Stormy Vows - Iris Johansen [156]
He put down his glass and said thickly, “It's time to go home, redhead.”
She nodded dreamily and rose to her feet, gathering up her wispy pink wrap and the tiny brocade evening bag as he carelessly threw some bills on the table. She turned to precede him, and was startled by a sudden blinding light.
“Hold it, Mr. Dominic, just one more, please.”
There was a muttered curse from behind her, and suddenly she was pushed aside. The plump, fortyish photographer in a gray business suit had time only to shout a frantic protest before Jake wrested the camera from him and dashed it to the floor with all his strength.
“My God, you've broken it!” the man yelped furiously. “That's an eight-hundred-dollar camera!”
“Send me the bill,” Jake said icily. Grasping Jane by the elbow, he pushed her through the whispering, staring crowd, his face white and strained with anger.
He was grimly silent on the taxi ride to the pier, his demeanor forbidding. It was only as the launch was nearing the Sea Breeze that Jane ventured to ask a question.
“Who was he?”
“Probably one of the freelance reporters who hang around resort towns and peddle their garbage to any rag that will print it,” Dominic spat out.
“Was it wise to have gotten so violent?” she asked quietly. “Surely that will only make him more determined.”
“Would you rather have your face spread over some scandal sheet as Jake Dominic's latest playmate?” he asked savagely.
“It wouldn't be pleasant,” she admitted. “But it would be better than having you sued for damages.”
“Forget it!” he ordered harshly. “I'll buy the bastard a new camera, and that will be the end of it.”
Jane obediently subsided, but it was obvious that Jake did not forget the incident. He was moody and uncommunicative during the rest of the trip back to the yacht, and they had no sooner reached their cabin than he brought her forcefully into his arms.
There was a curious tinge of urgency in the way he stripped off the pink gown and tumbled her onto the bed. Tonight there were no preliminaries as he took her with a driving force that contained a bewildering element of desperation. There was an excitement all its own in his raw thrusting need, and when his strong body lay shuddering helplessly in her arms in an agony of release, she knew a satisfaction that was as primal as that of the first woman.
eleven
THE PICTURE WAS REALLY QUITE GOOD OF both of them, Jane thought absently as she spread the newspaper out on her lap. It was a Spanish-language newspaper, but the message would have been clear if it had been written in Swahili. Jake's possessive hand on her arm and the expression of dreamy desire on her own face told their own story. Lord, had she really been so transparent? She might just as well have worn a placard around her neck.
She looked up into Jake's face with wary eyes. It had been four days since the incident at El Invernardero, and Jake had been more moody and restless than she had ever seen him. Jane had been sunbathing in a deck chair when she had seen Jake striding toward her, his face a mask of rage, the newspaper clutched in his hand.
He had thrown the newspaper in her lap with a curt, “Look at this. That damn reporter sent it with the bill for his camera.”
“He must have managed to salvage the film from the wreckage,” she replied calmly. Her eyes ran swiftly over the accompanying story, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “It's mostly speculation and innuendo. I was afraid they might have stumbled on how I came to be on board the Sea Breeze.” She made a wry face. “That would have been quite a scoop. Can't you see the headline: ‘From bomb to bed!’”
“Jane!” Jake said savagely. “Don't you realize what this means? The A.P. is bound to pick up the story—it's too juicy to miss. In two days this picture will be in every newspaper in the world.”
“I rather thought it would,” Jane said quietly, folding the paper and dropping it distastefully to the deck. Her face was a little paler, but she smiled valiantly. “Well, it had to come sometime.