‘Kate… Kate, you don’t know what you do to me.’
She could hear the tension and excitement in his voice and mindlessly she responded to it.
Where she had been cold now she was burning… on fire with the need to have the satin firmness of his flesh against her own without the hindrance of clothes.
She heard him curse as his fingers fumbled with the buttons of her shirt, expelling her breath in an aching sigh of pleasure as he finally cupped the bare skin of her breast. His hips moved against her, his mouth hot and shaking slightly as it touched her throat. The ache of need inside her was something totally outside any previous experience she had had.
Instead of quenching her desire for him the fact that they had already been lovers had only increased it. This was what she had dreaded all along; this terrible searing imprisonment not only of her heart, but also of her body.
His head bent, and she gave a tiny sharp cry of pleasure as she felt his teeth graze delicately over her breast. She was consumed by heat and need; both of which he shared. She could see it in the topaz eyes as she looked down to where his head lay against her breast, his mouth hot against her aching flesh.
A terrible sense of desolation spilled its bitterness inside her.
‘Kate… I want you…’
She heard the words and her heart went cold. She shook like someone held in the grip of a fever. Numbly she dragged herself away from him, inching along the door.
‘Kate?’
She caught the edge of violence in his voice, as he suddenly realised what she was doing.
‘What the hell are you trying to do to me, damn you?’ His voice shook, his face a bitter mask. ‘Is that what turns you on? Building me up and then dropping me flat?’
Kate couldn’t speak. She watched him study her in silence, and then with a tinge of colour creeping up under his skin he said flatly, ‘You’re doing this to punish me, aren’t you…? Aren’t you, damn you?’
His hands were closed, the heat coming off his body undermining her defences. She could sense the violence in him and knew that somehow she must dissipate it. Now without him touching her she was starting to function normally again. She was bitterly ashamed of the way she had responded to him. He had every reason to be annoyed.
‘No… No, I wasn’t trying to punish you,’ she said slowly at last. Dominic had turned his head away as though in repudiation of her words, and impulsively she reached out to touch him, blenching as he turned his head and looked wordlessly at where her fingers lay against his arm.
‘Don’t do that unless you want us back where we were ten minutes ago, Kate,’ he warned her expressionlessly. And then withdrawing completely from her he pushed his fingers through his hair. ‘God, what is it about you that brings out the worst in me? And what is it about me that makes you deny the physical desire you feel for me?’
Kate took a deep breath.
‘If I deny it, it’s because I don’t trust it, Dominic. After all, you want me, but at the same time you resent that wanting…you resent me.’
‘Kate, you’re wrong.’
She shook her head. ‘No… Vera’s told me about your mother…about your upbringing.’ She avoided his eyes as she said calmly, ‘Right from the first you despised me, Dominic…I think you wanted to despise me. You’ve told me yourself that you resented wanting me. I’m still the same person I was before…I haven’t changed.’ She was finding it difficult to articulate her thoughts, but amazingly he seemed to understand.
‘You mean you can’t trust a desire that’s based on resentment…that you think at some point, if there was any relationship between us I would revert to character and turn against you?’
‘Yes.’
She heard him sigh. ‘Listen to me, Kate,’ he said quietly. ‘What Vera told you about my childhood was true, but with one amendment. Since the first time you and I met, I’ve been in touch with my mother.’ He saw her surprise and smiled bleakly. ‘I didn’t want to…not at first, but once I did, I was glad. You see, from her I got a different view of the story; my mother is a very loving, warm person, unlike my father who was basically extremely cold. She tried to make the marriage work, but it was no good. Eventually after a nervous breakdown her doctor advised her to get a divorce. My father would only agree if she allowed me to stay with him. She didn’t want to, but her lawyers advised her that with her mental history of a breakdown, and my father’s wealth, she would not stand any chance of being allowed to keep me.
‘It’s true that the first time we met I did want to believe the worst of you…not so much because of my upbringing, but because I was so appalled to discover how much I wanted you…the wife of a friend. It shook to the foundations all I had believed about myself; and brought on the identity crisis that eventually took me in search of my mother. Kate…’
He made an appealing gesture towards her, but she shook her head and shrank back. She didn’t want to hear any more. She wanted to keep as many barriers between them as possible. That was the only way she could stay safe. Dominic wanted her merely on a physical level, but she loved him.
‘Kate…’ he was frowning now, concerned by her lack of response, and she rushed wildly into speech to protect herself.
‘Dominic, I’m tired… I’d like to go to bed… I…’
She saw the disappointment in his eyes and it convulsed her with remorse. Something almost approaching pain shadowed them and she longed to go to him and take him in her arms, but she could not afford to be weak. She had far too much to lose.
‘Very well.’ His face looked strained, his smile forced. ‘I had hoped we might talk, but if you’re tired…’
‘It’s been a long day.’