“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.

“Anytime,” Isolde whispered, her voice the merest breath of sound, her eyes half-shut. “Force majeure is intensely arousing.”

“So it appears,” Oz muttered, restive under his novel impatience. He gazed at his wife as she lay on his bed, naked and rosy pink, her legs languidly disposed, her pouty sex luring the eye, and any chafing scruples he might harbor gave way to his own fervent feelings about force majeure. Jerking open the buttons on his shirt front, he dragged his shirt over his head, shoved his trousers down his hips, and a second later, stepped out of his underwear.

High-strung, disturbed by a heretic intensity of feeling, he stood motionless for a moment beside the bed.

Looking up from under the pale drift of her lashes, Isolde whispered, “Do I get you now?”

“In a minute,” he replied, turning to pour himself a drink in an effort to restore some sanity to what could turn out to be an afternoon of savage debauch if he didn’t control himself. He wasn’t sure his recent bride was up to such hard use. Draining his drink, he glanced at Isolde. “Would you like your cake now?” A technical pause, a moment of reason, a means of clearing the lewd anarchy from his brain. “And some brandy to rinse out your mouth?”

She smiled and nodded as though he’d asked perfectly normal questions. Then she dutifully took a sip of brandy as he held a glass to her lips. Lying back against the pillows, she ate as he sat on the edge of the bed and fed her, as if that too was ordinary. As if he was always so unselfishly obliging.

Up was down and down was up was more the case.

He fed her Achille’s torte between kisses, playing the gentleman with ease, conversing in banalities, urbanely charming and amusing.

She answered if somewhat tardily at times-often replying only when Oz lifted his brows and said, “Don’t go to sleep on me, darling. I have plans.”

“Never fear-not when that awaits me.” And she’d reached out and fondle his upthrust erection.

It always took a moment afterward to rein in his more prodigal inclinations, but he did because he still could. Then he’d offer his wife another forkful of cake as if his chivalry might translate into an equally bland sexual gallantry.

Undeterred by any need for restraint, Isolde considered herself exceedingly fortunate to be the recipient of Oz’s splendid sexual expertise. In fact, she was quite willing to overlook any number of her husband’s lovers in order to take advantage of his lovely virility and talents. Which delectable thought encouraged a heated tremor to shimmer up her vagina.

Heavenly days! Being fed chocolate torte with crиme anglaise by her gorgeous husband while experiencing a rush of desire surely must be counted as one of life’s beautiful moments. Oz was, without doubt, the most irresistible of aphrodisiacs. She glanced at his seemingly indefatigable erection pressed hard against his belly and shivered in pleasure.

Oz met her gaze and set down the cake plate. “Ready again?” “Always with you,” she answered simply. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. I can’t remember when last I contemplated fucking myself to death.”

“I never have, yet the notion’s vastly appealing. Do you think marriage does that to one?”

He laughed so long she had her answer, or at least his answer. “You’re no romantic, I see.”

Swallowing his last chuckle, he swept the back of his hand across his mouth to stifle his lingering smile. “No, nor is any man of my acquaintance. A fundamental difference between the sexes I’m afraid.”

“Even while sex itself is always compatible,” Isolde drolly countered.

“With some women at least. You in particular. Move over a little and I’ll demonstrate our unique compatibility.”

As she made room for him she was suddenly struck by the randomness of fate that had brought them together. “Do you realize we were thrown together completely by chance? What if I hadn’t stayed at Blackwood’s? What if I’d left with Malmsey?”

Dropping into a sprawl beside her, Oz said, “I wouldn’t have let you go.”

Her eyes widened a little. “You don’t say.”

“I do. I wasn’t finished with you.”

“I beg your pardon?” That was beyond callous. “Did my feelings come into account at all?”

“Are you trying to start a fight again?”

“No, we’re discussing the fact that your wishes superseded mine.”

“I rather had the impression our wishes were in accord,” he said, soothingly. “Or do you have wild sex with any man who walks into your room?”

“Of course not.”

“How do I know?”

She had the grace to blush. “Well, I don’t.”

“Excellent because I’m in a possessive mood. God knows why, but there it is.”

“Unfortunately I don’t care to be possessed.”

He grinned. “Sometimes you like it a lot.”

“I don’t happen to at the moment. Maybe I should leave,” she said pettishly, more coolheaded postorgasm.

“You could try.” He knew the difference between willingness and unwillingness. Not that the latter figured largely or at all in his life.

“Don’t say that.” But even as she spoke, she felt a powerful surge of prurient craving and a flush of arousal crept up her neck in rosy denial.

“Then why don’t I say I’m going to fuck you until I can’t fuck anymore.” Sliding upward into a seated position, he flexed his fingers in a gesture of taut restraint. “Or is that in bad taste?” he drawled, looking down at her.

She turned her head on the pillow and met his gaze. “Arrogant bastard.”