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And he could only watch her. The confident swing of her hips, the beautiful, alluring slope of her shoulders. Then she looked over her shoulder at him, and when she caught him watching her...she smiled.
Another punch.
But he could not be laid flat by that blow, by all that crackled between them. He was too strong. Too determined. And while he was not against enjoying himself in the midst of his many plans, revenge would always come first.
Focus. The plan. Revenge. Bringing King Diamandis to his knees.
These reminders helped steady him. He found the hostess of the gala, offered thank-yous and goodbyes, and pretended to accidentally drop the name Zandra Agonas. Over-explained his error, until the woman’s eyes were narrowed with suspicion.
And curiosity. He watched as her gaze moved across the crowd, land on a prominent journalist. Lysias kept the smile to himself as he said his final goodbye knowing that by morning wild stories about the maybe-not-dead Princess, and her connection to Lysias Balaskas, would be splashed everywhere.
Then he strode for the exit. For his car. For Alexandra.
His driver stood by the door, opened it for him with a nod. Lysias stood there on the curb, looking into the dim back seat where she sat. Looking right back at him. His driver stood by the door, waiting for Lysias to get in. “I can take it from here, Giorgio.”
“As you wish, sir.” The driver went back to the driver’s side and Lysias stood where he was. Surveying the woman in his back seat.
This was not part of the plan. This woman. This need. The danger he could feel encroaching around. He never let his focus waver. Never took on something that might risk what he needed to do.
But plans sometimes needed to be altered. They needed to accommodate changes in the landscape, and Alexandra was indeed a change.
It would not matter, he decided then and there. He took lovers as a matter of course. Enjoyed women, and sex. Surely this woman who’d grown up on the streets knew better than to look for something more than he would ever give.
He would have her. And his revenge. And when they were both over, settled and satisfied, they would part.
“Just so we are clear, I am not looking for anyrealwife.”
She laughed, low and husky, arrowing right to his sex.
“I think I can see that about you, Lysias. I only want...” She trailed off, then shrugged those slim shoulders. “For so long, I have denied my wants, or had them denied for me, because I did not have the means to get them or because I had to hide who I was. Now I have the means, and I no longer need to hide. And I want. That is enough.” She sat there for a moment, then raised an eyebrow. “Are you coming in?”
It felt like walking over a threshold that would change things, when he wished nothing to change now that he was here. Successful and poised on the cusp of his revenge, everything and all he’d wanted for twenty years.
But it was in the struggle of those twenty years—of his loss, of his exile, of his rise—he knew he could conquer whatever this was. Whatever threat she posed, he would simply not allow it to win.
Lysias Balaskas came out on top. Always. Forever.
He slid into the car, this back seat their own private oasis with the raised partition between driver and passengers. “You speak of these nebulous wants, Alexandra. Perhaps you should name a few, so as I am not confused.”
She laughed again, and the enjoyment he got from this simple sound, the light in her eyes, might have startled him. If he could think beyond the need to taste such a laugh, such a woman.
“You areneverconfused, Lysias. But if you want to hear it, I don’t mind. I want you to kiss me again.”
He leaned forward but kept his mouth just out of reach even as she tilted her lips to his. He held this distance, a beat, and then another. She watched him, her breathing coming quicker, the pulse in her neck scrambling. He wanted to taste that spot of her neck, but he would be patient.
When he finally spoke, his words whispered over her lips, though he kept his hands to himself. So it was only heat that drew around her, their breaths comingling and nothing else.
“Is that all you want?” he asked, his voice a silken whisper in the dark as the vehicle moved forward and they began to leave the lights of the city behind.
She sucked in an unsteady breath. If he was addled by the chemistry blooming between them, at least he was not alone.
“Touch me,” she said. Demanded, actually.
Which would not do. “Ah, but I do not take orders from anyone,asteri mou.”
“And I do notaskfor anything,leventi mou.I simply take it.” She fisted her hand in his tie and pulled his mouth to hers. Fire. Need.
He could have avoided it, of course. Shewasstrong, but no match for him. But he enjoyed her strength, her demands. That she would grab onto whatever power she could scrabble together.
