The Dominant Male. Sarah Holland

Gabriel Stone’s desire for her was blocked by her engagement to Bobby. It was so uncanny that she had to suppress the desire to dash the cards from the silken table.

      And as she turned the rest over she began to tremble at what they predicted.

      Herself as The High Priestess, his ultimate goal.

      Gabriel as The Devil, chaining naked prisoners to his throne.

      And the last and most terrifying card of all—The Lovers.

      ‘Ah…’ murmured Gabriel Stone with a smile of cool satisfaction. ‘The Lovers. I did rather expect that card to come up. Didn’t you?’

      ‘No!’ she snapped hotly, and slammed the cards down on the table, ‘And it doesn’t refer to me, so don’t get any ideas or—’

      ‘But if my question was about you, surely the cards are telling us we will be lovers?’

      ‘Mr Stone,’ she said thickly, ‘I am engaged to another man.’

      ‘I know. I asked around. You’ve been with him for some years.’

      ‘And I assure you I have every intention of staying with him for many more! I am marrying him.’

      ‘Don’t worry. I won’t let that stand in my way.’ He smiled slowly as he saw her shocked expression. ‘Did you think I would?’

      ‘Well, out of common decency—’

      ‘I don’t care about common decency. It’s me you want, not him.’

      ‘I beg your pardon! What on earth makes you think I want anything to do with you?’

      ‘The way you look at me.’

      ‘And how do I look at you?’

      ‘As though you’re afraid of me.’

      She fell abruptly silent, her heart thudding hard enough to be heard while through her body ran silvery tremors of desire.

      ‘But you’re attracted to me too—aren’t you, Rhiannon? And excited by me.’ His eyes were hypnotic. ‘Don’t worry, the feeling is more than mutual. Only difference is—I’m not afraid of you. Quite the reverse. Truth is…I like the fear I see in your eyes. I like to see you looking helplessly feminine. It makes me want to make love to you.’

      Her breath caught audibly. ‘Mr Stone, I don’t remember ever being spoken to like this in my life. Not only do I not like it, but I won’t put up with it. I am engaged to be married. I’m faithful to—’

      ‘Does he make love to you?’ In the dim lighting he watched her red lips part in silent shock. ‘Clearly not.’ His eyes were ruthless. ‘I could see the lack of passion on his side from a distance. And the pipe-and-slippers mentality in his face.’

      ‘I like his “pipe-and-slippers mentality”!’

      ‘Then why were you seductive with him at first? Why did you let him stop you when you were trying to kiss him? You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. But that fiancé of yours didn’t want to know. What’s the matter with him? If you were my woman and you twined yourself around me like that, I’d drag you off into the bushes and give you what you so obviously want.’

      ‘This conversation is unacceptable!’ Shooting to her feet, she stood there in trembling silence for a moment.

      He smiled and stood up too, moving around the little table with absolute self-assurance, his body as masculine and threatening as that of a dark pagan god. ‘The truth is unacceptable, is it?’

      ‘It’s not the truth! You keep away from me!’ She backed away from him rapidly, pulses hammering. ‘I love Bobby! I’m going to marry him!’

      ‘You’re not going to marry that idiot!’ He advanced on her.

      She kept backing. ‘Just watch me!’

      ‘Bet you won’t promise to obey him.’

      ‘Modern women never do!’

      ‘You’d obey me, Rhiannon.’ He stopped, cornering her at the edge of the wall of the canvas tent.

      Yes, she thought in terror. My God, I’d obey you. And she almost said it. Just looking into those ruthless blue eyes made her want to start right away, and she was horrified by how much she would enjoy obeying a man like this, a man with such a powerful will, such a strong sense of himself and such an unbreakable determination to get what he wanted.

      Rhiannon saw all that and more in his face.

      But the feelings he evoked in her reminded her so forcibly of Jack that she couldn’t bear to let him win. Jack had been bad enough, but this man was twenty times the ruthless swine he had been. If Jack had knocked her confidence, Gabriel Stone would absolutely destroy it—and probably ruin not only her career but her security in her love for Bobby in the process.

      ‘Perhaps I’d obey you if you put a gun to my head, Mr Stone!’ Rhiannon said thickly, lifting her chin. ‘But it would have to be a kalashnikov rifle!’

      ‘Well,’ he drawled softly, ‘maybe I have a kalashnikov in my mind. If I do, it’s pointed right at you as we speak. And from the way that lovely heart is beating…’ His long fingers slid to her wrist, felt her manic pulse. ‘Ah, yes…’

      ‘Don’t touch me!’ she whispered threadily.

      ‘You’d obey me.’ The blue eyes blazed with arrogance. ‘You certainly wouldn’t get away with treating me like a doormat, the way you treat your tame fiancé.’

      ‘I do not treat him like a—’

      ‘Yes, you do. All that seductive flirting was for my benefit, not his. You used him as a shield against me. Now, why should you do that, I wonder? Only one answer makes sense. He’s not making love to you, and you’ve put up with it for too long.’

      ‘Why, you—’ she whispered thickly, staring up into his ruthless eyes, horrified that he could have guessed the truth with such deadly accuracy. ‘You—you-’

      ‘Hit a nerve, did I?’ he mocked. ‘But don’t worry. Your frustration won’t last much longer.’

      ‘How dare you?’

      ‘I’ve decided that I want you now, and that means there’ll be no stopping me. Within the month you’ll be my woman, my lover—and this phoney engagement will be a thing of the past.’

      She gave a nervous laugh. ‘And how do you propose to accomplish all of that?’

      ‘By insisting that you obey me, Rhiannon,’ he said smokily, evoking a shiver of exquisite desire in her, which she fought.

      ‘Haven’t you ever heard of feminism? Women have changed since the Neanderthal era, and modern women don’t want to obey any—’

      ‘Women are women,’ he cut in. ‘They want to be treated as such.’

      ‘They want to be treated with respect!’

      He laughed softly. ‘I never met a woman who wanted me to make love to her respectfully! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know what it is you like? Or has your sexless relationship with that idiot made you forget how much you like to submit to a powerful man?’

      She stared for a second, wondering if he knew her from her past life. She was excited, knowing deep in the guilty recesses of her sexual self that he was right—that was exactly what she liked.

      Then she realised how stupid she was being. Of course he didn’t know her! He was a total stranger with a brilliant chat-up line which he was lucky enough to find working on her.

      Furiously she pushed at his shoulders and shouted, ‘Stop it! You don’t even know me—how dare you talk to me like this? Get your hands off me and—’

      ‘Make me,’ he drawled, unmoving as a monolith.