She gave it anyway. "Would you have?"
"I do not believe in that kind of love."
"Yes, I know, but even if you did, I don't believe you would put your heart on the line until you knew the lay of the land."
That seemed to take him back a little. "What is the point of this conversation?"
"I think you should find your father, if not for your sake, then for hers."
Nikos pushed his tea away and leaned back in his chair, the caged lion coming to mind again. "You think I do not take her feelings into account when I refuse to seek him out?"
"Do you?"
"Yes." He rubbed his hand over his face as if tired all of a sudden. "Tell me, what do you think it would do to my tenderhearted mother to discover my father married soon after graduation and has other children and a wife he adores?"
"Does he?" Had Nikos had the man investigated?
"I do not know and that is the point. In this instance, ignorance is bliss. At least as far as my mother is concerned."
"But if he is married, you would not have to tell her about him."
"I would not…could not lie to Mama."
"But is a lie of omission always a lie, if you are just protecting her? Wouldn't it be better for you to know?"
Nikos' shrugged. "I love my mother. To withhold that information from her if I had it would be wrong. It would breach the trust we have between us. I won't risk her being further hurt."
Wow. How could she help loving this man?
"But what if you are wrong?"
"Then he would have come for her in all this time."
It was a telling argument. "What about you? Don't you want to know him?"
"He deserted my mother, he abandoned me though he did not know about me. He is not a man I want in my life."
"Your grandfather kept them apart."
"There was only one letter, Ash, not ten, not five, not even two. Just one. He struck out on the first swing and never picked up the bat again."
"You can't imagine doing that, can you?"
"No. Not when it pertains to something important to me."
"I'm stubborn, too, you know."
"We have established that, yes."
"I believe you are wrong."
"I believe I would rather discuss the way your nipples taste and how they harden and swell against my tongue."
Shocked, her mouth opened on a gasp, but no other sound came out. Under the bright, fluorescent lights in the kitchen, the look he gave her was hot and wicked. It seemed so out of place in the cheery room and yet…not. This man and his earthy sensuality fit into her life in surprisingly adept ways.
Because as startling as his unrefined words had been, they had also aroused her. She licked her lips, tasting tea and the honey she'd used to sweeten it. "That's not something a person usually discusses."
"But I like telling you how sweet you taste, how good you feel inside my mouth."
Her breath stilled somewhere between inhaling and exhaling. "You can be very…basic."
He leaned forward and brushed the back of his knuckles over one—yes, very erect—nipple.
She moaned.
He smiled, a man who clearly liked the impact he had on her. "I think despite your prim public image, primitive excites you. You like to hear these words from me."
He was right, but no other man she'd ever known would have considered saying such a thing, not to make the first comment, much less tell her that she liked it . For goodness' sake. Nikos was so different. Was that why she was drawn to him?
He defied the molds life would say he had to fit inside…just as she tried to. Or thought she did.
"You think I'm prim?" She looked down at the simple Albert Nipon suit in oyster shell silk she'd chosen to wear to dinner with his mother. Though its chic styling was form-fitting, it wasn't exactly sexy. The jacket buttoned up as a top showed nothing of her unimpressive chest and the skirt stopped modestly just shy of her knees. "Do you think I dress too conservatively?"