Bought For Her Innocence

A streak of longing rent through her at the endearment, tearing at the hardened chunk of self-imposed loneliness that was her core. God, she hadn’t been held like that in forever.

“You came,” she whispered, feeling light-headed and shivery.

“Your faith in me will bloat my ego.” Silky smooth and dripping with sarcasm, his words were a whiplash against her fading willpower.

Anchoring her fingers on his forearms, she forced her spine to straighten. “From everything I hear about you,” she said, her relief fading with a welcome burn of anger and grief she had nursed for the past few years, “your ego, among other things, is apparently already big enough.”

Waves of his laughter enveloped her. His mouth opened in a smile against her jaw, sending a burst of such shocking heat through her nerves. She didn’t dare turn and glance at him, for fear of combusting alive on the spot.

Why was she reacting like this to him? Was it shock?

“John’s lying outside—”

She tried to jerk away from him. “God, you killed him?”

Another lethal smile flashed at her. “I promised my godfather I wouldn’t waste the life he gave me.”

“Nice to know you keep some of your promises.”

“And then there is Stavros,” he continued smoothly, ignoring her ungrateful little remark, “whose wedding is in a week, and he would not appreciate being dragged into my mess.” He sighed. “So tempted as I was, I didn’t kill him. I don’t even use my fists anymore except to hit Stavros,” he added. “And believe me, if that isn’t exercising self-control, I don’t know what is.”

Jasmine had no idea if he was serious or joking. The fact that he had answered her request for help, even though it was what she had fervently prayed for, hit her hard now.

Was it because she hadn’t expected the infamous playboy to come himself? Because she had relentlessly, and a little obsessively, hoped that the soft lifestyle had softened him?

Had somehow made him less?

Instead, the body that encased her felt as if it was made of steel. Realizing that she was leaning into him, she threw her elbow out.

His breath hissed out of him. “Now that we have finished our introductions, are you ready to leave this dump?”

“Dmitri...why did you attack John? Why’re you here in the middle of the night?”

Darkness shadowed his face, the fluorescent light caressing his face here and there. The light gray of his eyes was the only thing she could see. And in one glimpse, they burned with such ferocity that Jasmine dropped her gaze. “I hit him because I remembered how much of a bully John was and because he was sniffing around outside your door. And I’m here at midnight because I don’t trust Noah not to up the ante by morning—”

One question burned on her lips. “Did you...pay off the debt, Dmitri?”

“I didn’t just pay off the debt, Jasmine. I won the—” he slipped into Greek and Jasmine had no interest in learning what the pithy word was “—auction. Now stop acting the damsel in distress and move, thee mou.”

The endearment, echoing with mockery, lanced at her. “I’m not a damsel, neither am I naive enough to assume that you’re a white knight.”

The second her words left her, she wanted to snatch them back.

His teeth gleamed in the dark. “It heartens me to know that you know the score. I’m no white knight, neither will I risk loss of limb to save your hide.”

“No?”

“No. But you already know that. What did you call me at Andrew’s funeral—a self-serving bastard who doesn’t know the meaning of honor or loyalty? Throwing some money at Noah to buy you is one thing. But my generosity doesn’t stretch far enough to risk myself. So how about we postpone our chat?”

The dark of dawn cloaked them as they exited into the street. A gasp left her as she saw the sleek Bugatti motorcycle tucked neatly out of sight.

So what the dirty rags reported about his lifestyle was true. Bugatti bikes, and a yacht and countless women—Dmitri Karegas finally had everything he had ever wanted.

And he hadn’t lifted even a finger to help Andrew.

I have asked Dmitri for help and he cut me off, Jas. He’s not the boy we knew once. Andrew’s words resonated in her head, building a fire of hatred in her gut. But he had helped her today, the sensible part of her piped up.

“You’re staring at it as if it were a viper that would strike you.”

Feeling the intensity of his perusal, she shook her head.

It didn’t matter what Dmitri had become. It couldn’t matter to her.

He was an old friend who happened to have enough money to bail her out of a sticky situation. She would pay him back, even if it meant she would have to go hungry half the time, and they would be through with each other and that would be that.

“Jasmine?” Dmitri probed softly.

Cold October wind pressed against the exposed skin at her neck, sinking and seeping into her flesh. The worn-out sweatshirt she had pulled on last night offered meager protection. Her muscles shivered at the biting cold.

He chucked off his leather jacket. And held it out to her.

Her hands wrapped around herself to ward off the cold, she stared back at him.

“I don’t need it...” Her teeth chattered right in the middle of her sentence. Bloody traitorous body! “I’m fine,” she finished lamely.

He said nothing, his hand still stretched out toward her.

The silence between them stretched, sharply contrasted by the growing traffic around them. He pushed the helmet down onto his head. Though his face was hidden by the visor, Jasmine could feel the thread of his fury beneath it.

His very stillness in the wake of it was disconcerting and she marveled at his control.

Why? Why was he so angry with her? Why couldn’t he take the damn helmet off so that she could properly look at him, so that she could at least guess his thoughts?

She must still be under shock after the past few days because somehow the latter mattered more to her than his anger.

She wanted to see those solemn gray eyes; she wanted to see that broken blade of his nose, the tender smile that had always curved his mouth just for her. The strength of how fiercely she wanted to feel those arms around her once again... It was insanity.

More than anything, she wanted to see how much he’d changed from the sixteen-year-old who had left with his wealthy godfather.

From as far back as she could remember, Dmitri had been rough, almost violent, got into every fight he could manage. Only Andrew had been able to calm him, reach him at a level that no one could.

His mother’s death did that to him was all her brother would say when she probed. She remembered how fiercely Dmitri had fought against leaving with his godfather. It had taken Andrew countless hours to convince him.

But once he’d left, Dmitri hadn’t looked back. Not once.

He had easily forsaken Andrew and all the promises he’d made, had become the überwealthy playboy who cared nothing for those he had left behind.

And then he’d started appearing in the gossip columns, his wild parties, expensive toys and the countless women he dated—dated being a euphemism—making him infamous. One time, he had even come close to marrying a Russian supermodel.

In short, his life now was spheres away from hers.

“Before you read something into this—” she sensed his sardonic smile rather than seeing it “—it’s like putting a tarp on my Ferrari or a fresh coat of paint on my yacht, Jasmine. It’s about protecting my possessions.”

A gasp escaped her at how effortlessly cruel he was. “I still don’t want it.”

“Fine, freeze to your death, then.”

He pushed the helmet over her head. With precise movements, he tugged the ends of the strap together tight around her chin. Jasmine jerked at the touch of his long fingers against her jaw and cheeks, a searing heat stroking her skin. The click of the strap reverberated in tune with the thud of her heart.

“I don’t need—”

“I’m very possessive of all my toys.”

She slapped his hand away from her chin, her rising temper drowning out the confusion. With movements as measured as she could make them, she got on the bike.

“I’m not a bloody toy that you acquired. You’re just as bad as the lot of them.”

Her words got cut off as the bike started with a sleek purr, pulled off like a cannon and the momentum almost threw her off the backseat.

The very real risk of flying off the bike claiming her, Jasmine held on to his shoulders, taking care to not touch him more than necessary.

A distinct sense of unease settled between her shoulder blades. What had she risked by trusting a man who had no loyalty, who thought his roots were nothing but a dirty stain that had to be removed?

CHAPTER TWO

THROUGH LITTERED STREETS and narrow alleys, Dmitri drove on and on, feeling as if the very devil was on his heels.

Usually, he felt as if he was the king of the world as the sleek machine responded to his every request, purred into a beauty of motion. Usually, he found escape from the emptiness in his gut when he drove his bike or when he took his yacht out onto the ocean.

With the wind whipping at him and the world going motionless around him, the pure throttling power of it had always calmed him.

He knew nothing of that calm now. A cascade of emotions and feelings deluged him, and it was as if he was still trying to breathe, trying to stay afloat.

It was going back to that neighborhood, he decided with a choked-back growl.

His life had been a veritable hell all those years ago and not for the reason that Stavros and Giannis assumed. Being there, he thought, would surely send him spiraling into that angry, violent teenager Giannis had suddenly found on his hands.

And it had.

That same anger and fear and shame had instantly corralled him the moment he had seen the familiarly grungy warehouse, smelled the nearby leather factory. The suffocating stench of his failure clung to his pores.

Like an invisible rope had loosened the tether he kept on the memories he locked away, like his skin could flinch and smart again from scars that had healed on the surface long ago.

He hadn’t felt this out of control since...since the night his mother had died. The road curved dangerously ahead and he throttled the gear, curving into it.

A tentative hand pressed into his shoulder, his name a soft whisper on the periphery of his roiling emotions. Jasmine’s slender body slammed into him from behind, her arms vining around his midriff like clinging ropes. Her mouth was near his ear and her terrified voice broke through the black shroud of past.

“Dmitri, please...slow down.”

Her soft entreaty finally punctured through him and he slowed.

Her hands wound around his waist snugly. She was plastered to his back from cheek to chest, and a sigh left her mouth. He clutched her hand at his waist and she pressed back silently. He didn’t know who sought comfort from whom, but there was something about her embrace that calmed the turmoil inside him.

That life was over, he reminded himself. Andrew was far beyond his help. His mother was far beyond his help.

He had nothing to recommend about himself to a woman, but he had oodles of money. And with it, he would ensure Jasmine never went back to that world, would set her up for the rest of her life and walk away.

* * *

They stopped finally after an hour, dawn streaking the sky a faint pink. Her muscles cramping at sitting so still and erect on the bike, Jasmine got off the bike shakily, her legs barely holding her up.

From a dingy, neon-lit back alley to the sophisticated elegance of The Chatsfield, London, it was as if she had fallen through a tear in the fabric of the city.

Chauffeured luxury vehicles rounded the courtyard even at this time, designer-clad men and women making their way to the entrance.

Her neck craned back, she took in the majestic building and then looked down at herself. Dressed in washed-out jeans and a thin, baggy sweater, she felt like a mangy dog that the liveried bellboy would shoo away any second.

With a masculine elegance, Dmitri got off the bike and handed the keys to an eagerly waiting, uniformed valet. He came to stand next to her and instantly, a storm of butterflies unleashed in her belly.

Heat crept up her chest as she remembered the restrained power in his leanly coiled body.

After years of dreaming about getting out of that life, the reality of it happening had hit her hard. Driven by a growing sense of freedom and fear at how fast he had been going, she had wrapped herself around him. She had only sought comfort in a distressing moment, and yet now it felt shameless and weak, smacking of a familiarity that she didn’t want him to think she presumed.

He hadn’t pushed her off the bike, so that had to count for something.

The frigid air that met her nostrils was coated with the scent of him, and somehow became the familiar anchor in a sea of strangeness.

“You should have told me where we were going,” she said, aware of the belligerence in her tone and not able to stop it.

She hated feeling as if she didn’t belong. And the sad truth of her life was that she belonged in that dingy alley rather than here. She belonged more in that club that catered to the most basic sins than in this posh elegance, with men like Noah and John rather than the man Dmitri had become.

He took her elbow and pulled her forward. “You don’t sound happy to be out of there.”

Keeping her gaze ahead, which was sure going to break her neck, she quipped, “More like not happy to be out here. I don’t want to go in there, Dmitri. I just need a few more minutes of your—”

“We’re going to need a lot more than a few minutes to sort things out, Jasmine. And if I can belong here,” he threw at her arrogantly, “then you can.”

“Sort out...what? Why?”

His long fingers dug into her flesh as if to jostle her. She pulled at his grip with her fingers but he didn’t relent. “You will not look at me. Why?”

She angled her head and caught a quick glimpse just to defy him.

Piercing gray eyes held hers in an open challenge and she turned away.

The doorman held out the door for them, a familiar smile on his face. Dmitri greeted him by name and Jasmine followed slowly. He had been so close all these years. And she had never known.

“You stay here regularly?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize you visited London anymore.”

“And you would know because you have kept in touch?” An impression of contained energy and a barely civil smile hit her. “Stavros prefers to look after the Athens side of the business.”

Entering the brilliantly lit lobby from the dark, hushed luxury of the outside was like stepping into a different world. Jasmine blinked and stared around, losing her bearings for a few minutes.

Black-and-white art deco flooring complemented soft beige walls while a stunning, magnificent chandelier took center stage in the vast space. Bold lines and sweeping curves made the hotel look timelessly elegant.

And Dmitri stood in the center of it all.

Black jeans and black leather jacket made him look effortlessly breathtaking, the long, lean lines of his body drawing looks from more than one woman even in the predawn hours.

He might have started where she did, but there was an aura of casual power and panache that made Dmitri not just blend, but stand out amidst the extravagant grandeur of the hotel.

At five-ten, she matched his six-three stride easily. She only wished she could say the same of her clothes and more important, her insides. The vast foyer felt as if it would take forever to cross and all she wanted to do was to fade away from the brilliant lights.

It was not that she thought herself plain. On the contrary, she had heard all her life, and felt nauseous, that she was exotic, lush, possessed of perfect voluptuousness for her vocation. She was stared at six nights of the week and earned her living making love to a pole, but it was how she felt next to the casual elegance of the man next to her that bothered her.

The shame that always clung to her, as if it was etched into her very skin, was amplified when she stood next to him. Just as it stung her that he had seen her at such a weak moment.

As if suddenly he was a measure of her looks, her world, her very life.

She flinched when he pulled her away from the reception area toward the bank of elevators. He held her loosely and yet a thread of his emotions, not so contained, brimmed within him.

Beneath that polite smile, she had a feeling he was ragingly furious. And she was afraid of finding out why.

“The hotel is fit for a king,” she said, trying to keep the utter awe she felt out of her words.

“I have a feeling that you’re the opposite of impressed.”

The doors of the lift closed with a soft ping, trapping them inside. Her heart beat like the thundering hooves of a horse when he hit the stop button.

“You have to look at me now, Jasmine” came his soft command.

“You’re making a big deal out of...”

“Are you afraid of me, thee mou?”

Shaking her head, she looked up.

The four walls of the lift were glittering mirrors that showed her a stunningly gorgeous face.

Her femininity, beaten down and stuffed into a bag, roared a primal scream of joy at the sight of the magnificent man in front of her. Every inch of her—from her skin to her breasts, from her cells to her core—stood to attention.

His legs crossed at the ankles, his hands gripping the wall behind him, he filled the space with his masculinity. Something else burst into life in that enclosed space, swelling and arching, until Jasmine felt as though there was a hum inside her every nerve.

Even at sixteen, he had had arresting features, but now...the power he exuded and his command of the world filled the planes and angles of his face, making him a lethal combination of stunning looks and effortless masculinity.

Long, curly lashes kissed cheekbones that were honed so sharp that it was like looking at the work of a master sculptor. Deep-set gray eyes studied her just as hungrily as she studied him. As if he knew her volatile reaction to his nearness.

Of course he knew, Jasmine scolded herself. There couldn’t be a man alive who looked like Dmitri and didn’t know it, didn’t wield it to his advantage. And the fact that she, too, with all the rules she had set in place to be able to face herself in the mirror, was staring at him with googly eyes, measuring herself against him... That woke up Jasmine like nothing else could.

Now she understood the sense of danger that had skittered through her very blood when he had held her from behind so intimately.

The danger to her didn’t come from him. The danger to her came from her reaction to him.

CHAPTER THREE

DECIDING THAT HE would protect her at any cost was one thing, Dmitri thought as Jasmine devoured him with those wide eyes.

The actual logistics of what he would do with this wild creature were quite another. With lush breasts and narrow hips that swayed with every step she took, from the way she tucked that tumbling jet-black hair behind her ear to the pouty mouth that came from no injection, Jasmine was not simply beautiful, but stunningly sexy.

Was that the reason for that ridiculous auction? Had some man coveted her because of those Arab genes that she had inherited from an absentee father, and Noah had turned it to his advantage? What horrific scheme had she caught herself in?

Round jet-black eyes, dark arched eyebrows that suited perfectly those big eyes, a sharp, bladelike nose and a pointed chin.

There was not an ounce of extra flesh on her face, giving her a lean, sharp look. As if every bone in that face had been sculpted by years of hunger and sleepless nights. Her hair, jet-black and thickly curling, was pulled back tightly, exaggerating the feral sharpness of her features. One curl dangled alongside a sharply defined jawline.

There was an alert look in her eyes even now, just as there had been in that warehouse. The straight, tense line of her shoulders, her sharp breaths... He realized how alien this was to her.

How alien he was to her...

When he had seen her five years ago, she had barely turned eighteen, and had looked nothing like this...except for that wary distrust.

It had been there then, too. But where she had barely glanced at him then, her bold gaze drank him in today.

He had never experienced such a thorough, artless appraisal. Women came on to him all the time and he enjoyed it, but Jasmine’s searing gaze was more than basic female curiosity.

It was as though she was looking for something, or someone. And instead of that shallow echo he was so used to, he felt something inside him vibrate in response to her look.

As if a part of him that had lain dormant and unfeeling for so long suddenly uncoiled itself at the sight of her. Dangerously tempting and thoroughly unwise... He wondered how to distance himself from it.

Because as hungry as he’d been to feel something like that, he had nothing to give her.

“No one would know you were from the streets,” she said with a brittleness that he wouldn’t have associated with her.

“And why do you sound as if that’s the worst thing in the world, Jasmine?” He would not call her Jas even though it fluttered on his tongue. Which was strange, because how could a woman’s name have so much power over him? “It’s a pit of desperation and addiction and violence. Why should I ever want to look as if I belonged there once? Why should anyone who had a chance to get out of there still cling to it?” Steel resonated in his voice at the end there but he couldn’t help it.

Her eyelashes fluttered, and he had a feeling she was trying to calm herself down. She failed. When she looked at him, she fairly bristled with aggressiveness. “Of course not. And God forbid anything stand in the way of you leaving the past behind, Dmitri, anything even remotely dirty and poor taint your extravagant lifestyle now.”

He pushed off the wall, furious energy burning through his veins. Instantly, she flattened herself against the wall. And the startled look in her eyes more than anything calmed him down.

Let her think what she wants, he told himself.

He had never cared what the world thought of him. Why would he care about what Jasmine said? But he couldn’t allow her to taunt him like that; he couldn’t allow her to think even for a second that she knew him.

He turned all the energy in him into cutting scorn, delivering it in a silky-smooth tone. “Before you castigate me for wanting out of that life, let’s not forget how this night started, thee mou. Let’s not forget whose money and power saved whose ass in this story, ne?

“Maybe you believe your life is not valuable enough to get out of there, but I will not feel guilty for thinking mine is. Nor will I feel guilty about enjoying the fruits of my hard labor. Giannis might have—”

“Pulled you out of the hellhole that was our life, but I know that it was you and your friend...”

“Stavros Sporades,” he added.

“That it was you two that put his textile company on the global map, especially when everything else is folding in this economy,” she added, as if she was offering him recompense for angering him. “I have followed your—” he had a feeling she wouldn’t say the actual word that she wanted to “—success the past few years.”

And suddenly, it was as though a hard fist jammed into his throat. She had known he was rich, then. She had known that he could have helped. Even as she refused to admit it, she had known, all along, that he would come if she asked.

And yet, she had waited so long... Which night would have made it too long?