So Marie was right, she had to be. Sara looked up at Dominic with steady brown eyes. ‘I don’t want you to,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t ever want to leave you again.’
Dominic swallowed hard, seeming to sway where he stood. ‘God, I love you!’ he groaned achingly.
She fell into his arms, holding him so tightly her arms ached. ‘I love you, too,’ she choked, any last doubts dispelled.
He pressed featherlight kisses down her throat, his lips warm and fevered. ‘Marie told you everything?’
‘Everything,’ she nodded, raising her mouth invitingly. ‘I’m so sorry I ever doubted you.’
‘It was my fault for not telling you the truth. I wanted to—God, how I wanted to, but I couldn’t break a confidence like that, not even for the woman I love. And you are the woman I love, Sara.’ His mouth lowered to hers.
He was like a thirsty man in a desert, devouring her with his love and passion, his caresses heated, and he carried her over to the sofa. They lay close together, murmuring words of love between caresses, hours passing as if minutes, lost to each other as they frantically tried to convince each other of their love.
Dominic lay against her breasts, his arms possessive. ‘The first time I saw you I knew you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.’
‘You thought I was Marie!’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think I did, not even then. I was excited just looking at you, and that had never happened with Marie.’
‘She assures me you’re only friends,’ Sara taunted, smoothing the darkness of his hair.
‘We are. Marie has always been like a kid sister to me, you were something else completely, right from the first. I become aroused just looking at you.’
‘Dominic!’ she blushed her confusion.
‘But I do. I want to love you, darling.’ He kissed her bare breast.
‘Yes.’
‘You said that once before, in exactly the same way—’
‘And you turned me down,’ she remembered with pain.
‘‘Because of your innocence! I was tied to Marie, by loyalty if nothing else, and it wasn’t fair to involve you when I couldn’t marry you.’ He caressed the soft curve of her breast with his tongue.
‘Did you want to marry me even then?’
‘I did, and I do. Will you marry me, Sara?’
‘Yes! Yes to marriage, and yes to—’
He put silencing fingers over her lips. ‘I can wait until after we’re married.’
‘Well, I can’t.’ She looked at him with love-drugged eyes. ‘I want to stay with you tonight, Dominic. Tonight and every other night.’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘Tonight I might get away with, then I think we’ll have to wait until after the wedding. Otherwise your father might take a shotgun to me.’
Sara held him fiercely to her. ‘I’m so glad I came to England, so glad I found my father and Marie, and so very, very glad I found you. I love you so, Dominic.’
‘And I love you too.’ He picked her up and took her into the bedroom, to the first night of a lifetime of nights together.
* * * * *