Dark Torment (41 page)

His lips were soft as they caught hers, infinitely gentle, loving,
caring. . . . Sarah responded to them like flowers to the sun, opening up,
stretching, reaching. Her arms went around his shoulders to clasp him to her.
He winced, cursing, and immediately released her to probe his shoulder gingerly
with his hand.

“Oh, Dominic, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” She
was immediately concerned. Impossible to believe that she had so completely
forgotten about his wound.

“Just a passing twinge. Nothing to concern yourself
about.” He moved his shoulder once, experimentally. Then he was leaning
over her again, clearly intending to take up where he had left off.

Sarah pushed him away with a hand on his chest, sitting up. The
gaze she turned on him was determined. “I came in here meaning to check
on your wound, and with one thing and another I forgot. But I’ve
remembered now.”

Dominic abandoned his attempt to kiss her for the moment, and
leaned back against the mound of pillows, surveying her with a look of
possession that nearly made her forget what she was about.

“Sarah, my own, the only way you’re going to be able
to see my wound is if I get out of this very peculiar garment. It—uh, has
no top, you see. It is entirely in one piece.”

Sarah lifted her eyebrows at him. “So, get out of it.”

His eyes widened in mock horror. “But I have absolutely
nothing on underneath.”

“It’s a little late for modesty now, isn’t
it?” she said to him as he had to her once before.

He grinned, showing her that he remembered, too.
“You’re right about that. Well, if I must I must. But,
Sarah—close the door first, will you, please? I don’t fancy having
the entire household gaping at me in the altogether.”

Sarah glanced over her shoulder, startled to find that the door to
the hallway stood wide. Anyone could have seen her rolling on Dominic’s
bed. . . . She blushed. And got up to close the door.

When she came back, he was clad only in a neat white bandage wound
crisscross fashion around his left shoulder. The contrast between his bronzed,
hair-roughened masculinity and the soft white bed was riveting. It certainly
riveted Sarah. It was all she could do to stop herself from staring at him.

“There’s no need to worry yourself about it, my own.
It was naught but a flesh wound.” He was sounding very Irish, which Sarah
had noticed he did in moments of tenderness.

She smiled at him. “For a flesh wound, it left you awfully
weak. Yesterday you could hardly walk.”

“That was yesterday. Today, after a good meal and a night in
a fine bed, I feel a new man.”

“What a shame! Just as I was growing rather fond of the old
one.”

“Rather fond? Rather fond!” It was a fearsome growl.
He caught her by the arms, pulling her down and turning until she was lying on
her back on the bed while he, with the bedspread still covering him to the
waist, leaned over her. “Admit it, woman. You love me madly.”

“I love you madly,” she said with an air of humoring a
lunatic.

He grinned, the twist of his lips wolfish, and bent down to find
and ravish her mouth with his. When he lifted his head at last, her blood was
drumming in her ears.

“Now say it again,” he ordered.

“I love you madly,” she repeated obediently, but this
time the words were breathless.

“Much better,” he said with satisfaction, and bent to
kiss her again.

Sarah’s arms went around his neck, mindful of his shoulder
this time as her eyes closed. She would allow him to kiss her for a few minutes
only, then would see to his wound. . . . But her fingers found the silken hairs
that curled at his nape and lingered, fascinated by the contrast between warm,
hard skin and cool, soft hair. Her mouth was preoccupied, too, with the feel of
his firm lips and searching tongue. She met that tongue with hers, stroked it,
explored the inside of his mouth while he held back, letting her learn new ways
to please him. Her hands began to move, stroking his hair, his neck, his
back—she ran her fingers along the faint trails left by the beatings he
had suffered. She could barely feel the scars. In time, she thought, they would
heal completely, and she was glad. Dominic should not have to bear all his life
the signs of his enslavement. . . .

His fingers were searching behind her for the fastenings of her
dress. His fingers fumbled, tugged, and he cursed under his breath. She reached
behind her to still his hands. His wrists under her fingers were hard and
strong, and roughened by hair.

“Let me,” she whispered. He looked down at her for a
moment before releasing her to roll onto his back.

Sarah stood up, her eyes never leaving his as she reached behind
her back to feel, through the thick curtain of her hair, for the tiny hooks.
She found one, then another, and loosened them while he watched her with eyes
so blue that they would have put sapphires to shame. When the last was freed,
she hesitated, then slowly slid the dress down her arms and over her hips. When
she straightened, she was clad only in her plain white linen chemise and
unadorned petticoat. He looked at her as if she were dressed in the filmiest of
silken underthings. She met his eyes, and felt love and desire join forces
within her to make her as clay before this man, willing to do anything and be
anything to please him. And she knew that her boldness pleased him. . . .
Slipping out of her shoes, she placed one foot deliberately on the edge of the
bed. She slid first the plain blue ribbon garter and then the sturdy white
cotton stocking down her leg with seductive slowness. His eyes followed her
every movement as she repeated the deliberate provocation with the other leg,
then he gazed with open heat at the slender curves of her bare leg as it poised
for an instant before vanishing again beneath her petticoat.

Sarah smiled to herself at the dark color that mounted to his
forehead as he stared. He wanted her—she had seen the signs often enough
now to recognize them. But she meant to make him want her more. . . . Her hands
moved to the tapes of her petticoat. She untied them one at a time, carefully
smoothing each crumpled ribbon, watching him all the while. Tiny beads of sweat
appeared one by one to adorn his upper lip.

“Sweet Jesus, Sarah, hurry,” he whispered hoarsely.

She smiled and let the petticoat flutter to the ground. Standing
there clad only in her chemise, with her long, curving legs bare beneath and
her breasts pushing against the thin white linen so that the tiny hard buds of
her nipples were clearly discernible, she no longer felt she bore any
relationship to plain spinster Sarah. She was beautiful Sarah, beloved Sarah,
Sarah who would soon be Dominic’s bride. . . .

“Sarah, if you don’t get that damned flimsy thing off
and get into bed with me, you’re liable to cripple me for life,”
Dominic warned in a thick voice.

“Am I now?” she whispered, smiling a little.

Then her hands were beneath the sensible shoulder straps, sliding
the garment down. When she stepped out of it, she looked up to find his eyes as
hot as the fiercest flame as he looked at her bare skin. Sarah trembled beneath
that searing regard. Suddenly she was no longer in the mood to tease him, to
play. . . . She joined him on the bed, melting into his arms, her own locking
around his neck as she returned his kiss with the same ferocious abandon as he
offered it. She was as quicksilver in his arms.

“Oh, Sarah, my Sarah, I ache with wanting you,” he
whispered into her ear as his hand found her swelling breast. She closed her
eyes as tremors of passion curled her toes, and reached beneath the coverings
to find and claim that most tangible evidence of his ardent desire. . . .

He groaned as her fingers closed around him; his eyes closed as
she caressed him in the way he had taught her, her fingers tantalizingly cool
and sweet against the swollen shaft that pulsed and burned in her hand. He
tried to roll with her, so that he could cover her with his body, but Sarah was
having none of that. Being the aggressor, she found, was a heady experience.
She was suddenly consumed with the need to bring him to the same pitch of
feverish delight he always evoked in her. Wriggling free of his possessing
arms, she pushed him back against the mattress with one hand against his chest.

“Sarah?” Her name was a hoarse question. He was lying
obediently back against the mattress, his skin very dark against the white
sheets. She was kneeling over him, naked, her breasts pink and swollen with
need, her unbound hair falling down over her shoulders to mix with the black
curling wedge of hair on his chest.

“Sarah!” This time it was an urgent demand, punctuated
by his hands as he reached for her.

Again she eluded him, trailing provocative fingers down over his
hard abdomen to slide beneath the blankets and just brush the hardness of him
before dancing away. He clenched his teeth, his eyes open again as he watched
her. Watching dark color suffuse his face, nearly giddy with the knowledge that
she could excite him as he always so effortlessly excited her, Sarah’s
eyes widened as a sudden inspiration occurred to her. She loved the feel of him
under her hands, the way he pulsed and hardened. She wanted to know him better,
to know him every way there was to know him, as intimately as he knew her. . .
.

The blankets were tangled around his hips. Dominic drew in his
breath as she pulled them away. He was completely naked now, his long length
sprawled darkly across the bed, his eyes a smoky sapphire as they stared at
her.

“Sarah, what the hell . . . ?” His voice was hoarse,
and he made no further effort to reach for her.

Sarah looked at him for a long moment, her eyes as hot as his,
then turned her attention from his face to other, more immediately interesting
parts of him. Her hand came out to rub over his belly. The muscles tightened
under her soft caress; then she bent her head and replaced her hands with her
lips, nibbling and licking and biting. The thick, soft mat of hair on his belly
tickled her nose; beneath her lips she felt his stomach tighten. With the
corners of her eyes she saw his hands clench into fists on either side of his
hips as she followed the beckoning arrow of hair downward.

When the moment came, she hesitated fractionally. Could she really
go through with this? He did not move, seemed not even to be breathing. His
hands were clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles were white. A
fleeting glance upward showed her that his face was hard, intent, his lips
slightly parted, his eyes aflame.

When she kissed him, he groaned as if in mortal agony. Encouraged,
she ran her lips over the length of him, her tongue coming out to savor and
taste. He was salty, and faintly musky, and scalding hot. . . .

“Jesus, Sarah!” The thick mutter came as he
jack-knifed upright, his hands catching her waist and dragging her up with him.
He was breathing hard, his face a dark red, his hands trembling where they held
her.

“Didn’t you—like it?” she whispered,
staring at him, thinking that, in her inexperience, she had done something
wrong. Or, was it something that men did only to ladies?

“Like it?” He groaned the question, twisting with her
so that she was flat on her back on the bed and he was looming over her. He
seemed to be having trouble speaking.

“You do it to me,” she pointed out in a barely audible
whisper.

“Christ!” The word was explosive. His legs slid
between hers, his long thighs trembling, and then he came into her so fast that
she cried out. He bent his head, drowning her cry with his mouth, taking her
with hard, urgent strokes as his broken mutters gave her to understand that he
liked her innovation very much indeed.

Sarah spent the next few days trying to work up the nerve to break
the news to her father. He would not be pleased—to put it
mildly—that his daughter was planning to wed a convict. She hoped that
she could persuade him to accept the situation with a modicum of grace, but she
feared he would not. Her father’s prejudice against convicts was deeply
ingrained. His staunchly exclusionist beliefs would, she knew, be outraged. And
Lydia wouldn’t help matters any. Her stepmother’s attitude had been
positively malevolent every time Sarah had crossed her path. Lydia would never
forgive her for having forced her to back down, or, Sarah thought, for the
improvement in her appearance. At Dominic’s request, Sarah had taken to
wearing her hair in a loose roll, which was vastly becoming. In addition, also
at Dominic’s request, she had taken a few of her mother’s old gowns
from the attic. With only minor alterations, they fit Sarah as if they had been
made for her. Although they were out of fashion, the high-waisted empire
styles, with their fitted bodices tied beneath the breasts to fall into a long,
slim skirt, somehow managed to transform her boyish figure into a graceful
elegance that was very feminine indeed. Every time Sarah caught a glimpse of
herself in a mirror, she marveled at how much difference these dresses made in
her appearance. She was having less and less trouble believing Dominic when he
insisted that she was beautiful.

Dominic’s wound was much improved. He could walk without
difficulty, and had very little trouble moving his arm. Although he was eager
to move back into the bunkhouse—he did not feel comfortable in the big
house, where he knew he was tolerated at best—Sarah so far had managed to
talk him out of going. Her reasons were twofold: first, she usually managed to
creep into Dominic’s bed sometime during the night when the rest of the
family were sleeping. These sessions had of necessity to be very quiet, but
what they might have lacked in sound they certainly made up for in fury. The
wanton pleasures her body was capable of were as constant a source of amazement
to Sarah as was her changed appearance. She had supposed that as she grew
accustomed to Dominic’s love-making, the sharp, spiraling excitement
would be progressively dulled. Instead, it increased.