The Dominant Male

‘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. ‘You’re a strong woman, a modern woman, a woman not about to submit or obey! Go on—make me stop!’

She pushed at his shoulders hard, harder.

He just stood where he was, smiling mockingly, a ruthless glimmer in his steel-blue eyes as she pushed and pushed and pushed, getting more and more flustered.

Eventually she stopped, breathing harshly, dwarfed by his height and defeated by his physical strength.

‘So much for the modern woman!’ he drawled, and then pulled her hard against his body, his dark head swooping, his ruthless mouth closing over hers as she opened it to gasp and was silenced by his kiss.

Her vulnerable eyes flashed with a plea for mercy, but her mouth opened beneath his with a moan of helpless desire. And, although she struggled angrily against him, he really was too strong for her, kissing her deeply, determined to impose his will on her, enjoying her puny struggles as he controlled her easily, hard hands stroking her naked midriff, one pressing the small of her back so that she could feel every inch of his body hard against her.

It was wonderful, mindless ecstasy, and eventually she surrendered with a sigh of sweet capitulation, unable to fight any more, obliterated by him. She found her hands on his broad shoulders, clinging to him as she felt the last traces of common sense, of will-power, of fidelity to Bobby slide from her grasp like grains of sand on a hot summer beach as the water rushed in to engulf them.

He took immediate advantage, sensing her submission, and deepened the kiss. She clung to him blindly, unable to stop herself, drowning in a desire she hadn’t felt for years, years, centuries…

It was as though she had been covered in dust, a relic from a long-forgotten age, hiding from life, from love, from passion behind Bobby’s unthreatening personality until this man, Gabriel Stone, had come along to rip aside the façade and bring her, literally, to her knees with the excitement of being a woman in a man’s arms.

He slid one strong hand down to cup her rear, making her moan hoarsely, gasping for breath.

‘Don’t…please…’ she whispered shakingly against his hot mouth.

‘Make me stop!’ he whispered back, his breath hot on her tongue as his strong hand fondled the curve of her buttocks and made her burn with hot, moist desire.

‘You know I can’t…you’re stronger than me!’

‘Then give in and do as you’re told!’

Her heart leapt with fierce excitement, but the memory of Jack Ratchett and that hellish experience five years ago was still strong enough to break through her excitement and make her find a way to stop him.

She couldn’t fight him physically. But she could scream her head off—and that was precisely what she did.

She pulled her head back from him and screamed loudly.

His eyes flashed with steel-blue rage as her piercing scream rent the air. They both heard the sounds of people running towards the tent

Bobby lumbered in, followed closely by two other men and one woman.

For a second they all just stared at Rhiannon, standing flustered and breathing hoarsely, her eyes glittering, her face flushed, backed up against the silken wall, while Gabriel Stone towered as tall as the ceiling, hands thrust in the pockets of his expensive black suit, a look of hard, arrogant power on his tough face.

‘A sensational reading.’ Gabriel turned swiftly, taking charge. ‘I’m afraid Rhiannon was so startled by her accuracy with the tarot cards that she quite lost her self-control.’

‘Rhiannon…?’ Bobby asked gently, coming towards her, glancing suspiciously at Gabriel Stone.

‘It’s OK,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m all right.’ But she didn’t tell him what had really happened, and as her eyes met Gabriel Stone’s she saw the gleam of triumph in those blue depths, because he had made her support his story…he had made her obey him.

‘I do apologise, Mr Stone.’ The male organiser was more concerned with keeping Gabriel Stone happy. ‘We hired her in good faith, and…’

‘Please, don’t apologise for her.’ Gabriel Stone cut him off with a curt, contemptuous note in his voice. ‘If she was scared by the reading it was my fault, not hers. I won’t have her penalised. Understand me?’

‘Oh, yes, of course, Mr Stone!’

‘Good.’ He turned to look at her. ‘Thank you very much for an exciting glimpse of the future, Rhiannon.’

‘Don’t mention it!’ she muttered.

‘I shall remember precisely what the cards predicted.’

‘I’m sure you will!’

‘And I shall most definitely,’ he drawled mockingly, ‘be in touch with you to discuss it more fully in the future.’

Her eyes smouldered at him.

‘Until then…’ Gabriel Stone turned and strode coolly out of the tent, giving no more than a cursory nod to the men and the woman who practically bowed to the ground in their haste to curry favour with him, his money and his undeniable power.

Rhiannon watched him go, her eyes filled with hatred.

Hatred and desire…

CHAPTER TWO

RHIANNON presented almost two thousand pounds to the charity organisers. Naturally they were thrilled. It was the single biggest contribution of the day. Rhiannon told them that Gabriel Stone had donated the largest amount and they all swooned like mad, saying things like, ‘He really is the most marvellous man,’ and ‘How can one man be so generous and so sexy?’

‘Does he always contribute so heavily?’ she asked, because she had to know if he had been generous for good or bad motives.

‘Oh, yes!’ Marella, the head of the committee told her. ‘Mr Stone is a born philanthropist. He doesn’t just make millions and keep them all to himself. He donates to worthy causes wherever he finds them. And he has a particular fondness for children’s charities.’

Rhiannon mulled this over. The brute had made it appear as though he wanted to buy her, not help children. Yet clearly he would have donated as much whatever the circumstances.

That doesn’t make him a saint, though, she thought angrily. Look at the way he behaved towards me!

‘We’re going to be late for dinner, Rhiannon,’ Bobby whispered in her ear as she was about to accept another cup of tea from Marella. ‘I booked the table for seven-thirty…’

Rhiannon quickly excused herself and went to get changed in one of the superb bathrooms of the Manor. She had brought her evening outfit with her, and it almost felt as though she’d had a little holiday because she had to pack her day clothes, her Welsh Witch costume, her tarot cards and her make-up into a little suitcase.

In the mirror, she saw the faint bruising of her lips from Gabriel Stone’s kiss, and she wondered if she would ever need lipstick again. Her heart thudded harder as she remembered the strong arms around her body, the insistent pressure of his mouth, the exciting intimacy of their tongues sliding together and the burning heat of her blood…

I hate him! she thought defiantly, fighting the force of her own desire. How did he know what I yearned for? Is it written all over my face?

Staring into the mirror, she saw the wildness of her green eyes, the pout of her red mouth, and wondered, What told Gabriel Stone that I wanted to be dominated by him?

It was her secret.

Her secret, dammit, and nobody else was supposed to know—not even Bobby. Like Pandora with her golden casket, she had kept it buried for five long years, never thinking about it herself, if she could help it—let alone telling anyone else.

It wasn’t just the desire to love, honour and obey a man that she had kept secret all these years. Nor was it the desire to find herself with a man who would dominate her physically, make her feel feminine and helpless and exquisitely ravaged in lovemaking. It was more the fact that only a dominant man could ever hope to make her truly fall in love.

Of course, she loved Bobby, but in such a different way. He was and always had been more like a friend, a comfortable and familiar cushion she nestled on while getting on with her own life and career.

But a man like Gabriel Stone could make her fall helplessly in love, and that made him dangerous.

Far too dangerous to allow him access to her again—even though she was already so fascinated by him that all she could think of were his dazzling eyes, his cynical face, the power of his kiss…and what other wicked delights a kiss like that could lead to.

‘Rhiannon!’ Bobby called up the vast sweeping staircase. ‘I booked the table for seven-thirty! We’re going to be late!’

‘Just coming!’ Rhiannon snapped out of her reverie and hurried downstairs with her little suitcase, which Bobby stowed in the car as they both said their goodbyes to the charity organisers.

They drove swiftly back to London and had dinner at a homely little Italian restaurant just round the corner from Rhiannon’s Kensington home.

But she was preoccupied and tense all through the meal, dark passion occasionally smouldering in her eyes as she toyed with her food indifferently and remembered Gabriel’s words—’I like to see you looking helplessly feminine…’ Why did that phrase make her want to make love with him until the world exploded into a thousand stars?

After dinner, Bobby drove her home.

‘Darling,’ he said as he pulled up in the cobbled mews, ‘you’ve been so quiet since we left the Manor. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She looked at him through her lashes, frowning. How could she tell him the truth? He had never even tried to make love to her. Their whole relationship had been founded, from the beginning, on a mutual fear of casual sex and intimacy. How could she confide in him now when what was bothering her was precisely that?

Something in her must have changed. There was no denying that she had spent the whole evening dreaming of Gabriel’s kiss, touch, dominant lovemaking. But Bobby was unaware of that. Just as he was unaware that Rhiannon now clamoured for more of Gabriel Stone.

Guilt ate away at her. Bobby was clearly still the same. He had not been the man to awaken her sleeping desires. Gabriel Stone had done that. So what could she possibly say to Bobby about it without rocking their security and damaging their friendship?

‘I suppose you’re just tired?’ Bobby ventured helpfully.

‘I suppose so,’ she agreed, wishing she could confide in him as she had always done when something was bothering her. ‘And I had such a busy week at the office. I was working late every night.’

‘You work too much.’ Bobby smiled, relaxing with the familiar excuse. ‘I’ve told you that before.’

‘I love working. I’ve told you that before!’

Bobby laughed and opened his door. ‘OK, Mademoiselle Workaholic! Let’s call it a night, shall we?’

Rhiannon stepped out of the car too, and walked round in the moonlit, lamplit mews to her bottle-green front door with the gold lion knocker and the two hanging plants beside it.

‘Lunch tomorrow?’ Bobby put his arms around her. ‘I could come round at twelve, read the papers while you cook. Maybe we could have a game of Monopoly…’

The thought of the familiar routine horrified her. Don’t you realise that everything’s changed since I met Gabriel Stone? she wanted to say. But she would just have sounded mad. After all—how could it all have changed in just one meeting with a complete stranger…?

Suddenly she needed to do something that would keep her security with Bobby, and for some insane reason she thought that making him see her in a sexier light would do the trick.

‘Bobby,’ she said on impulse, ‘why don’t we do something different this Sunday?’ ‘Such as? Picnic in Hyde Park? Motor down to—?’ ‘Why don’t we make wild, passionate love instead?’ His eyes almost fell out of his head. ‘Make love…!’ ‘I…’ Her skin burned with embarrassment. ‘I—I just meant we ought to do something different. That’s all.’ She turned away from him, worry in her eyes. His attitude to sex had never bothered her before. Why did it bother her now? But she knew the answer to that. It was six feet six with steel-blue eyes and a tough, sexy mouth.

‘Well, I…’ Bobby coughed nervously, as uncomfortable as she was. ‘I’d love to, darling, but I thought you felt as I did. About sex before marriage, I mean. Not the done thing, and all that. Rather tawdry.’ He shuffled his feet, face red. ‘Sort of thing cheap, insincere people do.’

‘But we have been together for five years, and—’

‘Yes, yes, but…’ He shifted uncomfortably in the lamplight. ‘The wedding night is the proper time. And don’t forget we’ve steered clear of sex because it was what you wanted. That was what you said in the beginning, remember?’

‘What did I say?’ she asked huskily, leaning against his shoulder, closing her eyes and praying that his love, his kindness, his tenderness would keep the forces of her desire for Gabriel Stone at bay. Like a magic charm, an amulet, a crucifix to ward off the Devil.

‘That Jack Ratchett had driven you mad with his need to control you. That he’d made you obey him in everything. And that you never wanted to be involved with a man like that again as long as you lived.’

She sighed softly, reassured. ‘And what else?’

He kissed her forehead, saying deeply, ‘That you would only get involved with me if I promised never to play power-games with you, and never to force you into lovemaking until you were ready.’

‘Yes, that’s right…’ She smiled up into his eyes with love. ‘I did say that, didn’t I?’

‘And you are still happy with it, aren’t you, darling?’ He asked eagerly, almost desperately. ‘I mean—you don’t change your mind about something so loathsome overnight. Do you, dearest?’

‘No…’ Her voice said the word, but she stared at him and thought, Loathsome? Did we really once agree? Am I really going to marry him?

The worry she felt as those thoughts ran through her mind was so deep she couldn’t cope with it. Instinctively she tried to cling to what was safe, secure, familiar.

‘You’re right, Bobby. Power-games are horrid and so is sex. I want nothing more to do with either.’

Horrors! she thought, listening to herself. I sound like some awful old prude instead of a young woman. Do I really hate sex? But even as she thought it she remembered Gabriel Stone’s kiss, her passionate response and the helpless desire she had felt in his arms…

‘Look, I really must go in now,’ she heard her shaken voice saying as her hands fumbled in her bag for the keys. ‘I’m so tired. That’s probably all that’s wrong with me. I need to sleep.’

‘A tired boy is a fretful boy, as my mother always says.’ Bobby irritated her further with yet another of his mother’s sayings. ‘And it applies to girls too, darling. We don’t want you all fretful when you’ve so much work to do, do we?’

Rhiannon smiled tensely, kissed him goodnight and went inside.

She put the light on and stood staring at her beautiful living room for a long moment in silence.

It seemed strange. As though she’d never seen it before. As though it were a rented house, not the home she’d lived in and loved for three years.

Her briefcase was open on the pale yellow couch and the storyboard was visible from here: tiny television screens with colour drawings in each one, depicting frame by frame the advertisement she had devised for Carillo’s Cuban coffee.

A Cuban hacienda at night. Two cups of coffee steaming on an antique drawing room table. An overhead fan and smouldering music…

The camera moved across the bed and out onto the balcony.

A sultry, sexy brunette stands on the balcony over-lookng Havana. She is wearing a long, slinky red evening dress, slit to the thigh, and a red bougainvillea flower in her hair.

A black limousine pulls up in the aristocratic Havana street below. A liveried chauffeur rushes to open the rear door. A tall, dark and incredibly powerful-looking man steps out, looks up at the brunette on the balcony and gives a slow, ruthless smile.

The sultry brunette looks at the camera and says throatily, ‘I like my men the way I like my coffee…dark, rich and very strong.’

CARILLO’S CUBAN COFFEE, flashes up onto the screen. DARK, RICH AND VERY STRONG.

Rhiannon studied the storyboard. When she’d left for the charity fête this morning, her mind had been filled with Carillo’s Cuban coffee. She hadn’t been able to decide whether to stick with ‘Dark, rich and very strong’ or move to her new idea of ‘When you feel like coming on strong’.

Now she couldn’t care less.

It was a matter of complete indifference to her.

All she cared about was whether or not she would ever see Gabriel Stone again, and whether he would kiss her as he had kissed her today, unleashing that dammed-up passion.

He made me feel like a woman for the first time in years, she realised with a shock.

And I loved every second of it.

But how could he do it in just one brief meeting?

How…?

Ambition had been her lover and best friend for so long that she automatically expected to feel dynamic and excited as soon as she crossed the threshold of Solomon Advertising Associates on Monday morning.

But as she entered the busy black glass building on Tottenham Court Road she felt the same sense of detachment and strangeness she had felt all weekend.

She quickened her step, almost running to the lifts as though from the changes in herself. On the seventh floor people said hello to her as always, and she said hello back cheerily, but inside she felt alien to them, and to the whole business of advertising.

She hurried past Bobby’s little glass office without stopping to wave. He was sitting at his desk, playing with the executive toy she had bought him for Christmas last year.

But there was her own office, just ahead, a beacon of light—her palace, her reason for living. The door was polished oak with a gleaming gold plaque on it which read‘RHIANNON WINDMORR—CREATIVE DIRECTOR’.

Just the sight of it had always made her smile brightly. But today she felt nothing. It was just a piece of brass on a door, that was all—nothing more.

She went inside, closed the door and looked at the trophies, the certificates, the award-winning designs, adverts and accolades collected over the last five years. They seemed so pointless. Just pieces of brass and wood and glossy posters. They weren’t real or alive, they couldn’t make her feel wonderful any more—and they no longer filled her with passionate excitement.

Only one thing, however, had happened to her since she’d left this office at midnight on Friday—Gabriel Stone!

Damn the man! What has he done to me? Is this some kind of magic spell he’s put over me, making me turn my face from my own life and wish for nothing but love, passion, desire…

There was a knock at the door.

Whirling round, she called sharply, ‘Come in!’

‘Morning!’ Jerry, the receptionist, strode in, blonde hair flying, pink lips glossy, high heels flashing. ‘Sorry to disturb, but an urgent package has just arrived for you.’

‘For me?’ Rhiannon took the big white parcel with a frown.

‘A chauffeur just hand-delivered it to Reception. I’m dying to know what’s inside it.’

Curiouser and curiouser, thought Rhiannon, opening the parcel while Jerry watched.

She saw a flash of scarlet-gold silk beneath folds of white tissue paper, and a white envelope nestling among the tissue with the unmistakable handwriting of Gabriel Stone in black.

‘I don’t believe it!’ Rhiannon said through her teeth, heart thudding hard as she tore the envelope open with trembling hands and read the card.

Miss Windmorr,

I’m having an intimate dinner party on Saturday night. It would amuse me if I could entertain my guests with a Welsh Witch. My chauffeur will collect you from your home address at seven-thirty. Wear the costume provided. Come alone.

Gabriel Stone.

How had he managed to find her? Not only here at Solomon Associates, but also to get her home address? Then she remembered him talking to the host and hostess at that charity fête. He had found out that she was engaged to Bobby. It must have been a simple matter to get her work and home addresses.