by Lynne Graham
‘I know what’s necessary,’ Alexei asserted, settling a large domineering hand over hers where it rested on the seat. ‘Whether you like it or not, you’re at risk now as my wife and I want to know that you’re safe, regardless of where you are.’
The presence of Helios and the driver made Billie restrain her snort of disagreement as she could not imagine what possible harm could come to her on Speros. Anatalya already had the front door open wide, and the housekeeper’s eyes shone with satisfaction when she saw Billie inside the vehicle. Alexei scooped Billie out and strolled up the front steps into his home as if it were an everyday event to walk in carrying a wife clad in a dressing gown. He had always had that kind of ultimate cool, even as a boy, she recalled, and a sharp little pain stabbed through her as she thought of all that she stood to lose if their marriage broke down. Oddly enough, until that moment it had not occurred to her how deeply embedded Alexei was within even her life memories. Pausing only to instruct Anatalya to have Billie’s clothes removed from her home and ask when dinner would be ready, Alexei took Billie into the master bedroom suite.
Billie sucked in a steadying breath as Alexei set her down on the carpet. ‘We can’t just act like these past two weeks never happened.’
Alexei swung round, his keen dark gaze grim. ‘For the moment, why not? Of course, you could cut a lot of the **** out of this by just telling me the truth now. I would rate you higher for that than if you force me to drag the truth out of you after the DNA-test results.’
With a rueful sigh, Billie sank down on the side of the stylish big bed. ‘It would have been easier if you had just left me where I was for now. Why did you insist on bringing me back here tonight?’
Doffing his jacket and wrenching off his tie, Alexei sent her a darkling glance of warning as though she had strayed into a conversational no-go area. Muscles rippling through the fine silk of his shirt, he bent to remove his shoes. ‘I want a shower before dinner…’
Billie tried to avoid the temptation of watching him undress, but she learned that she hungered for even that small intimacy. Black hair tousled, strong jaw shadowed by blue-black stubble, he was stripping off his clothes without a hint of self-consciousness. ‘I’ve nothing to wear here,’ she pointed out. ‘I left half my clothes on Sea Queen.’
Alexei laughed. ‘I would be quite happy for you to dine with me naked.’
‘It’s not going to happen.’ Billie knotted her hands together and watched him lift the house phone by the bed to issue a command and then discard his shirt and shoes. Every lithe movement of his lean bronzed body mesmerised her: he was utterly gorgeous. A knock sounded on the door and he strode over to answer it and accept the garment bag and boxes he was handed. He dumped them on the bed.
‘That’s the clothing problem solved,’ he said with distinct satisfaction.
‘These are for me?’ Astonished, Billie unzipped the garment bag and pulled out a flamboyant, strappy scarlet dress. ‘You bought this for me? But when?’
‘I saw it in a window in Paris. You wear drab colours. I thought that I would enjoy seeing you in something bright for a change.’
Once again, Alexei had contrived to confound her expectations. He might have met up with Calisto in Paris, but while he’d been there he had also contrived to go shopping on his wife’s behalf. She pulled open the other packages and her complexion warmed when she saw the zingy red lingerie and high heels, which carried a much more sexual message.
‘Those items were pure self-indulgence,’ Alexei agreed without a shade of remorse.
‘Why did you bring me back here?’ Billie pressed uneasily, utterly disconcerted by his unpredictable behaviour.
His ebony brows drew together. ‘That’s a silly question. You’re my wife. Until I decide otherwise, this is where you belong, yineka mou.’
He was a Drakos and possessive of what was his. But he was talking as though she were a prized car or some other item that he owned and he would keep her close…until I decide otherwise. Those words of cold warning sent a cold shiver down her sensitive spine and she was no longer so certain that staying at the villa with him was the right thing to do. ‘I felt more comfortable in my own home,’ she told him tautly.
‘Sleeping alone? Get over yourself!’ Alexei quipped with daunting disbelief, striding like a bronzed naked statue brought to life into one of the twin en suite bathrooms.
She remembered that picture of him with Calisto in Paris and discovered that she didn’t want to ask him about that just at that moment. Not right now when everything felt so fragile and uncertain between them that she feared the wrong word or query might lead to a quarrel that could end their marriage for good. Her lies, her silence when she should have spoken up, had already put them on that dangerous slippery slope. Living in separate houses would not mend their differences and get them back together again, she recognised ruefully.
Even so she was walking on eggshells and could hardly bear the knowledge that to see Nicky she would have to leave the villa. It had proved a relief rather than a sacrifice to end the pretence that Hilary was Nicky’s mother and, after all, she’d had only two weeks to luxuriate in the joy of being a full-time mum again for the first time since she had left London after her son’s birth. And even though that fortnight had been a strain because of the situation between her and Alexei, Billie had adored having the comfort of her child within reach at all times.
Before Alexei was even out of the shower, two maids arrived with suitcases from her home. While they got busy in the dressing room, Billie went into the other bathroom with the outfit Alexei had bought for her. Thirty minutes later, she was ready for dinner and far from happy with her appearance. The scarlet dress was much more revealing than what she usually wore, cut away at the bust to make the most of what she had and very short, showing off her legs to well past mid-thigh. She checked her reflection, her brow furrowing while she wondered if the dress was a gift with a sting like a scorpion. Was this how Alexei saw her now? As a sexually provocative and available woman? As yet another in a long line of women prepared to wear whatever he bought and behave however he wanted if it pleased him?
Alexei watched Billie walk into the dining room with keen attention. He shifted an authoritative hand to make her twirl for his appraisal and his brilliant gaze shimmered gold because he very much liked what he saw: Billie, as he had always wanted to dress her for his own private enjoyment, no longer the efficient office machine in her crisp buttoned-up blouses and low sensible pumps. Scarlet looked amazing against her porcelain redhead’s skin and the cut of the dress enhanced the curves of her ripe rounded breasts and slender thighs. The reaction at his groin was instantaneous and he suppressed a groan as his trousers tightened. In that moment, he knew exactly why he had come home to reclaim his deceitful bride. Lust that powerful had an appetite and a drive all of its own.
The chef had put on a spread worthy of a banquet for the reunited couple. Nervous as a cat on hot bricks, Billie wondered how on earth she could match Alexei’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge that anything was wrong between them. But, in fact, conversation flowed freely as Alexei told her about his latest deal and the changes he had decided to make in the command structure at his London headquarters. Intrigued, Billie asked eager questions, made a couple of suggestions and was duly impressed by the deal he had cut on the super-tankers.
A couple of delicious mouthfuls into the dessert she was savouring, Billie discovered that Alexei’s gaze was positively welded to her. ‘What?’ she prompted, her face warming.
‘You’re a very sensual woman, mali mou.’
Lashes veiling her gaze, Billie shook her head in instinctive disagreement. ‘I don’t think so.’
Brilliant golden eyes glittering, Alexei sprang upright. ‘But you just don’t see yourself the way I do.’ He reached down to tug her up out of her seat and bent his handsome dark head to kiss her.
Her heart was thumping so loudly she was afraid he would hear it and guess that she was a total p
ushover when he got that close to her. The familiar scent of him sent shivers down her spine and warmed the hollow in her tummy, leading to a shower of sharp spiky little longings in an infinitely more private place.
‘I was enjoying the dessert,’ she dared before his sensual mouth could connect with hers.
Eyes gleaming, Alexei threw back his a head and laughed with appreciation. ‘Is this your idea of playing it cool?’
‘Why would I act like that?’ she traded.
‘Maybe because you know how much I want you,’ Alexei husked, rubbing his cheek against the extended length of her throat as he bent her head back. ‘But it won’t work because your heart is racing and I can feel you trembling against me, mali mou.’
As his lean, muscular body shifted against her, she registered the forceful swell of his erection and the heat of her desire intensified. She turned her face under his and found his mouth hungrily for herself and didn’t begrudge the male satisfaction in the growling laugh that vibrated low in his throat. Suddenly all the seething emotion of the past weeks was welling up inside her with explosive effect and the glory of his mouth on hers set her alight.
Stepping back from her, Alexei closed a lean hand over hers and walked her out of the dining room. Her troubled thoughts warred against her intentions. Yet in spite of everything that had passed between them, Alexei had come home to her and he still wanted her. Wasn’t that some cause for celebration? Didn’t that prove that she had more of a hold on her bridegroom than she had dared to hope? But how could he simply ignore the fact that he believed she was trying to palm off some other man’s child on him? She just wanted him with her…but she wanted her son too. She also felt guilty that she had dressed up and dined in state while Nicky was being put to bed for the night by his great-aunt.
‘Shouldn’t we be talking about more serious stuff?’ she asked Alexei abruptly.
As if jolted by a sudden flash of lightning, Alexei swung round to rest silencing fingers against her soft mouth, preventing her from saying anything more. ‘No,’ he breathed harshly. ‘I don’t want to talk about any of it because if I have to stop and think, I would know that I shouldn’t be here with you.’
That blunt admission unnerved Billie and shook her to her very core. Generally, Alexei was decisive, disciplined, tough and immovable regardless of how difficult situations became. He had never got into the emotional aspect of events. But right now she felt rather as if she were trying to deal with a split personality, a stranger. He knew he shouldn’t be here with her? Yet here he was? It was as though he had built a wall between the revelations on their wedding night and the present, spelling out the fact that only his ability to blank out and suppress those revelations allowed him to be with her again now. She gazed up at him with wide green eyes full of dismay and, in a move that suggested that her vulnerable look disturbed him, Alexei lifted her up against him and crushed her berry-tinted lips beneath his with a hungry impatient fervour that put her troubled thoughts to flight.
Billie gasped as Alexei blazed a trail of kisses across her shoulder, tugging the straps down on her dress and burying his face in the warm valley between the full globes of her breasts as he urged her down on the bed. She kicked off her shoes while his fingers slid up her thigh to the narrow band of her thong. In a swift movement, he wrenched the tiny garment off and tossed it aside. Her breath caught in her throat, channelled in urgent gasps of helpless anticipation.
Alexei was standing over her shedding his clothes with a seething impatience that thrilled her. Lean strong face taut, he viewed her with scorching golden eyes. As he cast aside his shirt, he bent down and raised her up to pull her dress off her without unzipping it. She heard the rip of material, for it had been a neat fit. He flicked loose the catch on the balconette bra that had merely acted as an extra line of suspension and, with it gone, she was naked.
‘No, don’t you dare try to cover a centimetre of that beautiful bare flesh,’ Alexei censured huskily, lifting her up the bed to settle her in a pose that concealed nothing from his burning gaze. ‘This is what I wanted from the moment I saw you in the bath earlier. Within seconds I was hotter than hell for you, moraki mou.’
A high-voltage smile of extraordinary sexual power tilted his beautiful mouth and it was just as if he lit a fire inside her. In a flash Billie went from feeling hideously awkward in her unadorned skin to lying back in quivering readiness and acceptance. He wrenched off his silk boxers and came down to her. All rock-hard muscle from his magnificent torso to his flat stomach and long powerful thighs, he was hugely aroused. He brought her hand to the virile shaft rising from the thick dark curls at his groin.
Feeling the pound of the pulse at the heart of her and the moisture there, she closed her fingers round his hard male heat and watched his thick dark lashes sweep down with an uninhibited sensual pleasure that sent the blood pounding at an insane rate through her own veins. With a new boldness she drew him down to her and used her mouth to caress his straining masculinity.
Within the space of a minute he pulled back from her. ‘I can’t take too much of that,’ he confided, his dark deep accented drawl rough with erotic meaning. ‘I want to be inside you too badly.’
And he touched her then with infinite skill, his thumb teasing her swollen bud and making her release an abandoned little cry and shiver even as a lean finger probed the slick wetness of her lush opening. As her hips bucked in a movement as old as time he entered her all too willing body with a single driving thrust. Her spine arched and her teeth clenched on the extraordinary tide of sensation as his engorged length stretched her tight inner depths.
‘You feel like hot silk,’ Alexei ground out, rising over her while gliding into her tender flesh with strong, stirring strokes that fuelled her growing excitement to ever greater heights.
He wanted to make it last but her sheer abandonment to pleasure and the frantic urgency of her movements pushed him to the edge very quickly and created a chain reaction. As Alexei surged into her with ever greater power, it was too much for Billie and she soared into a convulsive orgasm, writhing and crying out with the bittersweet pain of release. While she was still struggling to surface from the incredible intensity of that climax, Alexei’s magnificent body shuddered over hers in the grip of the same overwhelming finale.
Afterwards, Billie felt emptied and adrift, totally shattered by the intensity of what she had just experienced. But this time, Alexei did not pull away from her, making her feel alone and uncertain at a most vulnerable time. Still trembling from the explosive force of his own release, he kept her in the circle of his strong arms and kissed her brow in a surprisingly gentle salutation.
‘Alexei…’ she whispered softly in acknowledgement, her body surrendering to her exhaustion, her eyes sliding closed.
‘You’re worth going to hell and back for,’ he murmured with growling carnal satisfaction. ‘Nobody has ever given me that much excitement, moraki mou.’
And Billie drifted off to sleep in his arms, happier than she had ever dreamed she might be after that awful nerve-racking two weeks apart from him. The sex was amazing, she was willing to agree, but that tender kiss and his relaxation with her in the aftermath meant a great deal more to her. She wondered if she would ever fully understand the man she loved. He was so complex, volatile and in every respect unpredictable. And on that frustrated acknowledgement she sank into the deepest sleep she had enjoyed in many weeks.
She awakened, befogged by drowsiness and bewildered, to the bright light of an island morning. Alexei, fully dressed, was standing over the bed.
‘Is there no end to your deceptions?’ he demanded of her in savage condemnation.
Astonished by that attack, Billie pushed herself up clumsily against the pillows, suddenly conscious of her nudity and holding the sheet to her breasts. Running trembling fingers through her wildly tousled red hair to rake it back off her face, she mumbled, ‘What are you talking about? What’s wrong?’
‘This…this is what’s w
rong!’ Alexei bit out rawly, flinging a newspaper down on the bed for her to look at. ‘You and Damon Marios holding hands on my private beach!’
Her face stiff with shock, Billie glanced down at the page and froze, her skin turning clammy, her throat closing over. It was not the best photo she had ever seen and it seemed to have been digitally enhanced for clarity, but it did show her and Damon on the beach, clearly engaged in intent conversation, her hand in his, her face turned up to his. She was dismayed to recognise that even though her dialogue with Damon had been entirely innocent of even flirtation the photo was misleading, as was the closeness of their bodies.
She flung her head back, green eyes very bright. ‘This is not what it looks like,’ she whispered shakily.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘IT WAS taken by a telephoto lens. The paparazzo must’ve been in a boat,’ Alexei grated between clenched teeth, and then he swept the newspaper off the bed again in an angry gesture of repudiation. ‘What the hell is going on between you and Marios? Is he the father of your baby?’
‘No, he is not. We’re friends, nothing more. All that happened between us was a rather emotional conversation. Damon was telling me why his marriage had ended.’
‘Exchanging sob stories, were you? Getting all touchy-feely?’ Alexei glowered at her unimpressed, his lean dark features hard with angry denunciation. ‘I don’t believe you. Damon was your first love and you’ve always had a thing for him. I can well understand too why you would want to conceal your child’s identity on Speros after Damon chose to reconcile with his estranged wife last year.’
At that crack, Billie turned very pale, for it struck her as terrifying that it could take only one piece of misinformation to provide a foundation for a seemingly convincing case against her. ‘I’ve never been intimate with Damon. He is not the father of my child,’ she intoned afresh, desperate to make Alexei listen to her.
Alexei swore only half under his breath. ‘Na pas sto dialo! Go to hell,’ he told her roughly. ‘I’m leaving. In a couple of days the DNA results will be available and I refuse to see you again until then.’
