And perhaps no answer was the best response of all. Gerard would have to know that he was putting her in an untenable position. She couldn't leave Court. She couldn't run away with him. Those were the impractical dreams of a different lifetime, before the wolf knocked down the door and demanded restitution.

No. Gerard's love was something she would hold in her heart and take out to savor when things became unbearable. Thinking that she could ever marry Gerard had been unrealistic, and the stuff of fantasy.

And it had taken the hardheaded business deal between her father and Court to make her understand that. That was what made her world go around, not chivalry, or romance. Business. Money. Bushels of rice and cotton and the price per pound. And the mistress of gaming who almost won it all.

She must never forget that. Court must get his money's worth, and his pound of flesh. And she knew she had barely begun to discharge the debt.

Dearest Gerard, forgive me… because I will lay with himtonight… and it will destroy me to even think about you

"She answer him nothing," Evie said, as she brought him a goblet of wine. "She have nothing to say."

"I see." Court took the crystal goblet in his hand and held it up to the lamplight. The wine was a deep, rich red, and the light played off the facets cut into the bowl. It was the glassware of a wealthy man, someone who could afford the best and who bought the best.

A man who had purchased his wife without a qualm.

He sipped the wine thoughtfully. Lenoir would not give up. He had lost too much, and he was, perhaps, counting on the fact that he, Court, had not shown much feeling for Drue. For all Lenoir knew, Court had only wanted to get his hands on Oak Bluffs, and Drue was incidental to the deal.

Perhaps that precipitated his rather desperate letter.

Noreprisals… Lenoir had written. Her father would not suffer, he'd said. In spite of the fact Victor had been on the verge of killing himself over this humiliation.

And Victor had been very clear about it: once the deal was struck, Drue was never to know that it had been Lenoir to whom her father had owed that disgraceful sum of money.

Nor would Lenoir reveal Victor's secret to Drue: it would kill every vestige of her love for him, and expose both Lenoir and Victor's deceits and lies. Neither of them would risk that.

Of such tenuous secrets were alliances made.

Court wondered if Victor even cared anymore. Since the payoff, and the transfer of the title to Oak Bluffs to include Court's name, Victor had been on his best behavior.

But the time was coming when he would start to get the itch, would feel his confidence coming back, would think that just a little roll of the dice couldn't hurt.

All these things, coming to a head, speared by his own lust for Drue, and Lenoir's determination that he could not lose everything altogether.

Well, there were ways to deal with Lenoir, and he wouldn't hesitate to expose all the dirty secrets, no matter what cost tohim, if Lenoir kept after his wife.

Which was why a man didn't allow himself to get too tangled between a pair of sleek, naked, feminine legs, no matter how seductive they were.

Drue…

Instant erection. But what did he expect?

Goddamn… goddamnshe didn't answer the letter… and he would have bet Oak Bluffs that she would.

He wanted that body, that hot, tight, traitorous body. He sat in his office, his desire a knife edge to his bulging penis and the faint lingering scent of her sex.

He couldn't go another minute without sinking into her. He was horsewhipped and he knew it and he didn't care. Not tonight.

Tonight. He ordered Evie to bring her to him, and to dress her in a particular way.

When she entered, she was perfect, naked but for her head swathed in a dark veil that covered her face and made her seem even more elusive, and the golden loops glittering around her tight, pointed nipples, and the satin bonds around her wrists.

His erection got tighter than a bone, his excitementand hersescalating as Evie brought her into the room. "Just fasten her bonds to the hooks on the wall."

Yes, perfect like that, her arms raised, her breasts thrust forward and quivering so the candlelight shimmered on her gold-encased nipples. And her eyes, glittering beneath the mysterious veiling, as if she knew exactly what had been his purpose and his desire.

He dropped his trousers and kicked them away, and let her glimmering gaze rest on the naked pulsating length of him for a long, long time.

It was almost enough, to have her captive and captivated so intensely by his sex. She squirmed at the sight of him, as if his ramrod manhood aroused her beyond control. Her body undulated against the smooth plaster of the wall, her nipples peaking, her every movement calling attention to them and the shimmery gold that was held in place solely by those tight, hard points.

He didn't think he could get any harder, but with every grind of her hips, he felt himself jutting out still further. She was doing everything she could to entice him to rut in her, he could see it in her eyes behind the seductive veiling, but he intended to deny her that pleasure just yet.

Just… yet

Her body shimmied voluptuously against the wall as ifit were her lover and could give her what she so desperately craved.

Goodhere was a hard lesson learned: let her comprehend that nothing could sate that gnawing desire in her but his cock. That his cock owned her and his was the only cock that would ever possess her. And that it was for him to grant the favor of plowing her and not her need to be plowed that determined whether or not he would rut in her.

But God, his penis was hungry for her. And she was panting for him.

But that was the way of treacherous women. They seduced you with their greedy naked bodies and they dreamt of other men.

He stroked his thunderous erection and the movement of his hand jolted her.

"Not tonight, my naked fawn," he murmured.

She made a sound. "I need it…"

"Oh, I know. I know how you need it."

"Then…"

"We wait. I want you to know exactly how much you need it, and to whom you will crawl."

She licked her lips, and the movement of her tongue arrested him. Yes. Yes. She bit her lower lip, and locked her gaze on his hot, throbbing member, and then moistened her lips again.

His penis flexed, as if he could feel her lips on him.

Power.

She could have all the power in the world over him, even bound and veiled and writhing with unfulfilled desire.

He liked her in restraints. And he liked thinking he had the power.

But he couldn't pull his eyes away from her quivering nipples. He couldn't escape from the musk of her sex permeating the room.

She had never been so wet in her life. Her body felt like pure cream. All she wanted was for him to sink himself into her and lose himself forever.

Her nipples felt hard and tight. She could feel the movement of the golden ovals against the curves of her breasts. She threw her head back in an ecstasy of bliss as she deliberately gyrated and shimmied her hips.

"Oh, no, my naked wife. No. Tonight you don't get my sex."

But he was transfixed by her writhing body and her grinding hips, and she understood that here, at last, was the power: in her voluptuously undulating body, in the visible glistening wet between her legs, in his uncontrollable elongating nakedness, she had found the age-old secret to tantalizing and enticing a man's penis.

She didn't need to speak, to protest the obvious untruth. He started to move toward her unwillingly, led by the ferocious desire that was so hot and hard and heavy, he was swollen with it, he was bursting with it.

"Not tonight, wife. No matter what you do."

Closer still he came, huge, rock hard, aching for possession as she enticed the wall behind her with her wanton movements that she knew would finally tempt him beyond redemption.

"Oh, no. I know these games, Drue. You can't have what you want."

She thrust her hips in a seductive beckoning to his throbbing sex.

He brought himself hard up against her pulsating cleft, and she turned her head away to hide triumph as she pushed herself against him and felt him kiss her feminine fold.

He drew in a sharp breath. He had to stay away from her. There was no middle ground here. He must either take her or send her away. He moved away, oblivious to the spurt of cream coating his ridged tip, and she moaned.

"Yes, you liked that. You'll take anything, won't you, Drue. Any penetration to show you have power overthis." He grasped it and turned back toward her. "Well, my naked puss, you have no power. And if I choose to take you, it won't be because you seduced me or you tempted me, or because I want you. I brought you here for the sole purpose of ramming your naked body into that wall to gratify my lust."

"Then do it," she goaded him.

"You are a willing piece."

"And you're primed to explode," she taunted. "You can't keep your eyes off my nipples, you love my swaying hips. You want what's between my legs, Court. You can't deny it. You know how tight it is, how wet. How hot… how much you want it…"

"But I'm not going to take it. That's my strength and my power." But he had come closer to her, jutting erotically toward her as if it had a mind of its own; his words roared in his ears. "I'm not going to take it…" Closer. "Not, damn you…" His penis nudged her, hard, strong, urgent."Not…"

He breeched her and she gasped. "Not…" Panting now as he shifted himself and drove into her. "Jesus God…" Pumped himself into her in a steady rhythm of short, sharp strokes. Pinned her against that wall with his hard piston length, not letting her move, not letting her feel.