Stormy Vows/Tempest at Sea (48 page)

“To hell with the plane!” he muttered. “You're coming with me, damn it!” He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her, struggling and protesting, from the cabin. He strode purposefully down the corridor and up on the deck.

“Jake, let me go!” Jane gasped furiously. “I'm tired of being carried and pulled and pushed around like some sort of glorified piece of luggage. Will you please treat me with a little dignity?”

“Be quiet,” Jake said between his teeth, pushing her ahead of him into the lounge. “You're insane if you think I'm going to let you make my life hell on earth. You can just forget about that bloody Peace Corps. You're going to marry me, damn it!”

Jane shook her head dazedly. Peace Corps? Then his last statement sank in.

“Marry you?” she whispered, her eyes widening so that they were enormous in her pale face.

“Marc has full authority to marry us on the high seas,” Dominic said, striding toward the phone at the bar and dragging her along behind him. “I'm giving orders for us to get underway. In thirty minutes we'll be out of Mexican territorial waters.” He reached for the phone, but she suddenly put her hand on the receiver and stopped him.

“Why, Jake?” Jane asked quietly, her face pale and tense. “Why do you want to marry me?”

“Why do you think?” he replied bitterly. “Because I'm a selfish bastard who can't even do one decent, unselfish thing to ensure your well-being. I don't give a tinker's damn anymore if I'll be good for you or not. I'm grabbing you and holding on, come hell or high water.”

Jane felt hope flower in her, its golden petals tentatively opening to a beautiful, unbelievable possibility. “But why?” she persisted, her eyes shining like jewels in her heart-shaped face.

“Because I love you!” he snapped, his face grim. “Because I don't care what's right or wrong, or even what's best for you, as long as I can keep you with me for the rest of our lives.”

Jane closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It seemed too gloriously, wonderfully perfect to be real. When she opened her eyes, Jake caught his breath at the glowing, starlike radiance in their depths.

She moved forward slowly, her arms slipping around his waist and her cheek nestling against his chest with a touching childishness. “You're not joking?” she asked huskily. “You really love me?”

Jake's arms went around her, and his voice was suspiciously ragged when he said, “I love you, redhead.” One hand left her waist to press her head closer to his heart. “And may God help you, because I can't let you go.” His hand tangled in the silky curls and tilted back her head to look down into her glowing face. His features were curiously vulnerable, and the dark eyes held an uncertainty that was foreign to them. “Last chance, sweetheart,” he said thickly. “Tell me no now, and I might be able to muster enough willpower to stop myself. Once you're committed, I'll be the only man in your bed and in your life for the rest of your days.”

“I told you once that I'd never say no to you,” Jane replied firmly. “That hasn't changed, and it never will.”

Dominic lowered his head and covered her lips in a kiss that was as solemn and binding as an exchange of wedding bands. When their lips parted, they were both shaking and clinging to each other like two lost children.

“You don't have to marry me, you know,” Jane whispered. “All I ever wanted was for you to love me. I can understand if you'd rather not be tied down.”

Jake kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose. “You may not mind living in sin, you shameless woman, but I find my reactions are verging on the primitive and the puritanical where you're concerned,” he said, only half joking. “I want to tie you to me with every bond I can lay my hands on.” His crooked eyebrow
arched mockingly. “I hope you're not having second thoughts, because I've shed my last scruples. You're mine now— forever.”

“You don't think that you may regret it later?” Jane persisted, a worried frown on her face. “I don't think I could stand it if it didn't last.”

Jake's face was unusually solemn as he said, “You're my first love, my last love, and my only love, Jane. I didn't even think the emotion existed, until you walked into my life and turned it upside down. I'll never be able to do without you now.”

He released her hair and reached over her head to pick up the phone receiver. Holding her close with one arm, he gave the order to get underway.

After he hung up the receiver, he slid his other arm around her and lowered his head to kiss her with a honeyed sweetness. Pushing aside the beach coat, his hand slid inside to caress the bare satin flesh of her waist and back. Then suddenly his lips were no longer sweet but hot and hungry, parting her lips with his tongue to probe and explore with suffocating passion. Jane instinctively arched to meet his body's arousal, and his hand wandered down to cup her rounded buttocks in his palm and bring her up against his thrusting loins.

Suddenly she pressed both hands against his chest and pushed, wriggling out of his arms at the same time. “No,” she gasped breathlessly, her face flushed and her golden eyes clouded with passion. “I want to talk.”

Surprise at her sudden rejection was mirrored in Jake's eyes, and his face reflected the temptation to ignore her verbal plea and attend only to the message that was still emanating from her aroused body. Then his own body relaxed slightly, though his eyes were glazed and hungry as they fixed on her full, swollen breasts in the tiny peach bikini.

“There's distinct evidence that you have ambivalent emotions
on that score,” he teased. “But I'll let you get away with it for now, redhead. Talk!”

Jane closed the beach coat hurriedly and backed away from him, her cheeks pink. She walked over to the brown leather couch in the center of the room and sat down. Tucking her feet under her, she looked over the back of it at Jake, still standing by the bar. She patted the seat beside her invitingly, and he obediently strolled over and dropped down beside her.

His dark eyes were dancing with mischief as he said softly, “Now you really know that I love you, sweetheart. I've never stopped at a moment like that in my entire life.”

“How long have you loved me?” she asked eagerly, folding her hands before her on her lap. An expression of warm tenderness lit up Jake's cynical face; it would have astounded those who thought they knew him.

“Forever,” he said simply.

“No, really, Jake,” she demanded.

“I suppose that I knew for sure that night in San Miguel when I ran out the door and saw you buried under that pile of men,” he said, grinning. “I didn't know whether to beat you or pick you up and run away with you. I'd never felt like that before, and it scared the hell out of me.” He reached out to rub a finger along the sensitive curve of her lower lip. “Before that I was aware that you affected me more than any person I'd ever met—man, woman, or child—but I wouldn't admit that it was anything more than liking and a strange sense of protectiveness.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Jane asked indignantly. “I told you the very day that I found out.”

Jake shook his head, his mouth twisting. “For the first time in my life I decided to be noble. I knew damn well I didn't have any right to you. I'm seventeen years older and have forgotten more wickedness and deviltry than you could ever imagine. I knew I should have sent you away the minute I realized what
had happened to me, but I convinced myself that I could keep you near me and at least have these two months for myself.”

His fingers slid down to rest in the hollow of her throat, stroking the sensitive pulse point sensuously. “Then everything blew up in my face. Between that damn shark and Kahlid, my good intentions flew out the window. I couldn't keep my hands off you. I rationalized my taking you to bed by telling myself that the only way to discourage you was to show you that it was a losing proposition.” His lips tightened grimly. “That was a bunch of bull. I was wild for you. I wanted you more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life, and I reached out and took what I wanted.”

Jane smiled with gentle irony. “It's no wonder you felt guilty. Anyone could see how unwilling I was.”

Dominic's eyes became even warmer as he said, “God, you're sweet. I can't get enough of you.” He shook his head ruefully. “I'd never had anyone respond to me with such open passion and affection. You had me as dizzy as a schoolboy.”

His fingers moved from the hollow of her throat to slip under the beach coat and clasp one bare shoulder. He bent to lay his lips on the soft hollow that his fingers had just abandoned. Jane could feel her pulse leap as his tongue gently, leisurely probed the silky hollow.

“Yet you would have sent me away,” she charged breathlessly, her hand moving irresistibly to caress the crispness of his thick dark hair.

“I'm a masochist,” he said mockingly as his lips moved to nibble enticingly at her earlobe. “I knew it would kill me, but I couldn't stand seeing you smeared over every yellow-journalism sheet in the world. I'd taken enough from you without that.”

“Thank God you overcame your scruples,” Jane said huskily. “I had visions of having to pursue you on every film set in Hollywood.”

He gave her ear a sharp nip that was far from loverlike. “And
I had visions of having to rescue you from everything from white slavers to man-eating lions. I don't want to hear anything more about this passion for the Peace Corps.”

Jane wondered dreamily what on earth he was talking about, but as his other hand reached under the beach coat to lightly cup one eager young breast, she promptly lost track of the conversation. What had he said? Oh, yes, something about the Peace Corps. “They do very good work,” she said vaguely, while Jake's hands located the catch of the bikini top and released it.

“So do I,” he said mischievously, and proceeded to prove his claim with deft erotic hands and tongue. “And I'm never letting you venture any farther from me than the next room,” he said hoarsely after several wild, heated moments.

Suddenly he was rising and crossing the lounge with swift steps. He shot the lock on the door, and as he turned back to her, he was already starting to unbutton his cream shirt. He unbut-toned the rest while he walked slowly back to the couch. She stared at him with yearning and fascination as he stripped off the shirt and threw it on the chair.

There was a teasing smile on Jake's face despite the leaping flame in his dark eyes. He gently pushed the beach coat off Jane's shoulders, and let it drop in a white pool on the brown leather couch.

“It just occurred to me that we're missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said thickly as his thumbs stroked her nipples teasingly. “In another hour, we'll be just another old, stodgy married couple. This is our last chance to taste the forbidden fruits of living in sin. I don't think we can afford to pass it up, do you?”

Her arms slid around his neck and slowly pulled him down into her eager embrace. “It would be quite a shocking waste,” she agreed happily. “I think you're absolutely right.”

“You're damn right I am, redhead,” Jake said with mocking arrogance, and bore her back on the couch.