Weddings of the Century: A Pair of Wedding Novellas(14)
He grinned and ate a potato wedge himself, then popped one into her mouth as if she were a baby bird. Her tongue touched his fingertips, tasting salt and sensuality.
There was an odd moment of complete, mutual awareness, and she feared that he could see the accelerating beat of her heart.
Nervously she turned and poured her egg mixture into the skillet. While she cooked a fluffy, fragrant omelet, he set the table and ceremoniously poured fine French Bordeaux into a pair of thick mugs.
She was folding the omelet over when he slipped up behind her and removed the pins that kept her hair in place. The whole mass tumbled down over her shoulders again.
She was about to scold him when he pressed a light kiss through the silky strands under her left ear, his tongue teasing the lobe. Her toes curled and she almost dropped the skillet. With a feeble attempt at severity, she said, "If you don't behave, your supper will end up scattered across the floor."
His lips moved down her throat. "If that happens, I'll find something else to nibble on."
Blushing, she slipped away from his embrace, then divided the omelet into unequal pieces and slid the larger onto his plate. The sun was setting as they took seats on opposite sides of the scrubbed pine table.
On impulse she raised her mug of wine. "To the past."
"And the future," he added immediately.
"The past is more certain." Nonetheless, she drank the toast.
Silence reigned as they applied themselves enthusiastically to their plates. Kidnapping appeared to sharpen one's appetite.
When he had finished, Dominick pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair with a happy sigh. "I've never had a better meal."
She eyed him askance as she neatly laid her knife and fork across her plate. "You undermine your credibility when you make remarks like that. If you say such ridiculous things about food, how can I believe the other things you say?"
Immune to the set down, he said, "I've had more elaborate meals, but plain food is just as good when it is well prepared." His warm gaze met hers. "And tonight the company is matchless."
Her gaze fell. Changing the subject, she said, "You made a very convincing savage. Were you imitating real aboriginals, or did you make everything up?"
"I blended the language and customs from different Polynesian islands. The largest part of my performance came from the Sandwich Islands, since I spent the most time there. On the other hand, the fire dance was from Samoa." He grinned. "After seeing one performed, I decided to give it a try and accidentally set my hut on fire. Everyone in the village was rolling on the ground laughing at me."
She had to laugh also as she pictured the scene. "What are the Pacific islands like?"
"Beautiful beyond imagining. The Sandwich Islanders ride giant waves on flat, narrow rafts, skimming the sea like birds. I tried that too, and almost drowned before I learned the knack. It was like flying."
His gaze became distant. "The flowers and birds are so brilliantly colored that they seem the product of a painter's opium dreams. Even the sands of the beaches come in different colors, from blinding white to shimmering black. And the volcanoes! Seeing one by night is a sight never forgotten. It was like looking into a rift that had opened to Hell. Where the molten stone flowed into the sea, pillars of steam billowed into the sky. It was truly awesome."
She exhaled, imagining the marvels he described. Correctly interpreting her sigh, he asked, "Would you like to go there for our honeymoon?"
She almost said yes before she managed to stop herself. "There can't be a honeymoon if there is no marriage. "
"You're a hard woman, Roxanne," he said, not seeming particularly worried. "Now that I think on it, it would be better to take you to the Caribbean. The islands are equally lovely, and a good bit closer. Turquoise seas, caressing winds. It's as close to paradise as one can find on this earth."
No, true paradise would be to live with a man one loved and trusted. Love alone was not enough. Trying to sound light, she said, "You should be writing travel books."
He grinned. "I considered it, but such tales should have a tone of high seriousness, and I could never manage that. It was my fate to always find the absurd instead of the sublime." He embarked on a hilarious series of stories about other misadventures in the East and the Pacific. Roxanne laughed more than she had in the last ten years combined.
As she sipped her third glass of Bordeaux, she began telling stories of her own. About the vague scholar who had visited her father with a coach full of bones, looking for help in assembling them into whole skeletons. About the gosling that had decided a dog was its mother, and the neighborhood lad who had run away to the Gypsies only to be sent back with the firm comment that they didn't need any more children, thank you very much, they had quite enough of their own.
Simple stories, but Dominick was amused. Mug cupped in his hands, he lounged back in his chair, dark tousled locks falling over his brow. The giddy thought passed through her mind that perhaps love was simply a matter of finding someone who would always laugh at one's jokes.
She must stop thinking of love and start thinking of escape. Yet when she looked at him, her mind filled with images of how he had appeared as a nearly naked savage. His loose shirt, open at the throat, reminded her irresistibly of the broad, muscular shoulders beneath the fabric. The way his trousers pulled across his thighs made her remember how it had felt to be pressed against him. A male body was very different in shape and texture from that of a female ...