Page 46 of Power

Twelve

LEON

TWO WEEKS LATER

My fiancée’s lust was insatiable, and as the past two weeks proved, so was mine.

Every morning, light found us tangled in sheets, skin slick with sweat and the musky tang of desire.

I could still taste her on my lips from dawn’s first kiss, feel the hot clamp of her thighs around my shaft. Four times before breakfast, we’d lost ourselves, and yet tonight, as I steered my Aston Martin down the winding drive toLaya and Nikolas’s estate, my cock tightened in my trousers, aching for another taste of her.

The polished leather of the steering wheel pressed into my palms while the engine hummed low and hungry, mirroring the roar in my chest.

I replayed the memory of her breathy moan when my hand drifted along the curve of her waist, or the shiver that quivered through her when I brushed a fingertip under her jaw.

She’d whimpered once, tiny and urgent, when my fingertips brushed the hollow of her throat, so raw, so unguarded.

But I’d stopped, pulling back before the spark in her eyes could ignite my savage need.

Every fiber of me wanted to arch her back against the mattress, drive into her until her nails scored my shoulders and her moans carved my name into the air. I longed to claim every inch of her, to wrap my fingers around that soft column of her neck…gently, of course, and still firm, until the friction set her pulse racing.

But with each passing sunset, I forced myself to wait, letting her lead the rhythm of our bodies until she’d woven trust into the marrow of her bones.

Calista was worth any struggle of restraint.

Her skin glowed like warm honey in candlelight, and her laughter tinkled like wind chimes in spring. Even her quiet moments, hair splayed across her pillow, eyelashes faint shadows on her cheek, made my blood throb.

Thinking she would soon be my wife felt like winning a jackpot I never dared play.

Tonight, we’d join her family for dinner and linger under the same roof, becoming more than fiancée and groom—becoming one household.

I parked beneath a row of ancient oaks, their branches draping the cobblestones in dappled shadows. I stepped out, chest tight with eagerness, and smoothed the crease in my shirt, though my mind was still tangled in memories of her hip against mine.

It had been hours since I’d last seen her. I wondered if she’d slip her fingers into mine and remind me of what waited behind closed doors in the quiet between family greetings and warm embraces.

Would she catch the restless beat of my pulse when I brushed past her at the buffet table? Could she sense the low growl of hunger I kept caged, waiting for the moment her walls came down?

My greatest fear wasn’t that I’d never taste her again. It was that I’d overwhelm her before she felt truly safe.

So I watered my lust in tiny sips, a lingering kiss at the nape of her neck, a slow stroke along her spine, always backing off before she trembled too hard.

In those stolen fragments, she’d matched my heat, arching into my touch, her breath quickening when my fingers tickled the curve of her hip bone. But each time I halted, knowing she’d someday beckon me to see the full force of that beast within.

I’d be the calm in her storm, the steady hand that guided her from hesitation into trust.

Everything else—my raging desire, my need to devour her—could wait until the moment she whispered, “I’m ready.”

And then…then I would show her just how endlessly insatiable love could be.

She’d rushed out of my house in Central Athens to meet her sisters for lunch, her hair tousled, her dress wrinkled from where it had lain in a rumpled heap on the floor all night long.

We’d been distracted, exploring the pleasures of our bodies until the early hours of the morning, falling asleep in each other’s arms when she’d meant to return home the night before.

When she’d woken up, slightly dazed and hungover from the bottle of wine we’d finished off the night before, my heart had melted at the sight of her sleepy expression. I kissed her forehead, felt the flutter of her pulse beneath my lips, and seconds later we were back at it again, skin on skin and undisguised need.

My phone had buzzed all morning with her teasing messages:

“Stop thinking about me,” followed by a lipstick-kiss emoji, and later, “You’re impossible,” with a camera-snapping icon.