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And it would be enough to sustain them over a lifetime.
CHAPTER TEN
ARISTOSPUSHEDHISguilt and his regrets aside and decided to verbalize his own fears. This woman was worth pushing aside the harmful patterns and beliefs that had helped him survive once.
With her sweet taste thrumming through his blood like some miracle drug, her hands reaching for him hungrily, her words burrowing into his heart, it was the easiest thing in the world to do.
Christos, it would haunt him for the rest of his days—the specter of fear and pain in her eyes. The vulnerability she hid beneath the stoic, strong mask she wore.
Her brave words swept over him again and again, washing him free of his own fear. “Vulnerability does not come easily to me,yineka mou.”
“No, not for me either. And why would it, Aristos? You’ve been taught to equate it to weakness. First for survival, alone out there in the world, and then for a different kind of survival after Leo found you. You’ve never been given a safe space to do so.”
Wonder flickered through him at the depth of her understanding. “Maybe you should specialize in psychology, Mira,” he said dryly, feeling as if she’d cut him open to peer at his insides. Even now, his instincts screamed at him to not bare himself so fully to her. To protect himself.
“It’s a lesson I learned the hard way too. Shutting out vulnerability meant shutting out so many other things too. Like joy and wonder and abundance. Before I came here, I made the decision to stop acting out of fear. To stop getting in the way of my own happiness. Loneliness is perfectly safe and sterile but settles deep into one’s bones.”
“You were right.” He looked away, ashamed of what she might see in his gaze. It was useless because even in the darkness, she could hear the thread of disquiet in his words. “When you told me it was twins, I was...terrified. For the first time since I made that proposal to you, what that meant hit me like a ton of bricks.” He pressed a hand to his head. “It’s taken me weeks to even verbalize the fear. I’ve never known...what a healthy, thriving family looks like. Only conditions and agreements and clauses and rewards and punishments... You’ve seen how Leo and I still fight like dogs,ne? How I can’t tolerate anyone but Stella in the family? You must have lost your usual good judgment that day in Vegas, Mira, that you chose me for the one role I can’t just learn for.”
“No parent is ever perfectly ready, Aristos. I’m just as at sea as you are.”
“What if I mess up this whole thing about being a father, Mira? What if I can’t love my own children? Worse, what if they see that?”
The wide shimmer of her smile was like a beacon in the thick darkness of his own fears. “That you worry about doing right by them is more than enough of a start.”
Her long fingers clasped his cheek and she took his mouth in a soft, tender kiss, swallowing away his words, swallowing his fears. Filling him with hope and desire and faith in himself, in them. Nothing in the world felt insurmountable when Mira kissed him, when she gazed at him with such wonder as if he was the answer to her every wish. “We will learn, Aristos. We will do it together. And when we make mistakes, we will try to do better.”
A fierce longing swept through him, drenching him, drowning him. “I want this just as much as you do.” Some lingering reservation in her gaze reminded him of his actions not four days ago. “I will prove it to you,yineka mou.”
“Is that a dare, Mr. Carides?”
“It is the only way I understand the world, Dr. Carides.”
Closing her eyes, she trembled again and it became his mission to rid her of that last remnant of fear. To fill her with the very faith she’d given him.
Slowly, softly, he stroked his hand over her face, plunging it into her thick hair, murmuring soothing words, gentling her, willing the fear to leave her body. He dipped a trail of kisses over her forehead, her temple, the smooth skin of her jaw, over and over again. Going back to her mouth for a taste in between.
Lust roared through him, driving him to deepen the kiss, goading him to drown her in pleasure, urging him to bind her to him here, where there was never any doubt between them.
He resisted the overwhelming urge—he wanted honesty between them. He wanted to return her faith back to her—faith he didn’t deserve—a thousand times over. He wanted to wipe the lingering emptiness in his gut despite the fact that his biggest risk had paid off.
She wanted the contract torn and burned. She wanted to build a real family with him. She wanted to do this for real... But all of it, all her newfound desire, all her deep resolve, it was for those innocent lives in her belly. It was because she was already a fierce mother.
It was for the children, their children.
Victory had never seemed so hollow to him. And yet, Aristos continued to kiss her, continued to cling to his good fortune, continued to remind himself that he had her. Forever. Nothing and no selfish desire would come before the babies for Mira. Not when she had resolved to make a go of this permanently.
The hollowness of it fled fast enough when Mira sank her fingers into his hair and brought his mouth to meet hers.
This time, he let her feel the roaring desire he’d nipped until then. The dark craving for her every night when he found her nuzzling into him. Tugging on her hair to hold her like he wanted, he plunged his tongue into her mouth. AndChristos, she paid him back in explosive response. Teeth and tongues danced, no hold, no grip, no nip close enough, hard enough, warm enough. He groaned when she dug her teeth into his lower lip, vying for dominance, telling him to go deeper, rougher, faster.
When he cursed, she skittered out of his hold, her thick braid lashing him in the chest. “Your hip... Your physio said you pulled a muscle the other day. That you were in pain.”
Flopping onto his back, Aristos laughed. “Spying on me,yineka mou?”
“He called to say he’d upped your pain meds and you weren’t here and I demanded he tell me what was what.”
When she continued to stare at him as if she was scared to even breathe near him, he grabbed the end of that braid and tugged her closer. “It’s more sore and tight than real pain.”
