Dark Torment (34 page)

“A woman,” he said softly, suddenly sounding serious.
“A real, live, honest-to-Jesus woman, with enough fire beneath the cold
surface to keep me constantly aflame.”

Shaken by the sober note in his voice, her eyes came out of hiding
and rose to search his face. He was no longer smiling.

“Dominic . . .” His name was all she got out before
his hand was burrowing through her hair to clasp the back of her head and pull
her mouth down to his. She went willingly, a fine trembling in all her limbs.
As her mouth met his, she moaned. To her surprise, his body responded promptly
to the heated union of their mouths. Even before the kiss ended, he was ready
for her. Sarah felt the evidence of his desire against her bottom as he pushed
her into a sitting position straddling his abdomen, his hands on her waist. Her
eyes widened to huge golden pools as she looked down at him with amazement. Was
this lovemaking something that people did so often? Animals, she knew, mated
only once or twice a season. She turned beet red at the thought.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Sarah.” The thickness of
his voice made her heart pound. “You’re so beautiful, it’s
only natural for me to want you again—and again—and again. . .
.”

“Do you really think I’m—beautiful,
Dominic?” The question was humble despite the tremors that shook her legs
and her arms, which were braced with hands palms-down against the damp pelt on
his chest. Her eyes as she met his darkening ones were vulnerable.

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, his eyes moving
over her face. “The shape of your face, an almost perfect oval with those
high cheekbones and that smooth round forehead and determined little chin, is
beautiful. Your hair, so thick and soft, the color of honey with glistening
gold threads running all through it, is beautiful. Your eyes, as golden as the
sun up there beneath those funny winged brows, are beautiful. Your mouth, so
full and pink, is beautiful. . . .”

“Dominic . . .” she interrupted, half-laughing,
touched to the heart by his soft, seductive words. His hands tightened on her
waist; his eyes, midnight blue now with passion, frowned a warning at her.

“I’m not finished,” he said severely, his eyes
sliding down over her body. “As I was saying, your neck, so long and
elegant, is beautiful. Your shoulders and arms are beautiful. Your
breasts—they’re beautiful: soft and white with little pink nipples
that taste of strawberries, just the right size to fit into the palm of my
hand. Your tiny waist, which would be the envy of many a fashionable young lady
in Dublin, is beautiful. Your silky little belly is beautiful; your
behind—you have no idea what that round little bottom does to
me!—is beautiful. Your long, lovely legs and everything that’s
between them is beautiful. But the most beautiful thing about you, Sarah . .
.” He paused, making her wait. “The most beautiful thing about you,
Sarah, is you. You’re brave and funny and kind, and beneath your very
proper exterior lurks a woman who can make me shake with terror or
passion—depending upon the circumstances—clear to my toes. Oh yes,
Sarah, never doubt it: you’re beautiful.”

“Oh, Dominic!” She felt moisture rise to her eyes and
determinedly blinked it away. How absurd, to be moved to tears by his teasing.
She shook her head at him, her long hair moving seductively across his chest.
“I fear you’ve a bad touch of the Blarney stone, Mr.
Gallagher.”

Her attempt to ape his distinctive lilt made him smile. “No,
I don’t,” he denied, his eyes caressing. “But if I
did—there’s an old Irish custom says that a dreadful fate will
befall a maid who sees the Blarney stone but doesn’t kiss it.”

“Is there now?” she said softly, letting him pull her
down.

“Aye,” he confirmed against her mouth, his brogue
deliberately exaggerated. With her lips just brushing his, she felt his smile
widen. “And I’m afraid, my Sarah, that you’re about to meet
it.”

“Am I now?” she whispered just before her lips
surrendered to his.

It was much, much later when Dominic opened his eyes to survey
with lazy satisfaction the form of the sleeping woman sprawled naked across
him. He had not meant to let what had happened happen. When he had dragged her
down off her horse he had meant only to give her a good scare before sending
her on her way to Lowella alone. But, writhing and struggling in his arms, her
small fists beating at him and his own colorful curses falling furiously from
her lips, she had lighted a fire in him that had prompted him to taste her lips
one more time—the last time, he had promised himself. He hadn’t
foreseen that she would go wild in his arms—or that a single kiss could
make the fire in him blaze up until it raged wildly out of control. After that,
everything that had followed had been inevitable. He had wanted her with a
greedy craving that swept all before it. He smiled with some amusement at
himself, his hand coming up to gently stroke a strand of shot-gold hair that
trailed across his chest. Who would have guessed that he, Dominic Gallagher,
long addicted to the charms of lushly endowed beauties, veteran of more beds
than he could remember, would be so violently attracted to a skinny, bossy,
viper-tongued old maid? If any of his former skirt-chasing companions could
know, they would think it the biggest joke of the year. Because of course they
wouldn’t see Sarah as he had come to see her. Her quiet, fine-boned
beauty was not readily apparent at first glance. One had to look again and
again. But rig her out in some fashionable, becoming clothes and teach her to
style her hair, and he wagered that she would turn heads. She would be an
elegant, cool-mannered lady—with the soul of a virago. Dominic
didn’t know which side of her appealed to him most.

He was inclined to forgive her for her betrayal of him and the
subsequent beating, he mused, his hand leaving her hair to wander lightly over
an exposed white shoulder. She must have been shocked and shamed by what had
happened between them that night in the orchard, and disgusted with him. A very
natural reaction, he saw now, to her first experience with
lovemaking—especially under the circumstances. And he had not helped
matters the next morning by shouting at her and forcing a kiss on her. She must
have been convinced that he would be forever trying to get under her skirts.
The thought made him grin. She had not been far wrong. He had wanted to make
love to her again almost as soon as he had finished doing it the first time;
her disgusted reaction had hurt as well as angered him. Then and there he had
vowed to teach her a lesson, but the beating and his escape had robbed him of
the opportunity. He had thought never to see her again; when she had come
flying down the hill in front of him the night he had abducted her, riding like
a Valkyrie with her long slim legs gleaming bare against the horse’s dark
sides and her acres of hair, gilded by moonlight, flying behind her like a
banner, it had been as if fate was giving him another chance. Despite the
beating she had cost him, or perhaps even because of it, his sexual attraction
for her had burned hotter than ever. Here, he had thought, was a chance to
quench the flames, and incidentally to pay Miss Propriety back in the kind of
coin she could understand. He had chased her down and caught her, carrying her
off with him in what was, now that he thought about it, really a most romantic
fashion. Wasn’t there some poem circulating through Dublin’s
drawing rooms about a fellow called young Lochinvar who rode off with a maid
across his saddle bow? And weren’t the ladies always swooning over it and
carrying on about how romantic it was? Only Sarah, practical Sarah, had quite
obviously not thought it at all romantic. Before she had discovered his
identity, she had been frightened. Though she had tried not to let it show, he
had known it, and at the time it had afforded him considerable satisfaction.
Later, when she had recognized him, she had been first shocked, then furious.
Dominic grinned, remembering the way she had stood up to him, a runaway
convict, a desperado, sassing him as pertly as if she had been safe in her
papa’s drawing room. That was his Sarah, all right, grit to the backbone.
Yes, he decided, still grinning, he would forgive her for running to Papa with
her tale. It didn’t matter anyway. Not now—now that he had captured
that frightened, vengeful Sarah and made her willing . . . made her his. She
was
his. Dominic had known it for some time, but he had refused to recognize the
feeling for what it was. But now she knew it too, had admitted it in deed if
not in word. Sarah was not a promiscuous woman; she would give her body as she
had given it today only to one man—the man she loved.

Love: the word was almost foreign to his vocabulary. He had loved
only one other person in his life, and that love had caused him nothing but
grief, and finally brought him, chained and half-dead, to this godforsaken
excuse for a country. His train of thought halted abruptly, struck by something
that had just run through his head. He backtracked, frowning, and found the
nagging thought: he had loved only one
other
person. . . . Other than
whom? he demanded of himself, knowing a faint flare of panic. Then the answer
came, so swift and pat that he could not believe he had not realized it all
along. Other than Sarah, of course.

He loved her. The realization was frightening, exhilarating,
unreal. He had never thought to love a woman, had been on guard against it, in
fact. Loving a woman, in his experience, brought heartache. But
Miss
Sarah,
with her man-sized courage and shrewish tongue, her pulled-back hair and dowdy
dresses and lion’s heart, had slipped under his guard. He had never
expected to love her, had thought that merely wanting her was an aberration. He
had felt safe in the knowledge that she was not his type. And so he had not
noticed when those huge golden eyes had wormed their way into his heart.

Dominic shied from the knowledge, then returned reluctantly to
face it. He loved Sarah. That much was fact. The question remained—what
was he to do about it? When a man found a woman he loved, the usual next step
was to marry her. . . . That idea he rejected violently. He had seen enough of
marriage to make him hate the institution like the plague. But what else did
one do with a lady like Sarah? Set her up as his concubine?

“Dominic?” Her sleepy voice roused him from his
reverie. He blinked, then felt his heart jump with panic as he found her eyes
fixed on his face. Had she read his thoughts? Sweet Jesus, he prayed she had
not. He had to have a little time to get used to the notion of being in love,
the idea of loving
her.
He needed time to decide what to do about it.

“What?” The word was terse. He knew it but could not
help it. Her eyes clouded at his brusqueness. Dominic immediately felt like the
swine that she had frequently called him before he had taught her less-decorous
names.

“We should be going,” she said stiffly, levering
herself off his chest and sitting up, her back to him.

He looked at the swirling mass of tawny hair that hid from his
view the fragile shoulders, the slender back, and the curving buttocks, and
felt as if a hard fist had been rammed into his stomach at the realization that
his curt response had hurt her. Lord God, was this what love did? Made a man
willing to throw himself at his loved one’s feet just to see her smile?

She was leaning forward, reaching for her shirt. He sat up,
catching her by the shoulders, turning her around to face him. A single tear
trembled in the corner of her eye; it stabbed him clear through to the heart.

“Sarah.” His voice was gruff with emotion. He had to
fight an urge to clear it, but he thought that might be too revealing.
“Let’s not go anywhere. Just for tonight.”

Her eyes rose to his. He thought he read both hope and trepidation
in her eyes.

“I need to get home. My family will be worried about
me.” But the words were uncertain.

“Will they?”

She chewed her lower lip. “No, not really. My father,
perhaps; and Liza, a little. But . . .”

“But not so worried that one day more or less will make that
much difference,” he finished for her, catching her hands in his and
bringing them one at a time to his lips. She was kneeling in front of him now,
her long hair veiling her nakedness as it tumbled from her shoulders to her
bent knees. Through its tangled thickness he caught tantalizing glimpses of
rose-tipped breasts and glimmering, pale thighs. . . . “Let’s stay
here tonight, Sarah. Make camp near the creek, sleep out under the
stars.” His voice thickened on this last, telling her without words what
else he wanted to do under the stars. Her lips parted; unconsciously, he
thought, the small pink tip of her tongue flicked out to wet the lushness of
her lower lip. Even that tiny movement sent a tightening through his groin.
Dominic grinned a little, ruefully, as he contemplated what his body was giving
every indication that it wished to do again. It had been years since he had
felt the urge to make love three times in as many hours.

“If we’re going to stay, we may as well get
busy,” she said, suddenly brisk as she pulled her hands from his and
reached again for her shirt. “It’s getting dark, and the horses
need to be unsaddled and watered, and a fire made. If you’ll see to the
horses, I’ll build a fire. I noticed last night that you’re not
particularly good at it.” She was shrugging into her shirt as she spoke,
then broke off as she noticed his broadening grin.

“What’s so funny?” she asked suspiciously, eying
him as he sprawled back on the blanket, his arms crossed beneath his head,
unconcerned with his nakedness.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a very managing
female?” he asked, still grinning. She flushed, looking suddenly very
self-conscious—and very appealing. His groin tightened still more as he
eyed her up and down. He was surprised that she seemed not to notice the rising
evidence of his desire for her.