Page 19 of Tempting the President (Oro Nero MC)

Dear Ashton,

In vino veritas. But don’t you Google what that means! I mean it!

Love, Your Big Sis

I MOVED BACK AND GROPED for the light switch on the wall. The first one had incandescent corner lights coming to life, illuminating the room with an intimate golden glow.

The lights had me blinking for a bit, but then my vision cleared and I realized I was in a bedroom.

Kellion Argyros’ bedroom.

The room was decorated in bold colors, with splashes of green amidst a black and white background. Unlike his beast, his bedroom was exactly how I pictured it would be.

His bed was huge, bigger than anything I had ever seen.

He was lying on the center of it, the covers bunched around his waist and one arm slung over his face.

While I had seen him without a shirt countless times in photos, this was the first time I had seen his naked chest in person.

All that naked skin, all those lean, hard muscles, and God, those tats.

I knew from photos that he was inked, but seeing them up close placed them in a whole new sexy light, one that had me gulping several times.

I hated that he affected me so much, but even so, I couldn’t help it, the same way I couldn’t stop my pulse from racing.

Slowly, my feet started to move.

Before I could even think of what I was doing, what I was risking, I had crossed the room and found myself standing right next to the bed, looking down on him.

He looked different when he was asleep. Angelic. When other students talked about the officers of the Afxisi, it was the club’s Secretary, Yuri Athanas, they always described as angelic. Never Kellion because he was the wickedest, the most promiscuous of them all.

But when he was sleeping—-

It didn’t seem like it at all.

Before I could stop myself, I was already talking.

“Were you just playing with me?”

It hurt to speak, and it wasn’t just because my vocal chords felt raw from disuse. The pain came from deep within, too, the parts of me that I had protected for so long but Kellion Argyros was able to reach so easily.

Kellion’s eyes slowly opened.

I gasped, and I gasped again when his arm shot out to hold me.

In a second I had tumbled down against him.

I tried to struggle even as I felt his arm wrap around my waist, imprisoning me to his body.

His other hand went up, fingers digging into my hair.

His grip tightened, and then he was making me look at him—-

Our gazes collided, and I almost recoiled at what I saw in his eyes.

Who made you cry?

He had asked me that once, and now I wanted to ask him the same thing. Smiles didn’t always mean happiness, and the absence of tears didn’t always mean people weren’t hurting.

“Aria?” His accent was thicker than before, but more than that, his voice was slurred and I realized that he was drunk. Completely drunk.

A second later, I realized another thing.

“I missed you so damn much, Aria.”

Kellion Argyros was a talkative drunk.

His eyes were lost, but his voice was lucid.

Evil redheaded queen. Bobby had always told me she liked killing two birds with one stone, and that was exactly what she had done tonight.

All the answers I wanted were within grasp now.

All I had to do was speak.

Evil redheaded queen.

I didn’t know if I wanted to kill her or thank her.

“Aria? Is it really you?”

Kellion’s voice had me looking down at him. Belatedly, I realized how intimate our position was and again I tried to push away, pressing my fists against his chest.

He shook his head. “Never letting you go again.”

His words hurt. He sounded like he meant it, but if he did, then why?

“Promise me you won’t go.” His voice was a hoarse plea.

I bit my lip hard, unwilling to speak. I wouldn’t, couldn’t. Not after what he had done.

“You’re mad, aren’t you?” He stroked my cheek. “Sorry.” A slurred apology, but even so the emotions behind it were undeniable. Tenderness. Regret. Longing.

I squeezed my eyes shut. If I looked at him a moment longer, I was done for.

“Sorry.”

My chest started feeling tight again. Stop apologizing. Please stop.

“Never wanted to hurt you.”

So, so tight. And now it was so hard to breathe again.

“Can’t bear it. If you’re mad at me.”

“Then why?” The words were torn out of me. Whispers that hurt in more ways than one. And once I started, I realized I couldn’t stop. “Why did you suddenly disappear without saying a thing? Without explaining?” More words, more tears, burst out of me. “Why did you make me like you and then—-”

Kellion pulled my head down, his mouth covering mine, his lips swallowing the rest of what I had to say.

A kiss.

My first kiss with Kellion Argyros.

My first kiss ever.

A sliver of sanity had me struggling, but it only made Kellion kiss me harder.

His tongue slid inside my mouth, bold, forbidden, warm, and thrilling.

His hands started to move, cupping my face so he could kiss me more deeply.

His tongue stroked against mine, his teeth nibbled on my lips, and with each moment, my resistance waned, and whatever sanity I had left disappeared.

He whispered against my lips, “Tell me again. Tell me you like me.” The words were both a plea and a temptation, and they destroyed the last few vestiges of my self-control.

“I...like...you.” It hurt to speak, but I had to. When he asked me like it would kill him if I didn’t, I knew I had to.

Kellion groaned, pulling my head back down, his lips more insistent, and his kiss rougher and sweeter. “Again,” he growled.

My toes curled at the command, and the way my body responded to the order had me dazed. Who knew? Oh, who knew I would like having a guy tell me what to do?

“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 could not breathe.

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 already five months 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 was sick. 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.”