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?’
The instant he flung that arrogant demand and that name at her she froze, wondering whether she really had to trail out all her secrets there and then, if there was no escape, no other way of deflecting him. And then she marvelled at her own reluctance to speak, her terror of breaking free of the cosy bridal bubble of happy-ever-afters and fantasy. ‘You’re not going to believe me when I do tell you who it was.’
As he stared at her from below the dense dark screen of his luxuriant lashes Alexei’s handsome mouth took on a sardonic quirk. ‘Try me. At least you have the wit not to persist in the lie.’
Billie no longer felt comfortable in the bed. She was no more comfortable under his intent scrutiny when she slid out naked from below the sheet to move a few steps away and reach for the light silk robe draped in readiness for her use over a chair. Enveloped within its concealing folds, the sash tightened round her waist with unsteady hands, she felt curiously more in control again.
‘How did you know? How did you guess?’ she suddenly pressed, unable to resist asking that question.
‘You told me. You betrayed yourself by the expression in your eyes, your face, your very responses. You looked and acted guilty.’
‘Because that’s how I feel and it’s really not fair because not all of this is my fault,’ Billie reasoned with a defensive edge of defiance. ‘You can’t be so judgemental about lies. Not everything is that black and white.’
‘Spare me the moral philosophy speech,’ Alexei derided. ‘You may be my wife but one thing hasn’t changed: I still expect a straight answer to a direct question.’
‘You asked me who my first lover was but, quite honestly, you have no right to ask me that question!’ Billie dared, flashing that answer back to him in retribution.
Alexei dealt her an arrested appraisal, her insubordination clearly coming as an unwelcome surprise to him.
Billie was trembling. ‘I mean, how do you even dare to ask me that question?’
His golden gaze was splinteringly hard and unyielding. ‘I dare because you’re my wife and nothing in your life should be hidden from me.’
Billie tried and failed to swallow at that bold, startlingly idealistic expectation. A tiny pulse at the base of her throat was flickering wildly. The tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten the taut dryness of her full lower lip. ‘You were my first lover…but you don’t remember the time we spent together—’
His ebony brows drew together. ‘What the hell kind of nonsensical claim is that?’ Alexei demanded, his raw impatience unhidden.
‘It may sound like nonsense to you at this moment, but it’s still the truth. On the night of your parents’ funeral, when everyone else had gone home, you had been drinking and you went to bed with me,’ Billie recounted, her agitated fingers knotting into the too long sleeves of her robe and tugging in a restive motion at the cuffs.
‘Any moment now you’ll be telling me that you were abducted by aliens! Are you crazy?’ Alexei jibed, tossing back the bedding and springing from the bed, a tall, powerful figure all the more daunting unclad. ‘Or are you drunk? That’s the only explanation I can come up with!’
‘We made love in the guest suite where I was staying at the time. We had no contraception. You were heading back to your own room for condoms when you tripped and fell down the steps by the swimming pool. When you came round, you didn’t remember that you’d been with me…’ Billie’s taut voice quivered with tension as he came to a halt, wheeled round and stared at her with frowning questioning force: she had finally won his full attention. ‘You thought you’d been in the swimming pool because your hair was damp but you’d only been in the shower…’
Dark eyes blazing wrathful gold, he studied her, his lean, strong visage clenched into forbidding lines. ‘No, Billie,’ he cut in icily. ‘You’re very ingenious but I won’t fall for a story like that. You tell me that we slept together on the one night of my life that I can’t fully recall and you expect me to believe you? How stupid do you think I am?’
In a growing state of confusion, Billie gazed back at him. She had known it would be a challenge to make him believe her, but it had not crossed her mind that he might suspect her of fitting fictional facts to an actual event to provide back-up for what he deemed to be lies. ‘But we really were together that night.’
‘So, according to you, unlike every other woman I have ever met, you gave me your body and expected nothing in return—not even an acknowledgement from me?’ Alexei slashed back at her with incredulous scorn. ‘At least come up with lies that make some sense!’
Anger licked like a hungry flame out of h
er bone-deep anxiety. She felt as if she were fighting for her life and certainly for the love of it. Not so very long ago they had enjoyed an instant of perfect harmony out on deck and she had been so happy. ‘When have I ever lied to you?’ she queried emotively.
‘What about those weeks before our wedding when you were playing the innocent little virgin charade? You need to fine-tune those principles I mistakenly thought you had. It’s not the lie you allowed to stand, it’s the fact that you were dishonest that disgusts me.’
Every word Alexei spoke flailing her like a whip, Billie had lost colour. Her body, so lately hot and damp from the vigour of his lovemaking, suddenly felt cold and shivery. Her green eyes dominated her heart-shaped face but the anger that had awakened inside her was already climbing higher and growing stronger in her defence. How dared he say that she disgusted him after all she had gone through on his behalf? She had stood by in silence while he romanced Calisto and slept with her. She had endured her pregnancy and the birth of his child without his support. How dared he judge her?
‘Don’t you dare tell me that I disgust you!’
Hard-as-granite dark golden eyes raked over her slight figure before finally condescending to meet her incensed gaze. ‘It’s the truth and that’s all I’ve ever wanted or expected from you: the truth,’ he told her insistently. ‘If you can’t even give me that, what have we got?’
That harsh question assailed her like water dripping incessantly on stone, for no matter what excuses she gave and no matter what words she spouted she would still be faced with the reality that she had lied to him. And just then, as he stepped into the shower and switched on the controls, Alexei was a formidable presence, terrifyingly immovable in his stubborn conviction. Rigid with tension, she went back into the stateroom. She quailed at the prospect of telling him about Nicky right there and then. If he couldn’t even credit her claim that he had once made love to her, how likely was it that he would accept that he was the father of the child he didn’t yet know she’d had?
Her slender hands clenched into fists as she attempted to will greater strength into herself. Hilary had insisted that her niece should tell Alexei the truth before the wedding, and Hilary had been right, Billie acknowledged with fierce regret over her own weakness. Instead of respecting the sound ethical base of her aunt’s argument, Billie had listened to Lauren, her self-serving and avaricious mother, who had never let notions of what was right and decent come between her and anything that she wanted. Billie had wanted that wedding ring at any cost, and now that she had it on her finger it felt like an own goal, a mockery, an empty promise…why? They had only been married for a matter of a few hours and Alexei had just told her that she disgusted him.
Billie sat down on the richly upholstered chair and surveyed her extravagant surroundings with blank eyes. Although it was warm, she felt cold. Shock was setting in and hitting her hard. He was the guy that she loved and she had burned her boats so thoroughly that she did not know how to go back and retrace her steps. Just then, damage control seemed an impossibility. Nothing that she could say or do would alter the fact that she had lied. And in the same moment she recognised just how much falling in love and having a child had altered her, for she was so much more emotional than she had once been. That made her feel so vulnerable and she longed to slide back into the practical, less sensitive shell of the young woman she had once been.
Towelling his wet body roughly dry with impatient hands, Alexei listened to the silence from the adjoining room. The silence only inflamed him more. He should have had the truth out of her by now, not those ridiculous lies! Discarding the towel, he strode into the communicating dressing room to pull out clothes. He was so angry that there was a tremor in his lean muscular hands. He stared down at them with brooding dark eyes and clenched his teeth together hard. Billie, whom he had trusted. Ise Vlakas! Stupid, he called himself angrily. Why had he placed such faith in her when he had long known that precious few women could be trusted? He had long accepted that many women would do virtually anything to get close to a man as hugely wealthy as he was. But that for her own ends Billie should attempt to make use of that particular night when he had drunk too much was an act of even more serious subterfuge and one that he considered unforgivable. To add more lies to the lies she had already allowed to stand between them was inexcusable. To think that he had thought her intelligent, worthy of being his wife, perfect….
Although in one sense, she had been perfect, Alexei conceded grudgingly as his mind roved back to their brief intimacy. A prickling heat at his groin and the stirring heaviness of renewed arousal assailed him while he recalled his bride’s surprising wildness between the sheets. Her eager responsiveness and complete lack of control when he touched her had excited him—she had excited him more than any woman had in a long time. Any man would have rejoiced in receipt of such fervour. That passionate receptiveness had not been what he expected from a woman who was well known for her rigid self-discipline and old-fashioned notions.
Old-fashioned? His handsome mouth curled with renewed derision. What was truly real about Billie? And what was fake? Only hours earlier he would have sworn she was genuine one-hundred-carat gold, the real article, a woman he could actually respect…and now? He wondered if Damon Marios had taken her virginity, or whether it had been one of his other employees, or even whether the identity of Billie’s secret lover lay far back in her youth. But why should the man’s identity even matter to him? He had never been a possessive man, particularly when it came to sex. He was too practical to be otherwise. The crux of the matter was that Billie had lied.
Distaste filling him afresh, Alexei strode out of the dressing room, across the spacious stateroom and out of it again without even acknowledging her presence. He would give Billie time to consider her options before he left Sea Queen. He was already considering his own: he had no intention of staying married to a woman he couldn’t trust.
CHAPTER THREE
FRESH from the shower, Billie tackled her tangled and damp hair until it dried in a heavy silken swathe across her shoulders. She breathed in deep and set off to find Alexei. She was not a coward, she had never been a coward; he would listen to her, he had to listen to her. That was the only hope of salvation that she had left. Yet she knew how hard Alexei Drakos could be, how uncompromising, how very cold-blooded when his own interests were at stake…
Alexei was working at his laptop in the office just as if it were the middle of his working day rather than halfway through his wedding night. His luxuriant blue-black hair gleamed below the discreet down-lighters, lush dark lashes casting crescent shadows across his exotically high cheekbones. It was a pose she had seen him in a thousand times before and she had known exactly where to find him—at times of stress, Alexei always took refuge in work. But she could read the tension still etched into the lineaments of his classic profile and the warning flare of his straight aquiline nose as he lifted his proud dark head and saw her in the doorway and his grim golden eyes hardened.
‘I know you’re angry with me but I have to talk to you,’ Billie said with low pitched urgency. ‘I have to tell you what I’ve done—’
‘What you’ve done?’ Alexei repeated drily, a slanting brow quirking in emphasis. ‘Does this relate to Lauren’s loaded comments about knowing where the bodies are buried?’
That was a question that Billie would have preferred not to have to answer just then. But the awareness that she could not afford to play with the truth even just a little froze her in place. Slowly she nodded in reluctant affirmation of that point and watched his lean strong face darken in angry acknowledgement.
‘Even your mother knows what I do not?’ Alexei demanded.
‘Yes. I did try to keep it all private but I’m afraid she worked out what I didn’t tell her for herself,’ Billie confessed quietly.
Alexei let his gaze roam over her small straight figure. For once what she wore enhanced rather than concealed her body and it was obvious that she was naked be
low her robe. The lush curves of her breasts were clearly delineated by the thinly draped silk and the tip-tilted swollen nipples that had thrilled to his attention were still tantalisingly prominent below the fine material. The heaviness stirring at his groin forced him to shift position in his seat while he wondered cynically if that revealing wrap had been chosen purely for his benefit.
Regardless of that suspicion, desire slivered through him and the strength of his sudden heated arousal took him aback. Just for once, satisfaction had not led to satiation. But then the very force of what he was feeling, that pungent mass of anger, bitterness and disillusionment, required a physical response; he was far more comfortable with his body’s natural appetites than he was with words or emotions. Determined to ease himself in the most effective way of all, he extended a lean hand to her in silence and with a wary look of surprise in her green eyes she was quick to grasp his fingers. Banding his arms round her slight length, he crushed her to his big powerful frame and claimed her soft mouth with hot, driving hunger.
‘Se thelo.’ Alexei told her bluntly that he wanted her in roughened Greek and as the heady combination of yearning and relief at that invitation gripped Billie it left her infinitely weak. His embrace had blown her vague expectations out of the water and with every erotic plunge of his tongue her legs felt more boneless and less able to provide independent support. So keen was she to bridge the gulf between them at that moment that he could have done virtually anything with her and she would have offered no objection.
With a bold tug on the sash of her robe so that the edges fell apart, Alexei lifted her up onto the desk. He moulded the lush, creamy swell of her breasts, tugging at her swollen nipples, before he lowered his dark head to close his mouth urgently to a pouting peak while he pushed her legs apart so that his fingers could slickly massage the tiny bud of her arousal and probe the excruciatingly tender pink flesh beneath. She whimpered, excitement shrieking through her in a great rampant roar of heat, her body eager for release from the terrible tension. That fast, she could think of nothing but the urgent craving that his skilful caresses had induced.