Passion's Dream (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 1) (8 page)

Like a lover’s touch.
  The thought came unbidden from nowhere. 
Clay’s touch.

Startled, she opened her eyes and turned back toward the garden.  She didn’t want to think about Clay.  But his persistent image was difficult to banish.  She remembered everything about him, the hard, warm feel of his body against hers, the pressure of his hands stroking her, lighting fires wherever they touched, his hot breath mingling with hers as he’d claimed her mouth—

Okay, that’s enough! 
Her mind shrieked it at her.  Shutting her eyes, she pressed shaking fingers against her temples.  But she could not blot out the look of him, the masculine smell of him, the feel of…With a groan, she turned and walked swiftly back through the garden into her bedroom.  Obviously she wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight, so she might as well put her excess energy to good use.

Without bothering to turn on the light, she removed her nightgown and groped around in the top drawer of the massive armoire until she found her faded green bathing suit, a modest two-piece.  Donning it swiftly, she grabbed a thick towel from the bathroom and padded silently through the darkened house.

She didn’t bother turning on the pool lights, either, not that she knew where the switch was.  She just dropped her towel onto one of the chaise longues scattered about the deck and walked down the steps into the shallow end of the pool.  The water slid silkily up her bare legs, cool and wonderfully refreshing.  With a powerful forward thrust, Leah jack-knifed below the surface and skimmed along the bottom until her fingers touched the wall at the deep end.  Lowering her feet to the smooth, tiled bottom, she propelled herself upward, surfacing with a throaty laugh and a spray-splattering shake of her head. 
God, this water feels good!

Clinging to the edge of the pool, she lifted her feet until they were flat against the side between her arms.  She gave herself a gentle push, floating out into the water on her back.  She lay motionless, staring up at the charcoal gray sky.

The sky was so beautiful—amazingly light, as if the sun were still hovering just over the horizon.  Stars were tiny, twinkling lights pinned to the velvet backdrop of the night, alternately revealed and obliterated by the billowy clouds floating silently overhead.  Too bad she didn’t have an air mattress to float on, she mused.  She’d just spend the rest of the night out here.

Where is Clay Knight spending the night? 
The thought ambushed her from behind. 
Is he upstairs in his bedroom, sleeping peacefully? 
Or was he, too, awake, gripped by the same restlessness which robbed her of her own sleep?

She came up sputtering and coughing, angered at her inability to control her thoughts when it came to that man.  Then, pressing her lips together in a grim line, she set the water churning with her feet as she surged forward in a steady, determined forward crawl.

* * * *

Clay stood in the shadow of the gazebo, watching Leah swim back and forth across the pool, her body glistening pale ivory in the moonlight.  He longed for a cigarette, even though he’d stopped smoking over ten years ago and even though he couldn’t have lit one without alerting her to his presence.  Instead, he remained immobile, his arms hanging loosely at his sides, fighting the surge of desire that had hardened his cock as his eyes followed the graceful movements of her lush body.  What was there about this woman that called to him so?  Called to him with a force unlike anything he’d ever experienced before in his life.  A force that was linked solely to Leah Stanhope—the sound of her voice, the scent of her skin, the feel of her body against his.

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since he’d seen the photo Everett Burke had shown him.  She’d haunted his dreams for three years.  And now she dominated his every waking thought. 
Shit. 
He was like an adolescent schoolboy in the throes of his first crush.  Only this was worse, much worse than a mere crush.  This was desire, at its most basic, most urgent, most primitive.  The desire to claim her body with his, to own every inch of her, to subjugate her to his will and master her pleasure.

Desire. 
It raged through him like a forest fire, nearly out of control.  And that one word—
nearly—
was the most important part.  That was the part that kept him in check.  The part that tempered his natural desire to possess her body by another, deeper desire to protect her, to keep her safe, not only from Richard Gordon and all the rest of life’s unexpected dangers, but also from himself.

He was a sexual dominant, and Leah Stanhope was a natural submissive, or he would sprinkle salt and pepper on his Stetson and eat it for breakfast.  Never had he been so affected by any woman before, and there had been plenty of those over the years.  He’d spent a lifetime availing himself of the casual sexual liaisons that were such an integral part of the club scene he belonged to.  But none of the Club submissives had ever appealed to him beyond the odd scene or two.  He’d never connected with any of them outside the Clubs.  In fact, he’d never had a long-term relationship with any woman, especially not for the past ten years.  Not since he’d joined the SEALs.  He’d been sent to hell-holes all around the world, to rescue hostages being held by Taliban and Al Qaeda jihadists.  The prospect of his coming home all shot to pieces or in a body bag had made him a bad risk.  A risk he’d felt he had no right to ask any woman to take on.

After leaving the SEALs two years ago, he’d accepted an assignment in an English BDSM club, working undercover to help a former teammate take down Europe’s biggest sex trafficking ring.  An operation that had netted not only the slavers, but several dozen high-ranking Albanian mob operatives as well.  Out of a job and badly in need of a little r & r, Clay had retreated to his ranch in Virginia.  He’d been there for the past eighteen months, building his house and establishing his stud farm.  Until Everett Burke had found him and roped him into this assignment. 
Roped him in. 
He snorted. 
Like he’d had to be roped in
.  As soon as he’d found out the job was Leah, nothing could have kept him away.  She called to him on a level he simply couldn’t explain.  None of the women he’d ever met in any of the clubs had been more innately appealing than Leah.  None of those women had had that air of vulnerability she wore around her like a cloak.  Nor that sense of fragility, as if she would break at the slightest touch.  And certainly none had ever reached beneath the hardened cynicism of his soul as she had done, to touch the very essence of his being.

This afternoon, in her bedroom, when he had kissed her and felt her uninhibited response, he had almost lost control.  The sweetness of her reactions had very nearly pushed him over the edge.  All he had wanted to do was to throw her onto the bed and make love to her without regard for the consequences.  Not
fuck
her. 
Make love
to her.  Oh, sure, he wanted to fuck her, too.  Endlessly.  Over and over.  Until they were both about to expire of pleasure.  And then he wanted to fuck her again.  With her tied to the bed, legs spread wide, open and helpless and begging for him to complete her, even as she completed him.

Jesus Christ! 
Stifling a groan, he turned and leaned back against the wall of the gazebo, neck arched, face turned skyward, eyes closed, trying to force that image out of his mind.  The image of Leah Stanhope coming apart in his arms as she claimed the pleasure he gave her.  And that’s what frustrated and frightened him the most.  His feelings for her made him vulnerable, and he didn’t like being vulnerable.  For the first time in his adult life he found himself in a situation where he was not in control.

Turning back around, he watched her arms slice steadily through the water.  He was looking at the one woman in the world he could never walk away from.  He knew it with a certainty that frightened him in its intensity.  Yet, she had done nothing but lie to him since he’d picked her up at the airport, denying that she was attracted to him, even going so far as to tell him she was engaged to Everett Burke in a misguided effort to keep him at bay.  She would have to be punished for that, something he was looking forward to with great anticipation.  Just the thought of pressing his lips against her ass, made red and hot by his hand, hardened his cock so fast, he thought he was going to pass out.

* * * *

Leah stopped after swimming thirty lengths of the pool, arm muscles trembling with exertion, lungs heaving painfully for oxygen. 
Goodness I didn’t realize I was so out of shape.
  After a few moments, she crossed her arms on the ledge and lowered her head to rest on them, letting her tired body just hang in the cool, dark water.  As her muscles gradually stopped tingling, a welcome lassitude enveloped her.  She shut her eyes and snuggled her head more comfortably into the crook of her arms, letting the tension slowly ebb from her body.  She didn’t know how long she lay there before the night air blowing across her wet hair and shoulders began sending goose bumps down her arms.  And there was a strange, prickling sensation between her shoulder blades that was making her feel very uncomfortable.  She’d felt this way before, when Richard Gordon had been spying on her.

Lifting her head abruptly, she jumped and stifled a small scream.  Clay Knight was standing on the pool deck, watching her, so still he might have been a statue except for his long hair, streaming behind his head like tendrils of black smoke in the wind.  “Oh, God!”  One hand flew to her chest as if to keep her heart from leaping out.  “How dare you sneak up on me like that?  You scared me to death!  Why didn’t you say something, or do something to let me know you were there?”  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.  “How long have you been there, anyway?  Is this how you get your kicks, spying on unsuspecting women?”

He just smiled.  “I can see that you are not at your social best at 3:30 in the morning,” he drawled lazily, unhooking the small white towel draped around his narrow hips and dropping it onto the stone deck.  His dark swim trunks were loose, but the enormity of his erection stretched them so tight, it was a wonder they could contain him.

Leah sucked in her breath, staring openly at his nearly-naked body, totally mesmerized by the play of silver moonlight over the curves and hollows of his rippling muscles and his rock-hard abs.  Her eyes followed the center line of his body from his well-defined pecs, as it arrowed down his flat, taut belly, to his sharp V-cut before disappearing below the waistband of his trunks.  With that muscular body, those sculpted, sensual lips, those slashing cheekbones, he was beautiful.  God, he was so beautiful.  Remote and aloof, he was a pagan, primitive statue carved from cold moonlight and imbued with the heat of the sun.  She drank in the sight of him, unable to stop herself, not sure she would want to even if she could.

“Like what you see?” he jibed softly, squatting gracefully at the edge of the pool, leaning on one hand, and sitting on the deck, slipping his legs into the water beside her.

He sat so close, she could feel the heat emanating from his body.  If she lifted her hand, she could touch his chest.  She had to fight an overwhelming urge to do just that.  She wanted to back away, but she was afraid such a move would reveal how strongly she was affected by him, and she didn’t want to give him that power over her.

“What’s the matter, Leah?  Couldn’t you sleep either?”  His tone was so gentle she nearly sobbed out her longing for him.

Instead she clamped down tightly on her runaway emotions and said in a constricted voice, “No.”  She accompanied her words with a quick shrug.  “It happens sometimes.  I-I’ve always had trouble adjusting to a strange bed.”

“I see.  No doubt it’s an occupational hazard with women like you.”

She gasped.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

He just shrugged.  Unperturbed by her anger, he slid into the pool and turned to face her.  Lifting his hand, he placed his fingertips against her cheek.

She jerked her head away, but otherwise couldn’t move.  It was as if she’d been turned to stone.  “Don’t touch me!”  She’d meant it to be an icy command, but instead it came out a choked, frightened whisper.

Ignoring her, he sent his fingers on a journey along the line of her jaw, down the slender column of her neck.  He paused at the base of her neck, holding the tip of his index finger over the pulse hammering there, betraying her agitation.  The journey continued down over her collar bones, across the creamy, sloping mound of her breast to the edge of her modest bathing suit top.  When she made no move to stop him, he hooked his forefinger into the stretchy material.  When she still didn’t move, he allowed his fingernail to scrape against her tender flesh as he traced the outline of the fabric down to its lowest point—the point where it stretched across the shadowed valley between her breasts.

“Don’t—”It was a choked whisper.  She closed her eyes, but she made no attempt to remove his hand.  She was trembling, every clamoring nerve aware of his nearness, the potent sexuality of his hard, male body so close to hers.  ‘I-I’m engaged to be married.”

“Ah, yes.”  His lips twisted.  “The ever-devoted fiancé.  Tell me, Leah,” he tugged her toward him, the weight of his hand pulling the stretchy, jersey top outward, threatening to release the rounded fullness of her breasts.  “Tell me about him.  What’s it like making love to an old man?”

She should have pushed him away.  She should have stepped back—anything to put distance between them.  Except she wasn’t standing.  She was floating in the water, anchored by her elbow on the pool deck and his finger hooked in her swimsuit top.  Unable to get away, she stared up at him helplessly, trapped as much by the confusion leaping within her as she was by the sensual spell he seemed to be weaving around her like a web.