Nicky rested his little dark head down on Alexei’s shoulder and sagged, long lashes sweeping on his cheekbones.
‘I’ll put him down for a nap,’ Billie said.
Alexei slid lithely upright and led the way up the staircase. Billie changed her son and made him comfortable in his cot in the room next to their own. Kasma was out for the day and, although a local girl took over in her absence to ensure that the young Greek woman didn’t have to work too many hours on the trot, Alexei and Billie regularly took charge of their son and saw to his needs without help.
Alexei stared down into the cot where Nicky was half-heartedly trying to reach for his little pink toes and then he glanced across at Billie. ‘I’d like another child.’
Astonished by that abrupt confession and unprepared for it, Billie frowned.
‘I wasn’t part of it when you were carrying Nikolos. I missed out on everything,’ Alexei pointed out levelly.
‘You know why I didn’t tell you,’ Billie reminded him defensively.
‘I know yo
u decided that my girlfriend was more important to me than my unborn child,’ Alexei countered. ‘But that was your mistake. I would have put my child’s needs first, just as my father once did. It’s a shame that you didn’t give me the chance to prove that to you firsthand.’
A frisson of fierce annoyance washed away all the warm feelings that Billie had experienced watching Alexei handle their son with such patience, common sense and warmth. But his skill as a parent aside, wasn’t she entitled to have some pride? To want a man who was not simply with her because she had fallen accidentally pregnant? With hindsight, Billie now recognised that it was the fear of Alexei feeling responsible for her because she was pregnant rather than freely choosing to be with her that had made her stay silent after she had conceived. Calisto had been more competition than Billie had felt up to taking on and challenging. She needed to be wanted for herself, not for her son’s benefit. But just how deep did that attitude of Alexei’s go? Was he only set on showing her what a wonderful guy he could be in retrospect? Or was their honeymoon ninety per cent fake as he made a very clever and rational attempt to give their marriage sound and lasting foundations? That suspicion sent a shiver down her sensitive spine.
‘I think one child is enough for us right now,’ she responded quietly.
Stunning golden eyes as bright as sunlight raked over her tense, uneasy expression. ‘You still don’t trust me. Do you think I’m so selfish that I would suggest having another child without the intention of our marriage lasting?’
‘It’s not a matter of trust,’ Billie reasoned hurriedly. ‘I just need more time with you to believe that.’
‘Nicky has roused emotions in me that I never realised I could feel,’ Alexei volunteered, startling her with that admission. ‘You’re surprised…I’m surprised. But I was bored with my life as it was. I’m much more ready to be a family man than I ever appreciated, yineka mou.’
‘That’s great,’ Billie told him, but she was not convinced enough to risk a second pregnancy on the strength of that declaration. When she lost her figure, he might not find her as attractive, she reasoned uncomfortably. He was and always would be a male to whom a high-voltage sex life meant a great deal and pregnancy would definitely make a difference to their relationship. That was not a chance she wanted to take.
‘You saw far too much of my life as a playboy,’ Alexei groaned, folding her slim, curvy body into his arms. ‘That’s where the problem lies.’
‘I’m not prejudiced—’
‘How can you lie to me like that?’ Alexei censured. ‘You disapproved of my sex life from the day you met me.’
‘I’m not lying,’ she said uncomfortably.
‘You never could hide how you felt either,’ Alexei continued with sardonic cool. ‘You’d get a stony look on your face and go all stiff and prissy, and your voice would go cold.’
Billie was thoroughly disconcerted by that recital of her reactions.
Unexpectedly, Alexei’s lean bronzed features broke into an unholy grin of amusement as he pulled her closer. ‘You really were a jealous little cat from the word go!’
‘That’s not true,’ Billie mumbled, refusing to meet his shrewd gaze, as she had not once mentioned love since her return to France, had wrenched the very word from her thoughts and buried it deep. In Alexei’s radius she could only feel that the less said about love and all such sentiments, the better.
‘And there I was leading a perfectly normal life as a single man,’ Alexei lamented. ‘You were…wild,’ Billie rebutted without an instant of hesitation.
‘But in some dark little corner of your head, you love wild,’ Alexei murmured huskily, shifting against her in a lithe movement to acquaint her with the hard male heat at his groin.
Loving him as much as she thrilled to that wildness, Billie trembled, feeling the surge of heat and moisture between her legs, wishing she had more control over her responses. He pressed her slender length to him and bent his head to kiss her with a raw, urgent hunger that left her struggling to breathe. He had made love to her for half of the night but now he wanted her again and she rejoiced in that knowledge, which made her feel secure and needed. She let him back her into their bedroom on legs that felt as weak as cotton-wool supports. But she was no passive partner, for she dragged his jacket off him and embarked on his shirt buttons while exchanging passionate kisses that made her heartbeat race.
‘I think you should just stay in bed all day,’ Alexei confided, letting his teeth graze a particularly tender place on her neck and suppressing a groan as she wriggled against his long powerful thighs. ‘Getting dressed is hardly worth your while. I can’t get enough of you, yineka mou.’
He was pulling down the straps on her shoulders, accessing the scented hollow between her breasts and the pale upper slopes before he found the zip and the dress fell to her waist. He dealt with the light bra that merely uplifted the ripe swell of her flesh and he caught a straining pink nipple in his mouth to ravish it, even as he pushed up her skirt, ripped her delicate chiffon panties out of his path and found the sweet damp warmth of her silken flesh. A moment later, he braced her back against the wall, hoisted her against him and brought her down on him. She cried out in shivering excitement as he sank deep into her slick wet heat and after only a few strokes he moved her, tumbling her down on the bed and plunging into her tight depths over and over again with an erotic dominance that excited her beyond belief. She hit a shattering high of pleasure and she arched up to him and cried out at the convulsive strength of the climax gripping her. Dizzy satisfaction engulfed her as Alexei reached the same peak and shuddered in her arms.
‘Did I hurt you? Was I too rough?’ Alexei queried, breathing heavily.
‘I’m fine…better than fine…on another planet,’ she mumbled, struggling to find the right words to encompass her wonderful sense of well-being.