Hell! How could she look so beautiful, so soft and vulnerable, and be so damn stubborn? Zac asked himself furiously, but he forced his voice to sound cool and calm when he said, 'Doesn't it make any difference what I think? I don't want a divorce, Tory.'
'No, I don't suppose you do,' she agreed shortly.
'What does that mean?' He kept his face bland and amiable.
'You have everything you want if we stay married, don't you?' Victoria said levelly. 'A dutiful wife, maybe a son and heir to carry on the illustrious Harding name, a lucrative business deal…' She couldn't bring herself to mention Gina's name.
'The business deal would have, and has, gone through whether we married or not,' Zac said with infuriating control. 'And I have never mixed business with pleasure, in; the deal wasn't relevant to us one way or the other. However—' he eyed her angry face calmly '—I didn't bring you out this afternoon to argue again.'
'No? Well, I'm sorry if I'm not behaving in line with what the great Zac Harding had envisaged,' Victoria shot back sharply.
A muscle twitched in Zac's square jaw. 'If you weren't pregnant you'd be over my knee by now,' he said grimly.
'In your dreams.' She didn't know why she was behaving like this—she was horrified at herself—but, once started, she seemed unable to stop.
'Ah, now, my dreams are a different story,' he said silkily.
He'd done it again—metamorphosed in front of her eyes, Victoria thought helplessly, the dark, sensual note to his voice and the glittering fire in his eyes telling her all too clearly what sort of dreams Zac had indulged in. The same sort she had.
'I'm not interested in having this sort of conversation—'
But it was too late. His hands had captured her face and his kiss was deep and passionate, his tongue plundering her mouth until she heard herself moaning in answer to his desire.
'You're gorgeous, do you know that?' he was whispering hotly against her mouth. 'Sexy and prim, sensual and timid all at the same time. You turn me on, little mother. You turn me on like crazy… Kiss me, Tory. Tell me you want me; say it.'
His mouth had moved to cover her face in tiny scorching kisses, her closed eyelids, her nose, her ears, her throat all coming under his expert ministrations until she was panting and fluid in his arms. She'd always loved his kisses—he did them so well.
She gasped as his thumbs rubbed over her jutting nipples, his touch causing her to tremble helplessly as burning tremors of desire snaked down every nerve in her body, and he caught the gasp with his mouth, answering it with a growl of passion.
What was she doing? What was she doing? Victoria arched away on the Dralon-upholstered two-seater settee but Zac followed her, leaning over her quivering form as he kissed her again, his lips as sweet as honey and his caresses taking her into a liquid, golden world of pure pleasure.
'I want you, Tory. I want you so badly I can taste it.'
'You don't… I can't…'
She wasn't making sense, but he seemed to understand her incoherent mumblings anyway, kneeling astride her as he began to undo the tiny pearl buttons of her dress, his voice soothing but his hands shaking as he said, 'I do and you can, sweetheart, you can. You're mine, Tory…'
The deep red curtains in the boat's saloon had been closed when they had come aboard, and now the bright summer sunshine outside their cosy idyll cast a soft pink glow over the furnishings as Victoria jerked upright, her hands shooting out in a flailing motion that caused Zac to lose his balance and fall in a crashing heap on the floor. Mine. This was still all about possession, control.
Victoria scrambled to her feet, her hands clutching at her gaping dress, and then they stilled, her body stiffening, as she realised Zac wasn't moving. In fact he was ominously still.
'Zac?' She looked down at his big body, strangely vulnerable in its crumpled state. 'Zac, are you all right?' He still didn't move, and then, to her horror, she saw the trickle of blood on his forehead. 'Zac!'
Her shriek must have done the trick, because in the next moment he stirred slightly, his eyelids flickering.
'Zac, Zac—oh, I'm sorry—what have I done…?'
Victoria wasn't aware she was sobbing out loud until a pair of dazed black eyes looked into hers, and a very un-Zac-like weak voice said, 'What the hell hit me?'
'The corner of the cupboard, I think,' Victoria managed shakily through her tears. 'Oh, Zac, I'm sorry.'
'Damn it all, Tory…' He struggled into a sitting position as she knelt at his side, her arms going to support his shoulders. 'The next time you want to say no, could you just say it? Without the physical abuse?' he added somewhat shakily.
His voice was wry, but there was a certain amount of manly embarrassment in the dry tones that made her all the more guilty. But she hadn't meant to knock him out, Victoria reassured herself hotly. Of course she hadn't. It had been an accident, that was all. She'd just reacted out of fear and panic.
'Shall…shall I call a doctor?' she asked tentatively.
Apparently it was the worse thing she could have said if the scathing glance from those jet-black eyes was anything to go by. 'No, thank you.' It was said with a hefty amount of dignity that spoke volumes about hurt male pride.