Sweet on the Greek_An Interracial Romance Read online

  But it was all over now, and the prospect of long, uneventful months without a reason to force herself into Jen and Theo’s happy life was… unappealing, to say the least. Not that she’d ever admit that. No-one needed to know how pathetic she’d become.

  So instead, she offered a secondary truth. “Scouting for boys.”

  “Me too. But the pickings are slim.”

  “They are not,” Aria snorted. She nodded towards a table of young men at the edge of the terrace, where marble floor turned into La Christou’s glorious patio. They were clearly appreciating the atmosphere, lounging around with casual grace, drinks in hand. Part of Theo’s family; cousins, she thought. They shared his razor-sharp bone structure, and some of them were almost as handsome as he was. “They’re gorgeous,” she said. “Tell me they’re not.”

  Keynes scoffed. “I’ve known those boys for too many years to take one to bed. I vaguely remember sharing a bath with the eldest.”

  Right; because Keynes and Theo’s families were tight like that. Although it might be more accurate to say that Theo’s family offered Keynes and his sister a respite from their nightmarish home life.

  Tomato, tomato.

  “But,” Keynes said, “any of them might do well for you. Don’t you think?”

  No. She didn’t think. Which was one of her many, many problems. “No-one here is doing it for me.”

  “Rubbish,” he said. “You’re just thinking too hard. You’re not even drunk, are you?”

  Stone cold sober. “Whatever,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “You know, since I’m the maid of honour, I should be sleeping with the best man.”

  Keynes grinned, full lips parting to display American-white teeth. Honestly, the man had no right to look the way he did. If they were actors in a teen movie, he’d be the bad guy. He was too beautiful to be anything else. “Oh, love,” he said. “If I were so inclined…”

  “Blah, blah, blah. Stop trying to charm me. I’m not even close to your type.” Gender aside, Aria knew for a fact that Keynes preferred his partners… clean-cut.

  Aria was as far from clean-cut as a country singer’s mullet.

  “Listen,” he said. “You’re moping, and we both know it. But look at all this.” He swept a hand through the air, indicating the beauty around them—and the figures of Jenny and Theo, intertwined on the dance floor, swaying to every song as if it were a waltz. “Frankly, that slapped-arse expression is bringing down the mood. Want to take a break?”

  The tip of Aria’s tongue worried the silver ring bisecting her lower lip. “A break?”

  “Yeah. Let’s wander off. Go on an adventure. It’ll be very Enid Blyton.”

  “Only Greek,” she added, pushing off of the wall.

  “Only Greek,” he agreed, already leading the way.

  “You know where you’re going?”

  “I know that you’re following.”

  Well, she supposed. Fair enough.

  Chapter Two

  Nikolas Christou had a problem.

  He wasn’t really used to problems—which might be why he was handling this one so poorly. In fact, it definitely was. That was the downside to a charmed life, he thought, as he jogged through his family’s flagship hotel: a chronic inability to deal with one’s own bullshit.

  Eventually, he’d have to learn. Maturity yawned out ahead of him, tapping its metaphorical foot, reminding him that his glory days were officially over. He’d have to grow up, now, wouldn’t he?

  But Christ, not tonight.

  Nik had just retired—prematurely, to some, but not to his bank account—from football. The beautiful game had done something to his left knee that was, unfortunately, rather ugly. He’d come home to annoy his mother, harass his little sister, and decide what to do with the rest of his life, since he had no useful skills. He had not expected to bump into Melissa fucking Bright while licking his wounds.

  Although, bump into seemed too generous a phrase. It was more accurate to say that she’d hunted him down like a gazelle.

  He could hear her voice now, echoing off the marble walls behind him. “Nik! Where are you? Did you see him, Perry?” There was a pause, and then she practically shrieked, “NIK!”

  His name on her lips had sounded so much better in bed. Strange, really.

  He took a sharp right and hurried along the corridor. He certainly wasn’t going to run—he did have some pride—but he couldn’t be fucking bothered with this woman. Honestly, of all the questionable people he’d ever made the mistake of sleeping with, she was the absolute worst. Bloody exhausting, bless her. Though really, a part of him admired her tenacity.

  But dealing with that tenacity usually gave him a migraine and made her, after she was done screaming, burst into tears. Nik hated to make a lady cry, even if that lady was a grasping, manipulative dingbat who couldn’t take no for an answer. Just the thought of making someone feel unwanted made him imagine his tutting mother and scowling sister saying God, Nik, you’re so insensitive! Now look what you’ve done!

  He took a left, then a right, then another right, until he was tied up in knots. It was horrifying to realise how little he remembered of the hotel he’d grown up visiting; clearly he’d been living and playing in England for too long. Melissa’s voice chased him no matter which way he turned, growing closer and closer until she might as well be on top of him.

  By the time he came across the deep, shadowed alcove bracketed by classical statuary, he was practically frantic. And by the time he noticed the two people standing in that alcove, staring at him as if he were a headless chicken, he was literally desperate.

  He almost fell over in shock when he realised that one of the people was Keynes. Or rather, Olumide Olusegun-Keynes, man of the world, mystery, and excellent practical jokes.

  Keynes’s lips twitched as he took in Nik’s panicked expression. “You alright, mate?”

  “No,” Nik said. He never had been one to prevaricate. “I am being ruthlessly corralled by a pair of lionesses.”

  Keynes gave in and allowed himself a full-blown smirk. At any other time, Nik might pause to admire the lips involved in that smirk. The man as a whole was worthy of admiration, actually; he looked like a model. But that didn’t matter, because Nik was putting his days of carefree sluttery behind him.

  Tragic.

  “That’s rough,” Keynes said. He looked over at his companion, so of course, Nik did too. Which is when his jaw almost, very nearly, dropped. Because the woman standing in the shadowed alcove was unlike anyone he’d ever seen.

  He’d heard of people being called striking, and he certainly felt like he’d been struck. Her dress, long and buttercup-yellow, was pretty, but it was the rest of her that affected him most. Everything about her commanded attention, from the contrast between her platinum blonde hair and dark skin, to the tattoos that covered every visible inch of her. A silver ring glinted down the centre of her glossy lower lip, accompanied by little studs on either side of her nose and what looked like a thousand tiny gemstones decorating the curves of her ears.

  She watched him with eyes rimmed in pitch-black makeup and glinting with amusement. There was a sardonic tilt to her lush mouth that made him think she was laughing at him, rather than with him. Then he heard Melissa’s strident tones from just down the hall, and the woman’s slight smile turned into a full-blown, wicked grin.

  That grin was giving him ideas. But, worse than that, something about her was giving him fucking heart palpitations. He couldn’t even describe the feeling that overtook him at the sight of her. It was like… like running onto a pitch and sprinting through icy drizzle, eyes narrowed, feet fast, the earth soft beneath his studs, knowing absolutely nothing could stop him.

  Weird.

  “In trouble?” she asked. And Jesus Christ, her low, teasing voice alone did more for Nik than porn ever had.

  “You could say that,” he managed, his eyes flitting from the smirk on her lips to the arch of her brow. She was tall, but the way she stood m
ade her seem taller—or maybe it was the energy that surrounded her, strong enough to suffocate the weak.

  Nik wasn’t weak. But he wouldn’t mind giving up his oxygen for her.

  Which was possibly the strangest fucking thought he’d ever had.

  “If you’re a friend of Keynes’s,” she said, “then whatever’s happening here must be your fault. He only likes disreputable people.”

  Nik heard, as if through a tunnel, the sound of Keynes snorting out a sarcastic response. He barely registered the words. He didn’t register a damned thing except her, bright like sunshine, burning him alive in the most beautiful way. “If you’re his friend, too,” Nik said, “doesn’t that make you disreputable?”

  “Of course,” she smiled. It was a real smile, so brilliant it set him off balance. Her brows arched as she grinned, one slightly higher than the other, and her eyes tilted up at the corners.

  Nik didn’t know if he’d just felt the earth shake or if he was tragically losing his mind. Phantom or real, something jarred his bones and his brain all at once, until everything felt… different. He blinked slowly, readjusting to this slight shift in his world. The first thing his gaze focused on was her. An unfamiliar need hummed through his blood stream, growing stronger with every beat of his heart. Something inside him unfurled; it was the monster that took over him on the pitch, its demands a low growl. This time, though, it wasn’t telling him to win.

  Her. Take her.

  Wait, what?

  Before he could grapple with that alarming thought, he heard the sharp click of footsteps, too fast and too close. Melissa. His panicked caveman brain set in again. Actually, maybe it wasn’t caveman brain, because a caveman’s solution to this problem would be fight or flight, right?

  As opposed to Nik’s solution, which was to lock eyes with the tattooed woman and say, “Can I kiss you?”

  Her brows shot up. “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.” When she didn’t answer, he turned to Keynes. “Or you. If you’re into that.” He knew very well that Keynes was into that, but the woman beside him might not.

  Keynes gave him a slow, catlike smile. “I certainly am.” He stepped forward, hooked an arm around Nik’s shoulders, and kissed him.

  It was an excellent kiss, all things considered. But it didn’t have the desired effect. Melissa didn’t, it seemed, find Nik kissing someone else and finally take the fucking hint.

  Instead, she saw him kissing someone else and hollered, “Nik! There you are!”

  Aria had tried a lot of things, but she’d never bothered with voyeurism. It just didn’t ring her bell.

  She also knew that she wasn’t the slightest bit attracted to Keynes. She had been, at one point, because he was drop-dead fucking gorgeous, but friendship had dealt with that lust rather swiftly.

  Yet, as she watched Keynes kiss Mr. Tall, Tan and Terrified, she felt a hot, tight stirring in her belly that had been conspicuously absent for some time. And if it wasn’t related to voyeurism, and it wasn’t there because of Keynes, she supposed that only left one other source.

  His friend. The stranger.

  Which made sense, considering the way her eyes were currently devouring him. Her gaze danced feverishly from the swell of his biceps as he grabbed Keynes’s arms, to the firm grip of those big, long-fingered hands, to the ferocious frown on his dark brow. A few seconds ago, his features had seemed sweet and friendly, despite his obvious panic. Now his profile was sharp, intense, hungry. She noticed abruptly that he was taller and more muscular than he’d seemed. She wouldn’t have said, thirty seconds ago, that this guy was bigger than Keynes—but now she could see quite clearly that he was, because the two men were plastered together from mouth to hip.

  You’d think that situation would put off the blonde woman who appeared a few feet away, with a pair of friends lagging just behind. But it didn’t. Instead she stood for a moment, transfixed, her pink mouth forming a perfect O. Rather like a prim little version of Aria’s own, she imagined.

  But the woman’s fixation didn’t last quite as long as Aria’s had. She pulled herself together much more quickly, a smile taking over her face as she trilled, “Nik! There you are!”

  At the sound of her voice, the stranger—Nik, apparently—stiffened. He broke the kiss, easing gently away from Keynes, a sort of grim resignation taking over his features. It was pretty obvious he’d hoped to make the woman disappear, for some reason, but she clearly wasn’t that faint-hearted.

  Typically, Aria was highly suspicious of men who ran from women. In her experience, that kind of situation suggested that a man had taken something, or else that he owed something, and in order to avoid dealing with his responsibilities, he was leading some poor cow on a merry chase.

  But something about this particular man seemed so disturbingly… genuine. Or maybe she was just making excuses for herself. Maybe he was quite clearly scum, but her libido had taken over her brain. Whatever the reason, Aria did something deliciously reckless.

  She stepped forward, caught the man’s face in her hands, and brought her lips to his.

  It wasn’t difficult. Not just because she was tall and wearing killer heels besides—although that helped—but because he seemed totally onboard. Clearly, he was pretty fucking eager to avoid the woman standing a few feet away. Aria had just enough time to note that his eyelashes were ridiculously long and his brown eyes looked almost black. Then his mouth was on hers and raw, needy, impossible lust rolled through her body like a tidal wave.

  Kissing wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Or rather, it was supposed to, but it never, ever did. In her nightly fantasies, a kiss would be enough to heat her blood, to sensitise her skin and send a shiver through her body, but in reality, it never was.

  And yet, kissing the stranger did just that.

  Maybe it was the way he held her; not settling his hands somewhere polite, but wrapping both those thick arms around her waist and hauling her against him. Maybe it was the feel of his broad chest, his abdomen, his hips, pressed tight against hers. Maybe it was the fact that, despite the insistence of his touch, he kissed her almost gently. His lips moved over hers in a series of soft caresses. He didn’t stick his tongue down her throat like an overfriendly dog. He didn’t put his tongue in her mouth at all.

  Even though she kind of wanted him to.

  That inappropriate want reminded Aria that she was doing this for a reason. This guy wasn’t kissing the hell out of her for kicks; he had an audience to perform for. To what end, she had no idea—but this kiss definitely made her Top 3 of All Time list, so Aria decided she owed him.

  He wanted to put on a show? She could do that. She could definitely, definitely do that.

  Aria slid her hands from his jaw to the thick, silky strands of his hair, raking her fingers through it as she rolled her hips against his. She wasn’t expecting him to release a soft groan against her lips, so quiet she almost missed it, but she certainly wasn’t complaining. Not at all. She also couldn’t complain when one of his hands began to roam, sliding down the small of her back, skipping her arse—boo!—but grabbing her thigh—yay!—and dragging her leg high. At that point, her brain powered down completely to accommodate for all the extra blood her other body parts were demanding. And by ‘other body parts’ she meant her clit, which might as well be a bloody landmine. One touch and she’d explode. She’d better stop things here, because the arousal dancing along her nerve endings was starting to get out of hand.

  Aria broke the kiss. Her vagina literally wept, but she did it anyway. Her vagina, after all, did not make the decisions here.

  Her breath came in soft pants as she studied the face in front of her. The face of the man who’d just given her at least a month’s worth of wanking material. He had golden skin, a broad nose and broader cheekbones, a square jaw and deep-set eyes that mirrored the shock she felt. Aria’s gaze flicked down to his mouth without permission. His lips were full, slightly parted, br
acketed by laugh lines. She wanted to taste them again.

  “Gamóto,” he breathed, the word harsh like a curse. “You—you’re…”

  Nice to know she wasn’t the only one whose thoughts had been scattered by that lust tornado. But now probably wasn’t the time for startled stuttering.

  She tore her gaze away from him and turned to give the blonde woman a look. It wasn’t her scariest look—not even close—but it was A Look. And it had the desired effect.

  The woman didn’t seem quite so unconcerned anymore. Her blue eyes were wide, her mouth tight, her hands curled into fists at her sides. She started to speak, a strangled, choked sound emerging from her lips. Then she snapped her mouth shut again. Finally, as Aria had expected, she turned on her heel and hissed, “Let’s go!”

  Her friends hurried off after her, tossing disgusted glares over their shoulders. As soon as they all disappeared, Aria took a step back, breaking free of the stranger’s embrace—no matter how good his hands felt. He let her go, but the startled expression on his handsome face had turned into something more like awe.

  “How did you do that?” he asked.

  Aria shrugged. “Minor intimidation tactics. I’m a lot scarier than Keynes.”

  Keynes huffed out a laugh. “On sight, sure.”

  “But…” The stranger shook his head, frowning down at her long, yellow skirts. “You’re not scary at all. You look like a princess.”

  Aria’s brows flew up. Beside her, Keynes gaped at the man standing in front of them, his jaw as slack as hers felt. This guy must be taking the piss, right? But he looked genuinely confused, and completely earnest, and…

  And it didn’t fucking matter if he needed his eyes testing. She had a conscience to soothe and places to be. “Listen, before I rush back to the ballroom—” that quip was rewarded by Keynes’s snicker “—I kind of want to know what just happened. You aren’t, like, avoiding child maintenance payments, are you?”