“You see it now, don’t you?”
At her pointed question, I hold her gaze, unwilling to sever the connection between us. The heat from the fireplace warms my skin to a feverish temperature. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m seconds away from losing my finally wrought control. And all because—“He’s a fuckin’ bastard.” I bite out the words. Fast, sharp, completely unapologetic. “You didn’t deserve learning about your mom like that. You don’t deserve any of their bullshit at all—not for one second.”
Her chin comes up. “But do you see it?”
What I see is a woman who’s stolen my heart.
Knowing that she’s waiting for an answer, I give her the bitter truth. “Naí.”
Yes. One simple word—and she visibly curls up in a ball.
Mina bends her knees, drawing them up to her chest. She wraps her arms around her shins, then settles her chin on her knees. She looks young, resigned, and God help me, but all I want to do is hold her.
“Once it was out in the open, there was no pretending otherwise.” She licks her lips, but nothing about it is sexual. “Baba brought up Mama cheating all the time. He did it front of me, in front of Katya and Dimitri. He did it when we were out to dinner and she happened to look at another man a little too long. I realize now that it was classic manipulation and how he kept Mama in check. Back then, though, it felt like a thousand arrows landing in my already open wounds.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, her shoulders draw up to her ears. “If I had been like Katya and Dimitri, maybe he would have let bygones be bygones. I was eight the first time he called me stupid. I didn’t have a good grasp in many of my classes and we both know I struggled in Greek school. Every bad grade, every failed test, was like open season for him to belittle me.”
Fury thrums through my veins. It’s a miracle that I manage to keep my tone flat at all when I edge out, “You have dyslexia.”
She shrugs stiffly. “I wasn’t diagnosed until I was twenty. By then I was in hair school and determined to never go back home. I’m sure the counselors in grade school may have done something to help me, but I was always home, helping my siblings with whatever they needed. My dreams took a back seat.”
Fuck it.
I drop the notebook to the threadbare carpet and crawl to her on my knees. Like we did when she helped me with the church spire, I assume the spot behind her. My legs spread wide, with her nestled in the V of my thighs. Fingers grazing the waistband of her leggings, I settle my hands on her hips. She shudders when I kiss that delicate spot she loves so much, right where her neck and shoulder meet. “Spill it all,” I tell her, as she reclines back in my hold and my lips slip up to her soaring-wings tattoo. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, koukla.”
Strong woman that she is, Mina does nothing but allow her chest to expand with a deep inhale. “Your parents want you to get married because they want to see you happy. Even your yiayia has good intentions.” I feel, rather than hear, the angry hum that reverberates in her chest. “That’s not my life. One day, my parents think I should let a man take care of me. The next, they’re telling me that no one will ever want me—that I might pass on my dyslexia.”
“So what if you do?” The words burst from my mouth like bullets discharging from a rifle. “So, what? It’s not the plague.”
“That’s what I told my mom.”
“Great minds think alike,” I mutter, my frustration boiling deep. “It’s ridiculous. They roped you into their own mess instead of behaving like goddamn adults.”
Like she’s wanting to soothe me—because that’s Mina to a T, always looking out for others—she trails her fingers gently over my arm. “I may have gotten the brunt of their crap, but I’m not the only one they messed up in the head. Katya’s living in North Carolina and only comes home for the holidays. Dimitri is in Manhattan, and unless we go to him, he doesn’t step foot back in Boston. The three of us all have our own issues, and I’m so tired—so incredibly tired—of being one of my parents’ tried-and-true missiles to hurt each other.”
No wonder she clung to Effie so tightly growing up. Our family may not have been well-off—we may not have had the newest toys for Christmas and we may not have taken a family vacation until Effie and I were well into our twenties—but there was never any doubt that we were loved.
“Did you and your mom get into it? Is that why you left?”
Mina gives a short nod that rustles her hair against my chin. “I had to get out of there. For as long as I can remember, your mom has always been there for me—more than mine ever has. I’m sorry if picking me up from there was uncomfortable for you.”
It breaks my goddamn heart to hear her apologize for wanting something we should all expect from our families: comfort, love, acceptance. “Ermione, if you want to see my parents daily, I don’t give a damn.” I give her a gentle squeeze. “Not that I wouldn’t mind having you come to me instead.”
Her answer is lost to the crackle and pop of the firewood.
She shifts in my arms, turning around until she’s resting on her knees and her hands are closing over my shoulders. My gaze moves north from her curvy thighs to the billowy T-shirt she borrowed from me. It’s at least three sizes too large, and when she slowly lowers her hands to the hem to pull it over her head, it’s finally the perfect size because it’s gone, and all that’s left is smooth, soft skin.
My cock hardens immediately. Perks up to full attention when Mina thumbs her nipple, rolling the peaked nub between her thumb and forefinger. Gamóto, but I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight.
She cups the weight of her breasts, squeezing softly, plucking at her nipple once more.
“I’m gonna need you to step aside and let me do business.” My voice emerges deep and throaty, even to my own ears. I ignore the keening desperation for us to take it to the next level, to show her that when we fuck, we’re really making love. But if she needs this physical connection right now after cutting open all those old wounds of hers, I’m more than willing to take up the task.
My hands glide from her hips to the small of her back, tracing up the line of her spine, until I’m palming her shoulder blades and encouraging her to thrust her chest out. She cries out the moment I graze my teeth over her hardened nipple. Her fingers sink into my hair, her nails dragging along my scalp, and the pain’s as good as the pleasure.
I bury a grin when her lush hips push forward, seeking contact. One hand to her waist, I keep her in place as my tongue swirls over the rosy-brown nipple. Again and again, until she’s writhing even as she kneels before me. She cups my jaw with the sweetness of a lover, feverishly rakes her nails down the back of my neck when I suck, hard.
This moment, this woman . . . There’s no one else for me.
Now, my brain urges, tell her that you love her now.
Pulling back, my breath wafts over her breast and Mina shivers. I love you. I cup the back of her thighs, thumbs brushing the underside of her ass. She sways forward, naked from the waist up. I love you. Because I’m a goddamn sap, I press one palm to her chest and measure the heart rate speeding along.
It sprints like mine, tripping over itself as her breaths come shallow and quick.
I love you.
“I’m tired of feeling like I’m not good enough,” Mina whispers with her lids squeezed shut and her heart pounding a mile a minute under my hand. “For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m doing the right thing. Not because I’m running from my parents and trying to play rebel to their every demand, but because it’s what I want.”
An unfamiliar edge to her tone raises the hair on arms. A sixth sense. A spidey sense, if you will, similar to the one I felt moments before I lifted Brynn’s veil and found my ex-fiancée nibbling on her bottom lip and shooting harried glances at the pews.
Good news: I know Mina isn’t about to marry someone else.
Bad news: the unease punching its way through my organs is not subsiding, not even a little and especially not when Mina begins to drum her fingers on the outside of her thigh.
I lean my back against the edge of the mattress, tearing my gaze from those tapping fingers to her naked tits and then up to her stark, restless expression. The question leaves me on a rough exhalation: “Why would you be playing rebel?”
“Because”—the tapping picks up speed—“they’ve always wanted me to find someone like you.”
The heat dissipates just like that. “I’m gonna need more, Mina. What does someone like me entail?”
Her gaze falls to the carpet between us and her hands come up to cover her naked breasts, and I practically feel her retreat within herself. Goddammit. Under her breath, she mutters, “Someone good.”
My fingers clench tight into fists at my sides. “Because that’s a turn-off, having someone at your side who puts you first.”
“Nick, it’s not that—”
“Then tell me.”
Her sharp intake of breath lifts her shoulders, and my gaze catches on the words I picked out for her. Without the night there are no stars. Ironic, because it feels like we’re going straight into a period of darkness.
“You don’t understand. You can’t possibly understand when your parents have always stood by your side, no matter what.” She scrambles to yank on the T-shirt, concealing her nakedness from me like she’s closing me out from her vulnerability. It’s not without a little dose of irony that the Stamos Restoration logo falls flat over her heart. She’s wearing my shirt, and yet this is the first time since Toula’s wedding and that damn elevator that I’ve felt like we’re on two different planes, cruising in two different directions.
Mina pulls hard on the hem of the T-shirt as her voice cracks with barely suppressed emotion. “You wanted to date Brynn? Go right ahead, they told you. You want to go on a dating show? No one stopped you, Nick. No one. My entire life I’ve dreamt and celebrated my achievements on my own because—newsflash—nothing I did appeased my parents. But I could turn it all the way around and make them proud, for once, if I did just one thing: bring home a nice Greek boy.”