“The punch wasn’t for that.”
“Fully aware of that, Ermione.” I face her fully, balancing one foot on the rung above us. As much as I want to plant my hands on the wall behind her head, splinters be damned, I’ve got no interest in validating her assumption from downstairs. So I keep my hands down by my sides when I say, “Sex is not part of the deal. Not the original deal, not any deal.” I duck my head, eclipsing some of the height difference, so I can look her in the eye. “You know me. I mean, your nickname for me is Saint—”
“Nick,” she cuts in, her expression unreadable. “I know.”
She won’t meet my gaze, and for one of the first times in my life, I react on impulse.
Softly, I catch her chin between my thumb and forefinger, the lightest touch I’ve ever given to another person. “Look at me, koukla.”
The words emerge raspy, the Greek endearment rolling off my tongue before I can even question its very existence—but it does the trick. Mina looks at me. Full-on. Zeroed in. And it rocks me to my fucking soul.
Honey rimmed with amber.
The smallest mole on the slope of her nose. Last night, it was too dark out for me to notice its existence but I do now. I take in my fill, studying every aspect of her face like I do a job site before I begin the restoration process. In my day-to-day life, I handle the finest antiques, the most fragile buildings that I bring back to life for another generation to enjoy.
I’ve never touched anything—or anyone—more important than I am right now.
Her chin trembles beneath the roughened pads of my fingers, and I finally give in by planting one hand above her head on the wall. This stairwell is cramped and not well-spaced—hardly any nineteenth-century brownstones are—and I breathe in her scent. Citrus. A hint of something sweet, like rose or lavender. Vulnerability.
The latter cloaks the air around us.
“I don’t blame you for jumping the gun, but I wasn’t thinking of sex when I offered to take on the hydrotherapy room at full cost.”
Mina’s tongue flicks out to touch her bottom lip. “You were staring at my mouth.”
My cock, traitorous bastard that he is, perks up. I shift my hips back, away from temptation. It’d be all too easy to haul her up into my arms and grind my erection into her. But that defeats the purpose of this conversation in the first place.
Think of yiayia! Count lambs, man! Just think of anything but her lips.
Unfortunately, lying has never been one of my strong suits.
I stare down at her and hear the words of damnation echo in the stairwell: “I wanted to kiss you.” When her brows shoot up in surprise, I hastily add, “Not that it matters. What does matter is that I wanted to do the room for you. Not as a favor, not in pity, but because I know how it feels to want something so badly you can taste it, and yet—because of circumstances out of your control—that fate no longer belongs to you.”
She visibly swallows and maybe I’m absorbing some of her reckless habits because my fingers leave her chin to trace her jawline, then swoop down. The heel of my palm rests against her collarbone as my fingers curl around the nape of her neck. More, the new, reckless part of me begs, and I nurture the demand by pressing my forehead to hers.
Voice low, I urge, “Say something.”
Another swallow, and this one I feel under my hand like a secondary pulse. “I appreciate the gesture, Nick.”
“But?”
“It feels like a handout.”
“Mina—”
“I know it’s not one.” Her hand scrapes over mine, her short nails dancing over my skin. “But thank you for the offer. And . . . and I’m sorry for lumping you in with a group where you don’t belong. You were trying to help, and I jumped down your throat prematurely.”
Her words wind my heart like a tightly strung coil. “Every person who’s ever made you feel ‘less than’ is an asshole.”
She meets my stare, and the slopes of our noses collide in a gentle bump. “The list is mighty.”
“Ignore them.”
“Already done.”
“I’m not”—I skim my hand up, cupping her jaw—“I’m not like them, Mina.”
“I know,” she whispers.
Beneath my palm, her pulse flutters like a butterfly trapped in a mason jar. I study her features, tracing the lines of a face I thought I knew as well as my own. Twenty-four years, and yet it feels like I don’t know her at all. Not the almond shape of her eyes or the sparse split of hair in her left eyebrow, near the tail. Not the tiny scar on her right cheek that’s shades lighter than her olive skin or the slight widow’s peak of her hairline.
Opening my mouth, I let the admission escape that could ruin us both: “I’m dying to know how you taste.”
Her chest heaves and grazes mine.
Above her head, I curl my fingers inward. “I don’t give a damn about the deal.” My lips press to her forehead. “I don’t give a damn about who owes who what.” Down I travel, over the crooked bridge of her nose, purposely pausing over the bump. “I don’t give a damn about what Effie might say or that I’m not supposed to want you.” A lingering kiss to her cheek. “And I don’t give a damn that I’m not the kind of guy who does flings and you’re not the kind of girl who does long-term.”
I move east, teasing, with my lips hovering over hers. I soak in her shuddering breath that wafts over my mouth, and I fucking relish the way her nails bite into my skin, anchoring my hand to her jawline.
“I need to kiss you,” I murmur, refusing to eliminate the final distance between us. I need her desperate like me, as stripped down to the bone as I feel. Nothing less will do. Purposefully, I press my weight into hers. And her throaty moan is a melody I could play on repeat for the rest of my life. Goddamn perfection. “Tell me no and we’ll stop this right now. No one will ever know that we almost—”
“Stop talking and kiss me, Nick.”
She doesn’t need to tell me twice.
I crash my mouth down over hers and let myself freefall into possibly the worst decision of my life. But, hell, kissing her doesn’t feel like a mistake. No, it feels like we’ve spent years working toward this one moment, dancing around each other, throwing barbs that carry more meaning than either of us have ever admitted.
It feels like fate.
My fingers bury themselves in her thick hair, winding those silky strands around my balled fist. And then I pull my hand back, sharp enough that a delicate gasp breaks from her mouth and she clutches my shoulders like I’m the only thing keeping her from tumbling down the flight of stairs.
I take full advantage.
I graze my tongue along the seam of her lips, demanding entry.
And she gives it with the neediest, sexiest whimper I’ve ever heard.
Oh, fuck.
The sound goes straight to my dick. It strains against the zipper of my jeans, hard and throbbing. I hear nothing but the whirring sound of blood thundering in my head. My lungs squeeze, and I think of nothing but the delicious hint of coffee on her breath and the way she’s clasped one hand to the base of my neck. Reckless. Impulsive. Mina tugs me closer, as demanding as ever, and swirls her tongue with mine, playing, pushing me to give her more.
In this moment, she isn’t Effie’s best friend. She isn’t the thorn in my side that she’s been for over twenty years, always digging her way under my skin and spiking my temper at the slightest provocation.
If you had asked me ten years ago if I’d ever consider kissing Mina Pappas, I would have laughed in your face.
No, you wouldn’t have.
As though to prove me wrong, my imagination takes me through a wheelhouse of memories. Memories of us in Greece with Mina in a bikini and me fighting the desperate need in my veins to look and keep on looking. Memories of us here in Boston, me walking Mina home after school, the way heat stirred low in my groin whenever our fingers accidentally brushed together.
Memories of her prom night, when I’d held her in my arms and her lids fluttered shut, and I thought, for one moment of temporary insanity, if only.
If only she wasn’t my sister’s best friend.
If only I hadn’t started seeing Brynn.
If fucking only.
Mina wrenches her mouth from mine, gasping, “This is crazy.”
And it’s only about to get that much crazier.
Lust pounds through my limbs, and I let instinct take over.
My hands go to her ass, palms completely full, and I boost her up into the air. She defies gravity for only a second, eyes round with shock, before resettling into the cradle of my arms.
“Oh!”
“Wrap your legs around my waist,” I growl, trailing my mouth over her jaw to the shell of her ear.
She does, and this time she whispers “oh” in a completely different tone. It’s breathy and feminine and accompanied by a squeeze of her legs and a swivel of her hips. “You feel . . . you feel so good.”
With her back pressed to the stairwell wall, I stabilize my weight on two rungs, one hand planted on the wall beside her and the other still clutching her ass to keep her steady. Her pouty mouth finds mine as I grind my erection into the fleece-lined apex of her thighs. Back and forth, a slow, sensuous glide directly over the seam of her leggings.
My control frays just a little more, and I force my hips to keep the smooth, easy rhythm instead of picking up tempo. Slow. Easy. I repeat the words like a mantra. Slow. Easy.
Mina arches her back, driving her hips against mine.
Slow. Easy.
She’s killing me. Destroying any willpower I have left, decimating it into smithereens when she reaches between us and shoves my T-shirt up, exposing my stomach . . . and the crown of my cock trying to make an escape from my jeans.
I squeeze my eyes shut and drop my forehead to her shoulder. “You drive me fucking insane.”
Avidly, I watch her fingertips trace the rigid lines of my abs. My breathing comes heavy and labored, and she takes no pity on me. Those fingers skate down, light as a feather, and tease the tip of my cock with a caress I feel to my soul.