Bought for Her Innocence

Jasmine stood awestruck, taking in the warm appeal of the soaring ceilings and the refined wood finish. She walked through the atrium and noted that the penthouse expanded on either side, and ahead was a large heated pool overlooking the spectacular Athens skyline.

Hadn’t Leah mentioned to her that Dmitri’s flat was all chrome and steel and utterly soulless?

A small sitting area was by the side of the pool. Her heart hammering against her rib cage now that she was here, Jasmine stood by the pool, not wanting to check each room, and there seemed to be a lot, for him.

She was wondering if she should have called him first when she heard footsteps behind her. Each and every one of her senses tingled as if someone had sent a spark through her body.

Bracing herself, Jasmine turned.

Black sweatpants hanging low on his hips, his torso naked, there was Dmitri, standing only a foot away from her. Jet-black hair cut to enhance that narrow, angular face, olive skin gleaming like the finest velvet while beads of sweat clung to the ridges of muscle, he looked like he had done after he had made love to her that next morning.

He leaned against the wall, as if he was not at all surprised that she was here.

Jas fought to control her instantly volatile reaction—tingling skin, racing pulse, the sudden and insistent tug in her lower belly—and failed. Heat flashed over her as she realized he had blocked her path purposely. Behind her was the narrow stretch of pool and then the skyline of Athens, and before her Dmitri, looking at her as if he couldn’t wait to devour her.

That brought on images of his dark head between her legs and the way he had devoured her, and she pressed her legs instinctively together, the denim rasping against her inner thighs, and then their eyes met and she knew he was remembering it, too, because there was such an intense hunger in his gaze...

Her breath rushed out of her in a shuddering exhale.

She might as well have walked in in her underwear for all the time she had spent carefully choosing her outfit.

“That would have been nice after the torture of the past few weeks,” he said, pushing off the wall, and Jasmine realized she had said it out loud.

It was as if she was standing in a bubble of sensual haze and didn’t have her usual faculties.

She wet her lips, searching for how to start what she wanted to say. “You’ve been busy the past few weeks,” she finally managed to say.

“As have you, pethi mou” came the soft drawl.

“What’s going on, Dmitri? Why so many changes?”

“I decided that I needed to remove all the empty, meaningless things I have filled my life with. All the things that I believed made it better. All the things that I used to hide from the truth.” He ran his knuckles over her cheek as if he couldn’t help himself.

“When Stavros told me you had asked about me...” He swallowed and looked away for a second. When he spoke again, his voice was almost steady. “Tell me, Jas, what are you doing here?”

“I’m traveling to New York for a shoot in January. And I didn’t want to leave without... I came by to tell you that I want a compromise between us.”

He was closer and the masculine scent of him drenched her pores. She inhaled a long breath as if she were a junkie getting her fix.

He was her drug, she realized. But unlike her mother’s and brother’s choice of poison, he made her stronger, bolder, more her than anything she had ever been.

His gaze lingered over her mouth. “What sort of compromise?”

Oh, how tempted she was to taste that mouth of his again... “I want to be with you. I want us to give our relationship a try. But you can’t ask me to marry you again. Not like that. At least, not until we decide together that it is a step we want to take, until we decide it is what we want.”

He flinched. She knew he did because she was standing so close, breathing in every nuance in his face. Slowly, he took a step back and studied her. “But you want this?”

Her heart racing again, she nodded. There was a bittersweet pang in her gut but she ignored it for now. One day, he would admit to her that he loved her. One day, she would prove to him that he was the most honorable man she had ever met.

She stepped forward, eating up the distance between them. Pressing her hands into his shoulders, she pulled herself up and kissed his mouth.

Those large hands of his snaked around her and slammed her against that chest. Powerful frame shuddering around her, he kissed her forehead. “I’m so sorry I hurt you with that arrogant proposal. I have become such a stranger to emotions or love that I didn’t even realize what I was doing until you told me. You were right. You deserve so much more than I offered.”