Free Greek's Last Redemption by Caitlin Crews Page B

life, on the other hand? Very likely.”
    â€œEveryone needs a talent,” she replied, as if they were flirting with each other. As if there really was nothing in the world but the sneaky tilt and roll of the beat and that look on his face, so narrow and
intent
. “What’s yours, Theo? Aside from talking every single woman in Europe into your bed, that is—which I thought you’d claimed you’d outgrown?”
    â€œYou must be kidding. Or you really are insane. Is that it?”
    â€œIt’s okay.” She tilted her chin up and only then realized she was too close to him and that the things that swirled inside of her weren’t the music or the crowd or even adrenaline. It was all their history. It was the same old, incapacitating
need
, and tonight it made her as furious as he looked to be at the moment. She felt blind with it, ripe and near to bursting. “I’m sure that was one of the lies
you
told, that you’ve quite naturally overlooked in all your deep and abiding nasty judgments of me.”
    He let out a sound that was far too harsh to be a laugh, and then his hand was on her arm, and something in her thrilled to that no matter how dangerous it was. How out of control all of this was.
    She didn’t care that it wasn’t a particularly kind touch, that he took her and then propelled her across the crowded space as if he might very well throw her out the door—and she let him because she couldn’t seem to do anything but acquiesce when he touched her, as always. She didn’t care that nothing good could come of this and that she really, truly, should have stayed locked away in her room at The Harrington, catching up on her sleep, the better to deal with him again come morning. Theo steered her into an alcove she wouldn’t have known was there and didn’t want to question why or how he did, pushing her inside and kicking the door shut behind him with a loud
thunk
.
    They were up in a small glassed-in booth above the main dance floor, and it was heaving down there. Crowded and wild and somehow glorious in all its hedonistic excess. Holly could
feel
the bass thumping against the glass in front of her, taking over the kick of her heart and that pulsing thing between her legs, and then Theo was there, right there behind her, pressing against her back in a silent threat.
    Or maybe this was merely a dark and heady sort of promise, not a threat at all. Either way, she found she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t
want
to breathe.
    â€œIs that why you came here?” he growled at her, into her, so it shook her the same way the deep roll of the bass moved the glass. Or maybe that was the hard expanse of his chest, his abdomen, pressed against the flimsy barrier of her light shirt, making her skin feel pink and hot beneath it. “Jealousy after all these years? Or did you want to take her place, perhaps?”
    â€œI doubt you know her name.”
    â€œI knew yours. I gave you mine.”
    Another growl, and he was nothing but heat and strength, plastered hot against the length of her spine. His hands were at her sides, tracing her shape as if he still had that right, and Holly found her palms flat against the glass before her, as if she could hold on to that wild, seductive beat. Or to him. It all felt inevitable and reckless at once, and she couldn’t seem to do what she knew she should, what self-preservation demanded she should.
    The truth was, she didn’t
want
to stop him.
    â€œWhat good did that ever do?” Theo muttered.
    And then his hot mouth was against the side of her neck, as insistent as the music, as delirious and as seductive, and Holly simply catapulted off the side of the earth the way she always had, every single time he’d touched her. Her body was still his, always and only his. It fell apart for him.
She
did, as easily as if it had been moments since he’d last had his talented, inventive hands on her