A Savage Adoration. PENNY JORDAN

for the most part Christy had been caught too deep in the adolescent thrall of having such a wonderful friend to question too deeply Helen’s values and morals.

      Of course, it was as inevitable as night following day that Helen should worm out of her her feelings for Dominic, and that once having discovered them, she should exhort Christy not to be such a baby.

      ‘If you want him, you ought to go out and get him,’ she had informed Christy, giving her a sly sideways smile as she added softly, ‘it’s easy when you know how. Shall I tell you?’

      The stitch in her side made Christy pause and lean momentarily against a large rock. A feeling of nausea gathered in the pit of her stomach as she tried to drag her thoughts away from the past. Remembering did no good … and no matter how often she went back she couldn’t change the past; she couldn’t wipe out or obliterate what had happened, no matter how much she might want to. She shuddered deeply as she drew in lungfuls of air, icy cold now that she had climbed above the valley bottom, stinging the inside of her chest. She welcomed the pain, because pain meant reality, and reality was now, eight years on from that awful summer.

      She ought to have forgotten it long ago. Dominic Savage’s memory should have faded and been lost beneath happier memories of other men, but it stood between her and her fulfilment as a woman like some sort of revenging spirit.

      She smiled without mirth as she remembered David’s incredulous look of disbelief when she had told him.

      ‘You’re still a virgin? But that’s impossible! God, Christy, a man only has to look at you! Those eyes … that red hair … your body … they don’t belong to some chaste Victorian maiden.’

      She hadn’t been able to stop her mouth from trembling, and he was sensitive and intuitive enough to know that she wasn’t lying. If only David hadn’t been married. How willingly she would have given herself over to his sexual mastery. Physically she had found him attractive, even while she knew she didn’t love him. She had wanted his lovemaking, his skill, and his expertise, like some sort of sleeping princess awaiting the awakening kiss of a prince, she thought now, dourly. But she couldn’t hurt Meryl, and so the chasm of fear and self-loathing that Dominic had blasted between her and her sexuality had remained unbreached.

      As she stood leaning against the stone, the first fine flakes of snow began to fall. She knew that she ought to go back, but she was unwilling to do so, unwilling to face Dominic until she had made herself relive the full horror of that awful night.

      She wasn’t going to blame Helen; the fault, the desire had been hers. She was the one who had listened with awed fascination to Helen’s description of how easy it was to seduce a man. The other girl’s voice had been edged with the contempt of an intrinsically sexually cold female for the vulnerability of the male, but then she had been too naïve to see it, and so, round-eyed, and inwardly faintly shocked, she had drunk in Helen’s detailed instructions.

      ‘But what if he doesn’t … you know? What if he doesn’t make love to me?’

      Helen had shrugged. ‘You don’t need to worry about that. Once you’ve aroused him, he won’t be able to stop himself. None of them can.’

      Alarm and excitement had twisted inside her; excitement at the thought of Dominic making love to her, and alarm at the thought of her own daring in imagining that he might.

      It had been quite easy to discover an evening when Dominic would be at home alone. Every fortnight her own parents and his met up to play bridge, and she only had to wait until the venue for this fortnightly get-together was her own home.

      ‘Wear something sexy,’ had been Helen’s first instruction. Easy enough to say, but there was nothing in her wardrobe that remotely deserved such a description.

      In the end, feeling more uncomfortable and embarrassed than sexy, she had taken off her bra, and unfastened her cotton shirt to show the taut upper swell of her breasts, before tugging it into her habitual jeans.

      A cardigan hid the evidence of her bra-less state from her parents as she said her goodbyes, guilt and desire mingling in almost equal quantities as she got on her bike and sped down the drive.

      It had been a hot summer, and the French windows of the Savages’ house stood open as she cycled down the drive and round to the back door.

      Since their parents were close friends, it was not unusual for her to visit the house, but as she got off her bike she was filled with an awareness that she was trespassing, not just against the Savages’ friendship but also against her parents’ trust.

      She would have turned back then if it hadn’t been for the fact that she would have to face Helen in the morning, and so, quelling her feelings, she went round to the French windows and knocked briefly before walking in.

      The sitting-room was empty; her heart thudding, she walked through into the hall, and then stood there transfixed as she saw Dominic coming towards her down the stairs, pulling on a white shirt.

      His hair was damp, his skin tanned and firm against the powerful male muscles. Something seemed to expand and flower inside her, a deep pulsating excitement that brought a delicate flush of colour to her skin and deepened her eyes to dark jade.

      ‘Christy, is everything all right?’

      The sharpness in his voice brought her back to reality. ‘Yes.’

      ‘Then what are you doing here?’ He was frowning at her as he buttoned his shirt, and because he had never before spoken to her in anything other than a teasingly indulgent voice, Christy could only stare at him. ‘I asked you what you came here for.’

      He was at the bottom of the stairs now, frowning at her, and even though she was tall she had to tilt back her head to look at him. She had taken off her cardigan as she stepped back from him, the dying rays of the evening sun falling across the thin cotton of her blouse, revealing the uncovered peaks of her breasts.

      She heard Dominic catch his breath on what sounded like an impatient sigh, and said hurriedly, ‘I … I came to see you …’

      ‘Me?’ He was frowning even more now. ‘What about?’

      Panic flared inside her. This wasn’t going the way it should. By now he shouldn’t be questioning her; he should be looking at her … wanting her. It wasn’t going to be as easy as Helen had said. Confusion flooded through her, and she turned puzzled, worried eyes up to him, betraying more than she knew.

      ‘I … I just wanted to talk to you,’ she said lamely, flushing a brilliant shade of red as he suddenly said harshly, ‘Christy, what’s this all about? You aren’t in some … some kind of trouble, are you?’

      Her eyes widened, and went brilliant with shock as she absorbed his meaning. There was only one kind of trouble he could mean, and she jerked back from him indignantly.

      ‘No … no, of course not! How could you think anything like that …?’ She was shocked and hurt that he could think that she would give herself to anyone other than him, barely taking in his curt, ‘All too easily, especially when you parade yourself around dressed like that.’ A flick of his hand indicated that he was aware of her near-nudity, and she flushed again. This wasn’t the way he was supposed to react. Helen had said …

      She bit her lip and moved closer to him, her voice shaking as she implored huskily, ‘Dominic, please don’t be angry with me …’ Tears weren’t very far away; she could feel them clogging up the back of her throat.

      She heard him sigh, and then rapturously felt his arms go round her; she was being cradled against him, her head resting on his shoulder, the bare heat of his chest against her thinly covered breasts.

      She quivered with nerves and excitement, aching to reach out and touch him, but scarcely able to even draw breath, never mind do anything else.

      Helen was right, and it had worked! Her legs shook and threatened to give way beneath her. Her heart seemed to have lodged somewhere in her throat and was threatening to suffocate her. Could Dominic feel it beating?