Men of Power
She looked more puzzled than ever when he turned the car into the long gravel, tree-lined driveway that led up to the house, and turned to look at him in confusion as he parked the car in front of the three-storey, mellow-stoned building.
‘Bedforth Manor,’ he told her economically as he got out of the car to get their bags.
Kenzie followed him slowly, coming to stand beside him at the bottom of the steps that led up to the huge front door. ‘Is it a hotel?’ she asked.
‘If it were it would be a very empty one!’ He looked around them pointedly at the lack of any other vehicles in sight.
‘But—’
‘It’s just a house, Kenzie. My house,’ Dominick cut in tersely as he began to walk up the steps.
‘Yours?’ She followed him up the steps feeling slightly dazed.
‘Mine,’ Dominick turned to assure her.
To say she was surprised was an understatement. Not that Dominick didn’t have homes all over the world, but they were mainly apartments, places that could be closed up when Dominick left and then opened up again when he returned possibly months later. A house, at least a house like this one rather than his villas in the South of France and on his Caribbean island, was something else entirely.
It seemed entirely too permanent a home for a man like Dominick, who made a point of avoiding commitment…
Dominick could see the puzzlement on Kenzie’s face, and could guess the reason for it. But he had no intention of telling her that he had originally bought this house for her, and that six months ago he had wanted to at least give her the home she so longed for.
Six months ago, when she was his wife, materially he would have given her almost anything she wanted.
Before she had betrayed him with another man!
He wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t just resold the place after she’d left him, because once Kenzie had gone he certainly no longer had any intention of doing it up and living in it.
But he was glad he hadn’t got rid of it now; it seemed only poetic justice that he should bring Kenzie here, to the house that he had bought for her but which she would now never live in with him.
A house he probably would sell after this weekend…
‘I—it’s lovely,’ she told him in astonishment as he opened the front door and they stepped inside the cavernous hallway.
Dominick looked around him with satisfaction, seeing that the housekeeper had followed the instructions he had given her over the telephone yesterday. There were flowers on the polished table in the centre of the magnificent hallway, their perfume strong and welcoming, and no doubt their dinner was in the kitchen and ready to be cooked. He was sure the master bedroom upstairs had also been prepared for their use…
That housekeeper having now left the house, also as per Dominick’s instructions, meant that he and Kenzie were completely alone here.
He really had been speaking the truth when he’d assured her she wouldn’t have to be social with anyone but him this weekend!
‘Why don’t you go through to the kitchen and make us some coffee…’ He nodded in the direction of the room straight ahead of him ‘…while I take our bags upstairs?’
Kenzie was looking around, loving the panelled walls and polished wood floors, the chandelier and wall lights shimmering crystal, and the lovely wide staircase leading up to the second floor. She was so surprised by the house he had brought her to instead of the cold, impersonal hotel she had been expecting that she couldn’t even think of an argument to his suggestion as she made her way slowly to the kitchen.
The sort of beautiful old-fashioned kitchen she would have loved for her own, a deep green Aga its dominating feature, pots and pans hanging down over a table scored by years of use, with the more modern features like the fridge and dishwasher hidden away behind doors of the same oak as the array of kitchen cabinets.
Why on earth had Dominick, of all people, bought a beautiful old house like this one?
And where were all the staff needed to run such a big house? she suddenly wondered.
Surely a cook was necessary, if nothing else. Or did Dominick include feeding him as part of the weekend she owed him?
Not that she couldn’t cook, in fact she enjoyed it, but despite Dominick’s warning that the only person she would have to socialize with this weekend was him, she hadn’t for a moment thought that the two of them would be completely alone.
‘No coffee?’ He raised his dark brows in question as he joined her in the kitchen to find her just standing there. ‘Never mind, we’ll make some in a minute,’ he dismissed. ‘Perhaps you would like to have a look at the swimming pool first?’
Somewhere in this big, beautiful house was a swimming pool?
Well, why not? Dominick might not have made anywhere his permanent home the last twenty years, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have every comfort in the numerous houses he did own.
‘Why not?’ She shrugged, needing time to collect her scattered thoughts, and a tour around the swimming pool was as good a way to spend them as any.
‘The rose garden,’ Dominick told her economically as they went outside. ‘The stables.’ He pointed over to the buildings some distance away from the house. ‘The swimming pool,’ he said with satisfaction as he took a key from his pocket and unlocked a door.
Surely swimming pool was too mundane a description of the domed building he took her into, she thought, gazing at the huge windows along each side, the big glass doors at the end wall that opened out onto a terrace, and the full-length pool lined with white and blue mosaics. The pool was surrounded by alabaster pillers, and Greek statues of partially dressed women, set amongst huge urns of overflowing flowers.
‘Someone else’s fantasy, not mine,’ Dominick drawled dryly as Kenzie turned slowly to look at him.
She could have guessed that; she didn’t think this romantic setting was Dominick’s taste at all.
But it was hers, she realized, the warm enchantment of the place definitely appealing to her. So much so that she longed to get her costume from her bag upstairs and immerse herself in the lovely cool water.
But not if that was going to mean Dominick joining her!
She was already aware of Dominick enough as it was, and had been so since the moment she had joined him in the car earlier. The darkness of his hair had still been damp from the shower he must have taken, his jaw clean-shaven, his muscled arms bare beneath the black polo shirt he wore, and his legs long in the black fitted denims.
Just looking at him had been enough to put all her senses on alert.
And that awareness had only deepened during the journey down here, an emotion she had hopefully kept hidden behind her dark sunglasses.
She drew in a ragged breath. ‘Perhaps we should go and have that coffee now?’ she prompted quietly, finding this setting far too—intimate, for comfort.
Dominick deliberately put his hand beneath her elbow on the pretext of helping her up the steps as they walked back to the house, and was rewarded by her huskily indrawn breath and the sudden stiffness of her arm before she pulled sharply away from him to walk several feet away.
He smiled to himself as her actions told him that, although Kenzie might try to deny it, even to herself, she still obviously desired him…
‘Only trying to be helpful,’ he said with a shrug.
He set about preparing the coffee himself once they reached the kitchen, and Kenzie was no longer able to hide her eyes behind dark glasses now that they were back inside the house. Her green eyes looked at him beneath her long, lowered lashes as she sat at the kitchen table watching him fill the coffee machine and set it on to percolate.
‘I hope you’re going to be more helpful when it comes to preparing dinner,’ he rebuked mockingly as he got out the mugs. ‘As I’m sure you remember, making coffee and warming ready-prepared meals in a microwave is as far as my culinary talents go!’
Kenzie did remember. She also knew that was because until the two of them had married Dominick had either eaten out or had a live-in cook who had prepared his meals when he had been at home. Any of his homes.
‘Where’s the staff, Dominick?’ she probed warily.
‘There isn’t any,’ he said, sounding unconcerned by her enquiry. ‘A woman from the village comes in to check on the place, and she put some flowers in vases and brought in some food for this weekend, but other than that there isn’t anyone.’
Meaning they were going to be completely alone here this weekend.
Surely flowers in vases and food for the weekend weren’t the details Dominick had told her he still had to finalize before confirming this weekend away?
And what were the two of them doing alone here for the weekend, anyway? What—
‘Why don’t you stop thinking so much and go and take a swim instead, Kenzie?’ Dominick cut into her thoughts harshly, his brown eyes hard and glittering. ‘And you accused me of having an overactive imagination!’ he added with obvious disgust. ‘I thought I had assured you I don’t take unwilling women to my bed!’
What about willing ones?
Kenzie was fast coming to the conclusion she wasn’t unwilling, and that she never would be where Dominick, the man she loved, was concerned.
Dominick had been her husband, the only man she had shared every intimacy with, and the more time she spent in his company, the harder she was finding it to separate that man she’d fallen for from the stranger he should be to her now.
Was this how all the other women she’d read about felt when they had been married to a man and were thinking about sleeping with him again? A certain curiosity? To see if there really was no last vestige of feeling, no hope, left between them?
She stood up abruptly. ‘I think I will go and take that swim, if you don’t mind.’ A plunge into cold water was probably exactly what she needed!
‘I was the one to suggest it, so why should I mind?’ Dominick shrugged, obviously still deeply annoyed. ‘The bedroom is the first door on the left at the top of the stairs,’ he called out to her as she turned and hurried from the room.
She was a fool, Kenzie berated herself as she ran up the stairs as if pursued.
Dominick was deliberately tangling her emotions up in knots and enjoying every moment of it, no doubt.
Although she wasn’t so sure that was all he was doing when she got to the bedroom and saw the huge four-poster bed that dominated the room. A huge king-size four-poster bed, with both their weekend bags sitting on top of the brocade cover!
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN Dominick entered the pool-house almost an hour later it was to find Kenzie floating on the water on one of the Lilos, her eyes closed as if in sleep, and her hands trailing gracefully in the water.
She had left her hair loose and it drifted in the water behind the Lilo, her body long and lithe in the red bathing costume that was somehow more tantalizing to the senses than a brief bikini could ever have been.
Dominick felt his body harden and pulse just looking at her.
She was beautiful, exquisitely beautiful, and his four months of celibacy only increased the ache he had to explore every inch of that beauty.
He stripped his clothes off with unhurried ease, dropping them to the floor before letting himself noiselessly down into the water. Then he swam across to where Kenzie floated in the deeper end of the pool.
Kenzie was dozing slightly, the calmness of the pool having soothed her, and her dreams were full of Dominick. Memories of being made love to by him, of making love to him in return, of the sure caresses of his hands on her body and on her breasts, trailing down to her ribcage to touch—
She wasn’t dreaming!
Her eyes opened wide in alarm as she realized the massaging hand was a reality, and she turned sharply to find Dominick in the water beside her, her sudden movement stilling his hand.
The emotion in the darkness of his eyes was unmistakable.
It was the same emotion that was suddenly coursing through her.
Desire.
Hot.
Burning.
Immediate!
Dominick saw, and easily recognized, the sudden flare of awareness in Kenzie’s gaze.
A gaze that seemed to caress as she looked at the broad expanse of his bare chest before one of her hands moved and her fingers stroked along the path of her vision slowly down his already sensitized flesh.
He groaned low in his throat, his eyes closing as she touched him, opening again at her indrawn breath when her fingers reached his lower stomach and discovered his nakedness.
‘Dominick…?’ she breathed huskily, looking startled.
‘Not now, Kenzie,’ he groaned achingly as he reached out and lifted her up into his arms. ‘This isn’t the time for talking!’ he stated forcefully as he carried her towards the shallow end of the pool.
He was right, this moment was too fragile, too immediate for either of them to be able to bring it to a halt.
Dominick stood her in the water, holding her gaze fixedly with his as he peeled the costume down and off her body before sitting her on the side of the pool, standing thigh-high in the water, moved to stand between her legs, before his mouth hungrily claimed hers.
Kenzie matched his appetite, her arms up about his shoulders as lips and tongues demanded each from the other, Dominick’s hardness pressed against her own moist heat, hard and yet silken at the same time as he moved rhythmically against her but didn’t enter.
Her legs parted further, inviting, her neck arching as his lips travelled the length of her throat, and his hands moved to cup her bared breasts as Kenzie pushed herself into him. She wanted more! So much more!
Dominick altered his position slightly, his head lowering to capture one of her aching nipples in his mouth. Licking it with his tongue, he paused to look up at her. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me to stop, Kenzie?’ he murmured urgently. ‘To tell me you don’t want this as much as I do?’
She couldn’t do it, she thought, she was completely aroused, and her only reply was a low groan in her throat as she offered her breast to him once more.
His eyes glittered darkly as he looked at her, forcing her to watch as he bent his head again, so she could witness, not just feel, the tip of his tongue slowly running over the hardened tip of her breast, before he drew it into his mouth once more.
Kenzie was mesmerized as she watched him pleasuring her. Licking, then gently sucking until she groaned with need and he finally sucked hard against her. Her eyes closed as she arched against him, moist warmth flooding between her thighs, urging for his full possession, wanting the release only Dominick had ever given her.
Then Dominick moved back slightly to run one of his hands between them, down towards her moistness, his thumb then pressing lightly at the core of her desire. He was rewarded by her low whimper as his fingers stroked and caressed, before entering her.
Her warmth closed about him and he began to move inside her, her nipple harder than ever in his mouth, more aroused than ever as her climax began to spiral out of control.
He lifted his head, his hand moving from between them.
‘Dominick…?’ Kenzie groaned low in protest, the cold air like a caress against her breasts in sharp contrast to the fire that raged between her thighs.
He couldn’t leave her now. Couldn’t leave her like this. He couldn’t!
He didn’t.
Instead he knelt in the warmth of the water to kiss his way down to her navel, pausing there for his tongue to tip into the sensual well he found there, his hands on her hips as he plundered.
Kenzie’s back was arched, and her hands flat resting on the tiled floor, as she thought how she never wanted these sensations to stop, wanting it all, wanting Dominick.
She wanted him inside her. She wanted him to take her, take them both, to the release that had built so fiercely inside her she thought she would go insane if he didn’t soon enter her. She felt desperate for those hard caresses that would take them both over the edge.
He moved lower, his breath warm against her as his fingers traveled down to part her, Kenzie giving a husky cry as she felt his tongue against her, moist and hard, then soft, curling around her, driving her ever closer towards climax.
It began deep, deep inside, like slow motion, moving oh-so-slowly and sweetly, into her thighs, her legs falling wide as she took him closer into her, her cry almost a scream as she began to convulse against him, his tongue continuing to stroke against her, prolonging and deepening the climax as the tears fell softly down her cheeks as she sobbed her pleasure.
Kenzie felt as if she were falling, everything receding, and then she felt strong arms about her, Dominick’s arms, as he lifted and carried her, kissing the tears from her cheeks before laying her down on something soft and cool, his body gently covering hers, his knee nudging her legs apart.
Her eyes opened wide, and she saw the wild need on his arrogant features, his hair a dark tangle about his wide shoulders.
She knew that she wanted to give him what he had given her.
She twisted beneath him, pushing him back against the long cushion he had pulled from one of the loungers around the pool, moving so that he lay beneath her as she straddled him.
‘Now, Dominick,’ she said huskily, triumphantly, as she moved against the silken length of him, watching his face as it flushed with arousal. ‘Shall I take you?’ she teased. ‘Tell me. Do you want to be inside me?’
‘You know I do!’ he groaned throatily. ‘I want to be inside you now!’
‘Soon,’ she promised as she moved down the length of his body, kneeling between his legs as she ran her tongue the length of him. ‘Very soon,’ she assured him, hearing his groan as the heat of her mouth closed about him, her fingers featherlight against him.
‘Stop, Kenzie!’ he cried minutes later, his hands reaching down to grasp her shoulders. ‘Stop now before I—’ His expression was almost one of pain as she moved to straddle him once again, his dark eyes pleading. ‘For God’s sake now, Kenzie!’ he muttered.
She lowered herself slowly, very slowly, all the time holding his fevered gaze with hers as he filled her, her own body slick and welcoming as it closed around him.
‘Damn it, you’re enjoying this!’ he groaned throatily.
‘Aren’t you?’ she encouraged as she moved her hips ever so slightly against him, feeling him surge into her as she did so.
‘Oh, yes,’ he admitted, in rhythm to the thrusts of her body against his, his eyes wide and dark. ‘Give me your breast, Kenzie,’ he cried wildly.
She leant forward, her hands either side of his head as she lowered her nipple into his mouth, gasping as he drew it deeply inside. He thrust into her at the same time, and the rhythm of their thighs became stronger, fiercer until the pleasure engulfed them, heated them to molten lava, Kenzie taking everything Dominick had to give, and giving the same in return.
She collapsed weakly onto his chest, his arms about her as his heart beat loudly beneath her, their breathing ragged, their bodies still joined.
Their lovemaking had always been fantastic, but this—this had been—
‘That was—incredible!’ Dominick murmured.
That was the word she had been looking for!
Incredible. Beyond anything they had ever shared before.
Did that mean—? Could it possibly mean that Dominick might feel something for her after all?
‘Kenzie…?’ he prompted as she lay limply above him, only the even tenor of her breathing telling him that she had recovered much quicker than he had, and that the sharp brain behind her beautiful face and body was already hard at work, dissecting, rationalizing. ‘Kenzie, stop analysing!’ he rasped as he moved to lay beside her on the cushion, lifting her chin so that she looked at him. ‘Just accept this for what it was!’ he bit out forcefully. ‘Don’t put one of your pretty labels on it!’
He wasn’t sure what it was himself yet, only that what he had just shared with Kenzie had been unlike anything that he had ever known before, with her or anyone else. The pleasure had been so intense, and the sheer joy of their possession so intimate, so complete, it was beyond description.
What the hell had just happened?
Fourteen months ago he had wanted Kenzie enough to marry her, and he hadn’t been disappointed. Taking Kenzie to bed had been as good as he had thought it would be and that had never changed. In fact, he hadn’t wanted to have sex with anyone else since he’d met her.
But this, what had happened just now, was something else entirely. It had knocked him totally off his feet and turned his brain to mush, leaving him dazed and incoherent.
Kenzie had actually cried with pleasure!
What did it mean?
It didn’t mean anything, he told himself determinedly as he moved abruptly away from her, standing up to begin putting on his clothes.
This was what he had brought Kenzie here for. Sex. Just sex. And that was all it had been.
Kenzie had been with another man for five months, he reminded himself scathingly. She had been sharing Jerome Carlton’s bed, and that was why just now had been different. It was because Kenzie was different; she had learnt new and exciting ways to arouse, to give pleasure. At the end she had taken him, for God’s sake!
The cold knot of anger that had hardened inside him the last four months turned to ice as he imagined her with Jerome Carlton in the way she had just been with him.
Giving him none of the satisfaction he had thought to find after bending Kenzie to his will.
‘Dominick…?’
He looked down at her now, fully dressed while she still lay naked and wanton on the cushion, her hair a dark tangle, her body still warm and beautiful. ‘Put some clothes on, Kenzie,’ he scorned harshly. ‘Play time is over for now. I would like to go back up to the house and eat.’
Kenzie stared at him. He wanted food now? After what had just happened?
But what had really happened?
Dominick had come down to the pool, discovered her half naked, and decided to complete the process, to take what he had always considered his, as he had been warning her for the last week he would do.
The fact that it had been such intense pleasure for her, so much more than ever before, urging her on to behave in a way she never had before, didn’t mean that it had been the same for Dominick.
In fact, if his demand for food was anything to go by then she was sure that it hadn’t been the same for him!
‘You see, Kenzie, it wasn’t in my bed at all,’ he said, breaking into her tortuous thoughts. ‘And, as we both know, you were far from unwilling!’ he added with husky mockery.
She briefly felt the hot tears of humiliation, before anger took over, her overbright eyes burning like twin emeralds of fire in the pallor of her face as she got lithely to her feet, totally uncaring of her nakedness.
She was intent now only on hurting him as he was deliberately hurting her. ‘I wasn’t the one who begged—Let me go, Dominick!’ she breathed raggedly as he grasped her arms to pull her hard against him, her face only inches away from his now as he looked down at her coldly, his breath warm against her skin.
He thrust her roughly away from him, hands clenched at his sides, a nerve pulsing in his rigidly clamped jaw. ‘Get some clothes on and then come back up to the house,’ he grated. ‘Our weekend isn’t over yet.’
It was as far as Kenzie was concerned!
And there was nothing that Dominick could do or say that was going to make her stay here with him any longer than it took her to dress, collect her bag, and then go!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KENZIE dressed and tidied her appearance as best she could before returning to the house, breathing an inward sigh of relief when she discovered Dominick wasn’t in the kitchen as she had expected he would be.