Page 58 of Tempting the President

“Like...you.” My arms wrapped around his neck. This time, he didn’t have to make me say it. “Like you.” When my body melted against his, he jerked, and then he was kissing me harder, his hold on me tightening possessively. He groaned, the sound ragged. I moaned, the sound just as ragged.

We kissed and kissed, and even though he was intoxicated, his expertise remained, undeniably masterful as he taught me how to kiss him back with every movement of his tongue.

Deeper and deeper, I succumbed like a moth drawn to a flame. His hands started to move, and every caress had me feeling hotter and weaker until it was like I was delirious with fever, one only he could infect me with.

Dimly, I felt his fingers moving. Snap, snap, the buttons of my jumper were released, and before I knew it, his hands were inside my shirt. His fingers grazed my skin. Every part of my body that he touched burned, so, so much I wouldn’t be surprised if he left handprints all over me. Just thinking about Kellion leaving a mark on my skin had me blushing and wanting him more at the same time. Oh, who knew? Who knew I could ever want another person this way?

His hands were moving up, closer and closer to my heaving breasts. His fingers were right under them now, and my chest started to tighten. In a good and bad way, in a way that had me swallowing, gasping—-

He cupped my breasts.

My senses spiraled out of control.

It was too much, too fast, too soon, and I expired. His hands on my aching flesh left me breathless.

I meant it literally. I literally couldnotbreathe.

Panic set in, and my fingers dug into his shoulders. “Stop.” The word burst out of me.

Kellion immediately froze. I had never known a drunk like him existed – someone so sensible and yet so different at the same time. His eyes were wild with desire, but there was also a glimmer of concern. The same worry underlined his tone as he asked, “What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t answer, too busy self-curing my oxygen-deprived state.

His eyes cleared, a boyish smile appearing on his lips. “My kiss made you breathless?”

Even as I wheezed, I couldn’t help making a face at him.Do you have to sound so pleased?

“Sorry.” But even as he apologized, his smile had widened even more.

I rolled my eyes, but the way he was looking at me, the way he was smiling at me, made it so hard to remember why I was even annoyed in the first place.

He traced my lips, his touch tender and careful, like I was something precious. Without thinking, I whispered, “Why?” Because he still hadn’t answered my question, not the way I needed him to. “Why did you suddenly...stop?”

Kellion’s green eyes darkened.

When he answered in Greek, I shook my head, unable to understand a word he was saying.

His gaze moved towards the bedside table, and I realized he was looking at his phone. Taking it, I saw that the screen was left open on a message – one sent the day we had gone to Disneyland. The day I saw him last.

The message on his phone was also written in Greek, but I recognized the name of the sender.Carina Argyros.It was his mother.

Over my head, Kellion said in a voice thick with bitterness, “She said there...she forgot to tell me –her son...” Kellion spat the last words out. “– that she was pregnant. She was alreadyfivemonths pregnant and she only remembered to tell me when a reporter asked her how I felt about it.”

Kellion looked at me, his eyes dull with pain. “What do I have to do to make them see me? They only remember me when I do something...cool.Nobody sees me.Me.Kellion. Not the biker. Not the senator’s son, not the heir to a billion-dollar fortune.”

His voice turned savage. “Why can no one see me?”

It was as if I was hearing Ashton speak if he had just been a little older, just been a little more coherent.

“My whole life...they never remember.” Memories of Kellion’s past made his accent thick, his English broken. “They never cared if I wassick.When I fought for my life in the hospital because of pneumonia, they never came inside my room. They look at me, they think I’m a good son, but they don’t...” Kellion’s eyes closed.

So much time had passed that just when I started to think he wouldn’t speak anymore, he whispered, “That’s why I left. If you hated me, at least you would always see me.”

Chapter Eight

Dear Ashton,

Do you remember when you were two and we were trying to make ice cream and desserts with clay and you thought they were real? You cried so much because I didn’t allow you to eat them. I ended up taking a small bite and pretending to die so you’d know it was bad.