Stormy Vows - Iris Johansen [151]
“I'm not the one running away, Jake,” Jane pointed out quietly. “You're the one who's rejecting me.”
Jane could feel the sudden stillness of his body as he lay beside her. Then his voice came out of the darkness with savage deliberateness. “What are you, some kind of masochist? Do you like the idea of being abused? For God's sake, I can't even promise that it won't happen again.” He turned to look at her, the glow of the cigarette casting a shadowy aureole over his features. His lips were twisted cynically, and his eyes held all the weariness of the world. “I'm a selfish bastard, and I have the devil's own temper. I've made it a habit to get whatever I've wanted for my entire adult life. It's not likely that I'll reform at this late date.”
“I haven't asked you to reform,” Jane whispered. “I fell in love with the man you are, not some idealistic dream of what you could be.”
“Very tolerant of you,” he said mockingly. “I imagine you'd be less generous if I suddenly decided to savage you again.”
A ghost of a smile curved her lips. “It would take a little getting used to, but who knows, I might get to like it,” she said lightly. “Isn't forceful and repeated seduction by the man she loves supposed to be one of a woman's favorite fantasies?”
There was a blank silence, and then Jake chuckled. “You're really incredible, redhead.” He shook his head in wonder. “Any minute now, you'll be thanking me for broadening your sexual experience and granting one of your fondest desires.”
“I don't think I'd go that far,” she said serenely. “But it's not as if I didn't enjoy some of it, Jake. It would have been physically impossible for me not to.”
There was another long silence before Jake turned and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray on the table. He turned back to her and said abruptly. “I want to hold you.” There was an oddly formal hesitancy in his voice. “Will you sleep in my arms, redhead?”
Jane felt an odd melting in the region of her heart. Would she ever understand this strange, complex man? Part devil, part little boy, and all tough, brilliant male.
“I'd like that,” she answered softly.
She was immediately brought into the warm haven of his embrace, and her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. He held her as carefully and sexlessly as if she were a child.
“You won't send me away?” she asked sleepily, her body suddenly languid and exhausted in the warm security of his arms.
Jake kissed the top of her head. “No,” he said thickly. “God, no!”
“Good,” she said contentedly, rubbing her cheek like a kitten against the hard bone of his shoulder.
“Go to sleep, redhead.” Jake spoke softly, his eyes alert in his dark face.
Jane relaxed obediently and was almost asleep when he spoke again, the words sounding oddly solemn and stiff, as if the sentiments were foreign to him, as indeed they were. “Jane,” he whispered, his hand gently stroking her red curls, “I'm sorry.”
She smiled drowsily and went peacefully to sleep.
ten
WHEN JANE OPENED HER EYES, BRIGHT SUNSHINE was streaming into the cabin and she was alone in the king-sized bed. A startled look at the digital clock on the bedside table told her why. It was almost one o'clock, and lunch was always served at one-thirty. Why hadn't Jake awakened her, for God's sake?
She jumped out of bed and headed for the shower, stopping only to pull a yellow terry-cloth robe from the closet. She stepped beneath the shower's steaming spray and closed the frosted cubicle door behind her. The pounding of the water on the tiles was so loud that she didn't hear Jake calling her name until he spoke right outside the shower stall. She immediately turned off the water and called back, “I didn't hear you, Jake. I'll be right out.”
“No, stay where you are,” Dominic said huskily. “I had to muster all my willpower to get out of bed and leave you, and I don't have much left. You walk out of that shower naked into my arms and it will