Dark Torment (27 page)

“Let me go,” she said again, squirming. Dominic held
her a little away from him. But he thought he could feel the soft thatch of
hair between her legs brush against his hip.

“ ‘Please, Dominic,’ ” he instructed. His
hand tightened around her wrists; he knew that he had to let her go, but he
wanted to make sure first that she understood just who was in charge and how he
expected to be treated. She was a bossy little witch most of the time, and if
he didn’t seize and keep the upper hand, no doubt she would soon be
trying to tell him what to do. But he could not hold her much longer without
doing something that would ruin his plan almost before it had begun.

“Please, Dominic,” she said, to his relief, and he
obligingly let her go.

She swam a short distance away, then turned back to look at him
with an expression he could not read. Sitting again on the creek bottom, she
moved her arms slowly back and forth in front of her as she sought to keep
herself in place against the force of the current. Her long hair floated around
her like twining strands of seaweed. Moonlight picked up gold threads in her
water-dark hair and gleamed off the smoke-ringed sulfur of her eyes. Beads of
water trickled down the satiny-pale skin from her high, sculpted cheekbones to
her small, pointed chin. Her tawny eyebrows winged upward, and her nostrils
flared like a cat’s. Her wide lips were softly parted, and he saw just a
glimpse of her tongue as it flicked over her dewy lips. Her slender neck and
fragile shoulders were just visible above the dark surface of the water. She
looked to him like an illusive enchantress, born of the moon and the water and
the warm night air. As mercurial and changeable as the moon itself . . .

“Bathe,” he said tersely, turning a shoulder toward
her and scooping up another handful of sand.

“The water’s dirty,” she objected. Dominic
didn’t look at her; instead, he concentrated on scrubbing himself clean.

“Not as dirty as you are,” he said. Out of the corner
of his eye he could see her making a face at him, but then she followed his
example, washing first her face and then her body with the sand. Dominic
finished his bath, dunking down beneath the water to rinse away the sand, and
surfaced to find that she was wringing out her hair, twisting the thick mass in
a long coil like a rope as the water streamed from it.

“Come on.” He stood up, indicating that their bath was
finished. She looked hastily away from him, and if there had been more light
Dominic was positive that he would have seen a blush color her cheeks.
“Time to get out.”

“You go ahead. I—uh—I’m not quite
done.” He was walking toward her through the knee-deep water. Still
seated, she continued to wring out her hair; nervous, she kept her eyes
carefully averted. Reaching her side, Dominic bent to catch her elbow and
hauled her to her feet.

“Let go!” She tried to pull away from him, but he
refused to release her. At last her eyes met his, as she leaned away from him
in an effort to break free, and the moonlight silvered her body. . . .

In his effort to enforce his authority, Dominic realized that he
had made a tactical error. The sight of her gleaming wet body, naked and
endlessly alluring, set his pulses to pounding. He wanted her; God, he wanted
her. . . . He knew he should let her go, should turn away from her now, before
he could no longer control his surging need to possess. . . . But to turn away
might reveal to her his weakness. And she would hone in on any weakness like a
spider on a fly.

“Out,” he said gruffly, propelling her toward shore.
If he could just control himself for a moment longer, she would never know. . .
.

Then she stumbled. Instinctively Dominic reached out to catch her,
to save her before she fell. Then automatically he pulled her tight against his
body. She had twisted, trying to save herself as she fell. The soft warmth of
her naked breasts met the hardness of his chest with the impact of a searing
brand.

His arms were around her slim waist; he should release her, he
knew, but his arms refused to obey the dictates of his mind. Instead, they
tightened. . . . She looked up at him, her hair slicked back against her head
revealing the beauty of her bone structure, her eyes wide with alarm and, yes,
he wasn’t mistaken, a reluctant wanting that was yet as insistent as his
own, those soft pink lips parted. . . .

Dominic couldn’t help himself. He bent his head and kissed
her.

Sarah felt his mouth close on hers like a bolt of fire that jolted
her clear down to her toes. His lips were warm and firm, soft at first and then
hardening. . . . She pushed at his shoulders, her hands slipping on his wet
skin. He didn’t budge. His arms were tight around her waist, hugging her
so close that she could feel every hair and sinew. She felt the hot, throbbing
maleness of him against her belly, and pushed harder, frantic to get free
before her traitorous body could surrender to the clamorous urge to respond.

He didn’t release her. His arms tightened, his hands sliding
up her back, leaving little frissons of heat in their wake. Then his hands slid
down, caressing the small of her back, running over the curve of her bottom to
cup each buttock in a callused palm. He pulled her up on her toes, pressing her
hard against him, letting her feel him, feeling her body against his. . . . His
kiss changed, grew suddenly fiercer. Sarah gasped. The flutter of her lips
under his allowed his tongue to enter her mouth. The hot wet strength of it
sliding past her teeth to touch her tongue made her shudder. Seemingly of their
own volition, her hands stopped shoving at his shoulders; instead they crept up
around his neck, clinging. Her eyes closed. She allowed him to pull her body
closer as she kissed him back, her mouth open and hot with desire. . . .

Before, when she had been innocent of the demands a man could make
on a woman’s body, she had been surprised, almost shocked by the things
his mouth did to hers. Now she reveled in it, reveled in the devouring force of
his lips, the slick exploration of his tongue. And she responded, her nails
digging into the back of his neck as she ran her tongue with mindless hunger
around the chiseled perfection of his mouth, caught his lower lip between her
teeth and bit down until he groaned and twisted her so that her head was forced
back against his shoulder, and he was again taking control of the kiss,
dominating it—and her.

Sarah was trembling from head to toe. She felt as if she were
aflame, burning up with a passion that she had never wanted to feel again, the
same helpless burning passion as he had engendered in her mindless body before;
she couldn’t seem to focus on the shame of it, the degradation. Now her
body was in control, weak and wanton as it stifled the screaming protests of
her mind. . . .

She wanted him, God help her. Wanted him with a fierce passion
that was utterly foreign to her nature. Wanted him despite the muddy water that
lapped around their legs and beaded their skin. Wanted him without regard for
morality or pride or even the humiliation he had made her suffer just moments
earlier. She wanted him—and this time she knew that it had nothing to do
with the moonlight, the soft scent of fruit trees in the warm air, or the
seductive lilt of music. She wanted
him
—Dominic Gallagher,
convict, thief, abductor, man. She wanted him with a passion that she had
thought only men could feel, or whores. . . .

Against her breasts she felt the pounding of his heart. The
hardness of him was pressing urgently into her belly. He was leaning over her,
his arms holding her close to the heat and strength of his body as the thick
mat of hair on his chest abraded her nipples, and the steely muscles of one
hair-roughened thigh parted her legs. “Sweet Jesus, Sarah,” he
muttered thickly into her mouth. Just that one husky whisper sent her senses
reeling. She kissed him frantically, as fiercely as he was kissing her, their
tongues alternately warring then soothing each other with soft caresses.

One hand was no longer cupping her buttock. She felt it sliding
over her damp skin, his fingers trailing fire in the valley separating the soft
hills. Then that roaming hand insinuated itself intimately between her parted
thighs.

“Oh!” Sarah gasped as he found her, his fingers
stroking her softness until her knees would no longer support her and he had to
hold her up with one arm around her.

“Oh!” she gasped again, softer this time as his
fingers did magic things to her, touching her in ways that sent arrows of fire
shooting along her thighs. She felt a flood of heat as his hand slid forward to
cup the soft mound of hair, pressing his palm hard against the triangle’s
apex. Then his hand was sliding between her legs again, his fingers searching
for and finding the secret place that he had claimed once before.

She felt her toes curl as one finger found its way inside her,
moving to restake his claim in a shocking, wonderful rhythm. . . . Do people
really make love like this? Sarah wondered heatedly just before she was caught
up and rendered mindless once again by the tight, pulsing coil that started
deep in her belly and radiated outward.

“I want you, Sarah,” he whispered huskily in her ear,
pulling a little away from her.

Her eyes fluttered open to find that his bright blue gaze was
smoldering now as it ran over her body, touching on her breasts and belly and
thighs. She felt as if she might melt from the blistering heat of his eyes.

She whimpered a protest at the cessation of the marvelous things
his fingers had been doing to her, and clung to him convulsively, trying to
force him back to her with her strength that was nothing compared with his. He
laughed; at least she thought it was a laugh, although it sounded more like a
rasping groan.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised softly,
and swung her up in his arms.

Sarah was scarely aware of anything but the quivering intensity of
her feelings as he carried her toward the bank of the creek. She spread her
fingers behind his head, lifting her mouth to meet his as it descended. She was
on fire for him, wanting him more than she had ever wanted anything in her
life.

He lowered her to the ground just beyond the creek, his mouth
fastened to hers, his arms cradling her as if she was the most precious thing
he had ever held. Sarah’s eyes were closed as she felt the prickle of
fallen leaves and twigs and dried grass against the soft skin of her back and
buttocks; the warm wind blew over her breasts, caressing her small, rigid
nipples. But the wind’s caress was not the one she wanted. Dominic held
himself away from her, his hands braced on either side of her head, his
muscular legs just brushing her soft inner thighs as they lay between them.
Sarah could feel the touch of his eyes on her face, her body. But she wanted
more. She whimpered, and when that didn’t work she opened her eyes to
find him staring down at her, tiny raw flames blazing at the backs of his eyes.

“Dominic,” she said hoarsely, lifting her arms as she
reached for him. Her hands were on his shoulders, stroking the damp skin,
sliding over the hard muscles to lock behind his head and pull him down to her.
Still he resisted. She frowned, tugging. “Dominic.”

It wasn’t she who was calling to him, but that woman he had
made her once before, the one who was beautiful, desirable, and desired. That
woman felt free to express her desires, to call on her lover to fulfill them.
That woman did not know or care who or what he was; she knew only that he was a
man, and beautiful. And that she wanted him.

“You’re lovely, Sarah,” he whispered. His eyes
were smoldering on her face and then her body as he spoke.

Sarah heard his words clearly. In her normal state she would have
scorned the compliment, disbelieving it, wondering what had prompted him to
utter it, what he wanted from her. But now, naked beneath him, seeing the fire
in his eyes that was there just for her, she
felt
lovely. That other
woman, the one who was inhabiting her skin,
was
lovely. She had
transformed plain spinster Sarah into Sarah the beautiful, Sarah the
seductress. . . .

“Your hair is wonderful, thick and silky and the color of a
palomino mare I had once. Your eyes—they’re as bright and shining
as twin suns. Your mouth makes me want to kiss it every time I look at it. Your
chin—I love your stubborn little chin. It suits you, Sarah. Your neck is
lovely, long and slender and tasting of warm honey. Your breasts—ahh,
your breasts . . .” His voice thickened, trailed off as his eyes, which
had been following along with his litany, fastened on the small, pink-tipped
mounds that seemed to swell beneath the heat of his gaze. “They’re
perfect, exquisite, so beautiful. . . .”

Sarah’s mouth opened in dazed anticipation as he bent his
head to press a tiny, soft kiss to first one throbbing nipple and then the
other. Her nails sank deep into his neck; her back arched as flames shot along
her nerve endings. Her breath came in ragged little pants as he bent his head
again, this time capturing one nipple and holding it prisoner. She moaned his
name, clutching at him as his tongue rasped circles around the quivering bud,
tantalizing it, claiming it, making it his. When he moved to the other breast,
soft kisses were no longer enough. He drew the whole breast into his mouth,
then released it to concentrate on the aching tip. His teeth caught the
straining nipple, punishing it with a gentle nip before guiding it deeper into
his mouth so that he could suckle it like a babe.

Sarah gasped at the red-hot spirals of sensation that radiated
from the captured nipple. The sight of his black-haired head nestled so
intimately against the pale skin of her breasts made her ache with desire. Her
eyes fluttered shut as her back arched again and her hands spread across the
back of his head, pulling him tightly against her. In response, his mouth
tugged harder at her breast, ravishing it. She could not be still beneath the
intoxicating onslaught. Her whole body writhed, mindless now with need, wanting
him . . . wanting the ecstasy he had given her once before.