Eyes wide and green and feverish against the hectically flushed oval of her face, she nodded confirmation. 'Does it matter?'
Oh, yes. It matters to me, moraki mou,' Alexei told her in Greek. 'A more honourable man would walk away, because I'm not making you any promises.'
'I know that.' Billie was quick to dispel any suggestion that she had such expectations, yet the denial was like a stab at her heart.
Simmering golden eyes fringed by inky black lashes assailed her. 'But, for what it's worth, I feel more of a connection with you than I have ever felt with a woman. Somehow we fit, khriso mou. I respect you. I like you. Everything feels natural with you, nothing forced or false.'
'It's just all the emotion of the last few days,' Billie protested, fearful of allowing herself to believe that anything was happening between them that could mean something to him, because she thought that such a conviction could only lead her to the madness of false hope and disillusionment. 'And the alcohol.'
'The…alcohol?' Alexei carolled in disbelief. 'Are you suggesting that I might not know what I'm doing?'
'I don't want to take advantage of you,' Billie said deadpan.
Laughing uproariously, Alexei pulled her to him and held her close to kiss her with a hungry passion that was passionately free of restraint. The sexual heat flowed through her again while he strung a line of provocative kisses down the extended length of her throat and across the alabaster slopes of her breasts. She was boneless, breathless even before he returned to the hot dampness between her legs. With exquisite skill, he toyed with the satin flesh, probing the delicate entrance where she ached for a fulfilment she had never known before. His sensual onslaught was a sweet torment, lighting up her every nerve-ending with longing. Her excitement built and built to a towering height and she couldn't stay still or silence the tiny gasps and whimpers breaking from her lips.
He put a pillow below her hips and came over her with practised ease. 'I'll try not to hurt you,' he promised thickly. 'But I want you so much I'm in agony.'
Feeling him nudging at the entrance to her body, she tensed. He urged her to stay still and as relaxed as possible before he sank his engorged shaft slowly into her tight inner channel. She was lost in the extraordinary feeling of his erotic invasion. A flicker of discomfort came as a warning before the main event, when he plunged deeper into resisting flesh, and she yelped at the flash of pain, only to be mortified when he stopped.
'No, don't stop…just get it over with,' she mumbled through gritted teeth.
'How can I resist such an invitation?' Alexei groaned, pausing to brush his lips across her brow in a comforting motion before driving deeper until her body yielded and sheathed him completely. Becoming accustomed to that sensation of fullness, she shifted her hips and as swiftly savoured the flood of intense erotic feelings roused by his slow, steady movements. She brought up her knees, lifting her hips to accommodate his thrusts and crying out her pleasure in encouragement. He abandoned his control, sliding his hands below her to lift her even higher and deepen his penetration, his heart labouring against hers. He ravished her with long driven thrusts and sent her excitement climbing so high she screamed when she tipped over the edge into an explosion of ecstasy and wild ripples of sensual delight gripped her quivering body in the aftermath.
'Bliss…for the first time I see the point of your name, khriso mou,' Alexei breathed from the rumpled depths of her hair, slowly lifting his tousled head to gaze down at her with wondering appreciation. 'That was amazing, but—'
'But?'
We have just had sex without precautions. I can assure you that I'm clean. I have regular check-ups and I have never until this moment made love without a condom.'