“Dominic . . .” Sudden doubts made her lift her eyes frantically to his.
His eyes shifted from their searing contemplation of her nakedness to meet her beseeching gaze. He must have read the uncertainty there, because he drew in his breath thickly and dropped to one knee beside her, his hand reaching out to trail a gentle finger across the tips of both breasts. Her nipples hardened and tightened in instant response to his touch. Sarah stared down the length of her slim pale body, mesmerized by the contrast between his hard brown hand and her small, creamy-skinned breasts with their tiny rosebud nipples standing rigidly at attention as that finger softly caressed them.
“It will be all right, Sarah. I’ll take care of you.” The hoarse words were a promise. He was bending over her, the dark beauty of his face blocking out her ability to think, or remember, or do anything but feel, as his hand slid from her breasts over the silken skin of her belly to the tawny thicket of hair between her thighs. She arched against that hand, returning his kiss feverishly as her legs parted and his hand slipped between them.
Her arms were locked around his head as she kissed him with fierce abandon. Gently he broke her hold, catching her hands in his and prying them from around his neck as he slid down her body, his lips gliding hotly across her neck to nibble with tiny erotic bites on first her collar bone and then, devastatingly, her breasts. Sarah moaned, her eyes closed tight against the fierce heat of the sun and the even fiercer heat that his hungry mouth was stoking in her body. Her hands found his head again, to twine with mindless need in the thick strands of his hair. She felt a shaft of liquid fire shoot along her veins as he suckled at her quivering nipples, and whimpered when at last his mouth left her breasts to forge a moist trail across her flat belly to the curling triangle of hair below. He pressed a hard, hot kiss to the soft mound; Sarah felt the shock of it clear down to her toes. Her eyes fluttered open. They widened at seeing his black head nestling cozily between the slender white gleam of her parted thighs.
“Dominic, no!” she protested raggedly as he pressed torrid kisses to the dampening heat of her. She tried to close her thighs and her senses against the unthinkable thing he was doing to her; her fingers tugged sharply on his hair. “Dominic!”
He lifted his head at the frantic plea in her voice. Unable to help herself, she moved her hips in silent protest at the cessation of the fiery torment of his lips on the most secret, shameful part of her. At her involuntary movement his eyes narrowed with passion. His breath caught in a harsh sigh.
“You taste so good—like honey and spice,” he muttered gutturally as he slid slowly back up her body. “Sweet Jesus, Sarah, I want you!”
His lips claimed hers in a fierce, savage possession. Sarah gasped and shuddered into his mouth. She could taste herself on his lips; the notion both shocked and excited her unbearably. Her arms came up to lock around his neck, pulling him to her. She pressed her body to his as he ground himself against her, groaning. With her satiny inner thigh she could feel the fiery hardness of him as he sought her softness. But even as she returned his kiss with passionate abandon, undulating her body against his, rejoicing in the rasp of his chest hair against her straining breasts, in the steely strength of his muscles as he locked her to his body, in the sheer overwhelming maleness of him, he was pulling away, arms trembling as he propped himself above her on his elbows.
“Dominic!” His name left her lips in a drugged protest. Her eyes opened to blink dazedly at him. Her nails dug into the back of his neck with feline savagery. Beneath the crushing weight of his hips, her pelvis arched instinctively, pressing her soft female parts against the hardness of his masculinity. Why had he stopped? She couldn’t bear it if he stopped. She was on fire for him. . . . But, despite her wordless pleading, still he held himself away.
“Not yet,” he murmured, his arms loosening their hold on her body so that one hand could slide between them to find and caress the soft triangle of hair—and beyond. “Not yet, Sarah. Let me make it even better. . . .”
His fingers were doing wondrous things to her, touching off that same secret wellspring of spiraling madness that he had tapped before, making her writhe and groan until she was wild under his hand, her head thrashing helplessly in the tangled nest of brown-gold hair, loosened from its braid by her frenzied movements. When at last his hand was replaced by that hot, throbbing part of him she craved, she was sobbing with passion, her nails digging deep into his shoulders, her legs winding around his waist. When he found her, and plunged inside as if he could not wait an instant longer, she cried out with boundless pleasure. He was huge, and hard, and fiery hot, and quite the most wonderful thing she had ever felt. At first he barely moved inside her, gentling her, driving her crazy with his very control. Finally she could stand it no longer. Her hips began to undulate in an age-old, instinctive rhythm that made him gasp, moving faster and faster, on fire for that ecstasy he had given her before. The sensation of her body swallowing him only to free him and swallow him again was exquisite. She clutched him tighter, calling his name.
“Christ, Sarah, you’re driving me out of my mind.” The guttural mutter was labored. Then, suddenly, he was taking control again, moving harder and faster until at last he was pounding into her, rushing her away with him on a fierce, never-ending ride. . . .
“Sarah, my Sarah.” He was moaning her name into her neck as his mouth pressed into her heated skin and his arms clasped her to him.
Her hands clasped his back now, frantically caressing his shoulders before raking them and the wealed flesh lower down with her nails. This time she didn’t even notice the scars; if she hurt him, he made no sign. He was breathing thickly and heavily into the curve between her neck and shoulder, his body coming into hers again and again and again. . . .
“Dominic, Dominic, Dominic, Dominic, Dominic.” The cry was wrenched from Sarah’s throat as at last the hot, escalating spiral of need inside her exploded without warning into a maelstrom of fiery rapture. As she sobbed out his name Dominic stiffened, poised above her, then plunged deep inside her with a hoarse groan. He shuddered, holding her clamped against him, then slowly, very slowly, their bodies ceased their wild quaking and they clung limply together.
It was an endless eternity later when Dominic propped himself on his elbows again, his body still joined to hers, and looked down at her. Sarah, slowly coming back from the drifting fog he had lost her in, felt him looking at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. She felt suddenly, hideously exposed. In his arms, she had again shed her ladylike skin and been as wanton as a street woman. She felt herself color with embarrassment as the memory of what had just passed ran through her mind in a series of vivid vignettes. He had done dreadful, shameful things to her and she had reveled in them. . . . Would he mock her? Would he laugh?
“Sarah.” She was not mistaken: there was an undertone of laughter in that lilting voice. Cringing inwardly, she kept her eyes tightly shut, refusing to admit daylight and reality. “Come on, Sarah, you have to open your eyes sometime. I won’t go away just because you refuse to look at me.”
Bowing to the inevitable, Sarah forced open her eyes. She was shocked to find his face so close—and mortified to see the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t laugh at me!” Her voice was slightly wobbly, but sharp.
He smoothed her tangled hair away from her face. Sarah jerked away from the touch of those long, strong fingers, but he caught her face firmly with his hands on either side of it so that she could not look away from him. Unwillingly she met his eyes. What she saw there confused her: his bright blue gaze was rueful, amused—and tender.
“I’m not laughing at you, Sarah. I’m laughing at me, at us, at this entire ridiculous situation. There you were, spitting mad at me, threatening to have me hanged and doing your damnedest to shoot me, and clubbing me with a rifle butt, but all I could think of was how lovely you were without your clothes. I was frustrated as hell because I wanted to make love to you and t
here wasn’t any place. And now here we are, on a blanket in the dirt. . . .” He broke off, laughing a little. Sarah stared bemusedly up into his lean brown face. “Never before have I wanted a woman enough to risk a sunburned behind and a terminal case of flea bites.”
Sarah’s eyes searched his for a long moment. Then, slowly, cautiously, she smiled, a mere tentative curving of her lips, but one he rewarded with a kiss. Her lips fluttered under the brief, warm touch; her hands, which had been resting beside her on the blanket, fingers burrowing into the wool, came up to touch his arms, rubbing almost unconsciously over the hard, bulging muscles.
“You’re heavy.” The words were a halfhearted protest, made because she thought she should. In truth, despite the odd little niggling discomforts that were beginning to make themselves felt along her body as he pressed her into the blanket, she never wanted to move again in her life. She loved the feel of him, the rasp of his body hair against her, the rivulets of sweat fusing their naked bodies. And that other, fused part of them . . . Sarah could feel him, still inside her, but softer now and smaller, and slowly slipping away.
“Am I now?” He rolled obligingly to one side, propping his head on one hand and imprisoning her on the blanket with his other arm lying heavily across her waist.
“We should get up.” She felt very self-conscious lying there stark naked, with the glaring sunlight playing over her, exposing every deficiency of her too-slim body. And it didn’t help that he was openly staring at her, from her small breasts with their crests now rosy-soft to her tiny waist and narrow pelvis to the long, slender curves of her pale legs. His eyes traced caressingly back up the length of those legs to linger on the dampened patch of gold curls between her thighs. Galvanized, Sarah struggled to sit up. He held her easily in place with that arm around her waist.
“Oh no you don’t. If I let you up, you’ll probably have the bullets out of my pocket and the rifle aimed on me in a trice. And, while I must admit I enjoyed watching you hold the beast at bay, I’d rather rest my weary bones awhile longer. And the sand fleas be damned.”
Sarah’s eyes flickered up to meet his, shy and uncertain yet quite liking being kept so close to his naked body. Her own nakedness, and the feminine deficiencies revealed by the shimmering sunlight, she did not know quite how to deal with, so she refused to think of them any longer. He was grinning warmly at her, a teasing light in his eyes. Staring bedazzled into that handsome face, Sarah felt her heart begin to beat in slow, uneven strokes.
“How did you manage to unload the rifle?” she asked, seeking to focus on something other than the way he was making her feel. Besides, that point still mystified her. His hand slid from her waist to absently cup and then caress her right breast, which immediately responded by swelling into his hand. Sarah sucked in her breath, fighting the urge to turn to him. It was an effort, but she managed to force her eyes away from that large brown hand on her pale skin and up to his eyes.
He grinned. “A priest I once knew in Ireland—an old rapscallion if there ever was one, despite his holy calling—shared his various methods for avoiding a Protestant jail with me when I was a young boy. One of his less-nefarious tricks was to grab a loop of the rope being used to tie him up and twist it around his hand. When the loop is released, the rope is loosened. That’s what I did when you were tying my hands—very clever you were about it, too; your resourcefulness never ceases to amaze me. Then, when you were sound asleep, it was not difficult to work my hands free. And once they were free, well . . .”
“You untied yourself, took the rifle from my side, unloaded it, tied yourself up again—no wonder those knots were so tight!”
“I must admit, tying myself up again was more difficult than I had anticipated. Fortunately, you were more concerned with the ropes around the tree than the ones on my hands.”
“And you let me order you around all day as if I could really shoot you if you didn’t do as I said!” she said with a rush of indignation as she glared at him. His grin widened, revealing even white teeth gleaming in the sun. Sarah refused to allow herself to be sidetracked by the memory of how smooth those teeth felt against her tongue. . . .
“You were having so much fun,” he explained, trying and failing dismally to sound apologetic.
“You—you . . . !” she sputtered, unable to force out the very uncomplimentary word she had in mind.
“Swine? Beast?” he supplied helpfully.
“No,” she said, and before she could stop it, out popped the filthy sobriquet he had supplied her with once before.
His eyes widened with mock horror, and then he dissolved into laughter, rolling onto his back and dragging her, willy-nilly, with him. “Oh, Sarah,” he said when at last he could speak again, his eyes gleaming at her with amusement and something else as she lay sprawled inelegantly—and unwillingly!—across his chest. “You are a delight. I keep having difficulty getting past the way you look—so much a lady, my own, even when you’re riding astride in your nightrail, or dressed in too-big men’s breeches—to the way you really are.”
“And how am I?” She was pushing against his chest, embarrassed by her posture almost as much as by the profanity she had uttered. Her hair was tumbling over her shoulders to mix with the dark mat on his chest before trailing against the gray wool of the blanket. She used it to shield her face, knowing that she was blushing.
“A woman,” he said softly, suddenly sounding serious. “A real, live, honest-to-Jesus woman, with enough fire beneath the cold surface to keep me constantly aflame.”
Shaken by the sober note in his voice, her eyes came out of hiding and rose to search his face. He was no longer smiling.
“Dominic . . .” His name was all she got out before his hand was burrowing through her hair to clasp the back of her head and pull her mouth down to his. She went willingly, a fine trembling in all her limbs. As her mouth met his, she moaned. To her surprise, his body responded promptly to the heated union of their mouths. Even before the kiss ended, he was ready for her. Sarah felt the evidence of his desire against her bottom as he pushed her into a sitting position straddling his abdomen, his hands on her waist. Her eyes widened to huge golden pools as she looked down at him with amazement. Was this lovemaking something that people did so often? Animals, she knew, mated only once or twice a season. She turned beet red at the thought.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Sarah.” The thickness of his voice made her heart pound. “You’re so beautiful, it’s only natural for me to want you again—and again—and again. . . .”
“Do you really think I’m—beautiful, Dominic?” The question was humble despite the tremors that shook her legs and her arms, which were braced with hands palms-down against the damp pelt on his chest. Her eyes as she met his darkening ones were vulnerable.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, his eyes moving over her face. “The shape of your face, an almost perfect oval with those high cheekbones and that smooth round forehead and determined little chin, is beautiful. Your hair, so thick and soft, the color of honey with glistening gold threads running all through it, is beautiful. Your eyes, as golden as the sun up there beneath those funny winged brows, are beautiful. Your mouth, so full and pink, is beautiful. . . .”
“Dominic . . .” she interrupted, half-laughing, touched to the heart by his soft, seductive words. His hands tightened on her waist; his eyes, midnight blue now with passion, frowned a warning at her.
“I’m not finished,” he said severely, his eyes sliding down over her body. “As I was saying, your neck, so long and elegant, is beautiful. Your shoulders and arms are beautiful. Your breasts—they’re beautiful: soft and white with little pink nipples that taste of strawberries, just the right size to fit into the palm of my hand. Your tiny waist, which would be the envy of many a fashionable young lady in Dublin, is beautiful. Your silky little belly is beautiful; your behind—you have no idea what that round little bottom does to me!—is beautiful. Your long, lovely legs and everything that’s between
them is beautiful. But the most beautiful thing about you, Sarah . . .” He paused, making her wait. “The most beautiful thing about you, Sarah, is you. You’re brave and funny and kind, and beneath your very proper exterior lurks a woman who can make me shake with terror or passion—depending upon the circumstances—clear to my toes. Oh yes, Sarah, never doubt it: you’re beautiful.”
“Oh, Dominic!” She felt moisture rise to her eyes and determinedly blinked it away. How absurd, to be moved to tears by his teasing. She shook her head at him, her long hair moving seductively across his chest. “I fear you’ve a bad touch of the Blarney stone, Mr. Gallagher.”
Her attempt to ape his distinctive lilt made him smile. “No, I don’t,” he denied, his eyes caressing. “But if I did—there’s an old Irish custom says that a dreadful fate will befall a maid who sees the Blarney stone but doesn’t kiss it.”
“Is there now?” she said softly, letting him pull her down.
“Aye,” he confirmed against her mouth, his brogue deliberately exaggerated. With her lips just brushing his, she felt his smile widen. “And I’m afraid, my Sarah, that you’re about to meet it.”
“Am I now?” she whispered just before her lips surrendered to his.
XXI
It was much, much later when Dominic opened his eyes to survey with lazy satisfaction the form of the sleeping woman sprawled naked across him. He had not meant to let what had happened happen. When he had dragged her down off her horse he had meant only to give her a good scare before sending her on her way to Lowella alone. But, writhing and struggling in his arms, her small fists beating at him and his own colorful curses falling furiously from her lips, she had lighted a fire in him that had prompted him to taste her lips one more time—the last time, he had promised himself. He hadn’t foreseen that she would go wild in his arms—or that a single kiss could make the fire in him blaze up until it raged wildly out of control. After that, everything that had followed had been inevitable. He had wanted her with a greedy craving that swept all before it. He smiled with some amusement at himself, his hand coming up to gently stroke a strand of shot-gold hair that trailed across his chest. Who would have guessed that he, Dominic Gallagher, long addicted to the charms of lushly endowed beauties, veteran of more beds than he could remember, would be so violently attracted to a skinny, bossy, viper-tongued old maid? If any of his former skirt-chasing companions could know, they would think it the biggest joke of the year. Because of course they wouldn’t see Sarah as he had come to see her. Her quiet, fine-boned beauty was not readily apparent at first glance. One had to look again and again. But rig her out in some fashionable, becoming clothes and teach her to style her hair, and he wagered that she would turn heads. She would be an elegant, cool-mannered lady—with the soul of a virago. Dominic didn’t know which side of her appealed to him most.
Dark Torment Page 25