Driven by Love (9 page)

“I don’t want to hear any more.”

The words stabbed him, but he willed the pain away, knowing he deserved it.
 

The way Leandro whitened at her words made Bobby bite her lip hard and she looked away, knowing she needed to compose herself and strengthen her defenses. Leandro’s penthouse apartment had an open layout, with the breakfast counter allowing her to see all the way to the living room and the balcony.

The frame next to the balcony doors caught her eye, and she realized with a jerk that it was a letter.
Her
letter. She always used personalized stationery when penning letters, and the gold initials engraved at the top of the paper was distinct.
 

“You received it.”

Leandro finished plating their food before following Bobby’s gaze. Ah. She had seen it. “I did.”

“You never answered,” she said in a thin voice.

“It was my punishment not to.”

The words were so surprising that it made her head snap towards him.

“When a member of our family passes, it is tradition for us to make a personal sacrifice for a year. For my mother, she simply fasted. The loss of my father – her husband – was already the greatest sacrifice. For my younger sister, she withdrew from school even though it meant losing her spot in a prestigious academy.”

Bobby asked faintly, “I was your personal sacrifice?”

“I died every day not being able to see you or beg your forgiveness,” he said simply. He looked back at the framed letter. “Amongst all of us, I had the most to atone for. I did not give my father an easy time raising me. I was always bitter and defensive – I couldn’t make myself lower my guard and allow him to love me. I was too afraid that one day he would tire of pretending.”

“They really loved you,” she told him softly. “Aunt Sam told me about your life…I knew from her words alone, they loved you.”

“It was hard for me to believe it.” He looked at her evenly. “You of all people should know that there are things you care too much about to easily believe in.”

Touché,
Bobby thought, looking away because she couldn’t bear seeing the intense emotion in Leandro’s own eyes. There was a promise in those bright blue eyes, something she did care too much about to easily believe in herself.

“I knew it was a risk not to call you, not to write to you, but I had to do it. It was my punishment, not just because of what I had done to my father but because…” He inhaled sharply. “Because of what I had done to
you
. If not for that year of mourning, for surviving each day even though I ached – I literally ached to be by your side, I don’t think I’d ever feel I have the right to enter your life again.” An empty laugh escaped him. “But then, maybe I still don’t have the right.”

“Don’t talk like that.” She couldn’t help saying it, didn’t want to hear the pain and defeat in his tone. The Leandro Christopoulos she knew was not the kind who took such losses easily. He was strong and powerful, the kind who battled dragons without fear. It hurt to know, to really know that she was the reason he was hurting.

“Talk like what, Bobby? Talk like I’m afraid I’m about to lose the greatest thing in my life?” He dropped the knife he was holding, and Bobby flinched at the clanging sound it created as it hit the counter. The next thing she knew, he had gone around the counter and spun the stool around so she faced him.

“Have I lost you for good, Bobby?” he whispered harshly. “Tell me before I go out of my mind. Tell me I have a fucking chance.”

“Stop it,” she said, covering her ears as his words lashed at her. “I don’t want to hear—”

Leandro pulled her hands away, continuing in the same hard tone that spoke of agony and love. “Tell me I have a reason to look forward to tomorrow. Tell me, mégaira—”

“I said STOP IT—”

“If I stop, then I might as well have admitted I’m going to stop living,” he shouted. “Is that what you want? Is that what you really want, Bobby? Do you want me gone from your life? Do you want me dead—”

“No!” She sobbed the word out. Just the thought of losing him permanently was enough to rip her world apart and expose the truth about her feelings. She loved him. She still loved him. She would always love him and she would die if he died—

“Then take me back!”

“I can’t,” she cried out. “If I do, then
I am the one who’d die.
Because that’s what you did when you didn’t tell me the truth and I h-had to learn about your deception from another person. I d-died when you told me you d-didn’t love me—”

He said urgently, “I
was
lying—”

“How can you expect me to believe you? You can’t believe your parents can see something in you to love and when y-you told me that you n-never loved me, you made me think there was
nothing
in me to love either.”

He started to speak, but she shook her head at him. “You told me that every day when we were apart, you died. Well, I died, too. But the difference was I couldn’t let anyone see it. I was so sick with depression and I couldn’t let anyone know about it. I had to hide it from my parents when I started getting treatments in a clinic. I couldn’t ask anyone for help because I was too ashamed.” Tears choked her voice as she made the agonizing admission. “I was so ashamed about being the smug idiot who thought I could make someone like you love me—”

“But I do,” he grated out, his heart squeezing tightly in his chest at the fears Bobby exposed about herself. He closed his eyes for a moment, his mind crowded with images of Bobby being literally sick with the pain of his abandonment.
If he had known
, he thought with agony.
God, if he had only known
!

“I’m so damn sorry, Bobby. I thought that I was only punishing myself when I stayed away from you all this time. I thought you would need the time away from me to heal.” He took her face in his hands, wiping the tears away with his thumbs.

“That’s the last time I’d ever be stupid enough to unknowingly hurt you, Bobby,” he said fiercely. “I swear to you, from this day on, I’ll hurt myself first, I’ll expose myself first before I ever risk hurting you. Because now I know…”

There was something in those words that made Bobby catch her breath, something that made her so terrified of what he knew – of what he found out – that made her struggle against his hold.
 

But he was too strong, and his voice, once he started to speak, encompassed her whole world until there was no escape.

“Now I know, Bobby. Whatever you said or did, now I know the truth.”

“No,” she whispered. “No, you don’t—”

The pain he had unintentionally subjected Bobby to last year should have made her despise him with all her heart. But she hadn’t. She couldn’t.

“You love me, Bobby. For better or for worse, you love me the way I love you, and there’s no stopping it.”

Chapter Ten

Bobby made a dash for it.

She didn’t care about where she was going or how she would leave his place when she didn’t even have a car or money to pay a cab. All she knew was that she had to leave and escape Leandro before – before –
 

She had to leave before he completely owned her again.

Bobby kicked him, hard enough to take him by surprise, and Leandro released her with a muttered Greek expletive. It almost felt like déjà vu but she didn’t waste a moment, scrambling past him so she could run towards his front door.

“Not so fast, mégaira.” Leandro caught her just before she could cross the living room and spun her around with a jerk of his arm.
 

“Let go of me,” Bobby shrieked, and then she shrieked again when she realized that he was quickly unbuttoning her blouse. “What are you doing?” She forgot all about trying to escape as she tried swatting away his deftly moving fingers.

Leandro didn’t bother answering, his concentration fully focused on the all-important task of getting Bobby naked as soon as possible. They were done talking and raking over old coals. The truth was out now, and it was time to do something they had always had no problem seeing eye to eye on.

In the next moment, Leandro had managed to capture her wrists and raise it over her head. He swiftly pulled her blouse up and over her arms. Bobby shrieked again as he threw her blouse to the floor. “Have you gone out of your mind?”

“Out of my mind with need for you, yes.”

The way his eyes devoured her made Bobby swallow. She hated how her body was suddenly trembling so hard it was as if just the softest touch from Leandro would have her spontaneously combusting. “Let me go,” she demanded between clenched teeth even as moistness flooded the triangle between her legs. God! She just hoped she wasn’t so wet she ended up having a visibly damp spot on her shorts. She would never live that one down if it happened.

Leandro was forcing her to walk backwards now, not saying a word, and she exclaimed in surprise when her back hit the wall. She caught a look of satisfaction in Leandro’s eyes before he pinned her wrists to the wall with one hand while his other hand ripped her bra free.

She screamed, and then she screamed again for another reason when Leandro bent his head down and took one nipple fully into his mouth. It was so embarrassing, the way her nipples were already pertly alive, and she bit her lip hard to keep her involuntary moan from escaping. The pleasure of his mouth on her nipple was intense, more beautiful than she remembered, but she would do everything not to let him know—

“You taste sweeter than I remembered,” Leandro groaned.

“You’re crazy,” she gasped out. “We’re no longer seeing…” She had to stop talking as another bolt of pleasure hit her when Leandro started sucking hard and hungrily at her nipple. Oh God, she had missed this. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but the truth was inescapable. She had missed this.

“Stop it!”

His laughter, dark and seductive, rocked against her breast. “Stop what, mégaira?” He flicked his tongue against her nipple and was rewarded by the involuntary jerk of her body. “If you tell me what I’m supposed to stop, then maybe I’ll do it.”

Bobby glared at him. “Never—” She bit back another cry as Leandro’s mouth once more closed over her nipple and started sucking. She tried to get away, but his fingers around her wrists were hard as steel. “Stop it,” she gasped. The pleasure was making her forget her very sanity, and she threw away her pride and choked out, “Stop sucking on my nipple.”

The explicit words made him stop, but by saying them, she also felt like she had fallen deeper into his trap.

Leandro raised his head, smirking as he asked, “Was it so bad?”

Oh, that smirk! She was torn between wanting to slap it off his face and feeling even more aroused by it. God, this had to stop. She wriggled against his hold, not knowing that it only caused her breasts to jiggle deliciously in his sight, and the tips of her nipples brushing against his chest made Leandro groan.

“Let go of me!”

“Never.”

“This is crazy.”

His smirk disappeared. “No, Bobby. This is right. This was how we connected in the first place, and I think it’s fitting we start anew like this.”

Fear at what those words meant made her struggle even more desperately. “I don’t want to start anything with you!”
 

“Too late, my love.” And then he bent down to suck on her other nipple.

Bobby gasped, torn between indignation and a sensual bliss so treacherously beautiful it tempted her to surrender. “You said you’d s-stop if I told you to!”

Leandro lifted his head again. “I did. And I stopped. But this is your
other
nipple, is it not?” He laughed at her hiss of outrage, and she looked so mad at being fooled he knew she would have scratched his eyes out if her hands were free. She was so passionate, her fiery spirit matching his hot-blooded temperament, that Leandro knew no other woman would suit him better than Bobby. And so it was also the other way around. He only needed enough time to convince her of it.

“I love you, mégaira. There is no one like you.”

Leandro spoke the words so easily it scared her even more, and the sexy grin on his face just made everything more terrifying. She couldn’t let this happen. She just couldn’t. If she allowed him back into her life, she would lose control over herself again and this time, there would be no turning back. If she belonged to him again, it would be forever – even if he one day realized he didn’t want her anymore.