Dark Torment (33 page)

“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 there 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.