'You can't imagine the torment of remembering you like this and not being able to do a damned thing about it,' he told her hoarsely. 'Night after night, day after day, until I thought I was going to go crazy, that I was crazy, no woman could be so perfect, so desirable, but I was wrong.'
Saffron moved, and his hands jerked out, fingers biting into the soft flesh of her waist.
'Even now you don't know what we had, do you?' he said slowly. 'How rare what happened between us was; so rare that I've never experienced it before and never want to again. That first night in Rome ...'
A terrible pain seemed to explode inside her, sending shivering fragments of anguish into every part of her body.
'Why?'
'Because I can't experience it again and live through the knowledge that that's all it is—one experience. I want it for ever; I want you for ever. It tears me apart to think of any other man touching you, seeing you, like this.'
It was some new refined form of torture he'd devised especially for her, Saffron thought numbly, it had to be.
'Let me go .. . Let me go!' she told him fiercely.
'Not until I've done this.'
'This' was a kiss that inflamed her to the point where she couldn't think of anything but the need to feel his body next to hers.
'God knows, I know you can't really love me,' she heard him whisper against her throat. 'You don't even know me, but wanting you and not having you is driving me mad; I can't think straight, ever since they let me out of hospital...'
'Hospital?' She stiffened in his arms.
'God, you don't surely think I wouldn't have come to you before if I could? I told myself you were just experimenting, just growing up, that I was a fool to read anything serious into it, but I was bewitched. When I thought of Guido touching you I wanted to tear him limb from limb. I couldn't forgive myself for exposing you to him— for what so nearly happened. You were so frightened, so ... God, I nearly went mad when you begged me to take you! I told myself I wasn't going to, but the first touch of your body beneath my hands, your lips on my skin ...'
'I thought you didn't want me because I was a virgin.'
'Like hell!' Dominic murmured succinctly. 'I wanted you all right; from the very first moment I set eyes on you, there was a very special magic between us from the very first, but it wasn't until I saw how courageous you were, how brave despite your fear, and how appallingly innocent, that I realised I loved you as well, and hated myself for the danger I'd brought to you. I underestimated your effect on Guido—and myself. There were times when I came close to calling the whole thing off, but I couldn't without exposing you to further danger.'
'You love me?' She frowned as he winced, suddenly remembering what he had said about hospital. 'They told me you were dead,' she whispered, filled with the horror of that moment.
'So that Guido, Olivia and their friends wouldn't come looking for me—a very natural precaution, and one your father fully endorsed until after the trial and you told him the truth. He gave me some pretty gruelling moments, I can tell you, despite my wounds. I was in hospital at the time recovering from the gunshot wound Olivia inflicted.'
'When you saved my life,' Saffron murmured brokenly. 'I was going to tell them that at the trial. I was going to ...'
'I know all about that,' Dominic said grimly. 'God, you really know how to put a man through it, don't you?'
'I told Daddy I. loved you, and even then he said nothing.' There was pain in her voice and eyes.
'What could he do? We both thought you were suffering from a severe case of infatuation—it isn't exactly uncommon in the circumstances.' He grimaced slightly, flexing a shoulder, and Saffron remembered that he wasn't long out of hospital. 'You think you had problems. I knew what I felt was no infatuation, but I promised your father I'd give you time to adjust to normal life again, and anyway, being in hospital hardly meant that I could sweep you off your feet, but I was getting to the stage where even if he hadn't come to see me, I was coming to see you. God, imagine how I felt when I reached the penthouse and discovered you'd left! I'd got it all planned, quiet dinner somewhere, plus explanations, and then ...'
'Then what?' Saffron asked huskily, hardly daring to let herself hope.
'Then a night of bliss in my arms,' Dominic said softly, 'after which you'd be in no fit state to refuse my offer of making an honest woman out of you. There at least I was on safe ground. I knew how you would respond to me. God, I spent long enough trying to forget! I knew it was taking an unfair advantage, you were hardly in a position to make comparisons, but I'd reached the stage where I was desperate enough to use any means of keeping you in my life. I told myself I'd just have to convince you that what we had was pretty special and that infatuation or not, I intended to become a permanent feature in your life. Even to the extent of using blackmail if need be.'
'Blackmail?' Saffron looked puzzled, and he laughed, drawing her down into his arms.
'Yes, my lovely little wanton; that child you so badly wanted to conceive.'
'You mean ...'
'I mean I love you so damn much I'd even descend to the level of making you pregnant to make sure you married me.'
'I thought that was my role,' Saffron dimpled, laughing as he rolled over and pulled her down on top of him, kissing the laughter from her mouth, his fingers caressing her breasts until they peaked into hard arousal, and she heard him groan protestingly against her skin.
'Where you're concerned I lose all self-control. I want you, Saffron; I love you and I need you.'
'I love you too,' she whispered back, 'so much that I can't wait to fall asleep at night and dream that you're with me.' A faint blush coloured her skin, and he laughed triumphantly.