Sweet Seduction Sacrifice (14 page)

I stood stock-still taking in the scene, from the impersonal, yet expensively designed interior, to the wonder that is Auckland's skyline, the Sky Tower dominating the impressive sight. For once in my life I was speechless.

Dominic watched me for a moment and then shrugged, as though my reaction wasn't unexpected. I had a fleeting moment to consider he'd probably experienced the same reaction from the many women he undoubtedly brought back here. My stomach did a nasty little flip-flop, my hand immediately coming up to rub it back into submission.

"Take a seat, sweetheart. I'll run you bath in moment, I just have a call to make."

I ignored him, still standing immobile a few feet into the room. He'd spoken as he headed out a side door, to God knows where, his cellphone in his hand already, his finger thumbing through the numbers to find the one he wanted to call. I waited until I heard the low, soft words as he spoke, unable to pick up their meaning, but knowing he was occupied, then turned back towards where I thought the front of the house was, and hopefully a front door.

I had no right to be here. He clearly was phoning whoever he'd been talking to last night, someone important enough to take him away from me when he was about to seal the evening with a kiss and no doubt instigate something more. I kept reminding myself he wasn't my dream. He belonged to someone else. And even if the other woman - I was presuming it was a woman, who else would demand his attention like that? - didn't possess the dream, but was merely the current holder of it, he was never going to be all mine. How could he be? He was way out of my league.

I mean, a garage full of hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even over a million dollars, worth of vehicles, a mansion three stories high and the size of a commercial building all to himself. Expensive interior design, priceless enormous artworks, marble flooring. A city view most would die for. If I had questioned my right to exist in his world, I no longer did. He was just the sort of guy who picked up stray birds with broken wings and tried to make things better.

I had no doubt once this was all over that he would walk away.

I'd made it to the front door, after a few mistaken paths down side halls, when he found me attempting to undo the multitude of locks.

"I asked you to trust me, you said you would."

I turned around in a flash, my back pressed against the door, my heart in my throat. I would have looked like a startled possum, caught out in the act of escape.

"I need to go home," was all I managed to get out.

"And I told you that would be unsafe."

"I can't stay here," I countered.

"Of course you can. I have plenty of space." He indicated how much space he had with a shrug of his shoulders and a self-deprecating smile. I stared back, still wide eyed and ready to bolt. He ran a hand though his hair. "I have someone bringing you some supplies from your loft."

I frowned at him. "You have someone going through my stuff?" I could just imagine Nick or Ben sifting through my underwear drawer, it was not a welcome picture.

He must have understood the look of mortification on my face.

"Relax, she's seen it all before."

Oh, he did
not
just say that.

"She?" He'd sent a woman. Maybe
his
woman. To my loft. I made a strangled sound in the back of my throat and turned to frantically undo the locks on the door. I hadn't even managed to shift one before his body was pressed against mine and his hand reached out to still my attempts. His other hand slipped around my waist, laying splayed flat against my stomach, and pulled me away from the door. I struggled for a moment, no longer aware of what I was doing or why, but just frantic to get away from him. From the embarrassment of the situation. From the hurt and humiliation I could feel welling up inside.

"Let me go!" I demanded, on an almost shout.

"No. I told you, I won't let you go now." His voice was whisper quiet in my ear.

"I don't want to be here."

"I can tell, but you
will
stay."

"No! I! Won't!" I shouted full out back.

"Do you want someone to harm you, to kidnap you again? And if it isn't your incompetent ex-boyfriend, then it will be a hell of a lot worse. Worse than
you
can even imagine. They won't stumble and cause injury, they will cause it with intent. And they have a wealth of experience to ensure they injure you in such a way that it is obvious and permanent, but won't make you dead. Their only goal will be to send a message to your ex, that if he can't give them what they want, they'll take his possessions in another way. And destroy them."

His voice had started out harsh and just as loud as mine, but ended again on a whisper. I stopped fighting him somewhere along the way, just let him hold me close to his chest, his hot breath washing over my ear. His heartbeat thumping into my back, matching my own.

"Trust me," he whispered, shifting his lips to kiss against my temple, in amongst my hair. Did he know what that movement did to me? Was he manipulating me with that feather-light, intimate touch?

"I'm scared," I whispered back, cursing my honesty as soon as the words slipped free.

"I know," he replied. "But I promise, no one will hurt you."

"You can't promise that," I replied, feeling my body giving up the fight. He felt it too and tightened his hold around my waist. I didn't add, that he couldn't protect me from what I feared most. Him. And his effect over me, the fact I was letting him get further and further under my skin.

He didn't argue my statement, maybe he read more in it than I had realised at first. He just kissed my temple again and then swung me up into his arms, as though I weighed little more than a child and began carrying me away from the door. My hand came out, stretched back toward freedom and then with a will of its own, came back towards me and wrapped around the back of his neck.

He shifted my weight, redistributing it so I could hold on more securely around his neck, my head nestling under his chin.

"You know," he said conversationally, as he began to climb a set of stairs. "When I said this would be fun, I really meant in the light-hearted, romantic kind of way. I hadn't considered you'd be a fireball, hell-bent on testing the limits of my patience."

I could tell he was trying to lighten the moment, I smiled at the effort. I think he felt my lips twitch against the bare flesh at his neck, because his arms tightened briefly.

"I did warn you, you know," I said softly, allowing the warmth of his body to quash the last of my fears. I'd bury them, until I could think clearly. Until I could make my escape and protect my heart once and for all. Maybe I'll go live in Guatemala. Somewhere a long way away. "I may not be what you bargained for."

"And I think I replied,
I do hope so
. And, sweetheart, I meant every word."

Dominic deposited me on a padded stool in a luxurious bathroom decorated in warm bronzes and browns. So at odds with the rest of the mansion. It had also led off what could only be the master bedroom. An entirely too large space, with beautiful double doors out on to a balcony, the view of Auckland city obvious in the distance. A large curved dark and sleek wooden bed, with gold and black coverings, thick black drapes on the windows and gold and black modernist art on the walls. A tallboy dresser that matched the bed frame and a door that led into what looked like a dressing room the size of my loft.

He began to run a bath, as he had promised, steam quickly filling up the room and making me sweat. I watched as he fussed with some bath salts, a strange thing for a man to have in his ensuite, the smell mingling with the steam to make a heady environment, in what was swiftly becoming an intimate moment. Bathrooms were not something you wandered into in a strange man's house. Not that I thought Dominic was strange to me anymore, but I had only met him yesterday, and that thought never really left my head at all.

But sitting waiting for him to fill a tub for me to soak - naked in, I might add - I felt the moment was seguing into something entirely else. He turned back to look at me and for a second I thought he'd insist I undress before his eyes. His gaze running over my frame languidly, but by the time they returned to my face he'd got himself under control.

"Wait a sec," he instructed as he slipped back out of the room. I sat patiently, if not a little breathlessly, on the stool for him to come back.

He returned with some clothing; looked like a T-shirt and a pair of track pants. He placed them on the bench to the side of where I sat, then stood in front of me. His hand came up, fingers trailing down my cheek.

"Take as long as you need. I'll whip you up something to eat, you must be getting hungry."

I nodded, strangely enough I hadn't thought of food until he mentioned it, but now I was aware of an emptiness in my stomach. The nausea of being knocked out had passed and I was beginning to get my appetite back at last. He left on silent feet and I watched the closed door for several minutes, until I realised the bath was in danger of over filling. I forced myself to my feet, feeling older than my twenty-eight years, and leaned across the steaming water to turn the taps off.

In almost a drunken stupor I stripped out of my clothing, folding it carefully and putting it to the side, but knowing I'd be throwing the entire outfit in the bin at the first chance, and dipped a toe in the water. He'd perfected the temperature. Somehow I was certain he perfected everything in his life. I slowly lowered my body into the inviting warmth, realising how stiff and sore it actually was.

The steam cleared my nostrils, making it possible to breathe clearly for the first time since I had awoken in that decrepit motel room earlier today. And then the realisation of that made the tears flow. I'm, unfortunately, a crier. I shed a tear at the drop of a hat. I cry at commercials and Hallmark birthday cards. I cried through Bambi and Watership Down as a kid, and I definitely cried through Titanic. Leonardo DiCaprio dying was just the pits. So I'm used to it, but it doesn't mean I like it or embrace it. The after effects are a pain in the butt.

So, in an effort to not end up with blotchy cheeks and red, puffy eyes, I allowed myself five minutes to break down and then I refortified myself. Scrubbed my face, cleaned myself up - top to bottom - and then lay back and tried to relax.

I don't know how long I had been soaking when soft music wafted through speakers into the room. I glanced up and noticed the speakers were embedded in the wall, painted the same colour, so had been easy to miss. Within the first few bars of the song I recognised it. Barry White's
Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.
I felt a smile spread across my face. Dominic had told me he'd download Barry for me, he hadn't forgotten.

I spent the next forty minutes letting the last of my tension go and turning into a prune in the process. Normally I'd lather moisturiser all over my body once I'd bathed, but I didn't have the nerve to check through Dominic's bathroom cupboards to see if he had any, it would only lead to unpleasant thoughts. Men don't have moisturiser, if he had some it wouldn't have been brought here by him.

I slipped the T-shirt on, no bra or underwear - I was forcing myself to go commando, as my whole outfit from yesterday was definitely being trashed - and smoothed the fabric down over my body. The shirt came to mid thigh, it was way too big on my slim frame, but it smelled of Dominic. I decided I'd find a way to keep it, even if his woman did bring my clothes here from my loft. The track pants were enormous, but luckily had a drawstring at the waist, I cinched it as tightly as it would go, making them billow out around me like balloon pants.

I stared at myself in the mirror and cringed, it looked pretty similar to Nick's grimace when he first laid eyes on me this morning. But it wasn't just for the raccoon eyes and obviously swollen nose, or even the over pale pallor of my skin. It was the sight of me in this ensemble. How the hell did I walk out of here and face Dominic, sexiest smile and name, god-like Anscombe? I leaned against the vanity and hung my head in defeat.

I was so way out of my league.

Squaring my shoulders I prepared for the worst. Of course, my worst was not as bad as it ended up being. If I had known that, there is no way I would have ever come out of that bathroom. I would have pitched a tent and demanded my rations through a slit in the door.

I followed the sound of music, Barry had moved on to Lisa Ekdahl, a surprising discovery, I adored Lisa Ekdahl
.
I Will Be Blessed
bringing a smile to my face as I walked into the lounge, which quickly evaporated at the sight of the movie star beautiful woman who stood leaning against the back of a couch talking animatedly to Dominic. She had thick dark hair down her back, braided in a casual, yet glamorous way. Thick black eyelashes that framed wide blue eyes. Perfect porcelain skin, rosy red lips and a figure to die for. She was dressed in a skin tight midnight blue skirt, which left nothing to the imagination, it hugged her curves, of which she had plenty. A tight fitted white T-shirt covered her chest, a somewhat casual accompaniment to the skirt, but I guess the skirt was the statement, who cared about the top? She wasn't big breasted, so in a fit of jealousy I decided that was why she downplayed her chest, emphasising her derrière instead. I stood up a little straighter, making sure my lovely ladies were front and centre, even if I was wearing an oversized, sexless top.