"Yes!" I shouted back, turning suddenly, making her step back so she could crane her head up to look me in the face, making her back press up against the wall. "Yes, it is because you are a woman," I told her. "I don't care if you don't like that explanation, but it is the truth. You are a woman. And if you knew what Chernev did to women, you would be falling on your knees thanking me for my protection."
It was when I finished speaking that I realized I had kept moving forward while I spoke, the urge to make her understand just how dangerous an adversary he was had pushed me into her personal space, my chest against hers, trapping her to the wall.
I could feel the breath expanding her chest, pressing her breasts against me as she slowly sucked it in.
"You could have told me that," she said, her calm, almost soft voice in complete contrast to the loud, passionate one I had used on her.
"You could have trusted me," I responded, voice going lower as well.
"You have to give people reasons to trust you, Mr. Adamos."
"I have given you shelter. Food. Protection. Half the items on your ridiculous list." The others I was still working on tracking down.
"You gain trust by sharing with people, not by expecting it in return for physical things."
"It was ugly information," I told her, momentarily distracted by the way her throat moved as she swallowed.
"I am used to living in an ugly world."
"You shouldn't have to," I told her, my eyes finding hers.
"You don't get to make that decision," she told me, voice going even softer.
"If I gave you the information, would you have stayed willingly?"
"I don't know," she admitted.
"I do. You would have gone. You would have been at risk. And if you had been hurt, I couldn't have lived with that."
"It wouldn't have been your fault."
"I brought you here. I put you in this situation. It would have been my fault."
"I'm a grown woman, Christopher," she insisted.
It was the name that did it.
Ripped away the small bit of control I'd had left.
She never called me by my name, save for that one time while arguing with me. It was always Mr. Adamos. Which, after a while, became sexy in and of itself.
But hearing my name in that soft, sweet voice, feeling that wall of formality drop, it just became impossible to hold myself back.
"I see that," I agreed, my hand raising, tracing up her shoulder, over her clavicle, slipping up the side of her neck, fingers reaching outward to frame her face.
Her eyelids got heavy, her breathing immediately quickening.
Her lips parted for a long moment before words came out.
"I don't think—" she started.
"Don't think," I demanded, my lips claiming hers.
There was no hesitation, no resistance.
All the tension that had been in her body disappeared, making her soft and responsive. Her arms raised, grabbing my upper arms, curling in, holding on as her lips pressed harder to mine, demanded more.
A low, throaty whimper escaped her lips, vibrated against mine when my tongue moved out, teasing the seam of her lips, seeking entrance.
Gaining it, I felt a shiver course through her as my hand slid back, fingers slipping up, curling into her hair.
Her hands rose, going around my neck, forcing her up on her tiptoes, crushing her breasts to my chest, making my cock strain. Desire was a live wire through my system, begging me to lift her off her feet, to carry her down the hall, to drop her down in my bed, to run my lips and tongue over every inch of her. I needed to feel her legs slide around my hips, to slip inside her, feeling her walls clench me tight as she cried out my name.
I was moments, no, seconds, away from bringing all that to reality.
And then Alexander's door slammed in the back of the house loud enough to make us both jolt unexpectedly, breaking apart.
My eyes opened, finding hers wide as her hands suddenly released my neck, planting on my chest, and pushing me back a foot.
Just in time for Alexander to break into the space, his energy popping off, agitated. But I was distracted by the unfulfilled desire coursing between Miller and me.
"What are you arguing about?" Alexander asked, young enough to misinterpret the heavy breathing, the buzzing energy around us.
"Me being able to go out and exercise," Miller said, recovering herself first, taking a deep breath as her head turned to look at my brother. "No surprise, he's being stubborn."
"Yeah, well, what do you expect?" he said, his anger clearly directed at me once again.
"I know, right?" she agreed, letting out a laugh that was a little choked.
"He's not going to give in," Alexander said, shrugging. "I hear Cora left some Loukoumades in the kitchen for us, though," he said, trying to comfort her. "Want to share some and dissect a movie with me?"
"Sounds good," she agreed, moving away from me a bit stiffly, gaze purposely avoiding mine, not letting me see what was going on with her.
Which was probably for the best.
Because if I still saw need there, I likely would have told Alexander to fuck off, thrown her over my shoulder, and finished what we had started.
And that was not a good idea.
My body, though, was clearly not in agreement.
And by the time I had worked the need out of my system, my thighs were burning from the stairs, as weak and unsteady as a new fowl's.
But after I showered and got into bed, I realized it had all been for nothing.
Because the need was still there.
I was starting to understand it wasn't going anywhere until I got what I actually needed.
And that was her.
EIGHT
Miller
Shit.
Shit.
Double shit.
Yes, this was a double shit sort of situation.
I mean, it was bad enough just suspecting that our chemistry would be kind of explosive. It was a complete other thing entirely to know for sure.
Hell, the arguing in and of itself had been foreplay enough. When he turned on me with all the barely-contained anger and passion? I nearly yanked up my skirt and told him to take me then and there.
As a whole, I was not someone who found men hot when they were angry. In my line of work, angry men were something to be feared.
I guess because I knew I didn't have anything to be afraid of with Christopher, I was able to appreciate that kind of emotion from him.
Then he had to go all soft and kiss me like it was the last thing he'd get to do on this Earth.
I had never been a mushy person. I could respect the mush in others. Kai and Jules were a prime example of that. They had all the mush. And I was happy for them with that. But I couldn't claim to have ever felt that way myself.
But when he kissed me?
I felt mushy.
It was both exhilarating and fun and new as well as scary and strange and uncharted.
It was probably a good thing that Alexander chose that moment to be pissed about his brother removing his laptop from his room because if things kept going, yeah, we'd have been bare-ass naked, getting it on right there in the doorway.
Cora would have been thrilled.
She made absolutely no effort to keep her desire to see me with Christopher secret.