Authors: Aliyah Burke
Aliyah Burke
something…something she wasn’t quite ready to give to him. Even Kacy had told her to let him explain.
Stepping out the elevator onto her floor, Landi shivered as a chill ran up her back. Not from the cold, from something else. With a strong shake of her head, she walked toward her loft. Putting the key into the lock, she hesitated.
I’m freaking losing it.
Landi turned the knob and pushed open her door. Then she froze.
The lights were on and there were flowers everywhere. All of them were different shades of pink. And in the middle of it all stood a man she had met in Greece. AJ Melonakos. Dimitri’s cousin.
Kicking the door shut with the heel of her shoe, Landi demanded, “What the hell are you doing here?!”
An enchanting grin crossed his face. “Dima,” he said, ignoring her question. “I think you should come out here.”
“I asked you a question!” Landi snapped, dropping her bag and coat. Her eyes refused to let him go.
“Hello, Landi,” AJ spoke in that deep voice he had. “Lovely to see you again.”
She glared. “Are you gonna tell me what the fuck you’re doing in my apartment?”
A shadow moved behind AJ; and to Landi’s shock, it materia-lized into Dimitri Melonakos. “Hello, Landi,” he said. The words surrounded her like a warm, velvet blanket.
Her legs began to tremble, her mouth went dry, and her palms became sweaty. Her heart rate went off the charts. He looked so damn handsome. Black hair, deliciously shaggy and perfect. He wore a dark-gold shirt tucked into black slacks. Black leather shoes poked out from the cuffs of his pants. A black belt with a gold buckle united shirt and pants perfectly.
She ran her gaze over his upper body that was impressive in the gold that matched his eyes. The sleeves were rolled up, exposing muscular forearms. In one hand he held a single pink flower. The burning intensity in his stare made her feel he only wanted to be with her. And that memory made her remember the pain and betrayal she had felt that day.
“You!” she seethed. “Get the fuck out of my apartment!”
“Hear me out, Landi,” Dimitri said.
Hear him out? Was he serious?
Her lip curled as she honed in on AJ who stood there with a half grin on his face. “You can leave and take that…that…
that one
with you!”
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“Don’t you think you should give him a chance to explain? He came all this way to see you,” AJ reasoned.
Landi scoffed. Hands on hips, she shot daggers at the taller of the two. “Well, he can take his ass right back the way he came. And you can go with him! I owe him nothing. I don’t owe either of you anything!
Breaking into people’s apartment—is this common in Greece?” Her voice kept rising. AJ opened his mouth and she slashed a hand through the air. “Don’t even! You’re family. You’d say anything to protect him!”
“Landi—” Dimitri began.
“Get him out of here,” Landi bit off, refusing to take her gaze from AJ.
A smile crossed his handsome face and his green eyes sparkled.
AJ shook his head. “No. I think I should be going now. I’ll leave you two to work this out. Goodnight. It was wonderful to see you again.”
“Where are you going?!” Landi didn’t want to be alone with Dimitri. “If you go, so does he.”
AJ approached her, cast a glance back toward Dimitri, and kissed her on the cheek. “Go easy on my cousin.” At the door he said something in Greek and left.
The door shut with such finality. Landi looked everywhere but toward the dark-haired, golden-eyed man moving closer to her.
“Talk to me, Landi. Yell, scream, whatever, just talk to me, please.”
Crossing her arms, she arched a brow tapped out a cadence on her hardwood floor with her foot.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She bit the inside of her lip. He looked even better than he had in Greece. Landi wanted to touch him, feel his hard body against hers, and indulge in what his touch would bring.
“Look at me, Landi,” he ordered in a sensual tone.
Smoothing a bland expression on her face, she did. From his shoes up to his head. Her eyes lingered on the stem he held full of moth orchid blooms. Pink moth orchid blooms.
If she weren’t so damn furious at him, this would be on hell of a gesture. It still was regardless of the extent of her anger. Gritting her teeth, Landi forced back her tender feelings. He had to understand what pain his actions had brought her. She didn’t want him to think she could be treated like that.
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And yet, what harm could come from letting him talk? For many months she’d wanted to know why he’d not shown up. Landi had never thought she’d be jilted at the altar.
“So talk,” she bit off. She stopped her foot and sent him one of her chilliest stares.
Dimitri couldn’t believe it. She was willing to listen. Well, maybe not totally listen, but he had a shot. Tightening his hold on the orchid, he gazed at her.
She wore a fitted medium-gray pantsuit with light-pink accents.
Pink and gold dangle earrings hung from her ears, and its matching pendant settled below the column of her throat.
Her thick, wavy hair was back in a tight chignon, emphasizing her high cheekbones and amazing eyes. Those eyes, which were currently angry and full of mistrust, were no less powerful than they’d ever been.
How did one begin to explain?
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Newsflash, you did. But hey, how the hell should I feel when you leave me at the altar? No message. No
nothing
!” she yelled.
“I know and I’m sorry.”
One perfect brow arched. “You’re sorry? You’re sorry?! You never struck me as a stupid man, Dimitri. I know you weren’t thinking those two words would make everything okay!”
“Can we sit down?”
He watched her eyes narrow before she huffed and strode to her kitchen. Despite his desire to get her to hear him out, a smile crossed his face as he watched her walk away.
Landi could bring a room to a halt just by walking in. To top it off, she never seemed to care. He shoved back his lust and followed her into the kitchen. He groaned as he watched her bending over in the fridge. Clenching his fists so he didn’t touch her, he stood behind one of the chairs. Her expression hadn’t changed when she faced him again.
She held a container of yogurt and reached for a spoon. Nothing was offered to him.
“I’m still waiting,” her snide comment rang and she took a spoonful of her key lime pie yogurt.
“I wanted to be there. Jesus, Landi, I wanted to marry you that day so badly.”
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“Oh, it showed. Truly.” There was no warmth in her gaze or tone.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Regardless of how it looked, I’m not lying.”
Landi placed her spoon in the yogurt container. “How it looked.
Well, let me tell you, it looked like I was jilted.” She licked her lips, an action that sent a volt of desire through him. “And, apparently, I was.”
She got up from the table and rinsed out the empty container before putting it in a recycling bin.
Dimitri took a deep breath. Everyone had told him he should have told her what had happened, but he hadn’t.
“My brother, Khristos, his helicopter went down, and he along with his whole crew died.”
Landi turned slowly, some of the anger in her stare replaced with shock. “What did you say?” she questioned quietly.
“I said, my brother lost his life that day and I flew home to be with my parents.”
Dimitri watched her face. Disbelief, uncertainty, and a myriad of other emotions swam in the depths of her beautiful eyes. She walked back to the table with two bottles of water and slid him one as she sat down.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
“I know I should have told you instead of just disappearing without a word, but when I got the call…” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to put all of my grief and loss on you like that.”
Her tongue ran over her lips. “We’ll get to why you didn’t want to put it on me later. Tell me what happened.”
The pain of losing his brother roared to the surface. “My brother is…was a helicopter pilot for the Air Force.” He took a drink of cold water. “They were out doing maneuvers on a training operation.
Apparently there was some kind of mechanical malfunction.”
Dimitri scanned the kitchen before continuing, “Because it went down on a training mission, the details given to my parents were sketchy. I tried to help them get more. The day we buried him, our team was sent off on another mission.”
He sought her gaze and held it. “When we got back from that, it’d been so long, I had no idea what to say to you.”
Her gaze grew shuttered as she took a sip of water. And yet, she remained silent.
“Ilanderae?”
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Aliyah Burke
“What?”
“Do you have anything to say?”
She held his stare unflinchingly. When she shook her head, his heart sank. “I don’t have anything to say. There really isn’t anything for me to say. You made a decision on how to act and that was that.” Landi stood. “However, again, I truly am sorry for your loss.”
“So, that’s it?” Dimitri asked, standing as well.
One brow arched as her gaze hardened once again. “I really don’t think we have anything else to discuss, do we?”
“What about us?”
“Us?” A short, humorless bark of laughter erupted from her.
“There is no ‘us,’ Dimitri. You made sure of that the day you decided not to include me in your life.”
“I made a mistake, Landi.” He walked around the table toward her. “What we had was something rare and special. Do you really want to throw it all away?”
Her eyes narrowed. “
You
tossed it away, not me. I was ready to be your wife.
Your wife
! Share my life with you!” One finger reached out and poked him in the chest. “You broke my heart, Dimitri Androcles Melonakos, or ‘Merlin’, whatever you are going by right now. You broke my heart!”
“Landi,” he said, grabbing her finger and wrapping his hand around her smaller one. “Give me another chance. Give
us
another chance!”
Her small nose flared before she tugged her hand. He refused to let go, using his strength instead to bring her in closer. The scent of lemon, lavender, and peppermint swamped his senses.
He groaned low in his throat. The desire to claim her as his own waged war with the need to go slow and secure her forgiveness.
She lifted her chin stubbornly. “I think we’ve said enough for one day. You know the way out.”
“I’m not giving up on you, or us.”
She looked up at him, her eyes overflowing with anger. “I hate you!” she snarled lowly.
Hurt encompassed his body at her words. His other hand wrapped around the back of her neck, the silken strands of her hair brushing against his knuckles. Dimitri lowered his mouth until it was a hairsbreadth from hers, holding her gaze. “And I never stopped loving you.”
He kissed her.
Six
Landi whimpered as his lips covered her own. He held one of her hands between them, pressing it against the fabric of his shirt, and she could feel his strong heartbeat.
I never stopped loving you.
Those words melted her heart. She felt the tears prick the backs of her eyes.
Landi gave herself over to the kiss. She had missed him so much. His touch, his scent. The smell of the ocean filled her senses.
She whimpered as the hand on her neck moved up and began unpinning her hair. At that moment, she didn’t care one bit about anything aside from the fact she was in his arms again. That she might hate herself in the morning also didn’t matter.
She needed this man, Dimitri Melonakos. He was the one who could take her ache away. No man had been able to give her the experience she’d found in Dimitri’s arms. And regardless of ramifications, she just wanted to feel it again. Landi leaned into him even more, letting his strong body hold her up.
One by one, the pins that had held up her hair clattered to the tile floor of her kitchen. She followed when Dimitri tried to back away from her mouth, she didn’t want the kiss to end, afraid logic would return. His hands fell to rest on her buttocks and he lifted her up so she sat on the countertop, then he wedged himself in-between her thighs, their mouths staying connected the whole time. She loved how he tasted.
Masculine and addicting.
She took her hands and slid them around his neck, allowing her fingers to trail through the thick hair he had. A moan slipped from her lips at the feel of the tendrils brushing over her skin.
Nothing else mattered. Only his touch did.
Dimitri’s fingers moved to the buttons on her shirt. She sighed as the warm air in her apartment found her bared belly. A whimper escaped when his hands splayed across her waist.
Landi hooked her legs around his hips and held him close. Her fingers continued to massage the back of his scalp. He intensified the kiss, teasing her tongue and making love to her mouth. His thumbs 54
Aliyah Burke
stroked the underside of her breasts. The heat from his touch burned through the silk of her bra and seared her skin. Back and forth across her nipples he moved his thumbs. She shuddered and sucked hard on his tongue.
“Landi,” he mumbled into her mouth.
“It’s been so long, Dimitri. Please, make the ache go away.”
He pulled back, looked into her eyes, kissed her gently on the lips, and laved a path down her neck and sternum. He ended at a breast and began sucking its nipple.
“Oh, God!” she wailed, bowing her back and pressing his head tightly against her.
His teeth grazed across the pebbled tip through the bra. She squirmed as moisture began pooling between her thighs. With one hand, he dipped beneath the waistband of both her pants and panties.
Landi shook with need. A frustrated moan left her when he stopped and stepped away from her. She stared at him his golden eyes were dark with desire. Their heat singed her.