A hollow pang went through her and she fought the silly sensation. She wasn’t going to mope over a man who had nothing but mockery for her. And even if he did want her, taking on someone like Nikos Demakis, even for one night, wasn’t something she wanted.
She had hardly handled the fallout with Tyler. Nikos would chew her up and spit her out, leaving her no place to hide, even from herself.
She pushed her feet into the flip-flops and tugged her beach bag onto her shoulder, looking around for a switch to turn off the lights around the small pool.
“Leave it on, Lexi,” The words came from somewhere behind her, rendering her frozen for a few seconds.
She whirled around. “Nikos,” she said stupidly, her heart still racing. “I thought you had left.”
“And miss the chance to chat with you?”
In the low lights of the pool, she couldn’t quite make out his features. Except for the rigid set of his mouth and the tension pouring out of him. “I really don’t have the energy to argue with you, Nikos.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we have this discussion.”
He was wearing a charcoal-gray dress shirt, the cuffs rolled back, and black trousers that hugged his hips. A couple of buttons were undone giving her a peek of golden-olive chest.
His sensuous mouth flattened into a thin line of displeasure, he leaned against the far wall, legs crossed at the ankles. But there was nothing casual in the way he looked at her.
“What happened with Tyler?”
“Venetia told him what he’d said to me that night at the party. He feels awful about it. Nikos, he—”
“Ahh...so everything is perfect in your little world again.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s come back to you, just as I predicted.”
Tension pulled at her nerves. He thought Tyler was done with Venetia. “You don’t understand—”
“I do. Better than you think. I understand the crippling loneliness, the need to matter to someone, the need to be loved. But you are better than this, better than him. Tell me you’re not going back to him.”
“That’s really none of your business, is it?” she said, pushing off the wall. She was goading him. But she couldn’t stop. “You’re not my pimp, or my boss.”
And he took the bait.
He was in front of her before she could blink. His hands braced on the wall either side of her, he slanted his upper body just enough that she could smell the purely masculine scent of him, so that she could see the evening stubble on his jaw, so that she could feel the heat radiating off him and blanketing her in a sensuous swathe.
His mouth hovered inches from hers, and she wanted to close the distance between them with a raw ache that blinded her to everything else.
“Is there no end to your stupidity?”
She dragged her gaze to his, heat creeping up across her neck and into her cheeks. “Everything’s going according to your sordid plan. Why do you care what I do?”
“I’m trying to protect you from yourself. Are you so infernally stupid to believe that’s the real him or that he won’t throw you away the moment he remembers everything? Or do you plan to sleep with him and seal the deal this time?”
“There’s nothing to seal, okay?” She struggled to draw a breath, to form a coherent thought, cringing from the pain he could so easily inflict on her. “I’ve loved him since I was thirteen, and yes, I slept with him. But it was awful. Just as awful the next time too and then I just kept finding excuses to not do it. We had this horrible fight and he left me—he moved out. Are you satisfied? He’s all I have in this world, but there’s nothing left between him and me.”
“You baited me.” Instead of the anger she expected, a tight smile split his mouth. His gaze shone with a wicked fever. And Lexi regretted her behavior. Her attraction to him, it was frying her mind. “Why kiss him then?”
“Again. None of your business.”
He tugged her close to him in a quick movement, with his hands on her hips, bringing her off the ground. With a gasp, she clutched his shirt, bunching the crisp fabric in her fingers.
His erection rubbed against her belly. It felt hard, and so unbearably, unbelievably good that she moaned loud. Arrows of pleasure sparked off every inch of her.
Her gaze flew to his, her skin on fire. “Nikos...”
“Yes, Lexi.”
He was smiling, a wicked, buckle-your-knees smile. She was on fire and he was smiling. “This, you and I...I can’t...this feels like...” She swallowed, barely catching the whimper of pleasure in her throat.
His hands spanning her tiny waist, he pressed an openmouthed kiss, wet and hot against the pulse in her neck. Nerve endings she hadn’t known existed thundered into life. Her arms around his neck, she held on tight, every drag of her muscles against his sending a spasm through her.