Stormy Vows - Iris Johansen [149]
They had reached the street now, and at Jake's imperious motion, the red-liveried doorman summoned a taxi with his piercing silver whistle.
“I don't see why not,” Jake said coolly. “We'll send the launch back for them.”
He bundled her into the taxi and climbed in after her with a curt order in Spanish to the cab driver.
Jane shivered as her bare shoulder touched the cold vinyl of the upholstery. “My wrap,” she said vaguely, “I left my wrap at the table.”
“Someone will bring it,” Jake said indifferently. His arm slid around her, and he pulled her closer to the heat of his own vibrant body.
Jane rested her head in the curve of his shoulder. She was conscious even in the intimacy of the embrace that his hold was strangely impersonal, and the knowledge would have troubled her if she hadn't suddenly been overcome with drowsiness.
Her next recollection was of being lifted into the launch and wrapped in Jake's white dinner jacket, which smelled deliciously of starch and shaving lotion. Then, after another brief period of sleep, she was aware of being carried in Jake's arms and placed on the unmistakable softness of a bed.
Jane opened her eyes drowsily to see Jake straightening slowly, his dark face shuttered. She looked around the master cabin of the Sea Breeze with a sigh of contentment. How strange that this luxurious suite had so quickly become home to her, she thought dreamily. Even the grotesque graffiti on the wall opposite the bed brought forth only an affectionate smile.
“I'm glad you're back with me, sleeping beauty,” Jake said teasingly, “and in such a good mood, too.”
She turned and smiled happily at him, admiring the tough masculine grace of the rippling muscles in his chest and shoulders as he stripped off the white dress shirt and threw it carelessly on the gray velvet chair across the room.
She came into his arms like a nail to a magnet when he sat down beside her on the bed. Her lips brushed his throat in a multitude of soft, yearning kisses.
His arms held her quietly. “Such a loving, passionate nature,” he said coolly, pushing her away to look down at her with narrowed eyes. “I wonder how much of it is for me alone.” His forefinger idly traced the full curve of her lower lip. “Would you fly just as eagerly into young Simon's arms, now that I've shown you the way?”
She looked up at him, her golden eyes clouded with bewilderment. “I don't understand.”
“That was more than obvious tonight,” he said softly as his hands left her shoulders and moved down her back to deftly unzip the chiffon gown. “But I have every intention of making sure that everything is quite clear to you by morning.”
He unfastened the strapless bra and pushed it, with her dress, to her waist. His dark head bent slowly, and his lips and tongue lazily caressed the pink nipples that soon were blossoming into hardness. “Quite clear,” he repeated thickly.
In the long hours that followed, Jane wondered at one point if she could survive the physical and mental torment that seemed to be tearing her apart. Jake Dominic, the passionate lover who had brought her to the peak of ultimate ecstasy with skill and tenderness and then shuddered in her arms with his own fierce pleasure, was not this Jake Dominic.
This man also had incredible sexual expertise, but he used it with cool, calculated control. Time after time he used hands and lips that seemed to possess a devilish power to raise her to feverish need. There was no part of her body that was not caressed and probed and then caressed again, until she felt that there was not an inch of her flesh that was not exquisitely and painfully sensitized to his touch. He would toy with her like a large cat, his hot black eyes gleaming with savage satisfaction, until she was almost sobbing with frustrated desire. Then he would grant her completion in a burst of ruthless driving passion that would leave her shuddering like an exhausted and bruised swimmer cast upon the shore by a tidal wave.
Over and over the ritual of arousal and savage assuagement were repeated, until the silent tears were running