‘Or perhaps you think it’s closer to the nearest hundred?’
‘Don’t!’ he grated abrasively, his eyes darkening with disapproval. ‘Do you think it’s clever to talk that way?’
‘Why shouldn’t I? It’s what you think, isn’t it? You think I’m so hot for a man—any man—that I’ll just indiscriminately flaunt myself and allow anyone to do what they please, don’t you, Dominic?’
‘No,’ he answered simply. ‘In a way it might be easier if I did.’
She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Just that I’ve met women who have no respect for themselves, who allow men unlimited access to their bodies.’
Romy felt sick. Because he was describing her, wasn’t he?
He shook his head, as though he had read her thoughts. ‘But you weren’t like that, Romy—’
‘I was hardly Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, though, was I?’ she interrupted, swallowing down the sour taste of guilt.
‘That was the last thing you were,’ he agreed drily, a pulse beginning to beat once more at the base of his throat as he remembered with what delicious ease he had seduced her. ‘But there was such a sense of wonder in your actions, an uninhibited elation when I touched you, that it did bring me to ask myself whether all was as it seemed between you and Mark.’
Romy felt her voice threaten to crack with fear. ‘And wh-what do you mean by that?’
‘I wondered if perhaps Mark had decided to play the old-fashioned and conventional role of husband-to-be, and had been determined to wait until you were married before he took you to bed. And...’ He seemed to be having difficulty choosing his words.
‘And what?’ Romy prompted, shaking with nerves at his perception.
‘Prolonged frustration is no good to anyone, and has a curious way of erupting. Particularly if...’ Here he paused and frowned, as if the subject was too indelicate to pursue any further.
‘If...?’ she put in, even though she knew that he was about to insult her even more. She stared defiantly at that hard, lean face and had visions of raking her fingernails deep into his flesh, leaving her mark on him for ever...
‘Particularly if you were the more experienced partner in your relationship with Mark,’ he suggested. ‘Perhaps you told Mark that you were a virgin—’
‘But I wasn’t one, naturally?’ she quizzed acidly. ‘So I’m a liar too, am I, Dominic?’
He shrugged broad shoulders, and beneath the white T-shirt Romy could see the powerful rippling of honed muscle. ‘Why not? It isn’t the worst type of crime you can commit. Lots of women do pretend that they are virgins, even when they aren’t. Especially if they are marrying a man like Mark Ackroyd who happens to be a member of the Establishment,’ he continued. ‘You might have decided that it was in keeping with the type of old, aristocratic family you were marrying into to promote the old-fashioned virtue of virginity.’
‘Making me seem more highly prized, I suppose?’ she questioned sweetly.
‘If you like,’ he agreed calmly, either not seeing or just not taking any notice of the growing look of mutiny on her face. ‘You might then have found it exceptionally difficult to wait—especially if you had had a fairly active sex-life before meeting Mark.’
Romy couldn’t believe she was hearing this! But she wanted him to say it, and to say more—and worse than he had already said, too!
Because the more he talked to her as if she were some little slut, the more easy it would be to accept that nothing was ever going to happen between the two of them.
‘So what you’re actually saying,’ she mused slowly, ‘is that you can understand my behaviour a little more now. And that, basically, I happened to be a raving nymphomaniac who wasn’t getting enough sex because I was too busy pretending to be a virgin. Is that right?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake—’
‘And life was hell, Dominic!’ she declared dramatically, revelling in the shocked fury which was revealing itself all over his arrogant features. ‘Sheer hell! Until one day my passion got the better of me. I saw you in the lift and fancied you like mad. When the lift broke down it was as if all my prayers had been answered, and I thought, He’ll do.
‘I mean—’ she shrugged ‘—I asked myself, Why bother waiting for another whole day, when I’ll be legitimately married to Mark? I want this man right now, right here in this lift! And to hell with the lift being mended and members of the general public being able to see what we’re doing! And that’s when it happened.’
He looked furious—really, really angry. ‘Will you shut up?’ he snarled.
Romy’s brown eyes glittered. ‘But why?’
‘Because now you are talking like a tramp!’
‘But that’s what happened, isn’t it?’
He narrowed his eyes to stare at her so intently that Romy felt her soul almost stripped bare by that hard scrutiny. His grey eyes were hard and cold, like chips of stone. What she would have done to see those eyes warm and loving and responsive for once. She felt her heart lurch, and forced herself to remember that she was still so terribly vulnerable where he was concerned.
‘No,’ he said suddenly. ‘That isn’t what happened at all.’
‘Well, then, you’d better make your mind up, Dominic!’ said Romy impatiently. ‘Either I behaved appallingly because I was so hot for you, or...’
Something in his eyes made her words tail off.
‘I should have stopped,’ he said bitterly, but the silver magnetism of his stare still captured her.
Romy’s heart raced like a riderless horse, and some grim, nameless shadowing of his face prompted her to ask, ‘So why didn’t you?’
‘For the same reason that I want to kiss you right now,’ he uttered softly. ‘Because I couldn’t stop myself.’
‘Dominic,’ she said breathlessly as he took the glass from her bloodless fingers. ’D-don‘t—’
He laughed then—a laugh so cold and cynical that it chilled Romy to the bone.
A sensible girl would have taken to her heels and run—just as far away from him as it was possible to run.
A sensible girl would not have allowed him to capture her shoulders with two strong hands, would she? And then allowed him to move her very close to him, so that she could feel his breath heating her skin more intensely than the blazing July sunshine?
And a sensible girl would not have raised her mouth with such eagerness, just begging to be kissed.
She heard him groan her name as his mouth covered hers in a kiss which seemed to be half punishment, half pleasure.
And Romy could hold back no longer.
Because she had wanted him to do this again. Ever since she had roared up to his front door in her little black car, and had lifted her eyes to see him standing there, so elegant and so proud and so arrogantly desirable.
With a stifled moan of pleasure, she raised her hands to run them through the silky tangle of his black hair and kissed him with all the pent-up passion of a woman who had lived in a sexual wilderness for the past five years.
Her ardent response seemed to startle him, but only for a moment, and then he kissed her back. And how! Had he been holding back before? she wondered hazily as the wild, sensual promise of his mouth made her press her body even closer.
‘Dear God...Romy,’ he gasped, already sounding as if he was teetering on the very edge of control, and Romy found herself thrilling to that unsteady note in his voice.