A Deal with Demakis. Tara Pammi

hair was combed back from her forehead in that poufy way. The three silver earrings on her left ear glinted in the morning sunlight as she turned this way and that. A green apron hung loosely on her slender frame.

      She thanked the customer and ran her hands over her face. He could see the pink marks her fingers left on her skin even from the distance. And that was when Nikos noticed it—the tremble in her fingers, the slight sway of her body as she turned.

      He tugged his gaze to her face and took in the dark shadows under her stunning blue eyes. She blinked slowly, as though struggling to keep her eyes open and smiled that dazzling smile at the next customer.

      Memories pounded through him, a fierce knot clawing his gut tight. He didn’t want to remember, yet the sight of her, tired and ready to drop on her feet, punched him, knocking the breath out of him.

      He hadn’t felt that bone-deep desolation in a long time, because as hard as Savas had made him work for the past fourteen years, Nikos had known there would be food at the end of it. But before Savas had plucked them both from their old house, every day after his mother had died had been a lesson in survival.

      The memory of it—the smell of grease at the garage, combined with the clawing hunger in his gut while the lack of sleep threatened to knuckle him down—was as potent as though it was just yesterday.

      The bitter memory on top of his present exhaustion tipped him over the edge.

      A red haze descending on him, he stormed through the crowd and navigated around the counter.

      With a gasp, Lexi stepped back, blinking furiously. “Mr. Demakis,” she said, sounding squeaky, “you can’t be back—”

      He didn’t give her a chance to finish. Ignoring the gasps and audible whispers of the busy crowd, he moved closer, picked her up and walked out of the café.

      Crimson rushed into her pale cheeks, and her mouth fell open. “What are you doing?”

      She wriggled in his hold and he tightened his grip. “Seeing dots and shapes, Ms. Nelson? I’m carrying you out.”

      Weighing next to nothing, she squirmed again. The nonexistent curves he had mocked her about rubbed against his chest, teasing shocking arousal out of his tired body.

      For the first time in his life, he clamped down the sensation. It wasn’t easy. “Stop wiggling around, Lexi, or I will drop you.” To match his words, he slackened his hold on her.

      With a gasp, she wrapped herself tighter around him. Her breath teased his neck. He let fly a curse. As rigid as a tightly tuned chassis in his arms, she glared at him. “Put me down, Nikos.”

      His limo appeared at the curb and he waited while the chauffeur opened the door. Bending slightly, he rolled her onto the leather seat. She scrambled on her knees for a few seconds, giving him a perfect view of her pert bottom in denim shorts before scooting to the far side of the opposite seat.

      He got into the limo, settled back into the seat and stretched his legs. Perverse anger flew hotly in his veins. He shouldn’t care but he couldn’t control it. “A bartender at night, a barista by day. Christos, are you trying to kill yourself?”

      Lexi had never been more shocked in her entire life. And that was big, seeing that she had run away from a foster home when she was fifteen, had stolen by sixteen and had been working at a high-class bar in Manhattan, where shocking was the norm rather than the exception, since she had been nineteen.

      She clumsily sat up from the leather seat. The jitteriness in her limbs intensified just as the limo pulled away from the curb. “I can’t just leave,” she said loudly, her words echoing around them. The arrogant man beside her didn’t even bat an eyelid. “Order your minion to turn around. Faith will lose her job and I can’t—”

      He leaned forward and extended his arm. Her words froze on her lips and she pressed back into her seat. The scent of the leather and him morphed into something that teased her ragged senses. The intensity of his presence tugged at her as if he were extending a force field on some fundamental level. Outside the limo, the world was bustling with crazy New York energy, and inside...inside it felt as if time and space had come to a standstill.

      He reached behind her neck and undid the knot of her apron. She dug her nails into the denim of her shorts, her heart stuck in her throat. The pad of his fingers dragged against her skin and she fought to remain still. The long sweep of his lashes hid his expression but that thrumming energy of his pervaded the interior. Bunching the apron in his hands, he threw it aside with a casual flick of his wrist.

      Even in the semicomatose state she was functioning in, unfamiliar sensations skittered over her. She had never been more aware of her skin, her body than when he was near. Noting every little movement of hers, he handed her a bottle of water. “Who is Faith?”

      The question rang with suppressed fury. Lexi undid the cap and took a sip. She was stalling, and he knew it.

      “Why are you so angry?” she blurted out, unable to stop herself.

      He pushed back the cuffs of his black dress shirt. The sight of those hair-roughened tanned arms sent her stomach into a dive. “Who is Faith?” he said again, his words spoken through gritted teeth.

      She sighed. “My roommate, for whom I was covering the shift. She’s been sick a few times recently, and if she misses any more shifts, she’ll lose her job. Which she will today, because of you.”

      He leaned back, watching her like a hawk. His anger still simmered in the air but with exhaustion creeping back in, she didn’t care anymore. She let out a breath, and snuggled farther back into the plush leather. She was so tired. If only she could close her eyes for just a minute...

      “What does this Faith look like?”

      “Almost six feet tall, green eyes, blond.”

      “But she’s a natural redhead, isn’t she?”

      Heat crept up her neck at the way he slightly emphasized the word redhead. “How would you know something like that?” Tension gripped her. “Nikos, you barge into my work, behave like a caveman and now you’re asking me these strange questions without telling me what—”

      “The last time I checked, which was an hour ago, your so-called ‘sick’ friend was lolling about in bed naked with a man, while you were killing yourself trying to do her job. From what I could see of her, which was a lot, she’s perfectly fine.”

      Her cheeks heating, Lexi struggled to string a response. “Faith wouldn’t just lie...”

      Faith would. And it wasn’t even the first time, either. Her chest tightened, her hands shook. But Faith was more than a mere roommate. She was her friend. If they didn’t look out for each other, who would?

      Struggling not to show how much it pained her, she tucked her hands in her lap. “Maybe it wasn’t Faith,” she offered, just to get him off her back.

      “She has a tattoo of a red rose on her left buttock and a dragon on her right shoulder. When it was clear no one would answer, I opened the door and went right in. Your friend, by the way, is also a screamer, which was how I knew there was someone inside that bedroom.”

      Flushing, Lexi turned her gaze away from him. Even if she didn’t know about the tattoos, which she did, the last bit was enough to confirm that he was talking about Faith. “All right, so she lied to me,” she said, unable to fight the tidal wave of exhaustion that was coming at her fast. As long as she had felt that she was helping Faith, she’d been able to keep going. She pulled up her legs, uncaring of the expensive leather. “What I don’t get is why you felt the need in the first place to barge into our apartment and confront her.”

      “You left that bar at five in the morning, and two hours later, you weren’t at your apartment in Brooklyn. I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to not get yourself killed all these years.”

      Her breath lodged in her throat, painfully. Hugging her knees tight, she stared at him. Shock pulsed through