His heart started ticking a staccato beat. If he'd gone by instinct, he would have knocked the table over, brushed the maid aside, burst through the door and raced up the stairs.

Primitive, he warned himself reproachfully.

That wasn't what he wanted. Slow torture was what he had in mind.

He sipped his coffee like a gentleman. "My wife's in the bath?" he inquired innocently.

"Oh, why, yes, Mr. Gabriel," Mrs. Haywood said. "Don't worry, young man, you're welcome to stay here in the kitchen if you're worrying about disturbing her."

"Why, ma'am, I was thinking that I might steal a little of her water, and save someone having to haul more up the stairs." He spoke sincerely, rising.

"That's thoughtful of you, Mr. Gabriel," Mrs. Haywood said. Around her ample figure, Mr. Haywood looked up at Malachi with his brow arched and a skeptical smile slipping onto his lips.

"Mighty thoughtful, son," he said dryly.

Malachi flashed him a quick grimace. "Mr. and Mrs. Haywood, thank you again. Good night, now."

He nodded to the young maid and swept by her. He forced himself to walk slowly through the parlor and up the stairs. He glanced at the key. Room five.

It wasn't hard to find.

He took a deep breath outside the doorway, smiled again, and slipped the key into the lock. He heard her key fall out of the door on the other side as he pressed his in. He pushed open the door.

The most outrageous bathtub he'd ever seen sat before the fire. It was a long wooden tub with headrests rising up at both ends. It was decorated with copper and delft tiles, and at that particular moment, it was laden with bubbles…and with Shannon.

Her hair was curled high on top of her head, leaving the slim porcelain column of her neck bare. Her shoulders and just a peak of her breasts rose out of the bubbles.

She turned on him, her eyes wide and startled and very blue. She almost leaped up, but then seemed to realize how much worse that would be. "Get out!"

"Darlin'!" he said softly, with taunting reproach. And he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, leaning against it. His eyes stayed on her while he twisted the key in the lock.

She must have put on one hell of a performance with the Haywoods, he thought. She hadn't expected him that night. It was a pity that he hadn't gotten to see it.

Shannon sank farther into the tub, watching him as he sauntered coolly into the room.

"Don't you dare get comfortable," Shannon warned him. She felt herself burning all over, and it wasn't from the steam in the bath. It was caused just by the way his eyes fell upon her.

The nerve of him. How dare he be here. How dare he look at her like that. When he had just left his redheaded slut!

He tossed the key onto the side table and dropped down on Mrs. Haywood's beautiful crocheted bedspread, lacing his fingers behind his head and staring right at her. He smiled.

"Don't let me disturb you."

"You are disturbing me." She narrowed her eyes. "You've no right in this room. The Haywoods—"

"The Haywoods know that a man has a right to be with his wife—beloved."

"The Haywoods know that the man is a scoundrel and cad, seducing women from the Mississippi to the Pacific. They understood completely that you deserved a night in the livery stables."

"Tsk, tsk." His apparent relaxation had been deceptive. He moved all of a sudden, sleek and easy, twisting to stretch out on his stomach, facing her from the foot of the bed. There was no more than six feet between them. She could see the tension in his features and the pulses beating furiously against his throat and temple. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes, and she was aware that he was angry with her—furious, probably, for her behavior in the saloon—and that he seemed to have forgotten any rules of fair play for the night.

She sank lower in the tub. He wouldn't force her into anything. She knew him, and she knew that he would never force any woman. But what would he do?

And what would she do? If he touched her, she would scream, she thought, and not with horror, but because her flesh seemed to cry out to know his hands again. She was hot inside and out, and trembling fiercely. The scent of the lavender soap was all around her, the softness of the bed awaited…

And he had just spent hours and hours with a whore.

"Malachi—" She paused. "Sloan," she hissed. "This is my room. Get out."

He smiled, giving her a flash of white teeth against the golden strands of his mustache and beard. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I may be a cad, but I wouldn't dream of leaving my sweet young wife alone for the entire night."

He rose and sat at the foot of the bed, nonchalantly kicking off his boots and peeling away his socks. Shannon watched him, stunned, as he proceeded to pull the tails of his shirt from his pants and unbutton his shirt and cast it aside.

"What are you doing?" she asked him quickly.

"I'm going to take a bath."

"No, you're not. This is my bath."

"Darlin', we've got to talk, and it looks like it's just the right place, to me."

"Malachi, if you touch me, I'll scream."

"You're my wife. They might shake their heads a bit downstairs, but they won't interfere."

"I'm not your wife!" Shannon swore, panicking. The look in his eyes caused shivers to streak along her spine. The sight of his bare chest, sleek and gleaming, brought her body alive with memory. She lowered her head, determined not to look at him.

But she could hear him.

She heard his pants fall to the floor, and she heard his footsteps as his bare feet padded behind her. He dropped to his knees and his lips touched her shoulders like a burning brand. She jerked away from him and wished she hadn't, for when she turned to him she saw his hungry eyes on her newly exposed breasts. Her nipples hardened instantly and flames seemed to rise to her cheeks, then sink back and lie deep in her core. She sank into the water. She wanted to be angry, indignant. Her voice came out as a husky whisper. "Malachi, I am not your wife!"

He was on his feet, naked as a jay, and his manhood flying proud and firm. She was determined not to stare, but her teeth were chattering, and she felt compelled to watch him, like a marionette jerked by strings. She loved the look of him, she realized. She felt some ancient and instinctive fascination, which lay deep below the level of her mind, something that caused her blood to race and heat and her breath to catch and come too quickly and that made her flesh come alive at the very thought of him. She could not draw her eyes from him. She could not help but respond to the naked length of him. She found him magnificent. From the breadth of bronzed shoulders to the lean hardness of his thighs, she found him so boldly and negligently male that she could not turn away.

He stepped into the tub, sitting behind her so that his feet brushed her bottom. He leaned back against the rim of the tub and sighed deeply. "This is just wonderful." He closed his eyes in complete comfort.

Hating him, hating herself, Shannon swore furiously. "Malachi, I am not your wife!"

His eyes flew open, glittering and dangerous. "That's not what you told Miss Andre when you so rudely doused her."

"I—I had to appear upset."

"Did you now?" He leaned forward. His hands dangled over his knees. His fingers almost brushed the flesh of her breasts. She leaned against the tub, as far as she could go. It made no difference. "You're lucky she controlled her temper."

"You're damned lucky that I'm controlling mine right now."

"Am I? Why, beloved, is that a threat?"

She didn't answer him. She was shaking all over and she only hoped she had the bravado to make an escape. "If you're going to stay, Malachi, then I'm going to go." She started to rise. He was on his feet in an instant. He set his hands on her shoulders and pressed against them with relentless determination. Water and bubbles swished all around them. Her rear landed hard against the bottom of the tub, and he followed her quickly back down.

"Sit. You're not going anywhere."

"Don't you dare manhandle me! I've had it. I've simply had it! I'm not going to sit—" She tried to rise again. He caught her foot this time. She felt his free hand roaming the water for the soap. His fingers brushed her thighs and her rear and her flank and she gritted her teeth to keep from screaming out.

"Malachi—"

"Sit," he said pleasantly. "Just sit, darlin'."

"Malachi, you son of a bitch!" She tried to pull away. His grip upon her foot was firm. Softly humming "Dixie," he washed her foot with the lavender soap.

She leaned back and spoke through a clenched jaw. "Malachi, I want you out of here! Now! You left me cooling my heels to run off to a saloon. You spent the whole afternoon and evening with a whore. I had to act the way I did—"

"Jealous, darlin'?" He taunted huskily. She opened her eyes. Her foot was free and he had come close to her. Very close. Their limbs were all entangled. She could feel the shaft of his sex against her ankle, the hardness of his thighs against her toes. It was unbearable.

And she could see the pulse beating, beating, against his throat. His lips were close to hers as he spoke.

"Never!" she promised him in a heated panic. "I just can't stand the thought of being sullied by your touch."

"No?" He cocked his head, and his lashes fell lazily over his cheeks. "You didn't mind down in the store this afternoon."

"That was—that was necessary."

"No, I don't think so. I don't think so at all. Shannon, I haven't ever, not even by the most practiced whore, been kissed so provocatively in my entire life."