me what that meant?” He sucked at the notch behind her ear.
“I—I think, I think it probably has something to do with what we’re doing. Right?”
She felt him smile along her collarbone. “Kind of.”
“So. Okay. No need to know the full translation, then. I’m getting the gist.”
When he lifted his head and looked down at her, amusement filled his smile.
“What?” she asked.
“I never took you for a coward.”
“What?” She dropped her legs back onto the bed with a thud and tried to push him off her, forgetting what a solid, unmovable tank of a man he was.
“I’m not a coward. And you know it.”
Her inner voice mocked her as the liar she was.
“No?” He cocked his head as he continued grinning down at her. “Then why don’t you want to know what I’ve just said? Every other time I’ve lapsed into Greek you’ve always demanded I translate. Why not this time? Do you know what the words mean?”
“N-no.”
“Then why don’t you want me to tell you?”
She didn’t answer him. Couldn’t. Instead, she bit down on the inside of her cheek.
Ky’s gaze softened. He slid his knuckles across one cheek and kissed the other. “It won’t hurt if I say it in English, I promise. This translation leaves no room for doubt.” He looked into her eyes, and she swore he could see her soul. “Trust me?”
Without hesitating she answered, “With everything I am,” and knew the words could never be truer. “You know that.”
Right before he took her lips with his, he smiled and whispered, “I love you.”
Oh. My. God.
She’d been correct. That phrase, those three words, changed everything.
Everything.
“I can hear the fear flying around in your head,” he said, as his lips moved down her neck to her breasts. He wet his mouth with his tongue, and then sucked the tip of one in, his tongue laving across the hardened peak.
“Oh!” Her hands fisted in his hair.
“There’s no need to panic.” He moved to her other breast, his free hand skating down and over her flat belly to burrow in the sparse hair at the apex of her thighs. “You trust me, right?”
“Yes.”
Did she say the word or scream it? She wasn’t sure because the pressure of Ky’s tongue and hands doing wicked things to her body made logical thought impossible.
“Then don’t worry about anything.” He ran a purposeful finger down the length of her wet heat, then back up again. “Just let me love you, Gemma.”
He shifted, slipped on the condom he had ready, and in one, full, and elegant slide, was completely inside her.
“Ky!”
“Love when you call out my name, baby,” he growled into her ear.
Gemma’s mind shut off with each thrust and dive of Ky’s body. Every nerve fiber in her body, every pulsation of blood coursing through her, was centered where they were joined together.
When he reached a hand between their bodies and pressed his thumb, hard and firm, against her, Gemma wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of the orgasm that shook through her. Lightning flashed behind her closed eyes as she repeated the words he’d given her minutes before.
When he followed her over the cliff seconds later, she was still quaking around him, milking him with the aftershocks raging through her.
Buried deep within her, Ky nuzzled her neck. “I heard you, you know.” He pulled up and grinned down at her. “It was kind of hard not to since you screamed.”
She pinched one taut, firm butt cheek between her fingers.
Laughing felt so good, Gemma couldn’t contain hers when he yelped.
“I want to hear it again,” Ky said once she stopped. “Scream it if you want. But I want to hear it, Gemma. I want to watch you say the words.”
“What?” She opened her eyes wide, batted her lashes at him, a move she’d always considered cheesy before, and asked, “That I trust you? I think I’ve told you that before, haven’t I?”
One milk chocolate colored eyebrow crawled upward.
She giggled and threw her arms around his neck. With her lips hovering just a whisper from his she said, “Oh. You mean tell you I love you, again. Okay.” She moved closer still, close enough to breathe in the air he expelled over her. “I love you, Kyros Pappa-whatever.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled.
“It’s crazy, but I love you.”
“There, now,” he said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
She shook her head. “But speaking of things being hard…” she lifted her hips.
Still nestled inside her, she felt him being to pulse and grow again.
“Again?” she asked on a laugh.
“Again,” he answered with kiss.
Later, when their hearts and breathing settled, he rolled off her, and, with a quick kiss to her cheek, slid from the bed and to the bathroom. Gemma heard the toilet flush, and then water running. He came back seconds later with a filled glass of water.
He leaned a hip down on the bed and handed her the glass.
“Drink this,” he told her, with a yawn. “Then we need some sleep.”
Gemma drained the glass and after he put it on the bedside table next to his medallion, he slid under the covers and settled on his side, her back molded against his front.
With his arm draped across her waist, Gemma linked her fingers with his and closed her eyes.
“I love you,” she whispered.
* * *
In the dark, Ky smiled.