A Stormy Greek Marriage

A horrible little silence fell and only as she assisted her aunt with her stumbling, angrily muttering mother did Billie register that Alexei had joined them. Her face burning, her tummy twisting with fear, she clashed with blazing golden eyes.

‘I’ve organised a car for you,’ Alexei told Hilary in a gentle undertone as a nanny appeared to pass over Nicky into her care. ‘I’m sorry that you have to leave early.’

Lauren, who, for all her outspokenness, was intimidated by her son-in-law, had turned an ashen colour and was now avoiding both his gaze and her daughter’s. Billie was wan and uncomfortable as she watched her aunt leave with Nicky and her mother.

‘I think Lauren may well need professional help,’ Alexei breathed with icy cool.

‘Sorry. I know she’s an embarrassment…but professional help?’ Billie echoed, finally working up the courage to look directly at him.

‘A stint in rehab might at least cure her of looking forward to our marriage crashing and burning,’ Alexei countered sardonically, brilliant golden eyes cutting as lasers. ‘Clearly she hasn’t read the terms of our pre-nup. But what the hell was she talking about? Buried bodies? Secrets?’

Pale as milk, Billie trembled as she registered how close her mother had come to exposing Nicky’s parentage in public. ‘She was drunk and getting carried away with all the attention she was getting—that’s all. But I don’t think she needs to be packed off to rehab just yet—’

‘Leave me to deal with Lauren,’ Alexei interrupted with ruthless cool. ‘I understand her better than you do.’

And Billie, accustomed to her mother’s single-minded obstinate egotism, reckoned that he very probably did.

Chapter Two

IT WAS after midnight. The bride and groom had stayed with their guests until late, then had then taken a motor launch out to Alexei’s yacht, Sea Queen. But lights in Billie’s own little house were still twinkling brightly back on shore, Billie registered as she stood on the private deck beyond the incredible luxury of the stateroom suite. Hilary, at the very least, was still awake. Was Lauren still with her sister and behaving badly? Or was Nicky reacting poorly to his disrupted routine and preventing her aunt from getting the rest she needed? Billie’s arms felt horribly empty. Her heart ached at once again having to face the prospect of leaving her infant son.

Only for a week, though, Alexei had sworn. He was no big fan of honeymoons or indeed any enforced break from business, but he was also too astute not to recognise that to neglect any show of intimacy and togetherness after their wedding would attract the kind of comment that might embarrass his bride. And tomorrow Alexei would finally know everything there was to know about her, Billie reminded herself doggedly. The pretences, the lies would mercifully end there. There would be no more secrets. He would understand her attachment to Nicky, but how would he feel about suddenly and without any preparation at all becoming a father?

Billie shivered in the cool crisp late spring air. A light step sounded behind her and Alexei closed his arms round her from behind, drawing her back into the heat and shelter of his tall, muscular body. ‘That was one very long day,’ he sighed above her head. ‘How the hell did my father manage to go through with marrying four times over?’

‘I suppose the fact that he kept on trying to find the right wife says a lot about his optimistic outlook,’ Billie remarked, her voice wavering as her bridegroom pressed his mouth sensually to the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck. She was not aware that it was a sensitive spot, but it sparked a surprising burst of heat low in her pelvis and she trembled, straining back against him in response.

Alexei laughed softly. ‘Don’t be so naïve. He only married my mother because she was carrying me. He wanted a son and heir more than he ever wanted any woman—’

Cooler air brushed Billie’s spine while he unhooked the back of her gown with the lazy pace of a gourmet contemplating a six-course banquet. ‘You’re so cynical!’ she returned.

‘The marriage might have been a success on your terms, but even my mother knew that he would never have married her had she not conceived. She was a nobody from nowhere…’

‘Like me,’ Billie could not resist commenting in receipt of that arrogant opinion.

‘No. You’re a local girl with a clever brain and a colourful background,’ Alexei teased, sliding his hands below the loosened bodice of her dress to find the firm thrusting softness of her breasts. ‘And now you’re my wife, my perfect wife, khriso mou.’

Her breath caught in her throat as he expertly massaged her swelling nipples between thumb and forefinger, sending sharp arrows of desire darting to the very centre of her restive body. Helpless in the grip of those sensations, she leant back against him and he swept her up into his arms and carried her back into the stateroom. Setting her down he peeled her out of the gown he had undone and lifted her clear of the foaming swathe of petticoats.

‘Full marks for surprising me,’ Alexei quipped, pausing to take in the full effect of her turquoise satin and lace lingerie and the lacy hold-up stockings she sported on her slim legs.

Although rosy colour warmed Billie’s face beneath his lingering appraisal and her breasts shimmied in the turquoise satin cups as her breathing increased in rapidity, she countered, ‘I’m a bride…what did you expect?’

‘White cotton, no frills,’ he told her frankly, resting her down across his long powerful thighs while one strong arm supported her spine.

Billie gazed up into brilliant golden eyes and her heart felt as if it were bouncing up onto a positive high of love. ‘Oh, you’ll see plenty of white cotton on the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year. This is a one-off,’ she warned him deadpan. ‘Enjoy it while you can.’

And Alexei laughed and kissed her, framing her face with spread fingers, delving into the moist tender interior she offered long and deep until her heart was thumping like a piston and she was kissing him back hard, revelling in the wicked pleasure of being crushed against him. He released the catch on her bra and moulded the lush fullness of a rose-tipped mound with reverent appreciation. ‘You can have no idea how many times I’ve fantasised about your breasts…’

‘In the office?’ Billie gasped, taken aback by that candid admission.

‘You look so shocked.’ Alexei was laughing again, both hands now fully engaged in massaging the swelling bounty of her creamy flesh.

‘Well, it’s not very professional, is it?’ Billie complained, embarrassed for herself in the past.

‘But I only looked and imagined. I didn’t touch,’ he reminded her. ‘Of course I looked. I’m a man and the more you covered up, the more I noticed and wondered. Modesty is a great turn-on. If you’d sunbathed topless I’d have satisfied my curiosity long ago.’

As his skilled fingers found the distended tips of her nipples her eyes slid shut in an instant of intense arousal that made heat bloom like a yearning flower between her trembling thighs. But even as her body reacted she was thinking over what he said, registering that her discreet clothing and apparent reluctance had heightened his desire for her and immediately wondering whether constant marital availability would swiftly convert his interest to boredom. He bent her back over his arm and closed his mouth over first one throbbing reddened peak and then the other, laving her sensitised flesh with his tongue and grazing the beaded peaks with his strong white teeth. She gasped out loud, her body catching fire and flaming as fast and hotly as bone-dry straw. Rational thoughts fled her head like fallen leaves blown by the wind.

‘I never thought I’d be so excited by my wedding night,’ Alexei confided huskily, setting her aside and springing up to begin carelessly shedding his clothes. ‘Congratulations, Billie. Experienced as I am, you make even sex feel fresh and new.’

Awesomely conscious of the stinging sensitivity of her nipples and the lush heat at the heart of her, Billie was dry-mouthed and all of a quiver, while wondering if she would ever be able to match his cool…or, for that matter, his evident expectations. So many women had tried and failed to hold his attention. Why should she be any different? Even to lie there half naked without rushing to cover up her exposed flesh was a challenge for Billie. Impervious to such insecurities, Alexei cast off his shirt, revealing the tightly honed muscular magnificence of a torso sprinkled with dark whorls of hair, a narrow waist and a stomach as flat as a rock slab. Physically he was just pure perfection, she acknowledged, her gaze riveted by his sheer spellbinding masculine impact. He discarded his last garment and the very boldness of his towering erection washed colour over her face, for her memory—unlike his—had no missing gaps and she was recalling the velvet-sheathed-in-steel feel of him beneath her fingers and moving inside her. Something clenched deep in her stomach.

He lay down beside her and pulled her back to him, crushing her mouth hungrily below his with a hot sexual urgency that thrilled her. He slid long fingers in a bold trail below her panties and groaned with earthy satisfaction, ‘You’re so wet and ready for me, khriso mou.’

Feverishly aware of that betraying damp heat, she trembled beneath the confident touch of his hand, raising her knees to assist him as he skimmed off the final barrier between them. ‘I can’t help wanting you,’ she breathed shakily.

‘And isn’t that only as it should be?’ Alexei husked, golden eyes glittering over her with virile approval even as his fingers came into contact with a roughness to the skin of her lower stomach that surprised him. ‘What is this I feel?’

Billie froze, belatedly realising that he had found her Caesarean scar. ‘Just a gynaecological thing—some surgery—I had,’ she answered as casually as she could.

‘You never mentioned it,’ Alexei commented.

‘Some things women like to keep to themselves.’

He shifted his hand back to a more sensitive spot and every skin cell in her quiveringly appreciative body seemed to leap. She was feeling too much to feel comfortable because her responses were already breaching the boundaries of her self-control. The exquisite pleasure of his skilled exploration of the slick folds of tender tissue between her thighs was almost more than she could stand without crying out aloud. She twisted and she turned until he stilled her and then she gritted her teeth together, her slender neck extending while he delicately teased the tiny erect bud of her clitoris and right then her concept of what was unbearable was rewritten from inside out. Her hips shifted and jerked upwards in a pleading motion and he lowered his dark arrogant head to the distended rigidity of her nipples, sucking them into his mouth and toying erotically with her wildly responsive flesh.

‘Please…please now,’ she framed brokenly, tormented by the burning heat of an excitement too much to be borne.

He came over her and into her in an almost simultaneous movement. With a sinuous shift of his hips he positioned his long powerful body and sank into her inner warmth with a low, melodious growl of sensual pleasure. For a split second, fear pierced the veil of her excitement and her inner muscles clenched hard round his swollen shaft. His golden eyes caught the momentary look of concern and unease she couldn’t hide and then his hands closed round her hips and he drove into her again with hard, sure sensual force as if he knew the intensity of her need. The feeling of pressure low in her belly increased until all she was conscious of was the remorseless intrusion of his strong body into hers and the ravishing irresistible force of a physical stimulation so extreme it came close to pain. Tingling sparks of her impending release shot through her stomach and she writhed and gasped, her body arching as the most intense orgasm gripped her and sent wild sensation flooding through her in an uncontrollable and explosive tide.

The feeling of release from her earthly body was so powerful that for long moments after that climax Billie was in a daze. Only slowly did she regain awareness again, register the weightiness of her limbs, the heavy cocoon of sweet satisfaction that was reluctant to let her go, and even more slowly did she notice that Alexei had pulled away from her when she most wanted to cling to him. And then there was the silence…thrumming and taut as only a male as volatile as Alexei could make it. Her bright head swivelled on the pillow, green eyes very dark and wide flaring to Alexei.

He looked levelly back at her and a lump of dismay formed in her throat, for she read the challenge in his appraisal. The silence lay like a claustrophobic blanket threatening to stifle her ability to breathe. A whoosh of alarm ran down her spine like a cold warning hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

Thrusting the pillows back against the headboard, Alexei sat up. Brilliant golden eyes rested on her with all the extraordinary force of his fierce temperament. ‘I’m amazed you have the nerve to ask me that. You lied to me, and you know how I feel about lies.’

Fear cut Billie as deep as a knife wound and a kind of panic raced like a wrecking ball through her more usually calm thoughts, creating mental havoc. Her blood ran cold, her skin turned clammy. ‘L-lies?’ she queried, playing desperately for time.

‘That certainly wasn’t the very first time you had sex. You weren’t a virgin before I married you, yet you were determined to make me believe that you were. What is that other than a lie?’

He was disappointed, she assumed, realising just what a pit she had dug for herself to fall into. How could she tell him the truth without telling him the whole truth? The few hours of grace she had believed she still had had suddenly vanished, depriving her of any control over the situation.

‘Of course it would be downright hypocrisy for a guy of my experience to expect or demand a virgin bride in this day and age,’ Alexei drawled in glancing continuance. ‘I may have made a false assumption but you lied by omission. Lying by staying silent when you should have contradicted me is still a lie.’

‘I didn’t know how to tell you,’ Billie framed uncertainly. ‘When you made that assumption I felt trapped by it—’

‘No, don’t make the mistake of trying to lay your dishonesty at my door,’ Alexei cautioned her, his lean handsome face hardening into grim lines at her response. ‘I also want to know who your first lover was: Damon Marios, your spineless first love?’