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  March 10, 2008

  A Savage Adoration

  Penny Jordan

  It was like being hit with an iron fist

  Dominic wanted her!

  Christy opened her mouth and closed it again and then heard him say in a thick, unfamiliar tone, "Do that again."

  She offered her lips instinctively to absorb the heat of his as he pulled her against him and kissed her with a famished kind of hunger.

  Against her mouth she heard him mutter, "You can't know how much I've wanted to do this. I want you, Christy. I want to make love to you."

  It was his voice that brought her back to reality. She pushed him away, shaking her head, and as she did so she saw him frown as bitterness crept into his eyes. "You'll have to forgive me. I forgot that you were committed elsewhere."

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  contents

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  Harlequin Presents #1057

  Harlequin Presents first edition March 1988 ISBN 0-373-11057-X

  Original hardcover edition published in 1987 by Mills & Boon Limited

  Copyright © 1987 by Penny Jordan.

  All rights reserved.

  Philippine copyright 1987. Australian copyright 1987. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or ¡apart in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All the characters in thi6 book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  Printed in U.S.A.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  ^ »

  Christy opened the kitchen door and stepped out into the garden. The air smelled of snow. She breathed it in slowly, savouring the crisp scent of it, and looked at the leaden winter sky.

  A thin curl of smoke from her father's bonfire smudged the skyline before mingling with the greyness of the cloud. Beyond the garden lay a vista of fields broken by clumps of woodland, backed by the slopes of the Border hills, their peaks already whitened by the first fall of snow. Everything lay intensely still beneath the cold January air. It was all so very different from London and the life she had lived there, but it was familiar as well. After all, she had spent the first seventeen years of her life in these Border hills. And the last eight away from them, apart from brief visits home.

  She reached the bottom of the garden and stood for a moment watching her father as he threw the last of the rubbish on his bonfire. He was wearing the same tweeds she remembered from her teenage years, shabby and well worn. He turned and saw her, and smiled affectionately at her; a tall, mild-mannered man who had passed on to her, his only child, his height.

  'Lunch is ready,' she told him.

  'Good, I'm hungry. I'll just damp this fire down and then I'll be in.'

  If her height had come from her father, then her oval green eyes had come from her mother's Celtic ancestors, like her rich banner of copper hair, and her quick temper. Scots and English had quarrelled and married across the Border for centuries, but her mother's family had been Highlanders from Glen Coe, and she had often bemoaned the fact that Christy seemed to have inherited their fierce warring spirit.

  Christy waited for her father to finish putting out the fire.

  'You know, Christy,' he said, 'it's good to have you home, although I wish it could have been in happier circumstances. You don't have to stay, you know. Your mother…'

  'I want to stay,' she interrupted firmly. 'I would have come home even if Mum hadn't had to have that operation. You know, in London it's all too easy to get out of touch with reality, with everything that's important in life.' She sighed faintly, a frown touching her smooth forehead. 'I've given up my job, Dad.'

  There hadn't been time in the frantic telephone call telling her of her mother's emergency operation for Christy to tell her father her own news, but now that the danger was over and her mother was safely back at home, it was time for her to talk of her own plans.

  Now it was her father's turn to frown, and Christy looked away from him. She could sense his surprise and concern, and bit down hard on her bottom lip.

  'But you seemed so pleased to be working for David Galvin,' he said. 'When you came home last summer you seemed so happy.'

  'I was. But David has been asked to write the music for a film and to do that he has to go out to Hollywood. He asked me to go with him, but I didn't want to, so I handed in my notice.'

  She prayed that her father would accept her explanation at face value and not press her any closer. What she had told him was in effect the truth, but there was a great deal that she had concealed from him.

  There was David's desire for them to become lovers, for a start. She shivered slightly, a frisson of sensation running through her that had nothing to do with the cold. She didn't love David, but he was a very magnetic and masculine man; she had known that if he continued to press her she might have been very tempted to give in to him—and how she would have hated herself if she had done so. She wasn't blind, or a fool; she knew that David was almost consistently unfaithful to his wife Meryl, and that Meryl accepted his infidelities as the price of being married to a man whose artistic abilities had made him world-famous by the time he was thirty years old.

  The sort of affairs David indulged in meant nothing in any emotional sense; he was an intensely sensual and sexual man who enjoyed women and, shamingly, she knew that there had been the odd moment when she had not been sure of her own ability to withstand him should he choose to use the full force of his sexual power against her.

  She had worked for him for four years, and had been accepted by Meryl and his children almost as an honorary member of the family. She knew what his brief affairs did to them, and the last thing she wanted was to inflict further hurt on them, so she had done the only thing possible: she had run away.

  He had flung that at her in their final confrontation. She had told him just before Christmas that she was resigning. There had been no need for him to ask why, and she remembered how his mouth had compressed with anger and mockery. There was an almost childish side to him that loathed being thwarted or denied anything he had set his heart on, and he had wanted her. Consequently he had used that skilful tongue of his mercilessly to destroy her defences, bringing her close to the edge of tears and total self-betrayal, but somehow she had managed to hang on to her self-control. A small, bitter smile twisted her mouth. She knew whom she had to thank for that self-control, for that hard-won ability to refuse to give in to her feelings. It seemed that she was doomed to be unlucky in the men in her life.

  She had spent Christmas alone, refusing Meryl's pleas to join them in their huge Wimbledon house, as she had done at other Christmases, and then, just when she had felt that her loneliness and misery might cause her to give way, she had received a telephone call from her father telling her of her mother's collapse.

  She hadn't wasted a moment in racing home, and now that she was here she intended to stay. She felt calmer, safer, more secure than she had felt in a long time. Her mother was going to need careful looking after for at least a couple of months—plenty of time for her to think about what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She could even work for her father in his busy country solicitor's practice if need be; his secretary of thirty years was on the point of retiring. She knew she had m
ade the right decision; the only decision. If she had stayed in London, David might have found a way of persuading her to go to Hollywood with him after all, ostensibly as his personal assistant, of course… but she had known that her agreement to go would have been her agreement to their affair.

  So, instead, she had ruthlessly cut all her links with London, giving up her flat and her few friends. It had been disturbing to realise how few friends she had to show for eight years in London, but then she had always been something of a loner, cautious about revealing or giving anything of herself, and even more so after that disastrous summer when she was seventeen.

  Her mouth compressed again as she opened the back door and went into the warm kitchen.

  Her parents' home stood almost alone at the end of a narrow country lane, some ten miles outside the town where her father practised. They had come here shortly after their marriage, when her father had bought himself into the partnership. Now the other partners were either dead or retired, and her father ran the business alone with the help of a young articled clerk.

  The house was solidly built of local stone, sheltered from the harsh winters that could affect the Borders by the small valley in which it stood. The village, with its school and church, was less than a mile away, and Christy could vividly remember the long winter trudges through the snow to the village bus stop, where as a teenager she had waited with the other children for the bus to take them to school. Those had been good days; life had been simple then, and she had been happy, if somewhat alone. The other children had often teased her, calling her 'Carrots' because of her red hair.

  What was past was past, she reminded herself as she dished up the lunch. She had already been up to see her mother and supervise the very light meal that was all she was allowed at present.

  'I had a message from the surgery this morning to say that the doctor would be out to see Mother this afternoon. Do you still have Doctor Broughton?' she asked her father as he sat down.

  'No. Didn't your mother tell you? Alan Broughton retired early just before Christmas. Dominic Savage is our doctor now.'

  Christy's arm jerked and she spilled some carrots. She was glad that she was facing the Aga and that her father couldn't see her expression.

  'Dominic? I thought he was in America?'

  'So he was, but he decided to come back. I suppose it's only natural in a way. His grandfather was the only GP here for a long time, and he was responsible for starting up our present practice.'

  'But Dominic always seemed so… so ambitious…'

  'People change.' Her father smiled, and there was a slight twinkle in his eye. 'Look at you, for instance. I seem to remember a time when we couldn't mention Dominic's name without you colouring up like a sunset.'

  She fought down the panic and pain clawing through her stomach and summoned a brief smile.

  'Yes, I was rather obvious in my adolescent adoration, wasn't I? Thank goodness we all grow out of that sort of thing! I must have driven you all mad, especially Dominic…'

  'Oh, I don't know. It always seemed to me that he had rather a soft spot for you.'

  A soft spot! If only her father knew. The last thing she had expected or wanted when she came running for home and safety had been to meet up with Dominic Savage again—the very last thing. She doubted her ability to face him with equanimity and coolness even at her most self-composed, but having to face him like this, when she was feeling so vulnerable and torn… She shuddered slightly, remembering how his cold grey eyes could see through her defences, and how that deep incisive voice of his could shred through her puny arguments.

  Her heart was pounding as she served the rest of the meal. If she could have, she would have got on the next train to London and stayed there, but it was too late, she had burned her bridges, and then there were her parents to consider. Her mother needed careful looking after—someone to watch over her and make sure that she didn't do too much. Christy knew her mother; she had always led an active, busy life, and she wouldn't take kindly to her restricted regime.

  Dominic Savage back in Setondale; that was the last thing she had expected, or wanted.

  While she cleared away after their meal, her father went upstairs to sit with her mother. Dominic was due at three o'clock, and Christy wondered cravenly if she could find some excuse not to be there when he called. Her face burned as she remembered their last horrific meeting.

  It was true that at seventeen she had had a mammoth crush on him; but what her parents didn't know was that it was Dominic who had been indirectly responsible for her decision to leave home and go to college, and ultimately to work in London. After that last traumatic meeting she had not been able to endure the thought of seeing him again, and so she had virtually run away. Quite needlessly, as it turned out, for Dominic himself had left Setondale that autumn to continue his medical studies in America.

  Unable to stand the pressure of the old memories surging inside her, she paced the kitchen. She needed to get out, to breathe in the cool, calm air and gather her composure.

  An old anorak from her college days was still hanging on its peg in the laundry-room, and she pulled it on with jerky, uncoordinated movements.

  Outside the sky had grown more leaden and menacing, the scent of snow stronger now. On the hills she could see a shepherd and his dog working the sheep, bringing them down to lower pastures. She started walking at a speed that set her hair bouncing on her shoulders, tension bracing her muscles, the cold air stinging her face. The path she took was a familiar one, climbing up towards the foothills, and gradually as she walked she felt her tension ease slightly. She passed the Vicarage, disturbing a dog that set up a clamorous barking. The house and its grounds had recently been sold, but she didn't pause to wonder about the new inhabitants of the sturdy Georgian building.

  Dominic back! Her body shook with renewed tension and she expelled her breath on a pent-up sigh.

  Her father had said that Dominic had had a soft spot for her. How little he knew. Savage by name and savage by nature, that was Dominic, and God, how she had suffered from that savagery!

  With words that even now were engraved on her soul he had torn apart her childish fantasies and destroyed her innocence, holding up to her his contemptuous awareness of her adolescent feelings, giving her a distorted mirror-image of them that had scorched her with shame and anguish that still lived on in her soul.

  It had all been her own fault, of course. She should have been content with simply worshipping him from a distance, and blissfully cherishing their longstanding friendship. Their parents had been friends, and from an early age she had attached herself to him even though he was eight years older. Dominic had lived with his parents in the house attached to the medical practice while he worked as a very junior doctor at the hospital in Alnwick. Her crush on him had developed the year she was sixteen. No doubt she would have been content with simply seeing him, and sighing over him, if it hadn't been for her school-friends.

  For a reason she had never been able to define, during her last year at school she had been befriended by a crowd of girls led by the precocious daughter of their local MP. Helen Maguire was far more sophisticated and worldly than the other girls in the class, and she had sought out Christy as her best friend. How flattered and delighted she had been! Until then she hadn't had many friends. She was too quiet and shy to make friends easily, but she had glowed and relaxed in the flattering warmth of Helen's friendship, pushing aside her own doubts and natural reticence about the wisdom of joining in the giggled discussions on sex and boyfriends initiated by Helen. Naturally, since Helen was the one with the most experience, she was the one who did most of the talking, and although sometimes she had experienced a sense of revulsion when Helen described her sexual exploits, 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 he
r 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.