by Penny Jordan
When at last Dominic raised his head his eyes were almost black and undecipherable. Saffron's nails had left tiny crescents of pain where she had pressed them into her palms, her whole body tense with the effort of maintaining an outward show of indifference.
'Are you going now?' she asked unpleasantly, marvelling at her ability to appear unmoved when inside her she was crying with pain and hurt.
'Not just yet.' There was silky menace in the words, something about the determination in his eyes that sent danger signals flooding through her body. She looked wildly at the door, but to reach it she would have to brush past him, and there was no way she was going to allow her body to come into contact with his voluntarily.
'You've still got something that belongs to me, I believe.' He looked pointedly down at the shirt she was wearing.
'This? You want this?'
'Not only want but am going to have,' he promised softly, and bent towards her. Saffron thought he was going to start unfastening the buttons and clutched the lapels protectively, eyes huge in her fragile face, but to her shock he simply grasped the edges and pulled roughly, buttons flying in one direction while the shirt gaped open, exposing her body to his gaze.
'You want it?' Her voice was shrill with temper and fear, as she slid the shirt off her body, driven beyond anger or embarrassment, to a pitch of fury she had never experienced before. Not caring that she was completely naked apart from the tiny lace briefs she was wearing, she rolled the torn shirt into a ball and flung it at him. 'Then take it ... Take it and get out, and don't ever come back!'
He fielded the shirt almost absently, his eyes fastened on her body, a look in them that made her heart begin a hurried drumbeat of spiralling panic.
'You can't imagine the torment of remembering you like this and not being able to do a damned thing about it,' he told her hoarsely. 'Night after night, day after day, until I thought I was going to go crazy, that I was crazy, no woman could be so perfect, so desirable, but I was wrong.'
Saffron moved, and his hands jerked out, fingers biting into the soft flesh of her waist.
'Even now you don't know what we had, do you?' he said slowly. 'How rare what happened between us was; so rare that I've never experienced it before and never want to again. That first night in Rome ...'
A terrible pain seemed to explode inside her, sending shivering fragments of anguish into every part of her body.
'Why?'
'Because I can't experience it again and live through the knowledge that that's all it is—one experience. I want it for ever; I want you for ever. It tears me apart to think of any other man touching you, seeing you, like this.'
It was some new refined form of torture he'd devised especially for her, Saffron thought numbly, it had to be.
'Let me go .. . Let me go!' she told him fiercely.
'Not until I've done this.'
'This' was a kiss that inflamed her to the point where she couldn't think of anything but the need to feel his body next to hers.
'God knows, I know you can't really love me,' she heard him whisper against her throat. 'You don't even know me, but wanting you and not having you is driving me mad; I can't think straight, ever since they let me out of hospital...'
'Hospital?' She stiffened in his arms.
'God, you don't surely think I wouldn't have come to you before if I could? I told myself you were just experimenting, just growing up, that I was a fool to read anything serious into it, but I was bewitched. When I thought of Guido touching you I wanted to tear him limb from limb. I couldn't forgive myself for exposing you to him— for what so nearly happened. You were so frightened, so ... God, I nearly went mad when you begged me to take you! I told myself I wasn't going to, but the first touch of your body beneath my hands, your lips on my skin ...'
'I thought you didn't want me because I was a virgin.'
'Like hell!' Dominic murmured succinctly. 'I wanted you all right; from the very first moment I set eyes on you, there was a very special magic between us from the very first, but it wasn't until I saw how courageous you were, how brave despite your fear, and how appallingly innocent, that I realised I loved you as well, and hated myself for the danger I'd brought to you. I underestimated your effect on Guido—and myself. There were times when I came close to calling the whole thing off, but I couldn't without exposing you to further danger.'
'You love me?' She frowned as he winced, suddenly remembering what he had said about hospital. 'They told me you were dead,' she whispered, filled with the horror of that moment.
'So that Guido, Olivia and their friends wouldn't come looking for me—a very natural precaution, and one your father fully endorsed until after the trial and you told him the truth. He gave me some pretty gruelling moments, I can tell you, despite my wounds. I was in hospital at the time recovering from the gunshot wound Olivia inflicted.'
'When you saved my life,' Saffron murmured brokenly. 'I was going to tell them that at the trial. I was going to ...'
'I know all about that,' Dominic said grimly. 'God, you really know how to put a man through it, don't you?'
'I told Daddy I. loved you, and even then he said nothing.' There was pain in her voice and eyes.
'What could he do? We both thought you were suffering from a severe case of infatuation—it isn't exactly uncommon in the circumstances.' He grimaced slightly, flexing a shoulder, and Saffron remembered that he wasn't long out of hospital. 'You think you had problems. I knew what I felt was no infatuation, but I promised your father I'd give you time to adjust to normal life again, and anyway, being in hospital hardly meant that I could sweep you off your feet, but I was getting to the stage where even if he hadn't come to see me, I was coming to see you. God, imagine how I felt when I reached the penthouse and discovered you'd left! I'd got it all planned, quiet dinner somewhere, plus explanations, and then ...'
'Then what?' Saffron asked huskily, hardly daring to let herself hope.
'Then a night of bliss in my arms,' Dominic said softly, 'after which you'd be in no fit state to refuse my offer of making an honest woman out of you. There at least I was on safe ground. I knew how you would respond to me. God, I spent long enough trying to forget! I knew it was taking an unfair advantage, you were hardly in a position to make comparisons, but I'd reached the stage where I was desperate enough to use any means of keeping you in my life. I told myself I'd just have to convince you that what we had was pretty special and that infatuation or not, I intended to become a permanent feature in your life. Even to the extent of using blackmail if need be.'
'Blackmail?' Saffron looked puzzled, and he laughed, drawing her down into his arms.
'Yes, my lovely little wanton; that child you so badly wanted to conceive.'
'You mean ...'
'I mean I love you so damn much I'd even descend to the level of making you pregnant to make sure you married me.'
'I thought that was my role,' Saffron dimpled, laughing as he rolled over and pulled her down on top of him, kissing the laughter from her mouth, his fingers caressing her breasts until they peaked into hard arousal, and she heard him groan protestingly against her skin.
'Where you're concerned I lose all self-control. I want you, Saffron; I love you and I need you.'
'I love you too,' she whispered back, 'so much that I can't wait to fall asleep at night and dream that you're with me.' A faint blush coloured her skin, and he laughed triumphantly.
'I can do better than that, my love—much, much better, but only if you promise to make an honest man of me just as soon as it can be arranged; otherwise I'll tell our grandchildren how you seduced me.'
Saffron laughed, loving him more than ever in this teasing mood, but the laughter died from her eyes when she looked up at him and saw the love she had longed for so achingly, her body trembling as she arched beneath him, his groaned response smothered against her skin as his mouth moved from her lips to her breast and back again.
This time there was no need for him to beg h
er to undress him, nor to make allowances for her inexperience, nor indeed any need for Saffron to dam up the husky words of love she murmured against his skin, eliciting an instantaneous response. Dominic loved her and she loved him, and she could forgive him all deceit, all pain, everything—because he had given her so much already in compensation, and that, as he told her in the aftermath of their lovemaking, was just the beginning. The best was yet to come!