Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 28033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
“This isn’t about Milan.”
“Everything is about Milan!” And oh, there were the tears, pricking at her eyes despite her best efforts. “You had someone and I had NO ONE and now you’re standing there demanding to know about my EXPERIENCE when I don’t HAVE any because I was too busy being your perfect wife while you were off with HER—”
“What do you mean you don’t have any?”
“I MEAN—”
The words were tumbling out now, a flood she couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop, because she was so tired of pretending, so tired of being the composed one, the understanding one, the wife who never made waves—
“I mean I don’t know how to answer these stupid questions because unlike you I never DID anything! I never WENT anywhere! I just stayed here being your perfect little wife while you were with her and I was just—I’ve never even—”
She clapped her hands over her mouth.
Too late.
“Never even what?” His voice was barely a whisper.
And Lexy—
Lexy, who had spent eight years being patient and understanding and so very, very good—
Lexy finally broke.
“I’m still a virgin, okay?!” The words burst out of her, muffled against her palms but still audible, still devastating, still hanging in the air like a bomb that had just detonated. “I’ve never been kissed, never been—been you know what—and because of you I’m probably going to die one, so are you happy now?”
She clapped her hands tighter over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror at what she’d just confessed.
Leonidas stared at her.
And Lexy—
Lexy fled.
Chapter Five
Leonidas moved before his mind caught up with his body.
The hallway stretched before him, and there she was at the end of it, his wife fumbling with the handle of the guest room like it had personally betrayed her, and something about the sight of her — flushed and frantic and trying so desperately to escape him — made every rational thought in his head dissolve into smoke.
“Wrong room.”
Lexy spun around, and whatever protest had been forming on her lips died the moment she saw the look on his face. He was already crossing the distance between them with the kind of unhurried purpose that made her heart slam against her ribs, already reaching for her chin with fingers that tilted her face up toward his, already so close she could feel the heat of him through her clothes.
“Leon, I didn’t mean—”
His mouth covered hers before she could finish, and it wasn’t gentle, wasn’t careful, wasn’t anything like the tentative first kisses she’d read about in books. It was eight years of something neither of them had ever named finally spilling over, his hand sliding into her hair while the other pressed flat against the small of her back, pulling her into him like he couldn’t stand even an inch of distance between them.
She made a sound against his mouth that might have been surprise or protest or something else entirely, but her hands were already fisting in his shirt, and when his tongue swept against hers, she stopped trying to form words at all.
When he finally pulled back, her eyes were dazed and her lips were parted and her chest was rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths that she couldn’t seem to control.
“That was—” she started.
He lifted her off her feet.
“Leon!” Her arms went around his neck on instinct, her legs wrapping around his waist because what else was she supposed to do when her husband had apparently lost his mind and was carrying her down the hallway like she weighed nothing at all.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.”
“But we need to—”
“My bed, Lexina.”
“But the mediation questions—”
“Will still be there in the morning.”
“But I told you I’ve never—” She was babbling now, words tumbling out in a rush she couldn’t seem to stop. “And you’ve had six years of practice with someone who probably knew exactly what she was doing, and I’ve only ever read about this in books, and those are probably not even accurate, and what if I’m terrible at it, what if—”
He stopped walking.
Right there in the hallway, her still in his arms, her back coming to rest against the wall as he pressed into her, his forehead dropping to meet hers. This close, she could feel his breath mingling with her own, could see the flecks of gold in his tawny eyes, could feel the way his chest was rising and falling just as unsteadily as hers.
“Lexina.” His voice was rough in a way she’d never heard before. “Stop talking.”
“But—”
“Stop.”
“I just think we should discuss—”
He kissed her again, softer this time, a question instead of a demand, and when he pulled back his lips brushed against hers with every word.
“Do you want this?”
The question settled over her like a weight, pressing down on all the places she’d kept carefully numb for eight years. Did she want this? She thought of every time she’d watched him leave for Milan and pretended it didn’t matter, every time she’d smiled for photographers at charity galas while something small and starving curled tighter in her chest, every night she’d spent alone in their Athens penthouse wondering what it would feel like to be touched by someone who actually wanted her.