When Christakos Meets His Match (Blood Brothers 2)

He was moving now—slowly, ruthlessly, in and out. The ride was slow and intense. Tension tightened inside Sidonie, making her moan and plead incoherently for Alexio to never stop.

When her climax approached Sidonie’s eyes flew open. She could only see Alexio’s green gaze boring into her. He held her suspended on the crest of the wave until he thrust one last time and her whole body convulsed with pleasure around his.

* * *

At some point, in the silvery glow of the moon, Sidonie woke up to feel Alexio behind her, pressing kisses to the back of her neck, making her shiver with renewed arousal. He bent over her, scooping her back against him, coming behind her, a hand reaching to find her breast and cup it, making her moan with sleepy and delicious desire.

He said softly beside her ear, ‘Come up on your knees.’

Sidonie was wide awake now, and practically panting with need. Just like that—within seconds. She did as he asked and came up on her knees, her legs spread. Her upper body was on the bed, her elbows bent. Alexio stretched over her back and she could feel his steel-hard erection move against her. He took her arms and stretched them over her head. Her hands automatically gripped the pillow.

And then his thighs were behind hers, his legs moving hers even further apart. Like this, she felt unbelievably exposed and wanton. And yet never more aroused. He drew his hand down her spine, fingers tracing her bones, and then his hands spread around her hips, drawing her back and into him.

She turned her cheek to the bed. Her hands tightened to white knuckles when she felt one hand move between them to explore how ready she was. She could have wept when she felt the tremor run through his body on feeling the evidence of her desire.

Taking his hand away, he replaced it with his potent erection, and as he thrust deep and started the relentless slide of his body in and out of hers again Sidonie felt as if she was losing it completely. All that control she’d held on to for four months, the hatred... It was being washed away and leaving her vulnerable, defenceless. Raw.

Alexio’s body moved with awesome power, wresting away Sidonie’s ability to think rationally. When he bent close over her back and drew her hair aside, so that he could press a kiss to her exposed skin and cup her breast, she couldn’t hold on any more and shattered to pieces for a third time.

* * *

When Alexio woke in the early dawn light he kept his eyes closed for a minute, relishing the hum of satisfaction in his body. Slowly, though, the satisfaction faded as memories took over.

Alexio opened his eyes and realised he was alone in his bed. If not for the crumpled sheets and that hum in his body he might have imagined that he’d had another night of dreams so vivid he woke up aching and aroused.

But sleeping with Sidonie had been no dream. It had surpassed any mere dream. She was more than he remembered—even more responsive.

Why had she left him? Suddenly irritated at the empty bed, Alexio threw back the covers and jumped out. He pulled on a pair of discarded jeans nearby, left them open, and prowled through the apartment to Sidonie’s room. The door was shut. He opened it softly and went in. His heart clenched. She was in her nightshirt, lying on her side, with her legs pulled up. Long golden copper hair was spread out around her head. Lashes were long and dark against her flushed cheeks. Her breaths were deep and even.

He stood transfixed for a long moment and realised with a creeping sense of fatality that everything he’d ever known or believed in had spectacularly blown up in his face.

Yet even now he could hear his mother’s cold voice in his head, mocking him: ‘It’s all an act, Alexio...she’s fooling you even now, making you want her. Making you believe that she’d do anything but take your money when she has your baby in her belly, the best insurance a woman can get...’

Alexio blocked out the voice with an effort. He couldn’t believe he’d told Sidonie everything last night. The darkest, dirtiest secret of his father’s violence. He’d never even told Rafaele about that. He’d never forget his mother’s beautiful face, bruised and battered. But she hadn’t cried out. She hadn’t let him help. She’d put him from the room and closed the door and contained the incident. Always so cold, so frigid.

He could feel the remnants of the same rigidity that he’d learned from her in him, and also the desire to let it loosen. He thought of everything Sidonie had told him last night. He believed her. He wanted to believe her. But some deep part of him was clinging to the tentacles of the past like a drowning man clinging to a buoy.

One thing was for sure: there was no way she could not agree to the fact that Alexio was going to be an integral part of her life from now on—and his daughter’s.

* * *

When Sidonie woke the following morning her whole body felt deliciously lethargic and sated. And then her eyes opened and horror coursed through her. Alexio. She’d begged him to make love to her last night like some kind of lust-crazed wanton.

She cringed. But then she recalled their conversation and that sensation of something giving way inside her, melting. In the cold light of day, and after what had happened last night, Sidonie couldn’t keep pretending to herself that she hated Alexio. Far from it.

She’d fallen for him on Santorini—if not as early as that first night in London. Who was she kidding? she castigated herself. She’d probably fallen for him on that plane, before they’d even kissed. And, yes, she’d hated him for the way he’d treated her, but she’d really never stopped falling for him.

And after what he’d told her about his mother and his father... It didn’t excuse him, but it made her weak heart want to empathise with how a man had become so cynical at such a young age and never had any experience to counteract that.

No wonder he’d checked himself and doubted what was going on between them if he’d never allowed a woman that close before...

Feeling dangerously dreamy all of a sudden, Sidonie got out of bed and took a shower, all at once eager to see Alexio and cursing herself for having left his bed because she’d felt so raw and exposed.

Since he’d come back into her life he’d done nothing but support her, and had taken the news of her pregnancy on board with admirable equanimity

. And what had she done? Thrown everything back in his face...scared in case he got close enough to see how deep her feelings ran for him. Scared in case he’d see how flimsy that hatred was because she knew she still loved him and hated her own weakness.

He’d paid off the debts to ease her aunt’s mind and to take the burden of pressure off her. And even though that still made Sidonie feel uncomfortable she knew that he’d undoubtedly done it out of concern for her health and the baby’s.