by Miranda Lee
‘It wasn’t you I was wanting,’ he admitted at last on a ragged sigh.
‘Ahh,’ she said knowingly, nodding and reaching for the packet of cigarettes she kept by the bed.
Smoking after sex was Shani’s only vice, health-wise. She often joked that she liked to keep her two vices together, lest they both get out of control.
Control was as important to Shani as it was to Dominic.
He watched as the sheet fell down to her waist, exposing her bare breasts. She didn’t bother to cover herself again as she pulled herself up against the head-board. She just sat there smoking, without a conscious thought of her nakedness.
The memory of Tina agitatedly pulling her top down over her bared breasts popped into his mind. How she’d hated having exposed herself to him that way! Her disgust that she’d let him almost seduce her had been incredibly intense.
Dominic wondered if it was just him she despised, or all men. That appalling childhood of hers must have jaundiced her view of the male sex. Sarah’s obvious vulnerability to men and sex had certainly galled her.
Still, she wasn’t immune to the pleasures of the flesh. Obviously she liked lovemaking. So it was probably just him she didn’t like.
‘Who is she?’ Shani asked between puffs.
Dominic snapped out of his see-sawing thoughts. ‘Someone I met today.’
‘At work?’
‘In the office, yes.’
‘Client or colleague?’
‘Neither.’
‘What, then?’
‘An angel,’ he said.
‘An angel!’ Shani laughed. ‘Oh, dear, dear, dear, you have got it bad.’
‘Not that kind of angel,’ he returned ruefully. ‘An avenging angel. Straight out of hell. And I’m not in love with her.’
‘Is that so? Well, if you haven’t fallen for her, then why aren’t you over here, doing what comes naturally? It’s not as though your equipment isn’t working.’
Dominic had to confess she was right. He wasn’t impotent. Not physically, anyway.
‘I simply can’t get her out of my mind,’ he confessed. ‘But it’s not love.’
‘Love has a way of creeping up on you when you’re not looking,’ she said, and he frowned at the odd note in her voice.
‘My God!’ he exclaimed, alarmed. ‘Shani… You’re not…with me, are you?’
‘No, I’m not. Thank heavens. But I was beginning to grow very fond of you, darling. Too fond. So it’s best we come to an end, I think.’
Dominic didn’t know what to say. The thought that Shani was becoming emotionally involved with him was a real shock. Who next?
He made up his mind then and there. He had to keep away from Tina. Well away. Love was not on his agenda. Not now. Not ever. He wanted his old life back. And his old self. He didn’t like being out of control. He didn’t like anything that had happened to him today one little bit!
He shot a look at Shani, sitting there, smoking. ‘Will you be all right, Shani?’ he asked gently.
Her mouth curved into a smile, one of her brassy, confident smiles. ‘Perfectly all right, but thank you for asking. Fact is I met this incredibly sexy man the other day whom I fancy something rotten. He fancies me too. Gave me his card. He’s a lawyer. Not a tender bone in his body. Unlike you, darling. You really are a big softie at heart, you know that?’
‘Me?
You have to be kidding!’
‘Actually, no, I’m not.’
He laughed. ‘And I thought advertising people were supposed to be good judges of character!’
‘Oh, but we are,’ Shani said with a perfectly straight face. ‘We are.’
CHAPTER TEN
TINA was sitting at the dressing table in her bedroom, vigorously brushing her hair. The radio clock on the bedside table showed eight-thirteen. It was Sunday night, forty-eight hours since all Tina’s misconceptions about sex and herself had been totally blown apart.
She sighed and stopped the brushing. What an endless weekend it had been!
Initially, she’d been glad when Dominic had stormed out of the house on their return from Sarah’s, having informed his mother curtly not to expect him back that weekend.
Any relief, however, had been short-lived. That night she’d lain awake for hours, thinking of what Dominic was doing with his girlfriend, tormented with erotic images and her own insane jealousy.
She’d kept thinking about what he’d said to her, how he’d been attracted to her from the first moment he’d seen her, how he’d been aroused all through dinner. She’d felt tortured by the thought it could have been her in his arms that night, not Shani.
No wonder she hadn’t slept a wink Friday night!
Tina now knew what Sarah had meant when she’d tried to explain how she’d felt sometimes when she’d been with a lover. The mindless madness of it all. The flights of fantasy which took you out of reality into a world where nothing existed but your yearning, burning body with its dark desires and wicked needs.
Tina groaned at the memory of how she’d felt on that bed with Dominic. She’d been shameless. Even now her face burned with mortification that she’d fallen victim to his practised expertise so easily.
Still, if nothing else, she now understood the driving power of sex. She saw why people transgressed normal moral boundaries when in the grip of lust. It explained so much about life which had previously confused her.
But all this new knowledge didn’t make her own situation any easier to bear. She still lusted after Dominic Hunter like mad—a man she despised. Which, of course, was the main crux of her problem.
If it had been any other man, she could have indulged her feelings without fear of losing too much respect for herself. But how could she succumb to the man who’d seduced Sarah, who’d produced and abandoned Bonnie?
It was an impossible situation, made even more impossible by the fact her normally tough, hard-nosed brain seemed to no longer have any control over her body. Common sense and sheer decency demanded she put aside such a potentially disastrous desire, but she simply couldn’t. It obsessed her mind all the time.
During the daytime, she’d managed to get a marginal grip, having things to distract her. Yesterday she’d done the washing in the morning—there was always washing with a baby—and in the afternoon Ida had taken her shopping again.
The dear woman was obviously making up for lost grandmother time by buying Bonnie toys and clothes. Tina hadn’t had the heart to tell her not to, that Bonnie already had everything she needed for a while. She already understood full well how a baby like Bonnie, with her unfortunate start in life, could tug at the heartstrings. You just wanted to lavish so much love and attention on her to make up for her losing her mother and not having a father who wanted her.
Today, she and Ida had gone down to the park in the morning, with Bonnie in her pram, then stopped at a local café for a leisurely lunch.
It had been a beautiful spring day, still and sunny without being too hot. After they’d come home, and Bonnie had been bathed, fed and settled for a sleep, Tina had joined Ida picking some roses in the garden. They’d spent a couple of hours arranging them in various vases around the house, during which Tina had kept up a happy face.
But inside she’d still been fretting over her feelings for Dominic Hunter. Every time Ida had brought her son into the conversation—which had been often— Tina had found herself tensing. Of course she hadn’t shown it, but it had been a strain, acting all the while.
She’d been rather relieved when Ida had had to go out after dinner. A woman from her bridge club had called, explaining that one of her regular Sunday night players was unwell and they desperately needed a fourth. Could Ida possibly come? She hadn’t wanted to at first, but Tina had insisted, thinking it would be good to be alone for a while. Now, she regretted that insistence. Being alone with her thoughts and feelings was not such a good idea at all.
Putting the hairbrush down, Tina stood up and walked across the plush cream
carpet to the window, which looked down onto the front yard. The driveway was deserted. Tina hoped it would remain that way. The last thing she wanted was Dominic coming home with his mother out. He’d said he wouldn’t be home all weekend, which meant that, with a bit of luck, he didn’t intend showing up till very late tonight or, even better, Monday morning.
Turning, Tina walked over and into the attached bathroom, which had another door leading into a smaller bedroom where Bonnie was sleeping.
Ida had confessed to Tina when she’d assigned her and Bonnie these rooms that she’d decorated this part of the house, and had this extra door put in, in anticipation of her younger son, Mark, and his wife having children.
Tina had then heard all about Mark, who sounded like an irresponsible dreamer, especially where money was concerned, and nothing like his older brother whom, Ida had explained, had been her financial and emotional rock when her husband had died. A stroke had claimed Dominic’s father unexpectedly, seven years earlier. If that hadn’t been shock enough for the family, he’d died leaving his business affairs in a right old mess. Overdrawn accounts and second mortgages everywhere!
Dominic had come to the rescue, working crippling hours to get everything back into the black, which was one of the reasons he’d returned to live at home. Firstly because there weren’t enough hours in the day for him to look after himself. And secondly because it had saved money on renting elsewhere, his weekly contribution enabling the mortgages on the house to be cleared more quickly.
Of course, everything was fine now, Ida had hastened to explain, perhaps thinking Tina might be worried they weren’t in a financial position to help Bonnie. Ida claimed Dominic was as brilliant a financial investor and advisor as his grandfather, who’d apparently made millions in the post-war years, most of which his less skilled son—Dominic’s father—had lost, in several speculative and high-risk investments.
Actually, there was no need for Dominic to continue to live at home, Ida had added. She suspected he did it because he thought she’d be lonely without his company.
Tina suspected he did it because he’d discovered it was much easier to have someone else—a woman, naturally—do all the mundane things in life, leaving him free to do the really important things, like make money and seduce women!
Her heart hardening at this thought, Tina tiptoed from the bathroom into the room where Bonnie was sleeping.
Her heart melted as she peered down at the lovely little face. What an incredibly beautiful child she was. Sarah all over again, with perfect skin, long curling eyelashes and the loveliest of mouths. Sweetly shaped, with full lips.
Already you could see she would be a beauty when she grew up. She would need protecting. She would need a father as well as a mother.
‘And a father you shall have, my love,’ she vowed staunchly.
Making sure Bonnie was firmly tucked in, Tina crept out of the room, leaving the door into the bathroom slightly ajar so that she could hear when Bonnie woke during the night. She was sure to, at least once, having not yet learned to sleep through the night. Ida had said she probably wouldn’t till she was on solids, which started around four months. This was confirmed by one of the three books on child-raising Tina had bought that afternoon while Ida had been looking at baby clothes.
Once back in her bedroom, a still restless Tina contemplated going downstairs to watch television, but quickly discarded that idea. She’d already showered and was wearing her night things.
The prospect of Dominic arriving home and finding her downstairs attired in skimpy nightwear was foolish in the extreme.
‘If you don’t want to get burnt,’ she warned herself aloud, ‘then stay away from potential fires.’
Being alone with Dominic Hunter would be a highly flammable situation. Being alone with Dominic Hunter with nothing covering her sexually charged body but two thin layers of blue silk would be inevitable spontaneous combustion.
She didn’t have to look down to see that her nipples were already erect, as they were every time she even thought of that man in connection with anything remotely sexual.
No, there was nothing for it but bed. Thankfully, she had a novel which she’d taken from one of Ida’s bookshelves and brought up with her earlier. A thriller which promised to be unputdownable.
She had a feeling she would still be reading it when Ida arrived home. Around eleven-thirty, she’d said.
Tina had just slipped off her wrap when the sound of a door slamming downstairs had her scrambling back into it.
Ida would not have slammed the door that way. Only a man would do that with a sleeping baby in the house.
Dominic, it seemed, had finally deigned to come home.
She heard him call for his mother and receive no reply; heard him hurry up the stairs; heard him prowl along the hallway to his room, then come back again.
Her heart stopped when he halted outside her door, then jumped when he knocked.
‘Tina? Are you in there?’
She clasped the brass doorknob with both hands to stop him from turning it. If there’d been a bolt she would have thrown it, but there was no bolt and no key in the lock.
‘Yes,’ she choked out through the door. ‘Why?’
‘I can’t seem to find Mum.’
He sounded angry. And impatient.
‘Your…your mother’s out. Playing bridge.’
‘But it’s not her bridge night!’
‘She’s standing in for someone.’
‘For pity’s sake, open the damned door and talk to me properly,’ he snapped. ‘I can hardly hear you.’
‘I can’t. I…I’m not dressed.’
‘At this hour of the night? Since when do grown women go to bed before eight-thirty?’
‘Since they started getting up in the middle of the night to look after babies!’ she snapped back. ‘Now go away and leave me alone.’
He hesitated, then went, the wooden floorboards protesting as he clomped his way down the upstairs hallway back in the direction of his rooms. A door banged shut, shortly after which the water pipes registered the whooshing sound of someone having a shower.
When Tina finally let go of the doorknob her knees went to jelly. So close, she thought shakily, and stumbled over to the bed. Once there, she fell in, then just lay there, a tremor claiming her every now and then. She felt weak as a kitten, and strangely bereft. Tears filled her eyes. Angry with herself, she blinked them away and pulled the bedclothes over her.
‘I will not cry over that man,’ she resolved, and determinedly picked up the novel.
Tina was still on page one several minutes later when the water pipes fell silent. Once again she found herself tensing and listening for him. She was just about to relax and return to reading when the sound of a door opening and shutting put her nerve-endings on red alert once more.
He was walking along the hallway back towards her door again, moving closer and closer. The fact that he had to pass her room to go downstairs did come to mind, but was instantly dismissed. He wasn’t going to go past. She just knew it.
And she was right. His footsteps stopped outside her room. She could almost hear him breathing, which was crazy since the door was one of the old-fashioned kind. Solid wood and thick. Not the sort of door you could hear things through easily. Certainly not mere breathing.
The abrupt knocking tightened her nerves further.
‘Tina?’ he called through the door, his voice a low growl.
She didn’t answer, her breath frozen in her lungs. At the same time her heart was hammering behind her ribs and some simply dreadful part of her wanted him to walk right in without asking.
‘Your light’s still on,’ he ground out.
‘I…I’m reading,’ she croaked.
‘We have to talk, Tina.’
‘No, we don’t,’ she countered, panic in her voice and in her heart.
‘I have things I have to say to you.’
‘Tell me in the morning.’
�
�No. I need to say them now, or I won’t sleep.’
When Tina saw the doorknob turn, she squawked and dived out of the bed, colliding forcibly with Dominic’s big broad chest as he came in. Her hands flew up in a defenceless gesture, only to encounter a deep V of bare chest, along with a surprisingly soft triangle of black curls.
‘Oh!’ she cried, her flustered eyes finally focusing on this provocative expanse of naked flesh before flicking agitatedly down, then up again.
He was wearing long black silk pyjama bottoms, with a matching dressing-gown sashed inadequately around his impressive body. His feet were bare, the skin under her hands cool and faintly damp.
Tina tried not to stare, or to feel, but that was all she seemed to be able to do at that moment.
Stare…and feel.
Her eyes would not obey her mental commands. As for her hands…they were frozen flat on his flesh, but her sensitive fingertips were registering—and revelling in—the feel of all that macho maleness beneath them.
Her head fairly spun with desire.
Suddenly, his size didn’t intimidate her at all. She found it tantalising. And irresistible. She ached to touch him all over, to discover all that made him the man he was.
It was like being possessed, she realised dazedly as her eyes lifted inexorably to his. Someone else was inhabiting her body, some reckless and very foolish female who was about to ignore the fact that this was the last man on earth she should let seduce her.
Her brain screamed at her that it wasn’t too late to stop.
But her brain was powerless against the commands of her suddenly awakened sexuality, with all its urgent desires and needy, greedy demands.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DOMINIC only wanted to tell Tina he’d found out who Bonnie’s real father was. Damn it all, he’d spent all weekend finding out!
He’d raced home, anxious to tell both his mother and Tina the truth, and put an end to this farce. He’d even planned to generously offer a sum of money to Tina for the child, so his stupid conscience wouldn’t bother him afterwards.
