‘I couldn’t stay, knowing you only…only desired me,’ she mumbled, her tongue suddenly thick and cumbersome, tripping up the words.
‘Only desire you?’ He did shake her now, muffling a tiny sound of despair against her throat. ‘Kate, why on earth are you so blind?’ he asked throatily. ‘I do desire you…but I also love you. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you. Surely you realised that?’
He saw the incredulity and disbelief dawn in her eyes and then give way to shining joy, and laughed unsteadily.
‘You little fool! Why on earth did you think I was so savage with you? Why do you think I haven’t touched another woman in eight years? Why do you think I keep coming after you, letting you slap me down, letting you torment me until I’m way, way out of control? Not just because I desire you.’
‘I thought you hated me…despised me…’ Her voice was a dry rasp.
‘I despised myself,’ Dominic told her wryly. ‘Firstly for wanting another man’s wife to the point where I was on the verge of forgetting all the rules I’d lived my life by, to make love to her, and secondly for being stupid enough to fall crazily in love with an adolescent nymphomaniac… I told myself it made it easier to keep away from you, believing that you slept around, but it didn’t. It just drove me crazy, imagining all the men who were getting what I’d denied myself. When I found out Vera and Ian were moving into this area, I knew it was fate. I knew I’d see you again. When I discovered you were a widow, I told myself that now I would have a chance to get you out of my blood for all time…that if I made love to you, it would conquer this fever for you that had dominated me for so long. But long before I touched you, long before Sue told me the truth, I knew it wasn’t so… I knew then that I loved you. Do you believe me?’
As she looked into the topaz depths of his eyes Kate knew that she did.
‘Yes,’ she told him quietly, trembling as he raised her palm to his mouth, lacing his fingers with hers, his tongue brushing the delicate skin.
‘Let’s put the past behind us, Kate, and have a fresh start…as man and wife. And this time I promise you your marriage will be everything that a marriage should be… Well?’
His voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the tension holding his body, or the anxiety in his eyes.
He did love her. Impossibly against all the odds they had found one another, and he was right, it was time to forget the past. In order to face the future she had to take him on trust, in just the same way that he had to trust her. Kate recognised that now.
‘Yes…’ She said it quietly, and then more fiercely, pressing her body against the length of his and lifting her mouth for his kiss.
His breathing was thready…erratic.
‘If I kiss you now, the way I want to, I won’t be able to stop until I’ve made love to you. God, Kate…’ He groaned in protest as she moved her hips wantonly against his. Beads of sweat stood out on his skin, his arousal hard and hot against her, reluctant laughter breaking through the passion darkening his eyes as she stroked her fingers suggestively over the tight fabric of his jeans.
‘Kate…’ Dominic’s voice held a warning, but she ignored it, excitement trembling through her as he said her name again on a rougher note and then bent to pick her up.
At the top of the stairs he paused and looked down into her face to say rawly, ‘I love you, Kate, and I’m never, ever going to let you forget it. Do you hear that?’
She heard, and best of all she believed. She had come through pain and fear to be at this point in her life with this man. She looked at him with her heart in her eyes and said softly, ‘I hear.’
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of USA Today bestselling author
Carol Marinelli’s next book,
BOUND BY THE SULTAN’S BABY
The second in her Billionaires & One-Night Heirs trilogy!
Sultan Alim spent one forbidden night with Gabi—when he encounters her again, she refuses to name her child’s father. Alim will seduce the truth out of Gabi, even if he has to lure her under false pretenses. Alim knows he craves her, but does he desire her as his mistress or bride?
Read on to get a glimpse of
BOUND BY THE SULTAN’S BABY
CHAPTER ONE
GABI DERAMO HAD never been a bridesmaid, let alone a bride.
However, weddings were her life and she thought about them during most of the minutes of her day.
From way back she had lived and breathed weddings.
Gabi was a dreamer.