The Helen Bianchin Collection

by Helen Bianchin

  ‘He’s a sexy beast, darling. To some, it’s almost a fatal attraction.’

  Alyse merely smiled, and Siobhan said softly, ‘How delightful—you’re shy!’

  ‘A fascinating quality,’ Aleksi agreed, taking hold of Alyse’s hand and threading his fingers through her own.

  She tried to tug her hand away, and felt his fingers tighten in silent warning. ‘Perhaps we could get together for dinner soon? Now, if you’ll excuse us, we really must circulate. Enjoy yourselves,’ he bade genially.

  It was impossible to protest, and Alyse allowed Aleksi to lead her from one group to another in the large room, pausing for five minutes, sometimes ten, as they engaged in conversation. Georg’s existence had precipitated a marriage that had aroused speculative conjecture, and by the time they had come full circle her facial muscles felt tight from maintaining a constant smile, and her nerves were raw beneath an abundance of thinly veiled curiosity.

  ‘Another drink?’ asked Aleksi.

  Dared she? Somehow it seemed essential to appear to be in total command, and she had merely picked a few morsels from each course during dinner and barely nibbled from the abundance of food constantly offered by hired staff throughout the evening. ‘I’d love some coffee.’

  An eyebrow slanted in quizzical query. ‘I can’t tempt you with champagne-spiked orange juice?’ His gaze was direct and vaguely analytical, and Alyse was unable to suppress the faint quickening of her pulse.

  He had the strangest effect on her equilibrium, making her aware of a primitive alchemy, a dramatic pull of the senses almost beyond her comprehension, for it didn’t seem possible to be able to physically enjoy sex with someone she actively disliked. Hated, she amended, unwilling to accord him much favour. Yet he projected an enviable aura of power, a distinctive mesh of male charisma and sensuality that alerted the interest of women—a primeval recognition that made her feel uncommonly resentful.

  ‘I’d prefer coffee,’ she responded with forced lightness, and he laughed, a deep, husky sound that sent shivers scudding down the length of her spine.

  ‘The need for a clear head?’ His teeth gleamed white for an instant, then became hidden beneath the curve of his mouth.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted without prevarication.

  ‘Stay here, and I’ll fetch some.’

  ‘I’d rather come with you.’

  He examined her features, assessing the bright eyes and pale cheeks with daunting scrutiny. ‘No one here would dare harm so much as a hair on your beautiful head,’ he alluded cynically.

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t believe you.’ She hadn’t meant to sound bitter, but the implication was there, and she felt immeasurably angry—with herself, for allowing him to catch a glimpse of her vulnerability.

  Without a further word he led her towards a table where an attractively attired waitress was dispensing tea and coffee, and within seconds he had placed a cup between her nerveless fingers, watching as she sipped the hot aromatic brew appreciatively while her eyes skimmed the room.

  ‘When you’ve finished, we’ll dance,’ he told her.

  Alyse brought her gaze back to the indomitable man at her side. ‘You’ve succeeded admirably at playing the perfect husband all evening. Dancing cheek-to-cheek might be overdoing it, don’t you think?’

  His eyes were dark and unfathomable. ‘Inconceivable, of course, that I might want to?’

  She suddenly felt as if she’d skated on to very thin ice, and she resorted to restrained anger in defence. ‘I’m damned if I’ll act out a charade!’

  ‘Are you so sure it will be?’

  This was an infinitely dangerous game, and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to play. Yet in a room full of people, what else could she do but comply?

  Her eyes glittered as he removed the empty cup from her hand and put it down on the nearby table, and her smile was deliberately winsome as he drew her out on to the terrace and into his arms.

  There were strategically placed lights casting a muted glow over landscaped gardens, and the air was fresh and cool.

  ‘You have a large number of friends,’ Alyse remarked in a desperate bid to break the silence.

  ‘Business associates, acquaintances with whom I maintain social contact,’ Aleksi corrected wryly.

  She tilted her head slightly. ‘How cynical!’

  ‘You think so?’

  He was amused, damn him! ‘Yes.’

  ‘Careful, little cat,’ he cautioned softly, controlling with ease her effort to put some distance between them. ‘Your claws are showing.’

  ‘If they are, it’s because I detest what you’re doing.’

  ‘Dancing with my wife?’

  ‘Oh, stop being so damned—impossible! You know very well what I mean.’

  ‘This party was arranged specifically to give a number of important people the opportunity to meet you. The reason for our marriage is none of their business.’

  ‘There are several women present who appear to think it is!’

  ‘Their problem, not mine.’ He sounded so clinical, so damned—detached, that she felt sickened.

  ‘Let me go. I want to check on Georg.’

  ‘Melanie is ensconced upstairs doing precisely that,’ drawled Aleksi, refusing to relinquish his hold. ‘In a minute we’ll go back inside and mingle with our guests.’

  ‘I hate you!’

  ‘At least it’s a healthy emotion.’

  It didn’t feel healthy! In fact, it razed her nerves and turned her into a seething ball of fury.

  For what remained of the evening Alyse displayed the expected role of hostess with charm and dignity, so much so that she surely deserved a medal for perseverance, she decided as she stood at her husband’s side and said goodbye to the last remaining clutch of guests.

  Only when the tail-lights of the final car disappeared from sight and Aleksi had firmly closed the front door did she allow the mask to slip.

  ‘I’ll pay the babysitter, and activate Georg’s electronic monitor,’ Aleksi determined. ‘There’s no point in disturbing him simply to move him downstairs.’

  The fact that he was right didn’t preclude her need to oppose him, and she opened her mouth, only to close it again beneath the force of his forefinger.

  ‘Don’t argue.’

  She drew back her head as if touched by flame, and her eyes flashed with anger. ‘I’ll do as I damn well please!’

  His expression assumed a musing indolence. ‘Go to bed.’

  She was so angry, it almost consumed her. ‘And wait dutifully for you to join me?’

  Without a word he turned and made for the stairs, and she watched his ascent with impotent rage.

  Damned if she’d obey and retire meekly to the bedroom! Although at several minutes past two in the morning it hardly made sense to think of anything else. And perversity, simply for the sheer hell of it, was infinitely unwise.

  Except she didn’t feel like taking a sensible course, and without pausing to give her actions further thought she crossed the lounge and made her way downstairs.

  The caterers had been extremely efficient, for apart from a few glasses there was little evidence that a party had taken place.

  A quick vacuum of the carpets and the room would be restored to its usual immaculate state, she decided, and, uncaring of the late hour, she retrieved the necessary cleaner and set it in motion.

  She had almost finished when the motor came to a sudden stop, and she turned to see Aleksi standing a few feet distant with the disconnected cord held in his hand.

  ‘This can surely wait?’ His voice was deceptively mild, and didn’t fool her in the slightest.

  ‘It will only take another minute, then it’s done.’

  ‘In the morning, Alyse.’

  ‘I’d prefer to do it now.’ It was as if she was on a rollercoaster to self-destruction, able to see her ultimate destination yet powerless to stop.

  ‘Obstinacy simply for the sheer hell of it is foolish, don’t you think?’ A
leksi queried, depressing the automatic cord rewind button, and Alyse glared at him balefully.

  ‘Aren’t you being equally stubborn?’ she returned at once.

  He spared the elegant gold watch at his wrist a cursory glance. ‘Two-thirty in the morning isn’t conducive to a definitive discussion.’

  ‘So once again I must play the part of a subjugated wife!’

  His eyes narrowed, assuming a daunting hardness that was at variance with the softness of his voice. ‘Perhaps you’d care to clarify that remark?’

  Alyse stood defiant. ‘I don’t like being continually dictated to,’ she told him angrily. ‘And I especially don’t like being taken for granted.’ She lifted a hand, then let it fall down to her side. ‘I feel like a child, forced to conform. And I’m not,’ she insisted, helpless in the face of her own anger.

  ‘Aren’t you?’ Aleksi brushed his fingers across her heated cheeks. ‘Most women would exult in my wealth and scheme to acquire all life’s so-called luxuries.’

  ‘Are you condemning me as a child because I’m unwilling to play the vamp in bed?’

  ‘What a delightfully evocative phrase!’

  ‘I hate you, do you understand? Hate you,’ she said fiercely, then gave a startled cry as he calmly took hold of her arms and lifted her over his shoulder. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  He turned and began walking towards the stairs. ‘I would have thought it was obvious.’

  ‘Put me down, damn you!’ There was a terrible sense of indignity at being carried in such a manner, and she hit out at him, clenching her hands into fists as she railed them against his back. ‘Bastard!’ she accused as he reached the ground floor and crossed the lounge. ‘Barbarian!’

  On entering their bedroom he pulled her down to stand facing him, and she looked at him through a mist of anger.

  ‘This seems to be the only level on which we effectively communicate.’ His eyes were hard and inflexible.

  ‘Speak for yourself!’ she flung incautiously.

  His eyes lanced hers, their expression dark and forbidding. ‘I’m tempted to make you beg for my possession.’

  ‘What’s stopping you?’

  ‘Little fool,’ Aleksi condemned with dangerous silkiness. ‘Aren’t you in the least afraid of my temper?’

  ‘What would you do? Beat me?’

  ‘Maybe I should, simply to teach you the lesson you deserve.’

  ‘And what about the lesson I consider you deserve?’ cried Alyse, tried almost beyond endurance. ‘For forcing me into marriage, your bed …’ She faltered to a shaky halt, hating him more than she thought it was possible to hate anyone.

  ‘Your love for Antonia and Georg surpassed any minor considerations.’

  ‘Minor!’ An entire flood of words threatened to spill from her, except that his mouth covered hers with brutal possession, effectively stilling the flow.

  ‘You don’t hate me as much as you pretend,’ Aleksi drawled as he lifted his head, and she flung heatedly,

  ‘There’s no pretence whatsoever in the way I feel about you!’

  Placing a thumb and forefinger beneath her chin, he lifted it so that she had no option but to look at him.

  ‘Perhaps you should query whether a proportion of anger doesn’t originate with yourself for enjoying something you insist is merely physical lust,’ he alluded silkily.

  Did he know how impossible it was for her to come to terms with her own traitorous body? Even now, part of her wanted to melt into his arms, while another part urged her to pull away. It was crazy to feel like this, to be prey to a gamut of emotions so complex that understanding why seemed beyond comprehension.

  ‘I don’t enjoy it!’ To admit, even to herself, that she did, was something she refused to concede.

  ‘No?’

  Aleksi sounded indolently amused, and she flinched away from the brush of his fingers as he trailed them along the edge of her jaw, then traced the throbbing cord at her neck before exploring the hollows at the base of her throat.

  ‘Such a sweet mouth,’ he mocked gently, lowering his own to within inches of her softly curved lips. ‘And so very kissable.’

  The breath seemed to catch in her throat. ‘Stop it.’ Her eyes clung to his, bright, angry, yet intensely vulnerable. ‘Please.’

  ‘Why?’ Aleksi murmured as he touched the tip of his tongue against the sensual centre of her lower lip, then began to edge gently inwards in an evocative discovery of the sensitive moist tissues.

  ‘Aleksi.’ His name whispered from her lips with something akin to despair. ‘No!’

  A hand slid beneath her hair, cupping her nape, while the other slipped to her lower back, urging her close, and his mouth continued its light tasting; teasing, deliberately withholding the promise of passion until his touch became an exquisite torture.

  She ached for him to deepen the kiss, and she gave a faint sigh as his mouth hardened in irrefutable possession, wiping out every vestige of conscious thought. A deep flame flared into pulsating life beneath his sensual mastery, and each separate nerve-end tingled alive with unbridled ardency as she gave the response he sought.

  His clothes, hers, were a dispensable barrier, and she made no protest as he set about freeing them both of any material restriction.

  Her body arched of its own accord as his mouth trailed her collarbone and began a downward movement to her breast, silently inviting the wicked ecstasy of his erotic touch, and she cried out as he caressed the delicate swelling bud, luxuriating in the waves of sensation pulsing through her body.

  A faint cry of protest silvered the night air as he shifted slightly, then she gave a husky purr of pleasure as he trailed the valley to render a similar supplication to its aching twin.

  With consummate skill his fingers traced an evocative path over her silky skin, playing each sensitive pleasure-spot to fever-pitch until she was filled with a deep, aching need that only physical release could assuage.

  Alyse barely registered the silken sheets beneath her back, yet the relief she craved was withheld as his mouth feathered the path of his hand in a sensual tasting that was impossibly erotic, making the blood sing through her veins like wildfire until her very soul seemed his, and she began to plead, tiny guttural sounds that her conscious mind registered but refused to accept as remotely hers.

  Hardly aware of her actions, she reached for his head, her fingers curling into the thickness of his hair as she attempted to divert his attention, wanting, needing to feel his mouth on hers in hard, hungry passion.

  Like something wild and untamed, her body began to thresh beneath his in blatant invitation until at last he plunged deep into the silken core, creating a pulsating rhythmic pattern that took her to the heights and beyond in an explosion of sensual ecstasy that was undeniably his pleasure as well as her own.

  For a long time afterwards she seemed encased in a hazy rosy glow, and as she drifted slowly back to reality she became aware of the featherlight touch of his fingers as they traced the moist contours of her body.

  She didn’t feel capable of moving, and a tiny bubble of laughter died in her throat scarcely before it began.

  ‘What do you find so amusing?’

  Alyse turned her head slowly to meet the deep slumbering passion still lurking in those gleaming eyes so close to her own. ‘I think you’d better stop. There’s a young baby upstairs who’ll soon wake for his early morning bottle.’

  Aleksi’s lips curved warmly as he lifted a hand to her hair and tucked a few collective tendrils back behind her ear. ‘I’ll feed him, then come back to bed.’

  She tried to inject a degree of condemnation into her voice, and failed miserably. ‘You’re insatiable!’

  His lips touched her shoulder, then slid to the curve of her neck in an evocative caress. ‘So, my sweet, are you.’

  Remembering just how she had reacted in his arms brought a tide of telltale colour to her cheeks, and her eyes clouded with shame.

  ‘Don’t,’ he bade so
ftly, ‘be embarrassed at losing yourself so completely in the sexual act.’

  ‘I might have been faking,’ she said unsteadily, and almost died at the degree of lazy humour evident in the gleaming eyes so close to her own.

  ‘Liar,’ he drawled. ‘Your delight was totally spontaneous.’

  ‘And you’re the expert.’ She hadn’t meant to sound bitter, but it tinged her voice none the less, and her lashes descended to form a protective veil against his compelling scrutiny.

  ‘Sufficiently experienced to give consideration to your pleasure as well as my own.’

  ‘For that I should be grateful?’

  ‘I would advise you against provoking me to demonstrate the difference.’

  A faint chill feathered across the surface of her skin, and she shivered. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’

  She half expected him to stop her, and when he didn’t she felt vaguely resentful, electing to take over-long beneath the warm jet of water and even longer attending to her toilette.

  Emerging into the bedroom, she slipped carefully into bed and lay still, only to realise within seconds that Aleksi was already asleep, his breathing steady and uncontrived.

  For several long minutes she studied his features, aware that even in repose there was an inherent strength apparent, a force that was slightly daunting. Relaxed, his mouth assumed a firm curve, and she experienced the almost irresistible desire to touch it with her own.

  Are you mad? an inner voice taunted.

  With a hand that shook slightly Alyse reached out and snapped off the bedside lamp, then laid her head on the pillow, allowing innate weariness to transport her into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SUNDAY SHOWED PROMISE of becoming one of those beautiful sunny days south-east Queensland was renowned for producing in the midst of a tropical winter. A slight breeze barely stirred the air, and the sea was a clear translucent blue with scarcely a ripple to disturb its surface.

  ‘The weather is too good not to take the boat out,’ Aleksi declared as Alyse entered the kitchen after bathing and feeding Georg. She smelled of baby talc, and her eyes were still soft with the sheer delight of his existence.