Stormy Vows/Tempest at Sea (45 page)

Over and over the ritual of arousal and savage assuagement were repeated, until the silent tears were running down Jane's cheeks. Bewildered, she looked up at him as he crouched over her, his face a dark mask of brooding determination.

“Why?” she gasped desperately, her head moving back and forth on the pillow in an agony of response. “For God's sake, why, Jake?”

“Because you're mine,” he said hoarsely as he drove forward between her thighs with explosive passion. “You may not be mine forever, but for now you belong to me.” His words came out in a tormented rhythm caused by the force of his thrusting movements. “I won't have you smiling at, or touching, or even looking at, any other man. Do you understand?”

“Jake,” she whimpered, striving desperately to marshal the words to explain, to entreat, but she was so lost in the heated haze of urgency that she could not speak.

“No one else, ever,” he repeated relentlessly. “Do you understand?”

“Yes!” she almost screamed, digging her nails into his shoulders as the scarlet haze exploded into a thousand fiery tendrils of sensation.

It was almost dawn when Jake reached for her yet again, and suddenly her sobs no longer could be restrained. Jane found herself shaking and trembling in a reaction to the sensual assault that had no relation to love or affection.

Dominic froze, his body still for a long moment. Then, with a swift movement, he released her and reached out to flip on the bedside lamp. Turning once again to look at her, he started to curse violently as his eyes noted and comprehended his work.

Jane's eyes were dazed and shadowed with shock and misery, her lips swollen and bruised with the force of his lovemaking. She instinctively shrank away from him as his face darkened with a forbidding frown.

“God!” he said huskily, passing a trembling hand before his eyes, but not before she had seen the sick torment in their depths.

He reached out and plunged the room once more into darkness and pulled the sheet over both of them, tucking the cover carefully around her as if she were a small child. “Stop trembling,” he growled, “I'm not going to touch you again.”

He turned and lay on his back, his arms beneath his head. Even in the dimness of the darkened room Jane could see that his face was set and still as he stared sightlessly into the darkness. Her sobs were now reduced to mere ragged breaths. She was as bewildered by this reaction as she had been by his earlier savagery.

“I'll arrange to have Marc take you to the airport this morning,” he said quietly.

She stared at him in alarm. Surely she hadn't made him this angry—not to the point of sending her away from him.

“Why?” she asked shakily, wiping her eyes on a corner of the sheet.

“Why!” he exclaimed bitterly. “My God, I've just used you
as if you were a prostitute. I wanted to hurt you, and I set out to do it in the most humiliating and painful way possible.” He laughed harshly. “My damned ego was damaged, so I decided that I'd prove that I could make you beg for it. And you ask me why?”

Jane tried desperately to think. Her mind was a muddle of emotions and half-formed ideas. There was only one clear thought shining through the morass. She must not be forced to leave Jake. This was perhaps the most significant and potentially dangerous moment in their relationship to date. If she couldn't relieve him of his guilt and bitterness, he might well send her away, and she could survive anything but that.

“It wasn't entirely your fault,” she said tentatively. “I behaved badly at the nightclub.”

“You're damn right you did,” he said grimly, his voice hard. “If I hadn't known what was driving you, I would have strangled you. Instead, I took a revenge that I thought I could enjoy.”

He muttered a savage curse and fumbled in the drawer of the bedside table. Soon she heard the strike of a match, and the small flame briefly highlighted the planes of his face as he lit a cigarette. Then the flare was gone and there was only the orangered tip of the cigarette glowing in the darkness.

“Did you think that I didn't know what was bothering you?” he asked bitterly. “I told you that you'd be running for the hills as soon as you got a taste of what living with me would be like.” The tip of the cigarette flared bright as he inhaled deeply. “I admit that I didn't expect it to be after only one day.”

“I'm not the one running away, Jake,” Jane pointed out quietly. “You're the one who's rejecting me.”

Jane could feel the sudden stillness of his body as he lay beside her. Then his voice came out of the darkness with savage deliberateness. “What are you, some kind of masochist? Do you like the idea of being abused? For God's sake, I can't even promise that it won't happen again.” He turned to look at her, the glow of the cigarette casting a shadowy aureole over his features.
His lips were twisted cynically, and his eyes held all the weariness of the world. “I'm a selfish bastard, and I have the devil's own temper. I've made it a habit to get whatever I've wanted for my entire adult life. It's not likely that I'll reform at this late date.”

“I haven't asked you to reform,” Jane whispered. “I fell in love with the man you are, not some idealistic dream of what you could be.”

“Very tolerant of you,” he said mockingly. “I imagine you'd be less generous if I suddenly decided to savage you again.”

A ghost of a smile curved her lips. “It would take a little getting used to, but who knows, I might get to like it,” she said lightly. “Isn't forceful and repeated seduction by the man she loves supposed to be one of a woman's favorite fantasies?”

There was a blank silence, and then Jake chuckled. “You're really incredible, redhead.” He shook his head in wonder. “Any minute now, you'll be thanking me for broadening your sexual experience and granting one of your fondest desires.”

“I don't think I'd go that far,” she said serenely. “But it's not as if I didn't enjoy some of it, Jake. It would have been physically impossible for me not to.”

There was another long silence before Jake turned and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray on the table. He turned back to her and said abruptly. “I want to hold you.” There was an oddly formal hesitancy in his voice. “Will you sleep in my arms, redhead?”

Jane felt an odd melting in the region of her heart. Would she ever understand this strange, complex man? Part devil, part little boy, and all tough, brilliant male.

“I'd like that,” she answered softly.

She was immediately brought into the warm haven of his embrace, and her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. He held her as carefully and sexlessly as if she were a child.

“You won't send me away?” she asked sleepily, her body suddenly languid and exhausted in the warm security of his arms.

Jake kissed the top of her head. “No,” he said thickly. “God, no!”

“Good,” she said contentedly, rubbing her cheek like a kitten against the hard bone of his shoulder.

“Go to sleep, redhead.” Jake spoke softly, his eyes alert in his dark face.

Jane relaxed obediently and was almost asleep when he spoke again, the words sounding oddly solemn and stiff, as if the sentiments were foreign to him, as indeed they were. “Jane,” he whispered, his hand gently stroking her red curls, “I'm sorry.”

She smiled drowsily and went peacefully to sleep.

ten

WHEN JANE OPENED HER EYES, BRIGHT SUNSHINE
was streaming into the cabin and she was alone in the king-sized bed. A startled look at the digital clock on the bedside table told her why. It was almost one o'clock, and lunch was always served at one-thirty. Why hadn't Jake awakened her, for God's sake?

She jumped out of bed and headed for the shower, stopping only to pull a yellow terry-cloth robe from the closet. She stepped beneath the shower's steaming spray and closed the frosted cubicle door behind her. The pounding of the water on the tiles was so loud that she didn't hear Jake calling her name until he spoke right outside the shower stall. She immediately turned off the water and called back, “I didn't hear you, Jake. I'll be right out.”

“No, stay where you are,” Dominic said huskily. “I had to muster all my willpower to get out of bed and leave you, and I don't have much left. You walk out of that shower naked into my arms and it will all have been for nothing. I just came down to give you a message.”

Jane's breath caught in her throat, and she could feel an electric jolt of desire at his words. There was something erotic about standing here naked and vulnerable and watching that virile
shadow on the other side of the frosted door and knowing that he wanted her. “Message?” she asked, moistening her lips.

“Lola asked me to tell you that she'd like to say goodbye,” Jake explained tersely. “She and Kahlid are taking the four o'clock plane to Las Vegas to do some gambling. She's in her cabin packing.”

“Jake, you didn't—” Jane started to ask indignantly.

“No, I didn't suggest that they leave,” Jake interrupted firmly. “Not that I wasn't planning on it, but Lola saved me the trouble. A very clever woman, our Lola.”

After last night it was no more than Jane expected. “I'll go and see her as soon as I get out of the shower,” she said softly.

“You do that.” Jake's voice was oddly absent, and she could see the shadow move a step closer and his arm reach slowly for the handle of the door. Then the hand dropped and she heard a low curse and the shadow was suddenly gone.

It took her a moment to steady her breathing and the trembling of her hand before she could reach out and turn on the spray again. She let the soothing water pour over her and wash away all tension and soreness. Besides a slight stiffness and languidness, she felt no other signs of Jake's punishing lovemaking of last night. Her mind shied away instinctively from the thought of those savage passionate hours, but she firmly and deliberately focused her memory on the events both before and after.

She knew she must face and accept what had happened if she was to keep her love for Jake free from fear. She had been afraid for a little while last night, she admitted to herself. Yet she had known that Jake would never really hurt her physically, despite the cold anger that had prompted his actions. What had really frightened her was the terrifying sense of helplessness that she had experienced as she lay in his arms. He had manipulated her inexperienced body as if she were a puppet on a string, using his sexual expertise to dominate her until she'd felt as though she
were being absorbed, her own spirit and personality melting away under the force of his greater experience.

She reached absently for the shampoo in the holder and began to shampoo her hair. It had really not been Jake's dominance she had feared, so much as her own inadequacy. Her hands paused in their scrubbing motion as the realization came home to her. Jane reviewed the evening with lightning swiftness. Yes, that was the underlying factor that had started all the tension and misery and almost caused Jake to send her away.

Even last night, when she had felt more glamorous than at any other time in her life, she'd been conscious of her pitiful inexperience in comparison to Jake's usual companions. She had felt miserably unsure when she had faced the sexy sophistication of blond Cindy Lockwood. Even Lola had been the focus of her subconscious envy.

Though Jake had seemed pleased with her responsiveness in bed and she couldn't help but be aware that he had derived an almost insatiable pleasure from their lovemaking, she was still besieged with doubts. Was it only the novelty of their association that held him enthralled? Would he become bored once the newness of their relationship wore off? She had none of the tricks and skills of the experienced women who had graced his bed. The only advantage she might have over possible rivals was her boundless love.

So the problem was clear. In order to retain Jake's interest and her own confidence, she must become more knowledgeable. The pertinent question was, how was she going to get that expertise? She doubted that such knowledge could be obtained from books, though she was sure thousands had been written on the subject. She had no desire to experiment with any other man. Her forehead creased as she considered one possibility after another. Then her face cleared when the solution occurred to her. Of course—it was so simple. Why hadn't she thought of it before?

Jane hurriedly rinsed the shampoo from her hair and stepped out of the shower, drying herself swiftly and slipping on the yellow terry-cloth robe and matching scuffs. There wouldn't be time to dry her hair, she decided. She wrapped a towel turban fashion around her head and swiftly left the steaming bathroom.

In a matter of seconds she had crossed the short distance from the master suite to Lola Torres's cabin at the end of the corridor. She paused and drew a deep breath. Then, squaring her chin determinedly, she knocked firmly on the door.

Jake Dominic scowled darkly as he checked his wristwatch impatiently. Lola was already fifteen minutes late. Kahlid had finished saying his lengthy and cheerful farewells and was waiting in the launch with the seaman who was to take them to the pier at Cozumel. Lola's luggage had been collected and placed in the launch some thirty minutes ago, yet there was still no sign of her.