To that end, Fitz was swiftly disrobing, dropping his clothes on the floor with male disregard for subtleties. His jacket, waistcoat, shirt, and tie were off, as were his shoes and socks. He was unbuttoning his trousers when she whispered, “Let me do that.”

He looked up, the wistful longing in her voice instantly bringing his erection to full mast. Is this real or play? Then he let his hands drop to his sides and said, “Be my guest,” because it didn’t really matter which it was.

She reminded him of an innocent maid, so tentative were her actions, her hands shaking as she unfastened a button. Or maybe just an impatient widow, he thought, although the style of woman mattered little to his libido. Only with effort did he resist pushing her head down and shoving his cock into her mouth. It took even more constraint not to pick her up, carry her to the bed, and plunge into her lush body.

Rosalind wasn’t similarly motivated by constraint, having dispatched the former practicalities of her life in favor of extravagant, feverish, liberating desire. And if she’d not already decided to thoroughly enjoy Groveland’s legendary talents, the sight of his massive, upthrust penis freed now from his trousers would have been reason enough.

She couldn’t help but stare as he casually stripped away the last of his clothing. He was much larger than she’d expected, his size intimidating, although he was relaxed, familiar with women looking at him unclothed.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, aware of her tremulous gaze.

“I wasn’t thinking about that.” She looked up, rosy cheeked and breathless. “May I?”

It had been a long day enlivened by too many erotic fantasies in which Mrs. St. Vincent played a starring role. More to the point, his amorous activities rarely involved wooing a lady, the reverse usually the case. And he’d been drinking for hours and any number of other excuses may have motivated his novel impatience. “You may.” Reaching out, he cupped her head in one hand, pressed it downward, guided his erection into place with his other hand, and watched his cock slide into her mouth.

He smiled faintly as the lovely widow instantly took to her task.

No innocent maid at least in terms of enthusiasm.

Although her ineptitude would require some tutoring; her fingernails were cutting into his penis she was gripping it so tightly. Not that her impassioned earnestness wasn’t more than making up for that slight pain. With a mind to mitigating his discomfort and enhancing the pleasure, he loosened her grip with his fingers and whispered, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Instantly contrite, she lifted her gaze, her face pale in the shadowed light and framed by heavy waves of hair, her mouth filled with half his cock, and said in muffled accents, “I’m sorry.”

The sight was enough to bring a monk to climax.

Or a real one at least.

The Monk of London restrained himself with well-practiced skill.

He had his sights on the lady’s cunt.

Until such a time, however, he wasn’t averse to enjoying what the lady was enjoying. Not that she wouldn’t improve with a little training. Not that he wouldn’t like to train her-a curious reflection from a man who abhorred clumsy sex. And if he’d been in a rational frame of mind, he might have noticed the heresy.

What he noticed instead was her little whimpers, the familiar sound evidence of the young widow’s ravenous desire. Her hips were swaying in feverish adjunct to her breathy exhalations, her thighs were pressed tightly together as though to contain the fire within, and he briefly debated where and how he wished to climax.

A very brief debate.

Slipping a finger into her mouth, he eased his erection free, lifted her into his arms, carried her the few steps to the chair, and sitting, disposed her with effortless strength so she was facing him on her knees, his upthrust cock nudging her hot little pussy.

“I can’t wait,” he said, this man who generally made love with careless dispassion.

“Oh, good,” she panted, in artless confession. “I’m vastly impatient to feel you inside me.”

There was something about her innocent candor that touched him beyond the obvious anticipatory pleasure her words evoked. But after a lifetime of eschewing undue emotion, he quickly dismissed the singular feeling. “I almost tumbled you this morning,” he said with a small smile, “so welcome to the world of impatience.”

“Now, if you please.” A brisk command, a wiggle of her hips and a green steady gaze.

“And if I don’t take orders?” A lazy drawl in contrast.

“Allow me to change your mind.” In her new unconstrained mood, she sank down his rigid length like a catapult, and resting on his thighs a second later, impaled and content, she smiled up at him. “I almost let you tumble me this morning.”

He laughed.

She felt his laugh in delicious compensatory flutters deep inside her and gently rocked her bottom to savor the flaunting enchantment. “So you see, we are both after the same thing.”

“This?” Flexing his legs, he thrust upward and was gratified at her soft, rapturous moan. Gently grasping her hips, he held her securely. “And this?”

Another blissful groan before her lashes lifted marginally, and holding his gaze, she whispered, “And this as well,” as she began slowly rising to her knees.

The delectable friction of skin on skin, the tingling nerve endings sliding one against the other, the exquisitely tight pressure of his erection stretching her pulsing tissue brought new meaning to the word stimulation, the degree of tactile sensation lurid.

Stopping midway on her leisurely ascent, she said, breathy and astonished, “Do you feel that?”

He smiled. “Everywhere you can possibly feel anything.” He placed his hands lightly on her hips.

“I know. I think I’ll keep you,” she teased.

“I might let you.” Christ, where did that come from? As if to nullify his startling reply, he planted his feet firmly on the floor, tightened his grip on Mrs. St. Vincent’s hips, and exerted a hard, forceful downward pressure with his hands.

He didn’t hear her breathy squeal as he plumbed the depths of her glossy, silken warmth, or if he did, the sound didn’t register with his brain in the grip of a cataclysmic upheaval. Although, shortly after, as he caught his breath, he noticed with the tunnel vision of heated sexual congress that she was shifting her hips, asking for more.

How fucking convenient.

In the following highly impressionable interval, he operated on instinct, lifting her up and forcing her back down until she assumed the rhythm with an impetuous frenzy he was more than willing to accommodate. She climaxed quickly again, whether by nature or due to her recent celibacy, it didn’t really matter. He only waited for her last little sigh to echo in his ears before gently moving inside her again.

“No, don’t-please,” she whispered into his shoulder, collapsed on his chest.

“Just a bit more, darling. There, see”-her vaginal muscles were stirring-“it feels good, doesn’t it?”

How does he know? But suddenly the reason why was irrelevant, for a warm delicious glow began spreading through her senses again and languishing desire revived with an acute, raw intensity. As if each time was better than the last. A glorious thought.

After waiting all day to be engulfed in Mrs. St. Vincent’s hot cunt, Fitz knew each time was better than the last.

He also knew this chair wasn’t going to suit for long.

To that purpose, he concentrated on bringing the voluptuous woman warming his cock to fever pitch again. Not a difficult task; she was highly receptive, her vagina slick with desire, her neediness and sexual appetite charming. And very soon, his talents being what they were, she was once again overwrought and panting.

Now, he decided. Sliding his hands under her bottom, holding her firmly impaled, he surged to his feet. She squealed in a rapturous little sound that suggested his cock had stood with equally bracing force.

“Tell me I won’t die of pleasure,” she whispered, clinging to his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist, her gaze half-lidded and feverish.

“Not yet.” His voice was soft as silk. “Soon.”

The explicit promise in his words streaked through her body like liquid flame, his long-legged gait jostled pleasure receptors up and down her vagina, and she desperately hoped soon was measured in seconds. “Is it always like this with you?”

He didn’t immediately reply as he approached the bed. Then, ignoring the dangers in sincerity, he said, “No, never.”

“Oh good, although I don’t know why it should matter; what are you doing?” she cried as he came to a halt.

“Seeing that you die of pleasure,” he said with a smile, smoothly easing them both down on the small bed without dislodging himself from her silken warmth. “Don’t argue.”

As if she could, Rosalind understood, every nerve in her body poised, taut, quivering for surcease. As if she could do anything at all but wait breathlessly for the fierce convulsive ecstasy brought to her by the good graces, deft skill, and prodigious physical endowments of the Duke of Groveland. Like that… oh, God, oh God, she was completely gorged; she couldn’t take any more. “No, no, I can’t…”

“Just a little more, darling-see… you can do it…”

Whispered force majeure, velvet soft, and so excruciatingly fine she felt herself melt around him as if he held the key to her carnal soul.

“There… see, you can take it all. If you were in my harem you’d have to take this and more, darling. You’d have to conform to my every wish. I could keep you naked by my side day and night. Would you like that?” He began to slowly withdraw.

“No, no… I mean, yes, yes, of course,” she quickly corrected, fearful he would leave her.

“That’s better. I like compliance from my houris.” He held himself arrested, midstroke. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes, perfectly. Don’t leave me, please.”

“So you’ll do anything if I stay.”

“Yes, yes, anything.”

Blood surged through his penis at such unconditional surrender, his libido enticed by her carte blanche permission. “I’ll be fucking you all night,” he said. “Is that a problem?”

“No, no… not at all.” She was trembling on the brink; she would have promised him anything.

No novice, he recognized preorgasmic delirium, but inexplicably, he wanted more. “You won’t be allowed to refuse me. Is that clear?”

She hesitated.

He drove into her yielding flesh a fraction more to encourage her answer.

She gasped as the infinitesimal movement jolted every eager, covetous nerve in her body like a hammer blow. “Yes, it’s clear,” she breathed.

It shouldn’t have mattered. Women had been saying yes to him his entire adult life. But Mrs. St. Vincent’s small breathless reply was flagrantly erotic. Neither unctuous nor flattering as was normally the case, but explicitly reluctant, as if he were trespassing into forbidden territory.

And he’d finally been given access.

Slipping his hand under her thigh, he lifted her leg to allow himself deeper penetration and drove into her succulent warmth. It had been a long day and a longer evening of waiting for this; there was a point where even a worldly man was no longer impervious to hot-spur passion.

“Finally,” she whispered, as though reading his mind, and when he laughed, she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, smiled into his amused gaze and purred, “Welcome my lord, Sultan.”

“I’m very glad I purchased you,” he whispered, adjusting his downstroke to her rising hips. At her immediate, hotly contentious stare, he grinned. “It’s only play, darling-here in the harem.”

“It better be.”

“I’ll let you know when it isn’t,” he softly said, biting back the reply that came to his lips. Allusions to her store were counterproductive at the moment.

“Meaning?”

“Are you really going to fight with me now?” he drawled, flexing his legs to deepen his thrusting downstroke.

She softly moaned, her legs gripped his back more tightly, and she whispered, “Later.”

Equally headstrong and in a better position to exert his autocratic impulses, he made her wait that time, taking her to the edge over and over again, always withdrawing just short of her climax. Making it clear at least in this instance, that the advantage was his.

Until she abruptly grabbed his hair, tugged hard, and with her hot gaze only inches away from his, hissed, “I’m climaxing this time with or without you.”

“Fine. You do that.” She exasperated him more than any woman he’d ever met.

“I will!” Shoving him away-or rather, he allowed her that drama-she rolled over, jerked open the drawer on the bedside table, and pulled out a slender glass bottle, empty of its contents.