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“It matters a lot…”
“Not to me.”
She took a deep breath. “Then what does?”
“This,” he said simply, and lowered his lips to hers.
This time, his kiss was gentle and deep, wistful as a whisper. Could this really be happening? Was she dreaming? Or could she be totally drunk on half a glass of champagne?
Her heart filled with longing as his powerful body enveloped hers.
“Come home with me,” he murmured against her lips.
She sucked in her breath, looking up at his handsome, shadowed face. “It’s Christmas Eve…”
His dark gaze burned through her. “There’s no one else I’d rather have in my arms when I wake on Christmas morning.” His hand slowly traced down her cheek to the edge of her throat to her shoulder shivering beneath the oversize tuxedo jacket. “Unless you don’t want me…”
Her—not want him? Just the ridiculousness of that suggestion made her gasp. “You can’t think that…”
His shoulders relaxed, and his dark eyes met hers. “Then live like we’re alive.”
Live like we’re alive. What a strange thing to say.
He was right, she’d followed the good-girl playbook her whole life, Holly thought suddenly. What had being sensible and safe and good ever done for her, except to leave her working overtime for free for a manipulative boss and sacrificing all her dreams to spoil her little sister—only to feel used and taken for granted by both?
“Say yes,” Stavros urged huskily, stroking his hands slowly through her hair. “Come away with me. Be free.”
A Rolls-Royce pulled up to the curb. She looked at him, her heart pounding.
“Yes,” she breathed.
A trace of silvery moonlight caressed the edge of his sculpted, sensual lips as he drew back to make sure she meant it. “Yes?”
“Let’s live like we’re alive,” she whispered.
Glancing back at the waiting car, he held out his hand. “Are you ready?”
Holly nodded, her heart pounding. But as she took his hand, she didn’t feel ready. At all.
As she sat next to him in the back of the limo, she barely noticed the driver in front. She didn’t notice anything but Stavros beside her. The journey seemed like mere seconds before they pulled in front of a famous luxury hotel in Midtown.
“This is where you live?” Holly said, looking up at the skyscraper.
He smiled wryly. “You don’t like it?”
“Of course I do, but…you live in a hotel?”
“It’s convenient.”
“Oh.” Convenient? She supposed her shabby one-bedroom walk-up in Queens was convenient, too. She only had to change trains once to get to work. “But where is your home?”
He shrugged. “Everywhere. I travel a lot. I prefer not to keep permanent live-in staff.”
“Right.” She nodded sagely. “I prefer that, too.”
His lips quirked, then he turned back toward the glamorous hotel, all decorated and sparkling with Christmas lights.
“Mr. Minos!” a uniformed doorman called desperately, rushing to hold open the door. “Thank you again. My wife hasn’t stopped crying since she opened your Christmas card.”
“It was nothing.”
“Nothing!” The burly man swore under his breath. “Because of your Christmas gift, we can finally buy a house. Which means we can finally start trying to have a baby…” His voice choked off.
Stavros briefly put his hand on the burly man’s shoulder. “Merry Christmas, Rob.”
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Minos,” he replied, unchecked tears streaming down his face.
Holding Holly’s hand tightly, Stavros led her through the gilded door into the luxurious lobby, which had at its center an enormous gold Christmas tree decorated with red stars stretching two stories high. All around them, glamorous guests walked, some briskly and others strolling, many trailing assistants and bodyguards and holding little pampered dogs. But Holly only looked at the dark, powerful man beside her.
“That must have been some Christmas gift.”
“It was just money,” he said shortly, leading her through the lobby.
“The doorman—did he do a big favor for you or something?”
As he led her to the elevator, he gave an awkward shrug that made him look almost embarrassed. “Rob holds the door for me. Always smiles and says hello. Sometimes arranges for a car.”
“And for that, you bought him and his wife a house?”
Pushing the elevator button, Stavros said again, “It was nothing. Really.”
“Nothing to you,” she said softly as the door slid open with a ding. “But everything to them.”
Wordlessly, he walked into the elevator. She followed him.
“Why did you do it?”
“Because I could.”
The same reason he offered me a job as his secretary, she thought. “Stavros,” she said, “is it possible that, deep down, you’re actually a good guy?”
She saw a flash of something bleak in his dark eyes, quickly veiled. He turned his face toward the sensor then pressed the button for the penthouse. “I’m a selfish bastard. Everyone knows that.”
But there was something vulnerable in the tone of his voice. “I’m finding it hard to believe that. Unless there’s something else,” she said slowly. “Something you’re not telling me. Is there—”
Her voice cut off as Stavros pressed her against the elevator wall, and hungrily lowered his mouth to hers.
He kissed her with such hot demand that the questions starting to form in her mind disappeared as if they had never been. All that was left was heat. She felt molten with desire.
With a ding, the elevator door slid open.
Gripping her hand, he pulled her forward. Knees still weak, she followed, looking around her.
The enormous, starkly decorated penthouse was dark except for the white lights glittering from a ten-foot fresh-cut Christmas tree, which stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sparkling lights of the city below.
Still shivering from the intensity of his kiss, she looked at him. “Nice tree.”
Stavros glanced at it as if he hadn’t noticed it ’til now. “The hotel staff arranged that.”
She looked around the apartment. There were no photographs on the walls. Nothing personal at all. The white-and-black decor looked like something out of a magazine, curated by a museum. “Did you just move in?”
“I bought this place five years ago.”
She looked at him, startled. “Five years?”
“So?”
Holly thought of her own shabby walk-up apartment, filled with photos of family and friends, her comfortable, beat-up old furniture, her grandma’s old quilt, the tangled-up yarn from her hopeless efforts to learn how to knit. “It seems unlived in.”
“I hired the top designer in the city.” He sounded a little disgruntled. “It’s a look.”
“Um.” She bit her lip, then turned with a bright smile. “It’s nice.”
He pulled her into his arms. “You don’t really think that.”
“No.” Butterflies flew through her belly as she stared at his beautiful mouth. Her gaze fell to his thick neck above his black tuxedo tie, to his broad shoulders in the white bespoke shirt, down all the way to the taut waistline of his black trousers to his powerful thighs. Butterflies? The crackle in her core felt more like the sizzle of lightning, burning through every nerve.
“Tell me the truth.”
Biting her lip, she said, “I think your apartment is horrible.”
“Better,” he breathed, and he lowered his mouth to hers.
She tasted the sweetness of his mouth, and surrendered to the strength and power of his larger body wrapped around hers. Surrendered? She hungered for more.
Stavros kissed her for hours, or maybe just minutes, holding her body tightly against his as they stood in his shadowy, stark penthouse, beside the lights of the Christmas tree.
Heart pounding, dizzy from his passionate embrace, she pulled away with a shuddering breath. “This doesn’t seem real.”
“Lots of things don’t feel real to me right now.” Brushing tendrils of red hair away from her face, he said softly, “Except you.”
As he pulled her tight against his body, his tuxedo jacket fell off her shoulders, dropping silently to the floor. His hands ran slowly through her hair and down her back, over her red dress.
Pulling away, her eyes fell to the floor as she warned him, “I don’t have much experience.”
“You’re a virgin.”
Her cheeks flamed. “How did you know?” she whispered. “Is it the way I kissed you?”
“Yes. And the way you shiver when I pull you into my arms. The first time I kissed you, I felt how new it was to you.” He gently stroked her cheek, down the edge of her throat, to her breast. Her hard nipple ached even at that slight brush of contact. “That made it new to me, too.”
Thinking of the gossip about his previous mistresses, all gorgeous sophisticated women no doubt with amazing, gymnastlike sexual skills, she suddenly couldn’t meet his eyes. She bit her swollen lip. “What if I don’t please you?”
With a low laugh, he gently lifted her chin as he countered, “What if I don’t please you?”
“Are you crazy?” Her eyes went wide. “That’s impossible!”
His lips twisted with an emotion she couldn’t quite identify.
“That’s how I feel about you, Holly,” he said in a low voice. “You deserve better.”
Stavros felt like she deserved better—better than the most famous Greek billionaire playboy in the world? But as she looked into his dark eyes, she saw he believed every word.
With a deep breath, she said quietly, “I can’t work for you, Stavros. Not after this.”
His expression fell. “You can’t?”
Shaking her head, she gave him a crooked smile. “It’s all right. Working for the VP of Operations won’t be so bad.”
His jaw tightened. “As you wish. You will, of course, still get your raise.”
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable—”
“Nonnegotiable.” He cut her off. “You’ve more than earned it by being the company’s hardest-working employee for years. In fact, you should be demanding a raise, not just accepting it. Damn it, Holly, you need to realize your value…”
Impulsively, she lifted up on her toes and kissed him. It was the briefest of kisses, feather-light, but it felt daring and terrifying to make the first move. As she started to draw back, he caught her, pulling her against him urgently. He kissed her hungry and hard, as if she was a life raft, and he was a drowning man.
Her body felt tight with need. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples aching, sending electric sparks rushing through her every time they brushed against his hard chest. Tension coiled low and deep inside her, and she wanted him even closer. Reaching up, she pulled his head down harder to deepen the kiss.
With a growl, he lifted her up into his arms, and carried her down the hallway to an enormous bedroom.
The room was huge, but as sparsely decorated as the great room. Shadows filled the room, with a white gas fire shimmering like candlelight in the stark modern fireplace. Next to the windows, an artificial white tree gleamed with white lights.
Setting her down beside the bed, Stavros stroked her cheek. “You’re so beautiful, Holly,” he whispered. “I never imagined anyone could be so beautiful. Like an angel.”
“I’m no angel.”
He paused, looking at her in the winter moonlight flooding in through the window. “No.” Reaching around her, he slowly unzipped her red maid-of-honor dress. “You’re all woman.”
Noiselessly, the dress dropped to the floor. Leaving her standing before him in only a bra, panties and high-heeled shoes.
She should have felt cold, standing nearly naked in front of him in the large bedroom. But beneath the heat of his gaze, she felt lit with an intoxicating fire as he slowly looked her over, from her full breasts plumped up by the white silk demi bra, past the softly curved plane of her belly, to her white silk panties, edged with lace. Taking her courage in her hands, she lifted her gaze.
Cupping her face in both hands, he lowered his head to hers and kissed her until the whole world swirled around her as she was lost in the sweet maelstrom of his embrace. His hands roamed feather-light over her body, stroking her breasts, her tiny waist, her big hips, the full curve of her backside. When his hands stroked over the silk bra, she held her breath until he reached around her to unhook the clasp, springing her free. With an intake of breath, he cupped her breasts, tweaking her taut nipples. She shuddered, vibrating with need.
Reaching down, he pulled off her high-heeled shoes, one by one, sending each skittering across the black floor. Pushing her back against the white comforter of the king-size bed, he undid the cuff links of his shirt.
Never taking his eyes off her, he loosened the buttons, and she had her first flash of his hard chest. He dropped the shirt to the floor, and she got her full view of it, in all its tanned, muscular glory. A trail of dark hair led to his flat, taut belly.
