This Fierce Splendor

by Iris Johansen

  She was naked, lying on the coverlet, her hair an unbound glory of lustrous brown shot with gold. Her eyes were closed, her lashes arcing onto the softness of her cheeks. Her pink lips were crumpled and slightly parted.

  He stood looking down at her, the muscles in his belly knotting and his manhood becoming rigid. The scent of mint and cloves radiated from her pale skin, shining in the lamplight as if burnished by a loving hand. His. She had come to him.

  He set the lamp down on the bedside table, unfastened his gunbelt, and set it beside the lamp. The long wait was over. He began to strip quickly, never taking his gaze from the woman on the bed.

  Heat surrounded her, invading her senses, piercing the heavy veil of sleep.

  “Elspeth.” Dominic’s voice, rough velvet. “Open your eyes.”

  Her lids were so heavy that it was a difficult command to obey. She wanted desperately to go back to sleep, but Dominic kept calling her as he had called her so many times before to free her from a prison of nightmares. She hadn’t realized she had been dreaming, but it must be so or Dominic wouldn’t be calling her. Her lids fluttered, then slowly opened.

  He was so near, scarcely a breath away, looking down at her. His light eyes were hot and his lips were heavy with sensuality. He had looked like this once before, she remembered hazily, right before she had fallen down the slope. But that was a long time ago, a hundred nightmares ago, and she couldn’t quite recall …

  “No, don’t shut your eyes again. Wake up, Elspeth.”

  She hadn’t known her lids had closed, but she obediently opened them again to look into his face. How very unusual and shimmering were those gray-blue eyes gazing into her own. Dominic had such beautiful eyes. “I’m awake.”

  “Good.” His voice was jerky. “Because I sure as hell can’t wait any longer. Come here.” His lips were on her breasts, this tongue flicking at the sensitive nipples. Flame shot through her and she cried out, arching up to him.

  “And you can’t wait either, can you?” he muttered. “Crazy. I was crazy not to …” His hand moved down her stomach to nestle in the curls at the apex of her womanhood, tangling, pulling gently as he suckled at her nipple.

  Her heart pounded painfully, she couldn’t breathe, her flesh was on fire. Hunger. She was experiencing insatiable hunger. She wanted more. Her hands went around his shoulders and slowly slid to his neck to curl in the thickness of the hair at its nape. “Dominic, I want … more,” she whispered.

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you more.” His fingers moved down, searching. “I’ll give you all you can take.” He found what he had been seeking and began massaging, stroking.

  She convulsed, the muscles of her stomach clenching. Sleep vanished, the world vanished. All that remained was Dominic’s skillful fingers and that secret part of her slavishly responding to his bidding.

  His gaze was narrowed on her face, hungrily catching every nuance of expression. “Hell, I’ll give you more than you can take. I want to make you want it so bad you’ll beg me for it.” His fingers began a circular movement.

  She gasped and her teeth clenched. A pulse throbbed in her temple, another throbbed against his fingers. “Dominic!”

  “I’ve wanted you too long,” he muttered as he moved over her. “I wanted time to touch you, play with you, dammit.” He parted her thighs, one finger running down the flowing heart of her. “Lovely. I knew you’d be this lovely.”

  She should be fighting him, she thought vaguely. There was some reason why she should be fighting him.

  Then his finger plunged deeply.

  She cried out, arching helplessly up to him, her fingers tightening in his hair, and all thought of resistance left her.

  “Tell me you want it.” His brilliant eyes blazed down at her. “Tell me you want me.”

  His gaze was holding her own, his finger moving rhythmically within her. Her throat was too tight to speak.

  The rhythm escalated. “Tell me.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  His thumb pressed hard on that sensitive button, his finger delved deeper. “All of it.”

  Elspeth’s head was thrashing back and forth on the pillow, her teeth biting her lower lip to keep from crying out. “I want you, all of you.”

  “You’re damn right you do.” His hands gentled, but his eyes were smoky-hot boring down at her. “And I’m going to keep it that way. I’m going to take you every way there is, and then I’m going to start over. I’m going to keep you so hot, all you’ll want is what I’m going to give you now.” His chest was moving with his labored breathing, and she could see the pulse leap in his temple.

  He raised up on his knees and his rampant manhood was there before her. “See? I’m like this whenever I look at you, whenever I think of you, whenever I’m in the same room with you.” He took her hand and brought it to him.

  Warmth, smooth hardness, pleasant to the touch. Her grasp unconsciously tightened around him.

  His features convulsed, the cords of his neck stood out and he threw his head back. “God!”

  His nostrils flared as he tried to force air into his lungs. “Let me go, Love. I can’t take this right now. Later.”

  She reluctantly released him. Beautiful. That part of him was as beautiful as the rest of him.

  His face was heavy, flushed, as he looked down at her disappointed face. “You like me?” His lids half-closed, veiling his eyes. “You want me again?”

  She nodded, staring up at him helplessly.

  His hands gently widened her legs. “Here?” His palm covered her. Heat, possession, emptiness.

  He knew. Dominic knew what she did not. She could see it in his face, feel it in the warmth of his hand. He knew how to stop the hunger and the fever. “Yes,” she whispered.

  He was there, nudging gently, his hands once more performing that fiery magic. “I’ll try not to hurt you,” he said thickly. “I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”

  He had said that once before, she remembered dimly, and it had something to do with the reason why she should fight him. But it wasn’t the prospect of pain that had frightened her. It was something else.

  He was entering her body. Fullness. Fever. His hard length fighting the tightness resisting it. On Dominic’s face was an expression of terrible pleasure. His eyes shut as his hands closed on her breasts. “You’re killing me,” he gasped. “Tight. You’re so tight.”

  Was that bad? It didn’t seem so, for he wasn’t trying to withdraw. In fact, he was pushing harder, farther into her. Why had he said it would hurt? There was no pain, just this exquisite fullness to combat the hunger.

  He stopped, his eyes opening slowly. They were glittering, wild, almost unseeing with the pleasure enfolding him. He trembled; a shudder rippled through him. “It’s time.” He lowered himself over her, resting his elbows on each side of her. “Open your mouth, love. Take me into you.”

  Her gaze clung to his face as it lowered slowly toward her. There was nothing else in the room, nothing else in the world but his dark face and his body joined to hers.

  “Merge with …” She forgot what she had been about to say as her lips parted and she took his tongue deep within her. He groaned low in his throat, but the sound was lost as their tongues met, toyed, blended.

  He plunged forward, ripping aside the last barrier that separated them.

  Pain, hot pain. Her cry was muffled against his lips. Then completion, fullness, delicious containment. One.

  He lifted his head and looked down at her. “It’s over. Did I hurt you?”

  “Yes. But it doesn’t matter.” She lay there, full of him, and pushed up on her elbows to look down at their joining. How smoothly he fit within her, just like the statue she had seen in that temple in India. Yet the fit was the only smoothness about this jagged, pulsating, hungry intruder. She fell back on the bed. Her breasts beneath his hands were full, swollen, jutting up to touch his palms. “Is it truly over? There seems to be something … missing.”

  He
flexed slowly within her. “I only meant the pain was over.” He moved again and smiled with savage pleasure as she inhaled sharply and then moaned deep in her throat. “This is what it’s all about, Elspeth. This is why you came to me.”

  She hadn’t come to him, he had come to her, but it didn’t seem to be worth arguing about at the moment. Her hands tightened on his shoulders as he began to move, buck, plunge with a rhythm that felt as if it were tearing her apart. She panted, her nails digging into his flesh. Hot liquid heat. Hunger. She was expanding inside, bubbling like the Sun Child, molten, and building toward an explosion.

  “Elspeth.” Her name was a groan on his lips, spoken between clenched teeth. She could see the glow of perspiration on his throat and chest and the pungent scent of bourbon and musk surrounded him. “Mine. You belong to me.” He drove deep within her and stopped. “Say it.” His breathing was so labored he could scarcely get the words out.

  She knew what he wanted with an instinct as ancient as time. Even though the haze of heat, the rhythm that was storming at her body, she knew what he needed. “Yours.” Her voice was scarcely audible, a mere wisp of a sound.

  “Always?”

  “Always.”

  He began to move again, harder and hotter, cradling her buttocks to lift her up to receive each forceful thrust.

  Tears were running down her cheeks. The world was trembling, the tension growing, his thrust deepening. Unbearable pleasure. Exquisite. Titanic. How could it go on without destroying them both? Was this magnificent destruction of the senses when she had feared? No, she would have been helplessly enthralled with it as she was now. Then what?

  The bairn. The answer came to her suddenly. That was what had disturbed her, the possibility of hurt to the bairn.

  “Dominic.” Her tongue moistened her dry lips. It was difficult to speak, but she must. “The bairn.”

  At first she thought he hadn’t heard her. The rhythm didn’t lessen, nor did the intense pleasure on his face. Then he looked down at her and shook his head to clear it. “What?”

  “The bairn. What if—”

  His fingers moved to her lips. “Hush.” A smile so beautiful it took her breath away lit his dark face. “Mine,” he said softly. “Do you think I don’t know how to care for what is mine?”

  No, Dominic would love and care for his child as he did for Killara. He would give it all his devotion and protection. Dominic would not let his bairn suffer hurt or humiliation. “Yes.” She closed her eyes and let the sorcery of emotion flow over her. “You would know, Dominic.”

  A pang of tenderness shot through him, tempering his passion. “You have my promise, Elspeth.” He kissed her lips with a sweetness that shook her even more than his raging possession. “Content?”

  When she nodded, he once more started the rhythm that brought not contentment but soaring hunger and desire. She gasped, her hands fluttering up to clasp him.

  “Elspeth, I think …” His eyes were glazed, his voice a hoarse guttural growl. He moved faster, deeper, the world was spinning, devoid of air, enveloped in flame. “Take me.”

  What did he mean? She was already taking him, all of him. He was part of her. Then she realized what he meant as the spinning increased before becoming a dizzying blue, snapping the tension and throwing them into radiant, pulsating darkness.

  “Jesus!” Dominic’s chest was rising and falling as he tried to get his breath. He didn’t want to leave her, he never wanted to leave her. Yet if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t collapse on top of her. “Damn that bourbon.” He carefully moved off her and drew her into his arms.

  His head fell to the pillow, still covered by the brown velvet coverlet. Why hadn’t she removed the coverlet when she came to bed? he wondered dimly. Now they were too exhausted to bother. His lips brushed her temple. “Are you cold?”

  “No.” The word was slurred. He could tell she was almost asleep again.

  He nestled closer, his hands closing possessively over her breasts. He still wanted her, he realized in surprise. Neither the bourbon nor his pleasure, nor exhaustion had altered that state. He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman again so soon.

  God, he was tired. He would make love to her once more in a few minutes. He would watch her face as he moved and enjoy her incredible tightness. But now he would let her rest and perhaps rest a little himself. His heavy lids closed, he felt awareness edging away from him. No! He tried desperately to capture it once again, but it was gone.

  Elspeth woke with Dominic’s hands cupping her breasts and the feel of his long, muscular body against her back. She stiffened with shock as memory of the night returned, ripping aside the comfortable veil of sleep. She kept her eyes tightly shut. Maybe that memory had been a dream. Perhaps Dominic’s presence in her bed was also a dream.

  Dominic stirred against her, his breath warm on her ear, his big hands tightened on her breasts, his palms gentle and possessive even in sleep. If this was a dream, it certainly was a tactile one, she thought desperately.

  Oh, dear, it wasn’t a dream. Dominic had warned her, but she had believed the threat was an idle one born of anger. She was a fallen woman! Strange, it didn’t feel any different. She could detect no dark burden of sin weighing upon her. Perhaps that would come later. True, there was a slight ache between her thighs that could be a punishment for the iniquity of the act she had committed.

  A warm wet tongue suddenly darted into her ear. Her lashes flew open.

  “Turn over.” Dominic’s voice was dark and drowsy. “You have a magnificent backside, but I have a fancy to—”

  “Brown,” she said dazedly as her gaze wandered to the tan brass-studded chair across the room, then to the amber drapes at the window, and finally to the dark brown of the canopy over her head. “Why is everything brown?”

  “I have no idea,” he murmured. His fingers tweaked lazily at the nipples beneath his hands. “And frankly, I don’t care. I suppose my mother likes brown. Turn over, Elspeth.”

  She threw off his hands and rolled panic-stricken to the far side of the bed. “No, I didn’t want—” She broke off as she sat up and a bolt of pain zagged through her head. She rubbed her temple. “Merciful heavens, my head hurts.”

  “So does mine, but that isn’t my primary discomfort at the moment.” His gaze was fastened on her breasts. “Come here and see if you can make both the aches go away.”

  She gazed at him indignantly. “Have you no compassion? First you ravish me, then you carry me to your room so everyone will know of my disgrace. And now you expect me to submit to you willingly. I’m not lost to all shame even if I am a fallen woman.”

  There was a flicker of anger in his translucent eyes. “Elspeth, I’m in no mood for coyness this morning. My head feels as if it’s been kicked by a horse. I thought you were done with lies. Now, come here and give me what I need before I forget to be gentle with you.”

  “Gentle? You weren’t—” She stopped. There had been pain, but she could not deny he had tried to be gentle. A tide of scarlet dyed her cheeks as the memory of their bodies joined, his face looking down at her as he moved within her. “Well, even if you were, it doesn’t matter. You can’t deny you ravished me.”

  “Ravished?” His voice lowered to menacing softness. “I don’t recall ravishing you. However, that may come to pass if you don’t stop this blasted whining. God, how I hate hypocrisy.” His lips tightened. “You came to me because you wanted me to do exactly what I did to you last night. I thought you’d at last decided to forget the lies a ‘good’ woman tells herself.”

  “I did not come here. Do you think you can hide your debauchery by claiming I came to you?” She jumped off the bed and looked wildly for her nightgown and robe. She didn’t remember him removing them, but they surely must be somewhere. She snatched a corner of the velvet coverlet from the bed and held it before her to hide her nakedness. “Why do you not admit you crept into my room and took advantage of my exhaustion to carry me in here and have your way
with me?”

  He sat up, his expression stunned. “Are you mad? Why should I do that? One bed is as good as another.” He added with a sardonic smile, “To any experienced debaucher.”

  She ran trembling fingers through her hair. She wished her head would stop aching. She couldn’t seem to think. “How do I know why you would do it? I have no knowledge of these matters. What did you do with my gown?” She could see no sign of either her gown or robe. Would he have put them into his bureau drawers? She discarded the idea immediately. Her memory of last night had been of a Dominic far too impatient to be tidy.

  He leered at her. “I burned them. I intend to keep you locked in this room so I may vent my lust on your virtuous body again and again. What else would you expect of a wicked seducer?”

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t mean it.”

  “Of course I mean it. Why shouldn’t I—” He stopped. She was standing there, unclothed, only the scrap of brown velvet and her long fair hair veiling her nudity, her expression vulnerable and uncertain. A sudden wave of tenderness lessened the frustration and disappointment he was feeling. “No, I didn’t mean it. I don’t know where you put your clothes. Don’t you remember?”

  “How could I remember? You’re the one who disrobed me.” Her lips were trembling as she said with touching dignity, “I wish you would not make sport of me. This is not an easy matter for me to deal with. If you will tell me where my clothes are, I will dress and return to my room.”

  His eyes narrowed on her face. There was no coyness there, only genuine distress. She honestly believed what she was saying. He’d had a hell of a lot of bourbon last night with Da and he had been in a wild fever for her. Maybe he could have done what she accused him of.

  He rejected the idea immediately; his memory of every detail of last night was too vivid. He distinctly remembered looking down at Elspeth and thinking, how lovely her pale skin was against the brown velvet coverlet. He remembered lying down beside her and the damnably hard time he’d had waking her. Still, once awake, she’d been everything that was pliant and docile, looking up at him with those huge dreamy eyes as he entered her.