Bittersweet Passion

His hold on her was so tight her ribs hurt. She made no complaint. Had she died and gone to heaven she could not have been more devastated. A vaguely floaty feeling was interfering with her thought processes. ‘You really missed me after I left Dominica?’ she pressed.

He groaned, lifting her easily up in his arms and folding her down with him in a comfortable heap on the bed. ‘I rea

lised I loved you the day you were ill. It tore me inside out watching you cry. I’d been telling myself I was just fond of you ever since I brought you down to London, and there were so many things I blanked out. That morning at the Dorchester when you were in bed—–’ He half-smiled. ‘I was trying to work out how you could look so sexy in that ghastly nightgown and then I didn’t like the way I was thinking so I got out. So when I went to bed with you I was really just giving myself the excuse to do what I wanted to do deep down inside, and then I couldn’t keep away from you. I was always possessive of you,’ he murmured ruefully. ‘I never questioned that until you talked blithely about moving in with another man and I didn’t like the idea.’

Claire looked up at him dazedly. ‘But you asked me about Max that day, you told me …’

‘I was flattened when I saw those bloody photos. I guess in a way it was funny. I deserved it. But I’d promised myself that after all the damage I’d done, I’d put everything right again for you if I could,’ he confessed tautly. ‘And if you wanted Max, then I didn’t have any right to foul that up again. I nearly went out of my mind when I thought you were living with him.’

Her tongue suddenly unglued from the roof of her mouth. ‘But you let me go. You even smiled at me when you saw me on to the plane!’

‘I thought you loved him, and I had spent all that time on Dominica trying to court you.’ A winged brow elevated at the old-fashioned term. ‘But, dammit, I didn’t get anywhere with you.’

Claire, who had never played the temptress in her life, was busy unbuttoning his shirt. Her fingers were clumsy at her self-appointed task, but he didn’t seem to notice.

‘Everything I did on Dominica seemed to turn out wrong.’ Lines of strain grooved between his narrow-bridged nose and hardened mouth as he relived his frustration then. ‘Hell, I didn’t know … don’t know the first thing about showing a woman I love her. I didn’t want to scare you again so I gave you space, but you couldn’t even bear me to touch you … and that hurt,’ he confided. ‘That hurt one hell of a lot because I wasn’t trying to get you into bed. I did learn one lesson early on. You had to care about me first or it was going to be the hairshirt and the mute look of distaste at dawn again.’

‘That night on the beach you pushed me away, …’

‘I thought all I was getting offered was sex. You’re one heck of a good actress. You were friendly but you were distant. Hey …’ A furrow carved between his brows as he gazed down at her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘What do you think?’ Set free of her own insecurities, Claire was bent on indulging every fantasy she had ever had on her long, lonely nights over the past year. She was fingering through a mental array of erotic possibilities when what came naturally took over. Turning her lips against the fast beat of his heart, the tip of her tongue teased a path through the dark, curling hair smattering his chest to a flat, male nipple.

‘Oh, God …’ Dane went satisfyingly rigid. Probably with shock, she allowed, her hand sliding caressingly over his flat stomach, swiftly followed by her mouth. A long shudder racked his lean, exquisite male frame and she embarked on his belt buckle with heightened courage.

‘You don’t have to do this.’ Claire clashed with bright, anxious eyes and the storm of desire he couldn’t hide there. He lost his immobility when her wandering hands smoothed slowly up over his taut thigh muscles. ‘You’re right, we do.’ He caved in by tugging her down on top of him. That’s the first time you’ve ever encouraged me!’ and there was wonderment in his husky drawl. His brilliant eyes clung to hers for a split, mindblowing second before his hands cupped her breasts and his mouth took hers with a sudden fierce urgency. A soft moan broke low in her throat, and he needed no further invitation. Clothes were discarded in haste and all the time he kept on kissing her and her temperature kept on shooting higher, the excitement exploding between them, uncontrolled and intense.

It wasn’t an orchestrated seduction. It happened so fast. He entered her with a single compelling thrust and the world splintered around her simultaneously. Dane gave a groan of wondering pleasure that she would have echoed had she had the oxygen. It made her feel the most desirable woman on earth, and then the glorious all-encompassing power of his lovemaking consigned every remaining thought into oblivion.

‘I feel so good.’

He grinned. ‘No need to sound so surprised.’

‘I feel like I could fly.’

‘Not without me!’ Dane propped himself on his elbow and just stared at her, everything he’d never permitted her to see before brimming in his jewelled eyes. ‘This is happy,’ he muttered half under his breath, and her eyes swam with tears and she just held him the way she’d always wanted to hold him.

‘You should never have let me leave Dominica,’ she complained unsteadily.

‘Shoot, Claire, that was the most unselfish thing I ever did in my entire life!’ Bleak humour glittered beneath his luxuriant lashes. ‘It made me feel good for all of an hour. I’m not very good at being patient.’

In the Caribbean she had traced his every move back to an over active conscience. That modest misconception had become an impregnable barrier, and how nearly they had lost each other completely! Dane gently stroked her hair back from her brows. ‘You see, I hoped you might find out Max wasn’t to your taste after all, and when you never wrote to Lew demanding a divorce, my hopes started to rise. I couldn’t picture you living happily in sin, but Claire, don’t ever make me jealous again,’ he urged with shadowy self-mockery. ‘Jealousy is hell. Thinking of you being with him all those months.’

She pressed her lips against his smooth shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’ She swallowed. ‘Was there anyone else?’

‘I didn’t want anyone else,’ Dane told her firmly. ‘Five-foot-one-inch redheads with giant-sized inferiority complexes don’t exactly strew every corner. I wanted you and only you.’

He looked so fantastically good-looking and sexy, she treated him to a slightly pole-axed smile, euphoria flowing through her in an ecstatic tide of acceptance. He really was hers, all hers.

‘And Mei Ling …’ He threaded fingers through her silky hair ruefully. ‘I didn’t exactly push her away when I heard you coming. I brought her to the house deliberately. I wanted to see if it bothered you. No … you’re right, it wasn’t the cleverest stunt I ever pulled.’

Her fingers skated suggestively down over his lean ribcage. ‘Next time I catch you being pawed …’

‘I’m reformed.’ He dealt her a look that just dared the smallest cloud of distrust.

‘And just like the carpet and the sheets on the bed you belong to me, right?’

‘What did I say about your self-confidence?’ He rested back, sleek and tawny against the pillows, sheer provocation cloaked in human flesh. ‘I didn’t even get to grovel tonight. I was going to.’