The Shy Bride (12 page)

“Why?” She licked along the length of his shaft, thoroughly enjoying the flavor of his skin. “I’ve been wanting to for a while.”

“Why wait?”

“I was afraid of messing it up.”

“Trust me, there is no messing up.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure there is. I read up on it and I’ve got it on good authority that a lack of care with my teeth would be a bad, bad, bad thing.”

“There is that.” For once, he was the breathless one.

She took the flared head of his erection in her mouth and swirled her tongue around it. He tasted sweet and she liked it.

“You taste good.”

She closed her mouth over his throbbing flesh and sucked hard.

He shouted, canting his hips upward.

She’d been prepared for this reaction, her hand wrapped firmly around his big erection. It stopped him from thrusting too far into her mouth, but she loved this proof of how much he enjoyed what she was doing.

He’d used his mouth on her many times sending her into spasms of pleasure that seemed to last forever. She wanted to do the same for him.

She’d read about not letting him climax right away and intensifying the effect, so that was what she did.

She was unprepared for him grabbing her and dragging her up his body even as he flipped them, and then thrust
into her. He stopped a moment later and swore. “I forgot the condom.”

“I’ve been on birth control for several weeks.”

“You did not tell me.”

“It isn’t something you discuss over dinner.”

“It is something you mention to your partner before he has a heart attack making love to you without protection.”

“I did tell you.”

He shook his head, but resumed moving, taking them both over the pinnacle more quickly than she would have thought possible.

Afterward, she curled up into his side like she always did and faded into sleep, a proud little smile curling her lips.

Neo sat with Zephyr on the side of the pool after swimming laps with his business partner. They hadn’t used the pool at the same time in months.

“How are things between you and Cass?” Zephyr asked. “I noticed you’re still taking piano lessons.”

“Yes.” Though he spent as many lessons in her bed as he did on the piano bench. He’d made it a personal competition to see how often he could sidetrack Teacher.

“Is it serious between you?”

“Serious? We are friends.”

“Who sleep together almost every night.”

“How do you know this?”

“Please, I’m not blind.”

He shrugged and repeated, “She is my friend.”

“Friends with benefits?”

“That’s what she calls it.”

“So, you wouldn’t mind if she shared similar benefits with other friends.”

“She does not have other friends she sees in person.” But now that she was overcoming her agoraphobia, that would change, a voice taunted in his brain.

“You haven’t hooked up with anyone else since you met her.”

“I grew tired of the one-night stands.”

“But you don’t want anything more than friends with benefits with Cass?”

“What else is there?”

“Marriage. Babies.”

“Have you lost your mind?” he asked his friend. “I do not have time for a wife and children. I barely have time for Cassandra. Besides, things are fine just the way they are.”

“Are they?”

“I don’t want anything else.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s good I guess.”

That response shocked Neo. He’d been prepared for Lecture 101 on the benefits of married life and family. Not that Zephyr would ever succumb to the institution. “Why?”

“Because Cass apparently decided to go swimming and I think she overheard pretty much everything we just said. I can’t be sure, but the way she rushed out of here looking stricken spoke for itself, I think.”

Neo surged to his feet. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t know she was there until too late, but hey. It wasn’t like you said anything she didn’t already know, right?”

No, but that didn’t matter. “You said she looked stricken.”

“Ohi,
I’m not sure the whole friends-with-benefits thing is still working for her.”

“You were meddling,” Neo accused.

Zephyr gave him an innocent look he didn’t believe for a minute. “I was just talking to you.”

“Poking and prodding things best left alone.”

“Maybe Cass didn’t want them left alone.”

“Maybe you should have minded your own damn business.”

“Maybe instead of yelling at me, you should go fix this.”

“And how am I to do that?”

“Start by getting your head out of your ass and go from there.”

Neo barely restrained from punching his best friend right in the face. But damn it, Zee wasn’t the one he was angry at. It was himself.

He’d spent so many years eschewing love that when it found its way into his life, he’d done everything but stand on his head to pretend it wasn’t there. He’d denied any deeper feelings, denied the resurfaced yearnings he’d hadn’t allowed through time since he was too young to know better. Yearning for love. For a family. For what others had and he had never known.

Neither had Cassandra, not really. Her life had been almost as barren as his own and still, he had withheld his emotions from her. Why?

He was ashamed to admit it was because of fear. He, Neo Stamos, billionaire and all-around powerful guy, was terrified of not being worthy of his precious pianist’s heart.

Just as he had somehow not been worthy of his parents’ love. Only wasn’t that the thinking of his bruised child’s heart? Didn’t he realize as an adult, a rational thinker, that surely it was his parents’ deficiency—not his—that accounted for the lack of love in his life.

And didn’t he owe Cassandra something more than the residue of a painful childhood he’d left behind him long ago?

Silent tears rushed down Cass’s cheeks as she let herself into her house. She was furious with herself for crying, but couldn’t stop the emotional onslaught.

She knew Neo didn’t want her for anything but sex and friendship, only she hadn’t been able to help herself from hoping. She’d gone floating along in this little bubble of fantasy that their circumstances did nothing to pop.

He spent his off time with her. All of it. He called her several times a day just to talk. He was still learning to play the piano, though goodness knew he spent as much lesson time teaching her pleasure as she did teaching him music. They made love and spent the night together almost every day.

But the reality was, for him that was just friendship. Nothing more.

The problem was, she loved him and that love was burning a hole in her heart from staying hidden.

She wanted to get married. She wanted to have his babies and work with Dora to feed him healthy meals, but remind him that food wasn’t just fuel. It could be enjoyed.

Cass wanted so much she knew she could never have. As far as she’d come with her issues, she was no match for a billionaire tycoon that could have any woman he wanted. And should have one that could offer unrestrained ability to couple him to business dinners and parties, not be limited to an event or two every couple of weeks.

Even able to go in crowded public places, Cass was still horrifically shy and had a hard time putting herself out
there for others to get to know. Neo acted like he didn’t mind, but that was because they were just friends. Anything more would be unthinkable.

She shied away from the music room and her bedroom was not where she wanted to be right now, either.

She stood in the hall and looked around her and wondered for the first time what she was doing living in her parents’ house. It wasn’t as if the memories of them all living here together were so good for her.

And yet she clung to the house as a link to the only people who had loved her, if only a little.

Neo found Cassandra in her small study when he finally reached her house. Red-rimmed eyes testified to the tears she had shed and his heart caught.

But far more alarming was what was on her computer screen. “You are looking to move?”

“Why not? There is nothing holding me here.”

Paralyzed by unexpected pain, for a moment Neo could not breathe. “I am here.”

She gave him a measuring look. “For how long?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll eventually tire of our benefits and start dating other women again.”

No way in hell, but he wasn’t ready to say that. He was still grappling with the feelings he’d forced himself to acknowledge. Like the debilitating fear the thought of losing her caused. “We would still be friends.”

“No.”

“No?” Sharp pain lanced through him.

“Maybe. I don’t know. You’ve done so much for me. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You’ve been better to
me than anyone in my life, including my parents. I wouldn’t just ditch your friendship, but I don’t know if I could handle watching you with other women.” The pain in her voice nearly brought him to his knees.

It was unthinkable. “I would not ask you to.”

She just gave him a look.

“Do you want more?” he asked her, marshalling his thoughts and arguments so he did not lose the most important person in his life.

“What difference would it make if I did? You don’t. You made that clear enough.”

“Maybe I was wrong.”

“The things I want need something a lot stronger than maybe.”

“What is love?”

Cass stared at Neo in shock. “What do you mean? You know what love is.”

“No, in fact, I do not.”

“But…”

“I have never been in love and no one has ever loved me.”

“Zephyr loves you like a brother.”

“I have no desire to marry Zephyr.”

“You don’t want to marry me, either.”

“I was wrong.”

“What?”

“I do want to marry you. I want everything, but I did not feel I had the right to ask for it.”

She started to cry again and swiped at her cheeks. “Why would you say that?”

“I understand business, but relationships are something else entirely.”

“You have been so good to me I don’t know how you could question your ability to maintain a relationship.”

“Do you think I have been good to you?”

“Yes!”

“Good.” He looked relieved. As if there could be any doubt. “That is good.”

“Neo, even though we are just friends, you treat me like a princess. You would make an amazing husband and father.”

“We are not just friends,” he said in a voice like shattered glass.

“We aren’t?” Oh, please, please convince her.

“No.”

“What are we then?”

“Everything. You are my everything and that is what I wish to be to you.”

“You already are.” She walked forward and reached up to put both her hands on either side of his handsome face. “How could you not know that? Neo, you are everything I have ever wanted, or ever could want. I love you, with everything that I am.”

He pulled her close, tilting his head until their eyes had no choice but to lock gazes. “I love you. I have never said that to another person, but I will never stop saying it to you. I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Not being worthy of your love.”

She didn’t ask him how he could think that. His formative years explained it all. “Your parents didn’t deserve you, not the other way around.”

“Intellectually, I know this.”

“I’m going to make sure you realize it deep in your heart as well. I love you, Neo, so much.”

“I adore you,
yineka mou,
and I always will.”

“Even with the hypnotherapy, I’ll probably always be shy. I won’t ever be a big society hostess.”

“It does not matter. I do not want a big society hostess. I want you. And I want a wife…a woman who will maybe one day help me make a family different than the ones either of us knew growing up.”

Oh, yes. “I can’t imagine anything better.”

“Neither can I.”

Then he kissed her, or she kissed him…she really wasn’t sure how their lips met, but meet they did and it was the most profound kiss in the history of kisses. It spoke of true love, and deep need and hopes and dreams deferred and almost lost, but found again leading to joy unimaginable.

She was in his lap when their lips finally parted. “What is
yineka mou?
”

“My woman, my wife.”

She pressed their foreheads together, her fears laid completely to rest. “Oh, Neo. There really was never any doubt, was there?” He’d been calling her his for a very long time.

“No, my very precious woman, there never was. I just had to face a truth that scared the hell out of me. There was someone in this world more important to me than my business, or anything or anyone else.”

“It is the same for me.”

“I know and I’m so glad.”

“Me, too.”

“Athens for our honeymoon?” he asked.

“Definitely. We can start working on some of those
bebes
Dora is so sure we are going to have.”

“That is one scary smart woman.” Neo’s laughter filled Cass’s world just like the rest of him.

Neither of them had much experience with love, but they would make up for lack of quantity with the quality of their love. They would never take it for granted as others might.

They were truly everything to each other.

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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First published in Great Britain 2010
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Lucy Monroe 2010

ISBN: 978-1-408-91889-0