“If you could just stay right there for a week or so…,” she whispered.
He brushed her lips with a smiling kiss. “Greedy puss.”
“Yes, yes… yes, yes, yes.”
But he moved despite her protests because he couldn’t last a week or even five minutes at this point, which was a startling admission for a man who had always been able to control his ejaculation.
It turned out to be a very close race to the finish, the feat accomplished only by sheer will and incredible control on Oz’s part. With intense concentration he curtailed his orgasm, exerting himself to pleasure his wife, his powerful legs propelling him upward again and again until Isolde’s orgasm crested and her screams brought him to a standstill deep inside her. Only waiting until her cries began to fade, he jerked her off his cock, dropped her on her feet, ripped his shirt tails from his trouser waistband, and just barely managed to save the carpet from semen stains.
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.