Stormy Vows - Iris Johansen [150]
“Why?” she gasped desperately, her head moving back and forth on the pillow in an agony of response. “For God's sake, why, Jake?”
“Because you're mine,” he said hoarsely as he drove forward between her thighs with explosive passion. “You may not be mine forever, but for now you belong to me.” His words came out in a tormented rhythm caused by the force of his thrusting movements. “I won't have you smiling at, or touching, or even looking at, any other man. Do you understand?”
“Jake,” she whimpered, striving desperately to marshal the words to explain, to entreat, but she was so lost in the heated haze of urgency that she could not speak.
“No one else, ever,” he repeated relentlessly. “Do you understand?”
“Yes!” she almost screamed, digging her nails into his shoulders as the scarlet haze exploded into a thousand fiery tendrils of sensation.
It was almost dawn when Jake reached for her yet again, and suddenly her sobs no longer could be restrained. Jane found herself shaking and trembling in a reaction to the sensual assault that had no relation to love or affection.
Dominic froze, his body still for a long moment. Then, with a swift movement, he released her and reached out to flip on the bedside lamp. Turning once again to look at her, he started to curse violently as his eyes noted and comprehended his work.
Jane's eyes were dazed and shadowed with shock and misery, her lips swollen and bruised with the force of his lovemaking. She instinctively shrank away from him as his face darkened with a forbidding frown.
“God!” he said huskily, passing a trembling hand before his eyes, but not before she had seen the sick torment in their depths.
He reached out and plunged the room once more into darkness and pulled the sheet over both of them, tucking the cover carefully around her as if she were a small child. “Stop trembling,” he growled, “I'm not going to touch you again.”
He turned and lay on his back, his arms beneath his head. Even in the dimness of the darkened room Jane could see that his face was set and still as he stared sightlessly into the darkness. Her sobs were now reduced to mere ragged breaths. She was as bewildered by this reaction as she had been by his earlier savagery.
“I'll arrange to have Marc take you to the airport this morning,” he said quietly.
She stared at him in alarm. Surely she hadn't made him this angry—not to the point of sending her away from him.
“Why?” she asked shakily, wiping her eyes on a corner of the sheet.
“Why!” he exclaimed bitterly. “My God, I've just used you as if you were a prostitute. I wanted to hurt you, and I set out to do it in the most humiliating and painful way possible.” He laughed harshly. “My damned ego was damaged, so I decided that I'd prove that I could make you beg for it. And you ask me why?”
Jane tried desperately to think. Her mind was a muddle of emotions and half-formed ideas. There was only one clear thought shining through the morass. She must not be forced to leave Jake. This was perhaps the most significant and potentially dangerous moment in their relationship to date. If she couldn't relieve him of his guilt and bitterness, he might well send her away, and she could survive anything but that.
“It wasn't entirely your fault,” she said tentatively. “I behaved badly at the nightclub.”
“You're damn right you did,” he said grimly, his voice hard. “If I hadn't known what was driving you, I would have strangled you. Instead, I took a revenge that I thought I could enjoy.”
He muttered a savage curse and fumbled in the drawer of the bedside table. Soon she heard the strike of a match, and the small flame briefly highlighted the planes of his face as he lit a cigarette. Then the flare was gone and there was only the orangered tip of the cigarette glowing in the darkness.
“Did you think that I didn't know what was bothering you?” he asked bitterly. “I told you that you'd be running for the hills as soon as you got a taste