Page 40 of Holding Out for a Gyro
“Thirteen.” She chuckled. “There’s so much I don’t know.”
“Me too, honestly.”
“I’d love to learn, though. I bet your dad is brilliant.”
I squeezed her tight. “Keep talking like that, you’ll make my parents love you.”
“Sounds like you have a pretty great family.”
I don’t know why, but I said, “It would serve you right to meet them. My mom would start planning our wedding.”
She swallowed hard. I knew I needed to back off theommitment-cay alk-tay.
She pressed a chaste kiss against my neck. I doubted she realized she’d done it, but to me, it felt more intimate than everything we’d done together, more meaningful, more precious.
“I love the word yia yia. What was the other thing you said—anjelaki? What does that mean?”
“Αγγελ?κι μου. It meansmy angel.”
I fully expected her to cringe, roll her eyes, tell me to go home, but she nestled into me and said, “That’s hot. Say more.”
I caressed her arm. “Λατρε?α μου.”
She tried to repeat it. “Latria mou? What’s it mean?”
“It literally translates to ‘my worship.’”
“Oh, I like that one. I’m going to have to start learning Greek.”
That little statement squeezed my heart with a strange feeling. Pride? Possession? I didn’t have a name for it. It made me ridiculously happy.
We drifted to sleep, snuggled together, emotionally connected in a new way. Did she realize how far we’d come together from the first night when she wouldn’t even give me her number? I’d practically had to trick her to let me cook her dinner the next time we met. But slowly, she was letting me into her world.
And she clung to me like a lifeline the entire night.
The price for every inch of ground I gained?
A piece of my heart.
Chapter Nine
Chelsea
Challenge: Start a new language
I awoke to Bas sitting beside me on the mattress, dressed.
This wasn’t good. There was a man in my house. I started to panic, but then I smelled something interesting. Was he baking? I’d never awoken to such amazing aromas. My body relaxed.
“Good morning,Λατρε?α μου. My worship.”
I smiled at the endearment even though the echo of last night, how he’d taken such care of me, left me hollowed out, vulnerable. I hadn’t meant to show him my wounds, but he hadn’t run away. He probably would once he figured out how deep they went.
“You stayed,” I said, a little hoarse. Morning was always the worst part of my day, the painful return to reality.
When I sat up, he pulled me into a hug, and I wrapped my arms around him, luxuriating in the feeling of his body surrounding mine. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d held a man like this—been held—when it wasn’t accompanied by heavy breathing and the shedding of clothes. I wanted to relax into him, steal a little warmth from the cocoon of his strong arms. I breathed in.
“What is that? Honey?”
