Sexy As Hell

CHAPTER 14

AN HOUR LATER, Oz was leaning back in his chair, his half-lidded gaze on Isolde seated at the distant end of a long table, the huge room quiet save for the sound of her spoon occasionally striking the side of her dish. “Do you always dine so formally?”

“In traveling clothes, you mean?” she answered with a smile.

“Should I have changed?” Quizzical and light as down.

“It didn’t sound as though you were inclined to wait.”

His brows lifted. “So you normally adhere to ceremony.”

She shook her head. “The staff is showing off for you. Or were.” Oz had dismissed the footmen once coffee and dessert had been served. “I usually dine in the breakfast room. It’s smaller, cozier, and my dozens of ancestors are not looking down their noses at me.”

“I’m relieved.”

“You don’t stand on ceremony?”

“A waste of time. Speaking of which-are you finished eating?”

“Are you?”

“Long ago. I’ve been observing the courtesies. That’s your third dessert.”

“I, on the other hand, haven’t been counting your brandies.”

“I applaud your restraint. So?”

She smiled. “Such impatience.”

“On the contrary, I’ve been exceedingly patient. You could take that blancmange with you if you like.”

“I might.”

“Excellent.” He pushed his chair back and stood.

Setting down her spoon, she watched him walk toward her, serenely smiling, relaxed, his tall form gilded by lamplight. “Would you think me absurd if I said I’m feeling different about”-she half lifted her hand-“this.”

“Sex?”

“Now that I’m home,” she rapidly finished as he stopped beside her.

He picked up her spoon and bowl of blancmange. “Let me change your mind,” he gently said.

The house was strangely empty of staff as they made their way to Isolde’s bedroom. “Did you say something to the footmen when you dismissed them?” she asked. “There’s not a soul in sight.”

“I said we’d be retiring soon. Did I put them to the blush?”

“How exactly did you say it?” A maid or footman could generally be seen in the midst of some task or errand.

“Politely. Unlike, I might add, your Will’s belligerence.”

“He’s not mine, but point taken.” She abandoned the subject. Oz was her husband, at least in her staff’s eyes; he could issue orders as well as she.

Oz had no intention of pursuing the discussion either, and as they made their way to Isolde’s bedchamber, he politely inquired about the various portraits they passed, about the date of a splendid solarium they walked through, why she’d chosen so small a bedroom for herself. The last query uttered as he stood on the threshold of her childhood room.

“We’ll need a larger bed,” he said once she’d explained. “I’ll have one sent up from London if you don’t mind. One with bunny rabbits painted on it,” he added with a grin. “Although that might take an extra day or so.”

“Very humorous. I like my old bed.”

“I might too if I could stretch out my legs. What of your parents’ rooms, or is that-”

She wrinkled her nose.

“I understand. Surely in a house this size you have other choices. Perhaps some state rooms are available? Queen Elizabeth must have slept here once or twice; she did in every other Tudor mansion, I’m told.”

“Is that so?”

The small, quick petulance in her voice prompted a tactful reply. “I was merely alluding to common lore.” And to Amanda Hawthorne’s annotated tour of her Tudor palace one weekend when her husband was in London. “But if you prefer your bunny bed, I’ll manage.”

She softly sighed. “I have no earthly reason to be jealous.”

“Nor I.” He lifted his brows. “Or at least not until Will returns.”

“Enough said on that score,” she muttered. “I apologize again for his presumption.”

Oz put up his hand and grinned. “Please-talk of Will affects my amorous mood.”

“I’m surprised anything can affect your libido,” Isolde said drily. “For which I’m naturally grateful. Come.” She crooked her finger. “We’ll find a bed better suited to your size.”

He followed her down several more hallways of the sprawling house, which had obviously been enlarged over the centuries by Percevals with a penchant for building. She stopped at a small door framed by two beautifully carved female figures attired in gilded medieval courtly dress. “Bend your head going in,” Isolde warned, opening the door and reaching for the light switch. “The room itself is commodious, but Grandmama had a fancy for follies.”

“Along with modern conveniences,” Oz remarked, taking note of an elaborate chandelier suddenly aglow with faux candles as he dipped his head and walked through the doorway. He entered a spectacular room constructed in the English Gothic style, the white-painted ceiling a spiderweb of delicate, soaring arches, its decorative gilt agleam. Tracery windows embellished with scenes from troubadour chronicles lined two walls, the theme mirrored as well in the splendid carpet modeled after the famous unicorn tapestry from Amiens. “Very impressive,” he said. “Including the bed. Thank you.” The vast, canopied bed was large enough to sleep six.

The Gothic revival had been popular midcentury. His grandmother had built a summer house in Hyderabad in a similar style. He said as much, then added, “My cousins and I used to sling ropes over finials like those”-he pointed to the decorative moldings on the ribbed vaults-“and climb the walls. Speaking of ropes,” he murmured, his gaze studiously bland.

Isolde laughed. “I have none. Although, come to think of it,” she said, “tying you up might be interesting.”

“We’ll toss a coin.”

“I don’t like being tied up.”

“You speak from experience?”

“Do you?”

“Does it matter?” he replied with composure.

“What if I were to say it does?”

“I repeat, we’ll toss a coin.”

“Or we could just do it the usual way.”

“Which usual way?” Oz pleasantly inquired. “Although we’ve plenty of time for whatever you like. I’m not going anywhere.”

Isolde’s sudden smile warmed her eyes. “I’m very happy you’re staying.”

He debated making his position clear in terms of staying but decided against disturbing her good humor. “While you make me happy in countless ways.”

“Even without rope?”

“Keep it up and I’ll rip those cords from the bed curtains and we’ll see who likes what. Speaking of likes-where do you want this?” He held out the dish of blancmange.

“Whatever do you mean?” she purred.

He laughed. “Focused on sex, are we?”

“You aren’t?”

“I believe I’m quickly becoming focused on blancmange.” He smiled. “Then bondage. And don’t say a word about your staff. This room is built like a medieval fortress. No one will hear a sound.”

She offered him an unblinking look of amusement. “Should I be alarmed?”

“You should,” he said with amiable delicacy, setting the dish down on an oddly shaped table carved from an oak burl.

“But having waited through a long afternoon and an extremely lengthy dinner, I’m first inclined to end my abstinence-if you don’t mind.”

“And if I do?”

He smiled faintly. “You never do.”

“I could.”

“Why don’t we see?” He shut and locked the door.

“Are you going to take off your boots?”

“No.” Catching her by the arms, he turned her and backed her toward the door.

“You are in a hurry.”

He couldn’t say he’d not gone without sex for an entire day in years. “Watching you at dinner took its toll on my restraint. I promise to be more polite next time.” As she came to a halt against the oak panels, he leaned into her, his arousal blatant between them. “Feel that?” he whispered, swiftly opening his trouser fly. “He’s about to explode.”

She normally would have taken affront at such bluntness, but then nothing had been normal from the moment she’d met Oz; she had but to feel his hard, rigid cock and every erogenous portion of her anatomy turned feverishly rapacious. “Me first,” she insisted, as selfish as he, as impatient and greedy.

Hell no. But she was busy hitching up her skirts and untying her drawers, so calling on all his charitable impulses, he drew in a breath of constraint and muttered, “Spoiled brat.”

But he was saying yes, she understood, and he finished unbuttoning his underwear just as her drawers slid to the floor. “I won’t keep you waiting long,” she whispered, grateful for his benevolence.

“Damn right you won’t.”

And the newlyweds who in the past had always eschewed adolescent frenzy, surrendered once again to their raging passions. Lifting her off her feet with ease, he wrapped her legs around his waist while his heart pounded in his chest, his erection stretched higher, and consummation took on a life of its own. Covetous and lustful, she clung to him and dizzy with uncontrollable need, began to seriously believe in sorcery. All else disappeared but her craving to feel him inside her.

Way, way inside her.

Hard and deep and forceful.

Coincidentally, Oz was warning himself not to run amuck and use her too roughly. With more than usual caution, he guided his erection to her sex, and nudging her sleek vulva with the head of his cock, paused, inhaled, and prayed for restraint. Having regained a modicum of sanity, he was able to smile when she wiggled her hips and impatiently hissed, “What are you waiting for?”

“The return of logic, or in this case, your orders,” he said with a grin, and bending slightly, he pressed her against the door for better traction, straightened his legs in a powerful upward thrust, drove deeply into her hot, slick cunt, and felt her gratified sigh warm his cheek. He didn’t move for a breath-held second after her silken flesh closed around him, occupied with the lunatic concept of having come home. But too disciplined to give in to delusion for long, he slid his hands under her bottom to raise her for the next sumptuous plunging descent.

“No, no, don’t!” Isolde cried, a creature of impulse rather than discipline, not inclined to relinquish the pleasure washing over her in heated waves.

Ignoring her exclamation as well as her fingers digging into his shoulders, Oz lifted her bottom until she shuddered on the crest of his erection, panting and pleading for more. When he released her, she immediately slid down his cock with such force, he caught his breath at the strumming rapture.

“If you could just stay right there for a week or so…,” she whispered.

He brushed her lips with a smiling kiss. “Greedy puss.”

“Yes, yes… yes, yes, yes.”

But he moved despite her protests because he couldn’t last a week or even five minutes at this point, which was a startling admission for a man who had always been able to control his ejaculation.

It turned out to be a very close race to the finish, the feat accomplished only by sheer will and incredible control on Oz’s part. With intense concentration he curtailed his orgasm, exerting himself to pleasure his wife, his powerful legs propelling him upward again and again until Isolde’s orgasm crested and her screams brought him to a standstill deep inside her. Only waiting until her cries began to fade, he jerked her off his cock, dropped her on her feet, ripped his shirt tails from his trouser waistband, and just barely managed to save the carpet from semen stains.

Moments later, still breathing hard, his head braced against the door above her shoulder, he inhaled the perfume from her hair, her warmth, felt the softness of her body against his, and offered up a prayer of thanks to whatever gods had initially guided him to room thirteen at Blackwood’s.

“That-was… fantastic-wasn’t it?” Isolde breathed, so filled with bliss she felt lit from within.

“Yes,” he whispered without moving.

“Perfection.”

“Yes.” Lifting his head, he inhaled deeply, took a step back, shrugged out of his jacket, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Yes to everything, darling.”

Her nostrils flared at his facile reply. “Don’t patronize me.”

He paused in his unbuttoning. “Sorry. You’d prefer I disagree?”

“No, no.” She waved her hand in a little absolving gesture. “I didn’t mean to be fretful. I’m just feeling more in thrall to pleasure than I’d like-to you… him-sex with you.” She made a wry face. “It’s not your fault, though, it’s mine.”

“As you know,” he replied with a lift of his brows, “you’re not alone in your craving.” Not that he didn’t have every expectation those cravings would abate. They always did. “Let me wash up,” he said, pulling his shirt over his head with a jerk, bundling it up and dropping it, “and we’ll deal with our mutual randiness.”

“I’m feeling odd in other ways, too.” Dependent. Necessitous.

Women always wanted to talk about their feelings. He’d learned to politely agree. “It’s probably due to the oddity of our marriage,” he said over his shoulder. “You have to admit we didn’t do a lot of planning.” Because he was drunker than usual.

“In contrast to my previous detailed wedding planning,” she wryly noted.

“There, you see? That’s why you’re unsettled. You’re not accustomed to rash behavior.”

On the other hand, rash behavior had it’s advantages, she decided, contemplating her husband’s powerful physique, his naked torso tautly muscled, the width of his shoulders impressive like his lovely, resilient cock. That he was still booted was perversely arousing as well. Or maybe everything about him provoked her lust, magnificent male animal that he was. If this was obsession, there was pleasure in embracing it.

Quickly washing up at a small sink in the corner, Oz stripped off his boots and remaining clothes. Quickly crossing the room, he stopped before Isolde still motionless against the door, the torpid warmth of fulfillment pulsing through her body. “If you can hear me,” he teased, dipping his head to meet her lethargic gaze, “might I interest you in some less frantic conjugal sex?”

A slow smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “So you don’t mind being my husband?”

“Hell no. I’m delighted to be here. If you’ll allow me, I’ll show you how delighted I am.”

How many times and to how many women had he so casually offered his services? And how could it possibly matter in this business arrangement of theirs? But it must have because she heard herself say, “Would you still be delighted if I said I wanted to tie you up?”

One dark brow rose. “Is this a test?”

“Perhaps-I don’t know. May I?” If not a test, it may have been a means of stabilizing the inordinate power he commanded over her senses and passions, over what had always been an unfettered will. Compensation, too, at some inchoate level, for the serried ranks of his lovers. “Think of it as a minor conjugal obligation.”

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, not sure he liked the word obligation or the act of submission itself. “Why not?” he finally said.

Conscious of his small hesitation, Isolde felt nominally redeemed, more herself. Perhaps she wasn’t slavishly obsessed, nor just another of the bevy of ladies in his life, but the woman of independence she’d always been. “Where should I tie you up?” she murmured, half musing.

“It depends what you want.”

“Meaning?”

“Do you want sex standing, sitting, or lying down?”

“This is all familiar to you?”

“Come, darling, you know what I am. Everything’s familiar to me.” He knew better than to goad her, but he was being goaded, too-and not entirely sure he liked it. Raised in princely wealth, he was a golden child, the world at his beck and call. Submission wasn’t and never would be his strong suit. But in the interests of civility along with the prospect of his future plans for the night, he chose to comply.

Moments later, he lay on the bed, watching his wife unwind the tasseled tiebacks from the bed drapery, and fleetingly debated his choice. The green silk cord would look much better against Isolde’s pink skin, while the thought of her in bondage to him was profoundly erotic. He briefly took issue with his baffling need to dominate her; sex had always been about amorous sport, not supremacy. On the other hand, his darling wife was unusually independent. Perhaps therein lay the reason for his novel impulse.

“You have to listen to me.”

He glanced up to find his wife kneeling beside him, her mouth sweetly pursed.

He smiled. “I was thinking about changing roles.”

“You can’t.”

It took him a second to politely respond. He didn’t mind her giving orders-within limits. “Maybe later,” he pleasantly said, this man who’d been indulged from birth.

“We’ll talk about it,” Isolde returned, relishing her position, no longer mindlessly surrendering to passion.

“As you like.” Amused at her air of command, he asked, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Very much, as a matter of fact. Hold out your hand.” When he did, she deftly tied a slipknot around his wrist, tossed the braided cord around one bedpost, and smoothly secured it with another slipknot.

He nodded at his wrist. “You’re handy with a rope.”

“Anyone who deals with horses can tie a slipknot. Unlike you, though, I’m new at this game.”

“Is that so.”

“You don’t believe me?” She looped a cord around his other wrist.

“I’m not sure it matters to him”-he glanced downward-“whether I do or not.”

“Excellent. We’re all of a mind then.”

“So it seems. When it comes to sex, we’re extremely well matched.”

“Are you not with other women?” she asked, securing his wrist to another bedpost.

“No.”

“Liar.”

Why do women always want to know about their rivals? “Not like this,” he said, competent at love play.

“How charming you are. Spread your legs a little so these ties reach the bedposts. I’m beginning to wonder about Grandmama’s need for such a large bed,” she added, circling his ankle with a tie.

“I’m sure the bed is simply a reproduction like everything else in this room.”

She looked up from tethering his ankle to the bed. “You should be a diplomat.”

I am very much at the moment. “If only I had the time,” he smoothly replied.

“From all your debauch.”

But she was smiling as she spoke, so he felt it permissible to say, “Yes.”

“I’m not inclined to take issue when your expertise affords me such pleasure,” she cheerfully noted.

“Very sensible.”

“I think so. There.” Sitting back on her heels, she surveyed him spread-eagle and secured to the bed. “Now what should I do?”

A number of answers leaped to mind. “Be selfish of course. I’m at your command.” Although his suggestion was not without motive, having her impaled on his cock high on his list of priorities.

“Maybe I’ll make you wait.”

“Suit yourself.” This from a woman who couldn’t wait.

She wrinkled her nose. “Such composure. Do you ever get agitated?”

He smiled. “I seem to quite often with you.”

Mollified by his boyish smile as well as his answer, she softly sighed. “I don’t know why I’m so petulant with you. I dislike petulance. It’s so… so…”

“Willful,” he finished. “I like that about you.”

“In contrast to all the fawning women in your life.”

He stopped smiling. “I’m tied to your bed-a first for me, darling. Don’t quibble about other women.”

She grinned. “Is this really a first?”

“In countless ways, my darling wife,” he drily said.

Her smile was one of untempered delight. “So you’re being particularly agreeable.”

“I’m trying.”

An irrepressible constraint underlay his soft reply, prompting a little shiver to race up her spine. After quickly surveying his bonds, reassured, she whispered, “I promise to be gentle.”

“I’m not sure that’s a requirement.”

“And you would know, of course.”

Definitely petulant. His lashes shaded his eyes. “I only meant to give you license.”

“I believe I have all the license I need with you trussed up hand and foot,” she snidely countered.

Already going above and beyond in terms of congeniality, he tamped down his temper with effort. “This isn’t armed combat, darling. Or at least it shouldn’t be.”

“You’re right,” she replied, telling herself to be sensible; jealousy was a useless emotion with Oz. “Sex is sex is sex better suits the occasion.”

“The golden rule of dalliance,” Oz said with brevity. “And my cock would prefer less talk and more action if you don’t mind.”

One glance at his enormous erection caused a predictable flare of desire; really, she was shamelessly captivated by his beautiful penis. As was every quivering sexual receptor in her body.

“Please,” he said, whether candidly or designedly he wasn’t sure.

Her gaze came up and met his. “In a minute,” she answered, in her case designedly, and slipped off the bed.

He recognized his phrase, understood her possible motive, considered breaking free, taking his pleasure of her and putting an end to this bit of foolishness. But since he intended to prolong his visit for an undetermined length of time, a certain civility was required. “Take your time,” he said with just enough impertinence to salve his pride.

She swung around, the dish of blancmange in her hand. “You’re not in the least tractable, are you?”

He shook his head slightly. “Resigned, I believe, is the word.”

“I must see that you’re better reconciled to your condition.”

“You talk too much,” he grumbled. Conversation was not a salient feature of his sexual encounters.

“Let me remedy that,” she blandly offered, climbing back onto the bed. “As you said to me that first night, Observe.” Setting down the dessert dish, she pulled his rigid erection away from his stomach until it was perpendicular to his body, and holding it with one hand, dipped the fingers of her other hand into the blancmange.

Controlling his breathing, his senses, the impulse to break his bonds, Oz watched from under his lashes as his wife slowly smeared the length and breadth of his upthrust cock with pudding.

The coolness should have shrunk his penis, but under his wife’s ministrations, with her lush breasts close enough to touch under normal circumstances, and anticipation of the finale to her bedaubing inflaming his lust, the possibility of contraction wasn’t an issue.

“If you keep getting bigger, I’m going to run out of pudding.”

Oz gazed reflectively at his wife. “You could do something about that.”

“Whatever do you mean?” she cooed.

“You know what I mean. Even under the best of circumstances I couldn’t taste that pudding.”

She resented his ability to keep his voice so normal. “I might just be amusing myself.”

“And I might be the king of Siam.”

“Rather than the prime stud of London.”

“Who is tethered to your bed for your pleasure,” Oz softly reminded her.

Licking her fingers, she set aside the dish, reason restored with his comment. But beneath the reason a small unjustifiable jealousy remained. “And yours as well,” she said with a touch of acerbity.

At her tone he unconsciously braced himself only to meet her dazzling smile.

“Worried?”

“A little.”

“Good.” Her grip tightened at the base of his erection, and she bent her head.

He flexed arms heavy with muscle, testing the strength of the silk cords.

Glancing up, her mouth inches from the slick head of his cock, she murmured, “You’re not going anywhere.”

“That depends on what you’re planning to do.”

“On the contrary, it depends on the solid wood of this bed and that heavy braided silk cord. You’re at my mercy. Ah… you find that arousing-look at him swell. I think he wants me to kiss him.”

He shut his eyes as her mouth closed over the swollen crest of his penis, the enigma of wanting and not wanting mystifyingly unclear when the warmth of her mouth, her tongue, the light friction of her teeth on the thin-skinned, highly impressionable nerves of his cock was obliterating rational thought.

“There now,” she murmured, the hum of her words on the head of his erection a provocative buzzing jolt to his senses. “He likes that.”

At the moment, he was willing to acknowledge a fondness several degrees more enthusiastic than liking, but in the grip of gut-wrenching sensation he was incapable of speech. Particularly with his wife beginning to suck on him with increasing pressure.

Less experienced, Isolde had no way of knowing that the fierce vibrations throbbing through her vagina had more to do with the object of her attentions than the actual act of bondage. What she did know, however, was that she had no intention of wasting the gloriously large penis in her mouth when she could apply it to better purpose.

Swiftly sweeping her tongue up the rigid length, then down, once, twice, three times, she licked off all the sweet blancmange before moving to position herself astride Oz’s thighs. “This is mine by right of marriage,” she said, brushing her fingertips up the distended length of his erection. “To do with what I will,” she playfully added.

The residue of pudding glistening on her lips was starkly erotic, the lingering sensation of her mouth on his cock fueling his impatience. “I’d help you if I could,” he murmured, his penis twitching in expectation.

“I like that you can’t.” Rising to her knees, she reached for his massive cock.

Maybe he did, too, if his fierce lust was any indication. But thought gave way to feeling as she slowly slid down his turgid length with exquisite deliberateness. And when she finally came to rest fully impaled on his cock and softly sighed, rapture took on an incorruptible purity for them both.

It shouldn’t matter who was riding his cock, he thought. Yet it did. He gave her high marks for allure.

How was it that Oz’s erection felt more wildly arousing than anyone else’s, she mused?

Why was every susceptible nerve ravished yet insatiable, gloating yet gluttonous, they both wondered in that brief moment before Isolde rose to her knees, slid back down once again, and made the world disappear.

When that prolonged moment of excess passed, she moved, but without haste-unlike her usual impatience; perhaps she was taking a lesson from Oz. Or maybe the tactile sensation of slick skin-to-skin friction was so acute and prodigal, she tempered her normal impetuousness to better experience the ostentatious pleasure. Whatever the reason, each leisurely ascent left her breathless for more, each slow, velvety descent was a melting, yielding avaricious search for the sublime.

So facilely supplied by her well-endowed husband.

Lost in his own carnal fervor, Oz struggled for control at the very depth of her downward glide when his cock was buried in her hot cunt and paradise took on an earthly form. He resisted the urge to break free and caress her lush breasts gently bobbing and quivering as she rode him, broke into a sweat at the thought of slipping his fingers between her legs and fondling her clit, wondered how much longer he could play the docile husband. Until he reached that ungovernable moment, however, he deferred to Isolde, adjusting his rhythm to hers, allowing her to direct the activity, restively performing his conjugal obligations.

He even graciously satisfied her first two orgasms, his legendary endurance put to good purpose. But finally, having tolerated considerable orgasmic pressure for sometime, he reached a critical point of no return. “Get off!” he gasped, breathless, every muscle taut with constraint.

“Soon,” she said as if his exclamation was inconsequential.

“Now,” he said through gritted teeth, curtailing his ejaculation with every cognitive technique he’d acquired in his youth and had perfected over time.

“Hush.” Coming to rest on his thighs, she shut her eyes and with a soft moan, swiveled her hips in feverish quest for orgasmic bliss. Twisting, rocking, grinding against his rigid cock, heedless to all but the mounting rapture, she impatiently sought surcease.

Curbing his orgasm with stubborn resolve, tense with the effort, Oz managed to repress his ejaculation if not his temper until Isolde climaxed. At which time, well beyond the cultivated graces, he rapped out in quiet fury, “Untie me or I’ll break this bloody bed.”

Isolde’s eyes flew open and she stared at him as if coming awake from a dream. “You’re angry.”

“Damn right. I almost climaxed in you.”

It took a moment for his brusque words to register. “You didn’t, though,” she said, mildly-imperturbable, postorgasmic.

“No thanks to you,” he snapped, incensed by her casual reply. “Untie me.”

Suddenly aware of his implacable rage, her contentment dissipated beneath the savage fury of his anger. But equally quick-tempered, as disinclined as he to take orders, she snapped in return. “What if I don’t?”

“This game’s over.” His voice was grim, a heavy pulse beating in his neck. “Do as you’re told.”

“I don’t think I like your tone.”

Any of his late enemies would have recognized the danger in his gaze. “I don’t care. Untie me or this bed goes.”

“You’re not that strong.”

He drew in a breath through his nostrils, his gaze hard and intent. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What the hell are you doing?”

Reining in his temper, understanding when it came to a fight she was grossly outmatched, he softly sighed. “Could we please stop? Just untie me.”

“No.”

“I’m asking nicely,” he said not entirely nicely after her crisp refusal.

“And I’m telling you no nicely,” she replied, looking smug.

Flexing biceps that would have been the envy of a galley slave, Oz came up off the bed in a brute, explosive lunge that snapped the bedposts like matchsticks. Grabbing the silk cords, he checked the rocketing trajectory of the shattered posts, shoved Isolde onto her back, slipped his wrists free, and extricated his ankles a second later. A second after that, his wife was pinioned beneath him and his fingers were lightly circling her neck.

“Just for the record,” he said, glowering, “I have no intention in hell of fathering a child on you.”

“Nor would I wish you to,” she hissed.

His fingers tightened. “Then you should have gotten off me when I bloody asked you to.”

“It wasn’t a good time,” she insolently retorted.

His eyes went shut, and when his lashes lifted he said in a dangerous voice, “That was deliberate?”

“It was not! I couldn’t move if you must know. Is that better?”

“Fuck no.”

“Well, I’m sorry. Apparently, we can’t all be as responsible as you.”

“This isn’t going to work out,” he muttered, unclasping his hands from her throat and beginning to rise. “I’m not going to ruin my life because you’re irresponsible.”

“Wait,” she cried, shocked and confused, her feelings in tumult.

But he didn’t; he swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll never do that again. I promise,” she impulsively blurted out, overwrought, her body still tingling. “Don’t go! Oh hell,” she muttered, disconcerted to feel tears welling in her eyes, embarrassed and wretched and not altogether sure she wasn’t coming apart at the seams for indefensible reasons.

Turning back he saw her pale and distraught, her eyes wet with tears, and hesitated. He was uncomfortable with women’s tears; he normally gave them wide berth. But then Isolde sniffled in an attempt to stifle her little hiccupping sobs and she looked so innocent, her pale hair tousled and disheveled, her cheeks flushed, that he recklessly disregarded the dangers in her overwrought passions. Turning, he lifted her into his arms, settled her on his lap, and as his cock instantly came to attention, he found himself overwhelmed by lust.

Even then, he may have suppressed his impetuous libido if Isolde hadn’t slipped her arms around his neck and lifting her tremulous, wet gaze to him, artlessly whispered, “I’ll be better. I’ll be good. Please don’t go.”

It was no contest.

He softly exhaled, silently denounced himself for a fool, and then heedless of precedence and practicality, quietly said, “Don’t cry. We’ll work something out. Although,” he added, gently wiping away her tears with his knuckles, “I can’t do this alone.” He smiled faintly. “You have to help.”

“I know,” she said, sniffling. “I will. Word of honor.”

He accepted her promise when he wouldn’t have given it credence even as a callow youth. And years past such folly, he knew better than to trust her discretion. But then he was operating outside the pale, in some never-never land of sexual delight, and in that fantasy world he understood that the responsibility for not impregnating his wife was primarily his. Obviously she wasn’t trustworthy-solemn promises notwithstanding. “I’ll be more cautious, too,” he kindly remarked.

“Thank you,” she simply said, her smile radiant. “Thank you for understanding, for giving me such unbounded pleasure. I don’t even care that I’m like every other woman you know who’s enamored of you. I don’t, and I am-so there,” she said with a pretty moue.

“Believe me, darling, you’re unlike every woman I know,” he honestly said, their sexual compatibility rare, the delight she carried within her rarer still. “And I’m sorry about the bed. I’ll have it fixed or replaced tomorrow.”

“No, no, it was my fault entirely. You may beat me if you like.”

But her voice was sultry and low, her blue gaze provocative. “Don’t tempt me, you little vixen,” he said with a grin. “Or I might.”

“Would it hurt terribly?” she whispered, shifting her bottom slightly against his rock-hard cock.

“If you didn’t obey me, it would.” His voice was velvet soft as he eased her back onto the bed and settled between her warm thighs.

“I’ll obey you, darling, in every possible way. You have but to ask and…”

Her words trailed away as Oz slid gently inside her, and when he came to rest against the mouth of her womb and said, “You have to wait for me this time,” she shivered, powerless against the vaulting desire flaring through her senses.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, feverish and breathy.

A practiced libertine, Oz understood the orgasmic sequence might require altering. Fortunately, her tears had minimally dampened his lust and he was always capable of a certain restraint in any event. Not that it was ever necessary to wait long for his bride to reach climax-one of her endearing qualities.

As it transpired, they did indeed take turns that night. Both conscious of their recent row, they were careful to mind their manners in terms of who climaxed when. But Oz was infinitely more indulgent. Having long enjoyed an intemperate life with sexual revel commonplace, he was less frantic than his bride, who’d only recently been introduced to prodigal sensation.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t find his lovely wife exceptionally desirable. He did.

As for Isolde, she was wholly smitten.

But then every woman Oz dallied with was equally enamored, she understood. There was no point in being foolish.