She found herself suddenly comparing Oz to Will-to the former’s detriment-and immediately chastised herself for fickleness. How could a single night of lovemaking nullify what she’d previously perceived as an enduring attachment. How could she be so shallow?

“If you’re going to daydream, darling, come do so in bed.” Oz had set down the brandy and cake plate and was shrugging out of his jacket. “We can interpret your dreams according to that fellow Freud-society’s newest conceit.”

“Or we could interpret yours,” she lightly returned, reminding herself this was nothing more than amorous sport for her husband.

“Uh-uh. My dreams aren’t for the faint of heart.”

“Pshaw-you don’t frighten me.”

“Nor do I intend to,” he suavely remarked. “I promised to entertain you, I believe.”

“As if I’ve forgotten. I’m afraid I’m no different than all the ladies lusting after you over tea,” she said, untying the ribbon in her hair as she approached him. “Just add me to your list.”

“You forget, I’m a happily married man without a list,” he sportively noted, holding out his hand.

“Your many lovers wouldn’t agree. I believe they’re ever hopeful.” She dropped the twirl of pink ribbon into his open palm and shook out her pale tresses.

“Let them be. I don’t care. I like your hair loose,” he said, deliberately changing the subject. “You remind me of a fresh-faced country lass. My country lass,” he murmured, dropping the ribbon on a table. Reaching out, he slid his fingers through the soft silk of her hair and held her gently captive.

She smiled up at him. “And you’re my irrepressible temptation.”

“A mutual dependency in that regard,” he said a trifle gruffly, surprised at the urgency of his desire. He let his hands drop.

“You don’t like the feeling.”

“No. On the other hand,” he more sensibly acknowledged, turning her and beginning to unhook her gown, “my libido has a narrow focus when it comes to feelings.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “And those feelings are-” “Likely to keep you up all night.”

“How nice. I never have to wait with you.”

“I can pretty much guarantee that.”

But he undressed her without haste, unhooking, unbuttoning, untying with a smooth, deft competence, taking his time. He wasn’t a novice, nor in the mood for slam-bang sex; as for his languid pace-it was a matter of self-discipline.

Less seasoned in the lists of love, Isolde was acutely aware of his touch-the casual drift of his fingers over her skin, the warmth of his palm sliding her dress sleeve down her arm, the occasional brushing contact with his erection as he moved behind her. Each time his hard, solid length grazed her bottom or hip, little anticipatory tremors quivered deep inside her, warming her blood, stirring her skittish senses, making her fully conscious of the heady phrase insatiable longing.

Prior to their meeting at Blackwood’s, she’d always considered sex a pleasure and delight, but never a craving. And now Oz had but to mildly bestir himself and she was instantly in rut. If it didn’t feel so gloriously divine, she might consider being mortified by her shameless response. Maybe later, she decided, wallowing in a voluptuary warmth.

“I should make you wait,” Oz said, well versed in female arousal. Dropping her chemise on the carpet, he turned her around and calmly surveyed her lush nudity. “You’ll thank me for it when you climax.”

She flushed. “So cool and collected. Am I boring you?” He flicked a glance downward. “Does it look like I’m bored?” he said, laughter stirring in his eyes.

His cool equanimity was infuriating but provocative as well, and whether prompted by lust or vexation, determined to ruffle Oz’s unruffled calm, she threw herself at him.

He grunted softly at the sudden impact but otherwise appeared unmoved, save for his libido, which reacted predictably to a nude female in close proximity.

“Umm, he noticed me…” Wrapping her arms around Oz’s neck, Isolde melted into his hard, lean body and rising on tiptoe, kissed him with wild, wanton spontaneity.

“There,” she whispered long moments later, dropping back on her heels and leaning back against his light embrace. “Even you’re not completely impervious.”

“Hardly. For your information, I’m not in the habit of asking women to marry me.”

She smiled faintly. “So you’re a little enamored of me.”

“Of course,” he said as if he meant it, knowing what was expected in amorous play. “Now, do I gather we’re in race mode again?” Her eagerness was charming. “No foreplay, no waiting, no cake or brandy?”

“If you don’t think me too rude.” Isolde fluttered her lashes in sham demure.

Oz chuckled. “You’re going to wear me out.”

“He seems in fine form.” She slipped her hand downward and ran her fingers up the length of his erection, patently obvious under the soft wool of his trousers.

“It’s the last thing to go,” he said with a grin.

“If you’re tired, I could just use him. You needn’t do anything.”

He spread his arms wide. “Who could refuse?”

“So I’m in charge?” she airily remarked, taking a step back.

“You’re in charge.” The truth was always flexible in situations like this.

“Didn’t you say that to Lady Mortimer at the Dorchester hunt?”

“I don’t recall.” Damn Lizabeth. He hadn’t thought Isolde had heard her whispered comments at tea.

“You were probably too occupied at the time to notice-what with Lady Mortimer’s very devoted attentions and the possibility of discovery imminent. What was that stable boy’s name?”

Silently cursing Lizabeth’s brazen impertinence, he said, “She was trying to embarrass me. Ignore her.”

“I must say, the image she provoked was intriguing. Do you do things like that often?”

“Christ, can we not talk about Lizabeth?”

“Lizabeth? Is that her name?”

His gaze narrowed. “Where are we going with this?”

Dropping to her knees, Isolde glanced up at Oz. “I thought we might go to an imaginary stable where no stable boy’s likely to walk in and interrupt us.”

“Need I brace myself?” A guarded note echoed in his voice.

“Heavens no. Why would I harm the instrument of all my pleasure?” Isolde brightly said, beginning to untie one of Oz’s shoes. “Our relationship is completely laissez-faire anyway, so what you did with Lady Mortimer is strictly your business. Lift your foot.”

For an inexplicable moment he wasn’t sure he liked the sound of the phrase completely laissez-faire when it came to his wife. But as quickly as the thought surfaced, he dispelled so outrй a notion. Isolde was perfectly right about their personal freedoms, and what was even more perfect-she was about to perform fellatio on him. How very wifely.

What was also perfect-as in beautiful to behold-was his wife’s provocative pose. She was kneeling at his feet, all lush, pink flesh and shapely charms, her pale, frothy hair loose and tumbled, the nape of her neck exposed-in a primal vision of submission.

An utterly captivating image.

Deferential and compliant.

He was hard-pressed not to rip open his trousers, tumble her back onto the carpet, and mount her like some randy animal.

Sucking in a breath, he restrained himself. He could wait.

Or maybe he could wait. Having disposed of his shoes and socks, Isolde had suddenly risen to her knees and her upturned face was inches from his crotch.

“You don’t mind being used, do you?” She smiled. “Not that it matters whether you do or not since I’m in charge.” She gently squeezed the bulge in his trousers. “Umm… do you think he’s getting bigger?”

A rhetorical question, he supposed as his erection surged higher and he wondered where she’d acquired her coquettish flair-the combination of breathy innocence and voluptuous splendor highly erotic.

“You’re not asleep, are you?” she playfully asked when he didn’t reply.

He smiled and shook his head.

“Then let me know,” she said, intent on disturbing her husband’s damnable composure, “if I’m too rough.” Having witnessed the full extent of Oz’s impressive harem over tea, she was feeling a stab of jealousy-useless but real. “Although if I interpreted Lady Mortimer’s comment correctly you don’t mind a little roughness.” She began opening the buttons on his trouser fly. “Or did she say roughhouse,” she sardonically queried, “which is something else altogether?”

“You don’t seriously think I’m going to fight with you?”

“I was just wondering how common this is for you.”

“With a wife? You tell me.”

“And you tell me if I’m doing this right,” she said with equal impudence, sliding the last button free. “Oh hell.”

“I’ll do it,” he offered, interpreting her expletive, swiftly releasing the small pearl closures on his underwear, experiencing the fierce untrammeled lust specific to the provocative Miss Perceval so recently become his wife. And oh hell to that, too-in spades.

He clenched his hands at his sides as she struggled to draw his engorged penis from the confines of his clothing, her untutored efforts stirring previously unstirred emotions, her naivete captivating to a worldly man. She elicited a tender regard quite different from what passed for feeling in the beau monde.

Then his erection sprang free, Isolde gasped, wide-eyed, and Oz took solace in the fact that he wasn’t alone in his singular fixation.

Her grip tightened, and he tensed against the prodigious shock to his senses. There was no reasonable explanation for his fierce response, even less to the near-orgasmic jolt that streaked up his spine when she forced his engorged cock away from his belly, slid her fingers up the long, rigid length, whispered, “He’s huge!” and opening her mouth, availed herself of Lady Mortimer’s favorite plaything.

Sheer will along with years of practice kept Oz from instantly ejaculating when her mouth slid over the hypersensitive head of his penis. Stepping back from the orgasmic brink, he slipped his fingers through her pale curls, held her prisoner between his large hands, and said, taut and low, “Let’s see how much you can take.”

His terse, brute authority registered with dazzling impact in the liquid core of Isolde’s body, that coercion along with the forceful advancing pressure of his cock, perversely intoxicating. Conscious only of the hot, pulsing ache deep inside her, wet with longing, openmouthed and submissive, she struggled to swallow more of his enormous penis.

“Slowly, darling… slowly-there you go… that’s a good girl.”

His deep voice was perfectly modulated, soft as silk, yet he was imposing his will, demanding obedience, and where in other circumstances-more rational, cool-headed ones-she might have resisted, seething and overwrought, Isolde willingly capitulated.

His grip on her head was gently determined, the pressure inexorably driving his erection deeper into her mouth, his domination rousing her every sexual nerve, tantalizing and titillating, inciting a hot flood tide of ecstasy to spread outward from her pulsing vagina. And rather than offend, his authority only further fomented her overwrought passions, touched her to the quick, left her trembling.

Feverish and needy, her thighs clenched hard to contain the seething rapture, the head of Oz’s cock suddenly struck the back of her throat.

She choked.

Under ordinary circumstances her muffled utterance would have gone unnoticed. But in the throes of a single-minded obsession, Isolde’s small gurgle was consent to a man well beyond prudent deliberation, and with a monstrous lack of control Oz abruptly climaxed.

Held firmly by his large hands, Isolde swallowed and gulped and swallowed again, the hot gushing deluge of semen inciting some primal dynamic of male-female affinity that triggered her own wild orgasm. The convulsive spasm swept upward through her body, ravaged her quivering senses, left an indelible, thrilling imprint on every throbbing, impressionable nerve ending, raged and seethed red-hot and exquisite until overcome and overwhelmed, with a last breathless shudder, she collapsed.

Oz instinctively caught her, his consciousness more fully absorbed by feverish sensation, and for a considerable length of time only the soft rasp of heavy breathing echoed in the large, high-ceilinged room. Neither was capable of moving, each preoccupied by the glowing bliss of sated pleasure, the unexpected ferocity of their passions.

Less given to emotion, Oz yielded first to reason, and gently easing his penis from Isolde’s mouth, he lifted her into his arms and deposited her limp form on the bed. Bending, he kissed her flushed cheek. “I apologize for climaxing so quickly.” He never did.