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.”