Velvet Embrace

When it was over, Brie collapsed on his chest in breathless exhaustion, her arms still wrapped around his neck, her face buried in his shoulder.

His own breath coming in ragged gasps, Dominic let his head fall back. "I suppose that is one way to end a quarrel," he said with a weak laugh.

"Mmmm."

His hand moved caressingly over her bare shoulders, then upward to stroke her hair. "We shouldn't talk, ma belle. Our bodies say everything that needs to be said."

When she only responded with a feeble nod, Dominic shifted so he could study her face. Her lips were red and glistening and bruised with passion, and her skin was flushed with color. When Brie slowly opened her eyes, Dominic could see they were a deep, languorous green. There was no reproach in those lovely changing eyes, he realized with pleasure. Their coupling had been pure animal lust, but she had wanted it as much as he.

Even as he came to that conclusion, Dominic felt a new quickening in his loins and shook his head in amazement. Damn, but it was impossible! His desire was starting again. Could he never get enough of her to be satisfied?

He rose with Brie in his arms and carried her to the bed. Then wordlessly he undressed her, taking his time, not bothering to disguise his admiration of her body as he removed his own clothes.

Feeling his eyes move over her with lazy ownership, Brie flushed. But she was less embarrassed by Dominic's casualness than by her own desire to reach out and run her hands over his magnificent, sun-darkened body.

"What must you think of me?" she said ruefully when she was once again lying in Dominic's arms, her head on his chest. "I may have been rash before, but I've never been abandoned."

Dominic smiled as he removed the pins from her hair and tossed them, one by one, somewhere in the vicinity of their pile of cast-off clothing. "Ah, yes, abandoned, wanton, depraved. . . ."

"Indeed, I am not!" Brie raised herself up on one elbow to glare at him, before seeing the laughter dancing in his gray eyes. "No more so than you, at any rate," she said, wrinkling her nose at him. When Dominic flashed her a grin, she trailed a finger down his well-muscled chest. "Beware, my lord, or I shall demand payment for my favors."

Dominic sighed heavily. "Then I should be a poor man, chérie. All the gold in the kingdom would not be sufficient payment for one sweet kiss from your lips."

"Very prettily said. But I think I should like you to be poor, Dominic. Perhaps then you would not be so arrogant and beastly."

Dominic laughed, tightening his arm around her. "'Tis not my wealth or lack of it that makes me so."

"No? Then what is it?"

Rolling till she lay beneath him, Dominic stared down into her wide eyes. "You, wench," he said soberly. "You are much too desirable for my peace of mind," He bent briefly to kiss a rosy-tipped breast, then raised his head. "What to do with you?" he asked softly, searching her face as if to find an answer to his problem.

Brie's answer was a mere whisper. "Love me, Dominic, just love me."

His eyes darkened slumbrously. And for a moment, before his mouth descended on hers, before his body merged with hers, Brie believed that the tenderness in his eyes was something more than desire. Dominic's heart belonged to her, if only for a moment.

The moment did not occur again. Brie had no further reason to suppose that Dominic's heart could be touched. And at least on one occasion before their destination was reached, their truce was threatened.

They were riding in the coach one afternoon, discussing the foibles of London society, when Dominic made a particularly cynical comment about women.

Brie stared at him with dawning comprehension. "I think I am beginning to understand you, my lord," she said slowly. "You hold my entire sex in contempt. Women are only useful to you for physical pleasure. Other than that, they need not exist at all. But I suppose I should be comforted to realize you hate all women."

"I don't hate all women," Dominic returned, his features hardening.

"No? It isn't only I who has suffered your ill will. You dislike my cousin Caroline, and you believe the worst of my mother. Why even your own mother—Julian says you haven't spoken to her in years."

"That is quite enough, Brie. I don't deny that I have little regard for females in general, but you know nothing of my mother."

"I know she deserted your father when you were quite young." "Congratulations."

Brie ignored his sarcasm. "I suppose since you never had the comfort of a mother's knee, you never learned to appreciate a woman's love."

Dominic shrugged. "What is there to appreciate?"

"I might have expected you to say that. You could live to be a hundred and never understand that particular emotion."

He raised a sardonic eyebrow. "And you are such an expert on the subject?"

Brie looked startled. "No, but—"