Fear of Love

by Carole Mortimer

  He watched her closely. ‘Not for Sabrina,’ he denied softly.

  ‘Then who—’ her eyes widened. ‘Me? You were looking for me?’

  He poured himself another drink. ‘Stupid, wasn’t it? I somehow had the idea you would want to be there. When you weren’t—well, it just confirmed my suspicion that you were temporarily suffering from a teenage crush. When it came to harsh reality you couldn’t take the pressure.’

  Alexandra put her arms about his waist from behind, her head resting on his broad back. ‘That isn’t true, Dominic. Oh, I’ll admit that when I first heard of your being taken hostage I was completely panic-stricken. But I’ll get used to it,’ her hold about him tightened. ‘I will, Dominic,’ she said desperately. ‘Really, I will!’

  He released her hands from about his waist and turned to look at her, their two bodies pressed close together. He ran one hand down her fevered cheeks. ‘Don’t get too used to that sort of thing happening, Alex,’ he warned softly. ‘I’m not sure I could go through that again myself.’ His body shook against her. ‘I wanted so much to see you, and I didn’t hear from you.’ His voice was agonised.

  Alexandra burrowed against him, sensing his weakening towards her. ‘I thought you would come straight home, I never expected you to stay in London. Trevor said you’d be surrounded by the press and that if I meant anything to you you’d call me and I’d have plenty of time to get up to London before the press finished with you.’

  Dominic bent his head to trail his lips across her creamy throat. ‘My brother doesn’t know everything,’ he said softly, his breath caressing on her skin. ‘We parted with too much uncertainty between us for me to be confident of your feelings when I returned. By telephoning you I would have been putting pressure on you I didn’t feel I had the right to inflict.’

  ‘Oh, Dominic …’ she breathed against his hair-roughened skin visible between the open neckline of his shirt. ‘You’re right about me, I am juvenile. I went out with John tonight as a salve against my injured pride, not because I really wanted to.’

  ‘That’s not so juvenile. Didn’t I do that same thing with Sabrina?’

  ‘Have you been with her the last two days?’ She felt her heart would break if he said yes.

  ‘No,’ he said tautly. ‘I had a programme to do. Wednesday and Thursday are the usual days for recording. I was referring to kissing her at the airport.’

  ‘Dominic, do you—do you know how you feel about me now?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘I know that all the time I was away I kept thinking about you, kissing you, just being with you. I also know I’ve never felt this way about any woman before. But whether or not it’s love I have no idea. But even if it is I have no intention of marrying you.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ALEXANDRA stiffened in his arms. ‘I’m not asking you for marriage.’

  ‘Not ever?’ His hold on her arms didn’t slacken as he forced her to look at him. ‘Are you saying you would never ask me for marriage?’

  Alexandra bit her lip, her eyes never flinching from his steely grey ones. ‘Not if you don’t want it,’ she answered breathlessly.

  His fingers bit into her tender flesh. ‘You would go on for years never knowing whether the next day was going to be the day I did find the woman I want to marry, you would be my mistress with none of the security of marriage? Would you be prepared to do that, Alex?’

  ‘There’s no security even in marriage if you don’t have love,’ she evaded.

  ‘That wasn’t the question,’ Dominic insisted grimly.

  She wrenched out of his arms, glaring her resentment at him. ‘Yes, I’ll do that if it’s what you want! I don’t have any choice, do I?’

  ‘Yes, you have a choice.’ To her surprise he smiled. ‘When I said I wouldn’t marry you, I meant I wouldn’t marry you now.’

  Alexandra frowned. ‘I don’t understand you.’

  Dominic sat down. ‘When you asked Gail and Trevor for permission to marry Roger you’d only known him for a few months; we’ve discovered we’re attracted to each other in only a matter of days.’

  ‘Time doesn’t matter,’ she interrupted.

  ‘Of course it matters,’ he denied tersely. ‘I disapproved of your marrying him because of your youth and the fact that you hadn’t been going out together very long. Neither of those reasons is any different just because of a change of boy-friend. I couldn’t ask Gail and Trevor to change their minds just because it’s me, that would be like admitting we were unsure of how we felt.’

  ‘You haven’t told me how you feel yet, only that you’ve been thinking about me.’

  Dominic grinned, beckoning her over to him. ‘I would rather show you,’ he drawled throatily.

  She blushed profusely. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’

  ‘Then come here,’ he invited softly. ‘If I can touch you perhaps I won’t keep staring at you.’

  Alexandra looked down self-consciously. ‘This wasn’t the way I wanted it to be. I wanted to be wearing a floating black creation, my hair in a sophisticated style, everything about me sophisticated. Instead of which I’m wearing these awful denims and this green sun-top. I didn’t think at the time, I just grabbed the first thing I laid my hands on.’ She was babbling again, but somehow the look in his eyes had that effect on her.

  He lay slumped down in the chair. ‘I wouldn’t care if you were wearing nothing—in fact I would prefer it.’ He chuckled at her embarrassment. ‘If you intend being my girl-friend you’ll have to get used to remarks like that.’

  She came forward hesitantly, coming to stand in front of his splayed legs. ‘Am I going to be your girl-friend?’

  ‘Oh, I think so, don’t you?’ He put out a hand to grasp her wrist, pulling her down into his arms. ‘Somehow I don’t feel tired any more.’ He cupped her face in his hands, his head moving down slowly so that his lips claimed hers.

  As soon as his lips parted hers to deepen the kiss she felt herself responding to him, her arms about his neck to hold him to her. The kiss was deep and drugging, his mouth seeming to plunder her very soul. His hands moved ceaselessly over her back, bringing her closer and closer to the hardness of his body.

  But Alexandra felt none of the panic that Roger’s kisses in her bedroom had evoked, knowing only pleasure in Dominic’s arms. He was a master of the art of love-making but held a very tight control over his actions with her. His lips on her throat scorched where they touched, his hands on her back moulded her to him. But he made no effort to touch her in a more intimate way, even though her body cried out for it.

  ‘Dominic,’ she said tentatively.

  ‘Mm?’ He was intent on the sensitive area beneath her ear-lobe.

  ‘Dominic, do you—do you want me?’ She wriggled with pleasure as his tongue probed the sensitive cord in her throat.

  ‘What do you think?’ he growled.

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘That’s another of the conditions,’ his voice was muffled in her hair.

  ‘C—conditions?’

  ‘Mm. I made up my mind while I was away that if you were still set on the idea of loving me I would have to set myself a few conditions. One of them is that if we do decide to get married it won’t be for six months, not until you’re eighteen.’

  Her dismay showed on her face. ‘But that’s ages!’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he groaned. ‘It will seem even longer to me, I’m not accustomed to being with innocents. I’m not used to denying myself either. I’ve had a very varied sex-life since Marianne and I were divorced. I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to stand the strain, but I’ll give it a damn good try—as long as you don’t try and tempt me too often. That’s the other condition, nothing physical between us until we’re sure of each other.’

  ‘If you aren’t—making love to me will you go to Sabrina Gilbert?’ Alexandra felt it was a question she just had to ask him.

  ‘No,’ he answered abruptly. ‘On Tuesday night, after I
got away from the press, we went back to my apartment as we usually do. I’m not going to lie to you—I needed someone desperately that night. But it was no good for us. Sabrina blamed it on the trauma of the last week, but I knew that wasn’t the reason. A pair of deep blue eyes kept haunting me. It was the most humiliating experience I’ve ever been through.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ She kissed his strong jawline.

  ‘You’re pleased that I couldn’t make it as a man?’

  ‘With another woman, yes.’

  His fingers trailed along her cheek. ‘How do you know I’ll be able to make it with you?’ he teased.

  ‘I did offer,’ she reminded him.

  His arms tightened about her. ‘And I would love to accept that offer, however innocently it was made. I want you like hell!’

  ‘Oh, Dominic!’ She melted against him, the dark sheen of her hair like a curtain about them.

  ‘But it’s not possible,’ he said sternly. ‘It’s part of the conditions. We could become blinded by a physical relationship. I know damn well I could lose myself in you, and I don’t want our judgment to be clouded in that way. If we do marry it will be because we’re genuinely in love with each other, not because we have something good going for us physically.’

  ‘So you’re testing me, testing to see if my love will last.’

  ‘I’m testing myself too, Alex. It would be so easy to take you to my bed right now, but that isn’t the way I want it to be. I made a mess of my first marriage, I don’t intend for that to happen again. I can’t even believe I’m making this much of a commitment to you. I swore I would never get emotionally involved with another woman.’

  ‘Are you emotionally involved with me?’

  ‘The word love is used too casually these days. I want to be very sure before I say it to you. Let’s just be satisfied with what we have for the moment and see how it goes. No talk of marriage, especially to other people. I want people to just get used to seeing us together. There will be a lot of talk, you know that?’

  ‘I don’t care.’ She clung to him.

  ‘Some of it could get malicious,’ he warned. ‘This is a village, Alex, and some of the women around here would just love to find a scandal in our going out together. They would have a field-day if they knew you were here now.’

  ‘I still don’t care.’

  ‘I hope you feel the same in a couple of months. I suppose you realise I’m notorious in this area? I lure innocent females to my house and ravish them.’

  Alexandra giggled. ‘I’m sure most of them wanted to be ravished.’

  Dominic chuckled. ‘I can’t believe this is you and me here like this. If it had been suggested to me I would probably have laughed at the idea.’

  She frowned. ‘Regretting it already?’

  ‘I’m hoping I never will. I’m really hoping this will be for ever.’

  She smoothed away the frown from between his eyes. ‘I’ll try to make it so.’

  ‘Give yourself time, little one. Learn to like before you love.’

  She gave him a rueful look. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been so busy hating you in the past that there’s been no room for liking.’

  ‘Do you remember why you started hating me? You never used to, you know.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ She made to move out of his arms, but he held her fast. ‘It seems like I always did.’

  ‘Alex,’ he probed softly. ‘Don’t shut it out of your mind, not now. There has to be complete honesty between us. I had too many lies from Marianne to want it to happen that way again. I want to talk about it, Alex, about the day I rudely awakened you from your childhood.’

  Her laugh was strained. She had put the thought out of her mind for so long now that it was still painful to remember, the day Dominic had come crashing down off the pedestal she had placed him on. ‘Hardly that, Dominic,’ she said lightly. ‘I was fifteen at the time, high time I began to realise the facts of life.’

  ‘So you do remember it.’ He studied her deeply. ‘I always thought it was the reason, but I could never be sure. There was a time when my home was almost your home, when you walked in and out of here as if I was your brother. Until the day you walked into one room too many.’

  Her face was pale now. ‘It was my own fault. I—I should have realised. I knew you had Julia staying here. I just didn’t expect …’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to walk in there either. Julia walked out on me muttering all sorts of threats. I was furious with you at the time.’

  ‘I was so shocked,’ Alexandra admitted shakily. ‘Maybe even then I secretly wanted it to have been me.’

  ‘Do you mind!’ he exclaimed indignantly. ‘I feel like a cradle-snatcher now, let alone considering seducing a fifteen-year-old.’ He gently pushed her head down on to his shoulder. ‘Never mind, darling, we’ll take a shower together one day and perhaps that will blot the memory of Julia and me together out of your mind.’

  It was already forgotten. It had been an incident blown up out of all proportion in her mind. Dominic’s latest girl-friend had been staying with him and Alexandra had walked in on them as they were stepping out of the shower together. It had been a shock to see him so intimate with another woman—and she had begun to hate him from that moment on.

  She glowed now at his use of the endearment. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  Dominic took a deep breath. ‘I think I’d better get you home now, before I break my own rule.’

  ‘Oh, not yet, Dominic,’ she pleaded.

  ‘Right now. Do you realise that it’s almost two-thirty in the morning? You’ll have Trevor out here looking for you soon.’ He pushed her to her feet, standing at her side. ‘And we don’t want to start off on the wrong foot with him. He may be my brother, but he also has a large say in your future.’

  ‘Not once I’m eighteen.’

  ‘Even then. I won’t marry you without their permission.’

  That he was considering marrying her at all was more than she had dared to hope. ‘Surely Trevor wouldn’t refuse his own brother?’

  Dominic smoothed back his ruffled hair. ‘He knows me better than anyone, the life I’ve led, the women I’ve had, so he has all the more reason to object.’

  ‘But you couldn’t be expected not to—not to have had women. You’re a very virile man.’ Her eyes teased him. ‘I have a very vivid picture of you in my mind as you stepped naked out of that shower. You have a beautiful body.’

  His eyes had darkened almost to black. ‘Come here,’ he groaned, pulling her into his arms, his body evidence of how her words had aroused him.

  His kiss was savage, blotting out all of the gentleness he had treated her with earlier, and yet Alexandra loved him all the more for it. She loved the way his mouth moved demandingly on her own, the way the fierce passion between them threatened to consume them both. It was a feeling she welcomed, and her body strained against him for more intimate contact.

  She shivered slightly as Dominic dispensed with the buttons on her cotton sun-top, but it was a shiver of pure delight, not one of fear, and the quivering increased as he released the single front-fastening to her bra, cupping her breasts to stroke the taut nipples to full pulsating life.

  Then they were no longer standing but lying side by side on the sofa, Dominic seeming to have lost all desire to resist her. His mouth soon replaced those caressing hands, his lips and tongue making her gasp out his name in pleasure. She had never known such mindless pleasure before, never dreamt it could be like this with a man, a man one loved.

  He lifted his head, his eyes glazed with passion. ‘Oh God, Alex, I should have sent you home hours ago, while I still had the power to resist you.’

  She caressed his nape, loving the feel of his hair through her fingers. ‘I don’t want you to resist me. Just go on loving me. It feels so good!’

  His look was agonised. ‘I know, that’s what I was afraid of. I don’t want any other woman, being with Sabrina proved that, and yet I could take you here and now, r
evel in you. But you can feel that, can’t you, feel the way I want you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Alex!’ His mouth claimed hers again as he pressed her back against the softness of the sofa.

  Alexandra didn’t notice his weight on her, aware only of the hard demand of his body against her thighs, of his own bare chest revealed by his open shirt against the nakedness of her breasts. One of his hands ran from her thigh to her breasts in slow circular movements, setting her aflame wherever he touched.

  Finally he drew back with a gasp. ‘If this doesn’t stop in a minute I’m going to lose control completely.’

  She looked up at him. ‘You once told me that being old and ancient it takes more than a beautiful face and a youthful body to turn you on.’

  There was a fine sheen of perspiration on his brow. ‘Yes, well, perhaps I’m not as old and ancient as I thought I was. I’m almost at breaking point with you.’

  ‘Only almost?’ Now she knew what Dominic had meant when he had said she couldn’t be in love with Roger if she had never been tempted to go to bed with him—she was more than tempted with Dominic, she wanted it to be a reality.

  ‘No,’ he groaned. ‘I am at breaking point!’

  Alexandra met the passion in his kiss with equal fervour, stripping his shirt from his shoulders, caressing his muscular back with her finger-tips. ‘I love you, Dominic,’ she gasped at the explosion of feeling between them, the hard thrusting of his body met by her own frantic clamouring for his possession of her,

  ‘If you love me, Alex, then help me,’ he begged. ‘Please, help me!’

  ‘But, Dominic—’

  ‘Alex, please!’ He was shaking against her.

  She knew he meant it, knew she had to stop him or risk his burning anger afterwards. But it wasn’t easy to dampen down her own desire, not when she had so recently discovered just how wonderful it could be.

  Finally she managed to gain some control over herself, cradling Dominic to her as he visibly fought for control. His head rested on her shoulder, his breathing soon calming down to a more even tone.