A Tale of Two Cousins (A Papaioannou Novel Book 3) Read online

  He knew, in the cautious part of his mind, that such feelings were unrealistic given the short time they’d been acquainted. But the fact remained that ever since he’d first seen her, she’d wrapped herself around him in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

  And he had absolutely zero problems with the thought of her in his life. He wanted her arguing with him, as she had the night before, making him so insane with frustration that he had to take out his pent-up emotions on Jake’s punching bag. He wanted her looking at him as if he were the sexiest person alive, as she had in Theo’s bathroom. He wanted her presence in his apartment, which, while pleasant, had never seemed to have the same warmth that Harry and Iakovos’s homes had.

  Thyra changed that.

  As he rolled over to his side, aware again of a sting on his back telling him just how much Thyra had lost control in the heat of lovemaking, he smiled to himself at the memory of what had met him when they’d returned home the previous evening. Cat toys were scattered across the atrium that served as his living space, while in the kitchen, several cans of cat food sat alongside a plastic container of kibble. A few pieces of Thyra’s clothing had been draped over the couch, and he had stumbled over a pair of her shoes that she’d left in the hall.

  She had not only settled herself and her cat into his life; she’d made his place a home.

  “Dmitri?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You OK?”

  He opened his eyes to see Thyra looking concernedly at him, her own eyes crossing slightly when she tried to focus on his face from where she was still wrapped in his arms. He kissed the tip of her nose, his body so sated, he felt like he was made of soggy tissue. “I’m very OK, Princess. You have worn me out with your lustful demands, as usual. Would you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Look over my shoulder and tell me if that cat is staring at my ass. I feel like he is.”

  She laughed, and snuggled closer to him, tucking her head under his chin, her body soft and welcoming. “He is, but it’s an admiring look, one that says while he personally doesn’t find your butt anything but functional, if he were human, he would ogle it. Frequently. And ask if you minded this.”

  She shifted slightly, spreading her fingers and sliding one hand down his uppermost ass cheek before cupping his testicles.

  He bucked at the feeling of her fingernails dragging gently along his flesh. “Dear God, woman, you can’t possibly want to do it again so soon.”

  “No, but I wanted to do that earlier, and you wouldn’t let me.”

  “I will let you do anything you want,” he corrected her. “Within reason. I’m not, for instance, interested in having you poking around looking for my prostate, but anything else you wish to do is fine with me.”

  “I’m glad to hear both of those things, because the former isn’t anything I’m interested in, either, but the latter I very much am. Do you have any massage oil?”

  “No.” He looked speculatively at her. “Do you want some?”

  “Well, remember last night when I said I wanted to lick you all over, but then once we got going, you were all bossy and I couldn’t?”

  He thought of pointing out that she had started strong the previous evening but quickly got overwhelmed, leaving him to take over, but decided that wouldn’t help her gain confidence. “I am a brute. I promise that I will let you have your womanly way with me, all right?”

  “Not right now,” she said, looking scandalized, and glancing at the clock. “Tonight, maybe. If we have some massage oil. The kind that gets hot when you blow on it.”

  “Oh, you’re going to be very hot when I blow on you,” he growled, smiling when she giggled and tweaked one of his nipples.

  “I assume you have to go to work today?” she asked when he gave her one last kiss, then stretched, and swung his legs off the bed, checking messages on his phone. Luckily, there was nothing important scheduled that couldn’t be moved. “Or do you have to get ready for your date?”

  He frowned at a message from a supplier in Indonesia. He’d set Alexis onto reasoning with them, convincing the company that it really was in their best interest to honor the bid they’d given—as her words penetrated those thoughts, he looked over his shoulder at her. “What date?”

  “The one Audrey says you have with her.”

  An icy chill touched his spine, and it had nothing to do with the air conditioner kicking on. “You know Audrey?”

  “I met her yesterday at Harry’s.”

  Dmitri tried to read her expression but was confused, because there was a certain amount of mirth in her eyes, but her lips were thinned and not at all happy. “I see. At the risk of seeming immodest, is it safe to assume I was the subject of some of the conversation?”

  “Oh, you were very much the bulk of it,” she answered, trailing a finger down his thigh to his knee when he turned so he could better see her. “Audrey likes you. A lot. She seemed to think you guys had a great time together the other night.”

  “We didn’t,” he said quickly, wondering if he was going to be called on to deal with a jealous lover. He’d never liked it when his women suspected him of flirting with others, an act that he took care to avoid. Was Thyra, unconventional as she was, going to fall into the same mold as the other women in his life? “I told you that I spent the night wishing I was with you.”

  “Oh, I know that.” Her eyebrows rose, but the humor in her eyes caused little laugh lines to form. “And I believe you. We may not have been together very long, but I’m a pretty good judge of character—my fling with Kardom aside—and I know you’re not the type of man to keep one woman dangling while you were getting it on with another. So, although we both know that there’s nothing between Audrey and you, she doesn’t seem to be in that same place.”

  He sighed. “I thought I’d made it clear that I wasn’t interested in pursuing a further relationship—”

  “Other than the date you had today, you mean?”

  He frowned. “I don’t recall making arrangements to see her today ... ah. Perhaps she assumed that when we were discussing Agistri.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “What, not who. It’s the island I want to take you to.” He glanced at his phone. “And I still can if you can be ready to go in half an hour.”

  “An island?” she asked, sliding out of bed. He tried hard not to ogle her breasts and hips and thighs, because he didn’t want Thyra to think that he wanted her only for that tantalizing body, but failed sadly. “Is that where we were going two days ago, before Kardom went batshit crazy?”

  “Yes, I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s a favorite of mine, and there are some nice coves for swimming and snorkeling, although we’ll only have a few hours to spend there, since I have to be back for the charity auction this evening.” A thought struck him, an unpleasant thought. “Er ... at the risk of starting yet another argument about how you don’t want to take advantage of me, do you have a dress suitable for tonight? If not, I would be happy to advance you some wages—”

  “Excuse me?” She frowned, just as he knew she would, and, to his sadness, hid her enticing body behind an oversized T-shirt, which she pulled on before marching over to stand in front of him, her hands on her hips, and a look in her eye that had him making a mental note that he should probably set up one of the spare bedrooms as a home gym. At the very least, he should get a punching bag, so he could teach Thyra to release some of the anger that she was clearly about to pour on his head. “One, I have a dress. I have my mom’s dress. You should know—you’ve seen it. Twice. Two, I am not taking money from you, because I haven’t started working for you. And I won’t do that until we come to an employment agreement, and to do that, I have to get Harry’s lawyer Panoush to make a list of rules.”

  “And yet,” he said, striking a thoughtful pose as he rose from the bed. He wasn’t so thoughtful that he didn’t enjoy the way her eyes widened, and her breath caught as she caressed him with a gaze that left him wondering if
he couldn’t, perhaps, pleasure her a second time that morning. “And yet, I distinctly recall last night in Theo’s bathroom when you mentioned helping dry me since you were a personal assistant.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t real personal assisting,” she scoffed. “It was just an excuse to touch you, and you know it.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at her, growing more and more delighted by her with every passing minute.

  She took a deep breath, which caused him to focus on her ample breasts, and said, “And three, I haven’t been invited to this charity thing where you’re being auctioned off like the hunky slab of man flesh that you are. And while we’re on that subject, are there limits to what people who buy you can ask you to do? Because Audrey made it pretty damned clear that what she has planned for you will run the gauntlet from lascivious to outright smutty.”

  “Yes, your dress is very charming, but I thought that since you have worn it twice in as many days, you might like to wear something different tonight.”

  “Why would I want to do that when I have a perfectly good dress?” she asked, and he realized with a start that she was genuinely confused by the statement.

  He thought of Harry and Kiera, and couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Do you, by any chance, dislike shopping?”

  “For what?”

  He made a noncommittal gesture. “Let’s say clothing.”

  “No, I don’t dislike it,” she said, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He’d heard from both Iakovos and Theo about the fact that their respective wives disliked the act of shopping to the point where they would wear out clothing before replacing it. He spent a moment in smug pleasure that his wife would have no such issues, then realized that he was thinking of Thyra as if she would be truly his wife, a life partner. He considered her standing before him, and wondered why he shouldn’t think of her in that way. She was, after all, almost perfectly suited to him.

  “Mind you,” she continued, making a face, “I don’t get to go shopping for clothes often, but I do try to stop by the local thrift store fairly frequently to grab anything good that comes in.”

  “Have you always—” He stopped the sentence before it could continue, realizing that there was no way he could ask what he wanted without insulting her.

  “Have I always what?”

  “Nothing.” In order to distract her, he lifted her up, and carried her into the bathroom. “You, Princess, are dirty. Very dirty. You need a shower.”

  “And you’re just the rich Greek bachelor to give it to me?” she said, brushing her hand along his jaw. For some reason he didn’t question, she loved his jaw when he hadn’t shaved. She’d told him just the night before that it made her legs weak just looking at it.

  “I am.” He set her down and whipped her sleeping shirt over her head, tickling her adorable ass when she turned to open the shower door.

  He didn’t actually end up making love to her in the shower, but it was a near thing, and he wouldn’t be honest with himself if he didn’t feel a certain amount of pride when, as he held still behind her, assisting her washing her breasts ... over and over and over again ... she wiggled her ass against him and said, “Glorioski, Dmitri, you can’t possibly be ready to go around again so soon after we just grabbed the brass ring.”

  “If I am, it is simply because I have a temptress wet and naked in my arms.”

  “Yes, well, this temptress would like to go see this fabulous island you mentioned, and there’s no way I can do that if I can’t walk because you’ve stripped all the strength from my legs.”

  He let her go after that, since he really did want to show her the island, shaving and dressing quickly so he would have a little time to give Alexis a few tasks to be accomplished.

  “Before I forget,” he said as he ate the last of a bagel. Alexis sat at the long counter in the kitchen, a plate of eggs, bacon, and potatoes piled high. Dmitri tried to remember the last time he had the metabolism to eat that much food in one sitting, and decided the less he dwelled on the fact that he’d be forty in a few years, the better his own breakfast would sit. “I want you to get those investigators we used last year for the contractor who ran off with our deposit.”

  Alexis consulted his tablet, writing a quick note to himself with the computer pen. “What are they looking into?”

  Dmitri cast a glance to the short hallway where he could hear the hair dryer running in his bedroom. “A man named Friederich Wilhelm Kardom.” He handed over the paper that Thyra had managed to take when she escaped her kidnapping. “He’s probably still in Athens, possibly in the company of Thyra’s cousin Maggie. Margaret ... er ... Colton, I think.”

  “You just want to know this man’s whereabouts?” Alexis asked.

  “That, and any information they can find. Are you ready to go after you eat?” The last was asked of Thyra when she entered the kitchen, her hair wrapped around her head in a braid. She was followed by the cat, who sat at his feet and stared at him until he handed over a plate of cat food.

  “Sure. I can grab a couple of pieces of toast and eat them on the way. Good morning, Alexis. Oooh, that looks yummy.”

  Alexis paused in the middle of shoving a forkful of food into his mouth. “Would you like me to make you some?”

  “Lord no!” Thyra gave him a bright smile. “I’d explode if I ate all that. Dmitri, do you ... er ... are you going to eat that yogurt?”

  With a smile that Dmitri kept to himself, he moved the carton of yogurt over to her, replied to an e-mail regarding a land use study, answered a couple of Alexis’s questions regarding a possible plot of land in Panama, then frowned at a text that just pinged.

  FROM: Patricia

  Darling, is it true what Harry says? Thyra is really your personal assistant?

  Quickly he texted back an answer.

  TO: Patricia

  I don’t know why it matters to you, but yes, we have that arrangement. Temporarily.

  Almost immediately he received a reply.

  FROM: Patricia

  So suspicious! I just want to get to know her better, and Harry says she doesn’t have a phone, but that she’s going to be working with you, so you’ll probably get her one. Until then, she said I should contact Thyra through you. Would you mind giving her the following message?

  He handed the phone to Thyra. “We’re going to have to get you a mobile phone. For work purposes, naturally,” he said quickly when her eyebrows pulled together, indicating a rising objection. “Patricia sent a text for you.”

  “She did?” Thyra took the phone, her eyebrows now raised. “She wants to go to lunch today in order to get to know me better. That’s ... singularly odd, don’t you think?”

  “Not really. You said she knows you’re marrying me, and she does a lot of work for both Iakovos and Theo, and I would have no issue hiring her if I needed the type of interior work she specializes in. She’s quite talented even if she’s a bit ...”

  “Yeah, not going to fill in the blank there,” Thyra answered. “I’ll just tell her I’m going to Agistri, and we’ll have to do lunch another day. Like ... in a long, long time. I don’t need to be told again how much of a gold digger I am.”

  Dmitri waited until she’d sent her text, then took back his phone and said, “We should be back by three, Alexis. You’ll let me know anything turns up?”

  “About—”

  “Yes,” he interrupted, casting a quick glance at Thyra, who had finished the yogurt and was now offering the cat water. He didn’t think she’d be upset if he was investigating her cousin, but she might kick up a bit of a fuss at the cost of hiring a team of investigators to do that, no doubt feeling it was an obligation she owed, so it was just better for them all if she didn’t know.

  “Ah. Yes, I will,” Alexis said with a conspiratorial wink.

  Dmitri made a mental note that he really did have to move Alexis to a more executive position, and after a few last instructions, he got Thyra and Valentino out to the car.

  “No Jeep?”
she asked when they emerged from the front of the apartment building to find his car waiting, one of the concierge’s assistants holding the door open for Thyra. She ignored it to put the cat in the backseat, snapping the seat belt through his harness.

  “I have no need of it. This one was being repaired when I took you sightseeing. Now, shall I point out a few more of the sights on the way to Piraeus, or do you want to tell me exactly what Audrey said yesterday that has you looking alternately entertained and furious?”

  “I’m not jealous,” she said with a rapidity that he found amusing. “I know she was trying like hell to make me so, but like I said, I know enough about you to know you’re not what Maggie calls a horn dawg.”

  “That, I think, is one of the nicest compliments I’ve had in a long time,” he said, relieved once again that she wasn’t going to raise a fuss about perceived causes of jealousy. If he needed any other sign that she was perfect for him, that was it. “Allow me to return the compliment and tell you that I appreciate you being not at all the sort of woman who indulges in useless emotional displays in order to garner attention.”

  “Oh, I can be as emotional as the next girl, hence the fact that I now have a cat, but my brother tells me I have a lot of oppositional defiance at weird things, and I’m afraid Audrey triggered that. I wasn’t nice to her, Dmitri. Her attempt to bait me hit my funny bone hard, making me laugh until my nose ran, and I’m afraid she was offended. I tried to apologize, but she just flounced off all ruffled feathers and stompy feet.”

  “I’m sure she’ll survive,” he said, his admiration for her growing. He knew just how well-sharpened Patricia’s claws could be, having witnessed her tear through both cousins, finally going head-to-head with Harry before they worked out some sort of an accord, and the short time he’d spent with Audrey left him with the idea that she was cut from the same cloth. One thought led to another, and he asked, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to do a little shopping for tonight? We could spare a half hour if you wanted to find something for the auction, and I’d even wait in the car to make sure Valentino didn’t get overheated.”