Stormy Vows

by Iris Johansen

  At one point she found herself dancing with a handsome Latin who held her much too close and murmured romantic Spanish nothings in her ear. She vaguely remembered gaily accepting his invitation to dance when the young man presented himself at their table. His name was Ramon de… something or other, and she found that his arms were just as comforting as Kahlid's or Simon's if she couldn't be with Jake.

  Then an authorative hand tapped the man on the shoulder, and she looked up to see a grim-faced Jake beside them. “My dance, I believe,” he said crisply, placing his hand at Jane's waist and whisking her firmly into his own embrace.

  Ramon frowned crossly, but after a glance at Jake's face, he turned sulkily away.

  “Your Latin lover gives up easily,” Jake said with a savage grin. “I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to rearranging those classic features.”

  Jane only half heard him as she nestled closer into his arms, everything forgotten but the blissful fact that she was in Jake's embrace.

  “This is the first time we've danced together,” she said dreamily as her arms slipped around his neck. “I did so want to dance with you, Jake.” Her face clouded. “Then somehow everything was spoiled.” She shook her head bewilderedly. It was all too complicated to think about now.

  “You seemed to keep yourself well occupied,” he said harshly as they moved languidly around the floor. “It was quite fascinating watching you try out your wiles on every man in the room. Did you enjoy yourself, Delilah?”

  “No,” she said simply, her cheek rubbing gently back and forth on his white linen shoulder. “I only wanted you.” She looked up into his face with pleading eyes. “Take me home, Jake.”

  He looked down at her, his face expressionless except for the flickering flame in his dark eyes. “Champagne appears to make you quite amorous, my little sex kitten. By all means, let's go back to the yacht. After all, it's my privilege to end the evening with you, regardless of how many men you require to keep you contented.” He stopped dancing in the middle of the room and turned away abruptly. Grasping her by the wrist, he strode through the dancers toward the front door of the nightclub.

  “Where are we going?” Jane gasped, trying to keep pace with his long-legged stride.

  “We're going back to the yacht, where else?” he replied mockingly. “You want to be alone with me, remember?”

  A nagging uneasiness pierced the golden haze induced by the champagne, like the first rays of sunlight through the morning fog. “But we can't just run off and leave the others without saying a word.”

  They had reached the street now, and at Jake's imperious motion, the red-liveried doorman summoned a taxi with his piercing silver whistle.

  “I don't see why not,” Jake said coolly. “We'll send the launch back for them.”

  He bundled her into the taxi and climbed in after her with a curt order in Spanish to the cab driver.

  Jane shivered as her bare shoulder touched the cold vinyl of the upholstery. “My wrap,” she said vaguely, “I left my wrap at the table.”

  “Someone will bring it,” Jake said indifferently. His arm slid around her, and he pulled her closer to the heat of his own vibrant body.

  Jane rested her head in the curve of his shoulder. She was conscious even in the intimacy of the embrace that his hold was strangely impersonal, and the knowledge would have troubled her if she hadn't suddenly been overcome with drowsiness.

  Her next recollection was of being lifted into the launch and wrapped in Jake's white dinner jacket, which smelled deliciously of starch and shaving lotion. Then, after another brief period of sleep, she was aware of being carried in Jake's arms and placed on the unmistakable softness of a bed.

  Jane opened her eyes drowsily to see Jake straightening slowly, his dark face shuttered. She looked around the master cabin of the Sea Breeze with a sigh of contentment. How strange that this luxurious suite had so quickly become home to her, she thought dreamily. Even the grotesque graffiti on the wall opposite the bed brought forth only an affectionate smile.

  “I'm glad you're back with me, sleeping beauty,” Jake said teasingly, “and in such a good mood, too.”

  She turned and smiled happily at him, admiring the tough masculine grace of the rippling muscles in his chest and shoulders as he stripped off the white dress shirt and threw it carelessly on the gray velvet chair across the room.

  She came into his arms like a nail to a magnet when he sat down beside her on the bed. Her lips brushed his throat in a multitude of soft, yearning kisses.

  His arms held her quietly. “Such a loving, passionate nature,” he said coolly, pushing her away to look down at her with narrowed eyes. “I wonder how much of it is for me alone.” His forefinger idly traced the full curve of her lower lip. “Would you fly just as eagerly into young Simon's arms, now that I've shown you the way?”

  She looked up at him, her golden eyes clouded with bewilderment. “I don't understand.”

  “That was more than obvious tonight,” he said softly as his hands left her shoulders and moved down her back to deftly unzip the chiffon gown. “But I have every intention of making sure that everything is quite clear to you by morning.”

  He unfastened the strapless bra and pushed it, with her dress, to her waist. His dark head bent slowly, and his lips and tongue lazily caressed the pink nipples that soon were blossoming into hardness. “Quite clear,” he repeated thickly.

  In the long hours that followed, Jane wondered at one point if she could survive the physical and mental torment that seemed to be tearing her apart. Jake Dominic, the passionate lover who had brought her to the peak of ultimate ecstasy with skill and tenderness and then shuddered in her arms with his own fierce pleasure, was not this Jake Dominic.

  This man also had incredible sexual expertise, but he used it with cool, calculated control. Time after time he used hands and lips that seemed to possess a devilish power to raise her to feverish need. There was no part of her body that was not caressed and probed and then caressed again, until she felt that there was not an inch of her flesh that was not exquisitely and painfully sensitized to his touch. He would toy with her like a large cat, his hot black eyes gleaming with savage satisfaction, until she was almost sobbing with frustrated desire. Then he would grant her completion in a burst of ruthless driving passion that would leave her shuddering like an exhausted and bruised swimmer cast upon the shore by a tidal wave.

  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 ey
es 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 soren
ess. 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.