"And then I'm getting mine," he said with an answering smile. Opening his arms wide, he grinned at her. "I'm available for your impatient purposes. Or, actually, my c.o.c.k is available. Where and how would you like it?"

"Hmmm," she said thoughtfully, sliding off Johnny to playfully appraise his sprawled form. "I think first-"

His brows rose.

"You didn't set a limit," she teasingly said, sitting crosslegged and delectable beside him.

"I'll be skin and bones before this baby is born," he theatrically lamented. He wouldn't of course; he was powerful as a young stallion, all toned muscle and restless energy.

"You don't look as though you'll fall into a decline in the next five minutes," Elizabeth said with one mocking eyebrow raised, "so I think I'll sit on you first...."

"Your servant, Ma'am," he murmured insolently, gesturing downward.

He didn't move as she lowered herself onto his rigid p.e.n.i.s with exquisite lingering slowness. He watched her from under his dark lashes with a faint smile. And when she was at last completely impaled, his hands moved to her hips and he brought her up to climax so fast she gasped in wonder.

Rolling her under him almost instantly after her o.r.g.a.s.m had shuddered to a close, he sent her over the edge again seconds later with an astonishing viruosity. He obliged her eagerness for consummation twice more in rapid, mind-shattering succession, restraining his own o.r.g.a.s.m, and then he kissed her breathless mouth and left her sprawled on the floor in a sensual daze while he made himself comfortable on the chaise.

Her eyes opened after a few moments, and in a few moments more she searched for him. Locating him on the chaise, she smiled up at his lounging form. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she languidly purred. "You're perfection, Johnnie."

"And waiting ..."

"Ummm ..." She stretched. "Maybe later. I'm not feeling s.e.xy anymore."

"You're sure?" His tone was pleasant.

She nodded and rolled over on her side so she faced him. "Do you mind?"

He shook his head and smiled, his fingers moving lightly up and down his rigid p.e.n.i.s. Then up again, then down ... the rhythm unhurried. He handled himself easily, naturally, without constraint.

"You can't do that," she said in a heated whisper.

He stopped momentarily to glance over at her, his brows raised in speculation.

"It's mine," she said.

He smiled. "But you're not feeling s.e.xy, so it's not yours right now."

"But I will be later."

"Then you'll have it later." His manipulation had brought him rock hard.

"Johnnie ..." She sat up quickly, her movement as agitated as her voice.

"I didn't climax those last four times, darling," he gently reminded her. "I was playing the gentleman. But you can't have everything."

"Why not?" she asked imperiously.

"Because"-he grinned-"I'm not that much of a gentleman."

"Let me do that."

"Don't bother. You're tired ... it won't take long."

"But I want to," she insisted, her voice high-strung, full of yearning.

The motion of his hand stopped and he gazed at her with a lazy, half-lidded look. "How much do you want it?" he asked, running his fingers down the splendidly formed erection, a casual authority drifting through his soft speech.

"I want it more than you." In her breathy whisper was temper and necessity and the tireless pa.s.sion that had overtaken her placid life when she'd met Johnnie Carre.

"Then come and take it," he whispered back. Sliding in a lithe movement to the foot of the chaise, he casually spread his legs so that the object of her need and desire awaited her.

She crossed the small distance on her hands and knees, then sat back on her heels so her arms brushed against Johnnie's opened legs. "I'm feeling very possessive," she said quietly.

"I know. So am I." His hand came up and slid behind her head, resting at the nape of her neck. With deliberate slowness he drew her head forward. "I want to feel your tongue," he said, his voice low.

Tentatively, her lips touched the satiny smooth crest and then her tongue began to circle its perimeter.

"No ... just the tip," he commanded softly. "Hold me in your hands ..." He guided her fingers into place. "There ... now take the tip in your mouth. That's good." His eyes closed for a moment.

His orders sparked a curious carnal heat as Elizabeth knelt before him, the swollen end of his erection resting in her mouth.

"Now take it all," he murmured, and moved until his p.e.n.i.s filled her mouth. He held himself motionless for a moment, letting the exquisite sensations flood his senses. When he could breathe again, he ran his fingers over her cheeks, feeling his hardness submerged in her mouth, tracing a gentle pattern across her brow so she looked up at him. He smiled at her as his hands closed around her head and he began slowly moving in and out, the sensuous friction of her soft lips and tongue exquisite, the small jarring pressure as his erection struck the back of her throat riveting.

"Look," he murmured, catching a glimpse of the scene in the cheval gla.s.s near the bed. "You can see yourself." They were in profile in the mirror, Elizabeth's kneeling form all curves and rounded pale flesh, her long light hair drifting over her back, over his legs.

He tucked some tendrils behind her ears so her face showed clearly in the reflection, so every slow, plunging movement of his body was visible as his p.e.n.i.s disappeared into her mouth.

Her gaze drifted over in a sidelong glance, the glowing heat in her body flaring at the sight of her lips on his enormous arousal.

"It's as if someone is watching us," he softly said. He stroked her silky cheeks, his eyes on Elizabeth's loving mouth. "What if someone were watching you?" he murmured, withdrawing again with lingering slowness. "Waiting his turn? You're very good at this...." He ran a fingertip lightly over the curve of her top lip, the half circle of her mouth spread taut to wrap around him. "Would you want to taste another man?"

She shook her head, her eyes widening for a moment, shamed at the wild heat that streaked through her at his hushed words, at the sudden intensified throbbing between her legs.

"Are you sure?" he whispered. He'd seen the carnal blush infuse her face, her small squirming response. "You might like it...."

When she shook her head a second time in answer to his intemperate question, the dizzying friction caused him to shut his eyes for a shuddering moment.

His hands tightened reflexively on her head and when his lashes drifted upward, his gaze holding hers had gone cold. He'd suddenly thought how willing she was, how ardent, how needful. And he'd recognized with the cynical eye of a practiced rake how she'd responded to his suggestion. "I'd kill you if you ever lay with another man," he harshly said, forcing himself back into her mouth. "No, I'd kill him," he brusquely modified, "and lock you away." He was buried deep in her mouth again, his hands clamped on her head, a scowl drawing his dark brows together. "I won't have you be like the women at the races," he gruffly said. He'd forgotten in the months since his marriage how they were, how they crowded around him, offered themselves.

The expression in Elizabeth's eyes instantly altered and her head jerked back. Then, recoiling, she bit him. "What women?" she snapped, resting back on her heels, her green eyes dark with anger.

"That hurt," he growled.

"Good. What women?" she tartly repeated, her hands pugnaciously on her hips.

"There are no women," Johnnie dissembled. "It was a stupid remark. And if you ever bite me again like that-"

"You didn't tell me you were going to renew all your old friendships at the races. I suppose that's why I wasn't invited along." She could see him now, d.a.m.n his blatant s.e.xuality, flirting and lord knew what else. "Did you have s.e.x, then, along with the races?"

"Elizabeth. I went to the races. Period. And how the h.e.l.l would I have any energy left when I f.u.c.k you a dozen times a day?" He was still surly at being bitten. His p.e.n.i.s throbbed, her teeth marks red indentations on the distended tip. And since he'd turned away all the importuning females today in a shocking reversal of his pre-marital behavior, he resented her accusations.

"If it's a burden to make love to me, consider yourself relieved of the onerous duty." Furious and insulted, she glowered at him.

"If I don't want to, Elizabeth, believe me, I don't need your permission to stop."

"Because there will always be all those women waiting for you-at the races or at the hunts or hawking or across my d.a.m.ned dinner table," she exploded, her jealousy a shocking beast inside her.

"Yes, they're always there," he answered her, his own frustration peaking. "But since I only want your ripe body," he declared, moody and grim, "it doesn't matter." Reaching out, he ran a rough ungentlemanly hand over her heaving b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

She slapped his hand away. "Don't you dare touch me after flirting all afternoon."

He didn't move for a single black-tempered moment. "What do you mean, don't dare touch me?" His voice was a low growl.

"Just what I said." Her rebuff was swift, flippant and rude.

"Because of some d.a.m.nable unjustifiable jealousy?" His voice had gone very soft.

She bristled at his tone, at his challenge. "I don't find your explanation adequate."

"And I don't like your question. I'll touch you, Elizabeth, if I wish."

She started to move but he moved faster and a flashing second later she was pushed face down over the foot end of the chaise, her bottom arched up provocatively, her husband surveying her from behind.

"Now then," he lazily murmured, feeling hostile and perverse, "let's see about touching you." And he guided his rigid p.e.n.i.s forward until it lightly brushed her exposed s.e.x. Rubbing it back and forth over her pouting lips, he teased her sensitive flesh as if she was a mare being readied for mounting, until she quivered with need. And then he entered her, slowly, a small restrained distance, and paused to let her desire escalate to desperation.

She tried not to move or respond as waves of torrid heat swept over her and her flesh contracted around him. She tried to remember her anger, to nurture her resentment, but he slid in another half inch and her body unconsciously reacted, sliding backwards, searching for the elusive pleasure. He deliberately enticed her, advancing with exaggerated slowness, forcing her to recognize her need, withdrawing once when she tried to set the pace, only entering her again when she'd calmed under his hands. And long moments later, when he was sunk deep inside her, when she was stretched and filled with him, when his stirring presence had refocused her resentment, her senses, her world, he slid his fingers through the amber belt on her hips, grasped it firmly and, holding her tightly pinioned, pushed deeper.

Elizabeth screamed in pure sensual ecstasy.

Only then Johnnie began the sweet ebb and flow, swinging in and out in the agonizing motion of enticement, his lean body driving in a powerful rhythm, her honeyed sweetness lubricating each deliberate languid invasion. And when her breathing became erratic and his mind was no longer capable of dispa.s.sionate command, he savagely drove into her with such hot-blooded intensity both groaned with fierce pleasure.

She met him in a restless tumultuous fervor, her soft sighs breathy as each thrusting stroke reached home, his throaty growl adjunct to the powerful rhythm of his lower body. Her need was as excruciating as his. And they exploded hot, steamy, breathless-in a scorching, cataclysmic release.

"There now," he breathlessly declared, stroking her bottom lightly, his smugness plain. "You didn't seem to mind me touching you...." He was beginning to withdraw when she caught him off balance; he was halfway off his knees rolling back on his heels when she twisted around and rose up in a maddened swirling movement, her arms swinging out like a windmill, catching him in the throat, her hip driving him backwards.

He'd hardly hit the floor when she fell on top of him and brutally grabbed his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es in her fingers. "Now then," she said in a whisper, her wrathful gaze only inches from his, "tell me about the women at the races."

He could backhand her across the room with one blow despite her bruising grip. But he understood her anger because he suffered from the same ungovernable urges. And he was contrite now that he'd forced his own manner of revenge on her. "Accept my apology," he said. "I was boorish and rude."

"Tell me about the women," she hotly retorted. She wasn't contrite yet nor appeased as he was after exacting his s.e.xual vengeance. She was furious for having succ.u.mbed to his expertise, raging that he'd consistently avoided her questions about the women. "No more evasion, Johnnie. I want a plain simple answer. I want to know about the women at the races this afternoon, the ones you were alluding to when you said you'd kill me if I was like them." Her fingers tightened on him and he winced.

"I'm letting you do that, you know," he said in a suppressed growl, his blue eyes full of warning.

"How chivalrous," Elizabeth murmured sarcastically, still in hot-tempered dudgeon. "I'm waiting."

His hand moved to free himself from her grip. "Ease up. It's hard to think when I'm about to be crushed."

"You haven't told me anything yet."

He sighed. "All right then ... it's like this. Everyone knows everyone," he began with a grimace. "Everyone drinks deep, including the women. The mood is festive, particularly now during the holidays, and I was approached. That's all," he finished giving a brief, highly edited version of the numerous female overtures. "I was honestly surprised. I'd forgotten how convivial the company."

"Convivial!" She snorted. "A tame word for what they wanted."

"Everyone knows I'm in love with you. They're harmless."

"Maybe they don't care whether you love me or not."

"But I do, and they know that now." His voice was quiet, low, his blue eyes free of subterfuge like a child's. "Please forgive my remark about killing you, although I couldn't deal with it if you were ever like them. I don't love you sweetly," he said with a great heaving sigh. "I love you with my gut and then my heart and then my head."

Her grip had loosened as he spoke; her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

"I don't know how this happened to me," he softly went on, "but it has, and I can't live without you. Everyone's still at Wat Harden's. I was the only one to leave-amidst much vulgar mockery and ridicule, I might add, about the chains of matrimony. But you needed me," he whispered, gently brushing a ringlet behind her ear, "so I came home to you...." Drawing her close, he kissed the tears from her eyes.

"I'm violently jealous," Elizabeth confessed, clinging to him. "I want you always close to me, inside me and around me and over me and near me," she whispered, her emotions still feverish, obsessed.

"I know," he soothed, "I'm beset with the same urge. I'm here." His arms tightened around her as they lay in the glow of the fire, her body dwarfed in the shelter of his, the sanctuary and fulfillment she sought willingly given. "You're my precious wife," he murmured against her warm smooth temple. "I'll always be here."

And in the days that followed, as had been the pattern since their marriage, nothing of the outside world impinged on the insulated, sequestered sweetness of their life and love. He indulged her in all things, protected her from any unhappiness, arranged his schedule to conform to hers. They became no more than a country squire and his wife, concerned with the small affairs of their estates, unfashionably in each other's company, content alone together.

They needed no one but themselves.

They rarely wished for company in their retirement from the world.

Their love for each other was enough. It was everything.

And in the days after Christmas the baby began to show, the swell of Elizabeth's belly obvious now, and they made roseate plans for their child's future. For a man who'd never considered babies or children, the full measure of his happiness was beyond explanation. He wondered sometimes whether he'd stumbled into a lavish fantasy land, so alien was his present life from that of his past.

Elizabeth only gloried in the bounty of life's goodness. Pagan enough to feel she deserved such happiness after the previous wasteland of her life, she didn't question her exaltation.

"I feel so healthy ... like I was made to have children," Elizabeth cheerfully said, stretching luxuriously as they lay in bed one morning. "Thanks to you," she murmured, rolling over to drape herself across her husband's warm body, her voice fragrant with indolent sensuality.

"The pleasure was mine," Johnnie lazily whispered, adjusting her comfortably in his arms. "Any time you want more," he said with a teasing grin, "let me know...."

"I'd like lots and lots ... I've never even been sick a day ... and I adore this wanting you all the time ... and just think when we can actually hold the baby in our arms. Oh, Johnnie ..." she whispered, her eyes welling with unshed tears, "I love you so much, it frightens me...."

"Hush now," he murmured, tightening his embrace. "I'm here. Always ..." He kissed the softness of her cheek. "We'll be together ... always. Don't be frightened."

"Tell me you'll never leave me." The fear in her eyes had a childlike innocence, the demons from her past never completely obliterated.

"I'll never leave you," he simply said.

She smiled then, a tentative, shaky smile, and whispered, "I'm sorry. I know ... men hate ... demanding women."

"Don't talk to me of other men," he gruffly murmured, his jealousy of her first husband a palpable thing that lingered despite all logic. "I can't bear to think of any man touching you."

She glanced out the window quickly, as if to gauge what sudden gloom had overtaken her spirits. "Talk to me of other things, Johnnie," she whispered. "I feel as though some sinister fiend is outside the door."

"Tell me where the baby kicks you now, my darling Bitsy. And leave all the demons of h.e.l.l to me. Show me now. Is it here? Or here?"