Fascinated

affable company.

'Have you done that before?'

He feigned deep thought for a moment and then grinned. 'Never.'

She giggled with delight. 'Then yes, please do. Although I warn you, I seem to have developed a degree of possessiveness after all this champagne.'

'It must be the Cliquot,' he drolly observed, 'for I find myself with similar feelings.'

'We should stop drinking it, then. Surely it's a most foolish emotion.'

'Strange certainly,' he casually remarked, capable of ignoring his feelings after a lifetime of cultivating the habit. 'So you don't want any more? No champagne for breakfast?'

'Don't say it's morning already!' All the ramifications of her real life flooded her consciousness.

'It's not morning,' he lied, tossing a bottle of shampoo at her. 'Trust me. And since I'm going to play hair dresser for the first time in my life, you may want to take notes.'

It took her only a fleeting moment to be drawn into his play, her anxieties vanquished by his warm smile. 'Notes about the shampoo or something else?' she playfully inquired.

'Either, both-neither. Actually, I'd rather keep you busy with other things.' Moving through the water, he glided over her and, balancing above her, took the shampoo from her hand, set it aside and touched her mouth with a gentle kiss.

She smiled up at him, his butterfly kiss a residual sweetness on her lips. 'Perhaps I should take notes. I could sell my memoirs back to you someday and spare you the embarrassment of seeing your sexual exploits in print.'

'I've been beyond embarrassment for a very long time, darling, but I might take notes on my overwhelming fascination with you.' His body lightly touched hers as he floated above her. 'I've wanted you since you first entered the casino tonight, and that persistent craving hasn't diminished.'

The imprint of his erection was hot on her stomach. 'Good, because I wouldn't wish to be alone in my obsession.'

'Have I been patient enough?'

Regardless of the unspecified nature of his query, she understood what he meant. 'You've been extremely courteous.'

'I can't recall ever lying naked in a tub with a woman and doing nothing-for so long.'

'I can't ever recall lying naked in a tub with a man.'

'Lucky me.' He moved his hips faintly.

'No, me,' she murmured, matching his slow rhythm. 'And I'm quite sure my shampoo can wait.'

'You think so?'

'I know so.'

'Is your hot little pussy finally ready,' he whispered.

'Oh, yes,' she breathed. 'I've been wanting to ask you for a very long time; but you were so far away and I'd already asked you so many times tonight and I thought, perhaps, you preferred less aggressive women-so in terms of hotness…'

He slipped his finger inside her and felt the drenching heat. 'You're way past ready.'

'Do you mind if I come right away?'

'Do you mind if I have sex with you for a decade?'

'Please do,' she whispered, reaching up to kiss him, her small gasp as he entered her warming the duke's mouth.

The sensation of weightlessness, the velvety friction of their bodies, the gentle lapping of the water as they moved together, the languor induced by the champagne, offered a rare enchantment.

'This isn't the real world, is it?' Her eyes were nearly shut.

'It's better…' He eased a fraction deeper, and they both held their breaths, intoxicating pleasure melting through their bodies.

'Bathing with you is… enthralling.'

'Someday we'll do that, too,' he murmured, tightening his grip. He held her up, his arms wrapped around her, his elbows resting on the tub bottom, his feet braced against the tiled wall-for better penetration.

'I don't think I can wait.'

'You don't have to.'

'I'm insatiable…'

'Perfect,' he breathed, his own carnal urges voracious. 'I should keep you naked in my bed.' He pulled her closer so his rigid length rammed deeper. 'And then I could have you whenever I wanted.'

She whimpered, shamelessly aroused by the licentious image.

'I could make you come before breakfast and during breakfast, before you dress in the morning-if I let you get dressed. You could lie naked in the sun on the terrace in the afternoon, and I could have sex with you there…'

Gasping, she climaxed, the flagrant, thrilling rapture ravishing all her sensory receptors in a fierce, flame-hot rush, his words unspeakably carnal, his erection filling her, impaling her, pouring into her.

And yet long moments later with post-coital bliss warming their senses, beneath the contented glow, unquenched desire still stirred.

'I'm afraid I won't let you go,' Felicia murmured, her arms still wrapped around his back.

'Good idea.' His reply initiated no alarms in his brain, and were he less consumed by covetous need, he might have noticed.

'We're probably both tipsy.'

'Speak for yourself.' He never got drunk.

'I am speaking for myself,' she said with a delicious giggle. 'I've found the path to true bliss.'

'Definitely nirvana.' He moved faintly inside her as though testing the limits of paradise.

She arched her back and purred, and he wondered at the degree of fate involved that he had found such a perfect fit for his cock.

'I could wash your hair.' She slid her hands up his back and ruffled the damp, dark curls on his neck.

'Or you could stay right where you are.' He lazily glided forward.

In perfect accord, she sighed, wrapped her legs around his back, and lifted her hips to accommodate him more fully.

They made love leisurely, the languor of their recent orgasms adding a drowsy sensuality to the lazy rhythm of their bodies, the water in the tub flowing in faint waves, washing against them, warming their heated flesh. All thought was displaced by sensation. Time disappeared. The centered pleasure, the matched rhythm, the ultimate expression of sexual harmony converged in their blended bodies.

She climaxed first because she was wildly tasting the splendors of lust while he believed in the merits of waiting-a requirement perhaps for a man who was known for pleasing women. Nor was he as famished; he had not gone a lifetime without sex.

He gently kissed her when her fevered rapture had faded, and rolling over, he slid upward and lifted her onto his lap. 'It's my turn now,' he playfully murmured.

'No…' She buried her face in his shoulder.

'You always say no.' He brushed a gleaming fall of red curls from her face and met her gaze. 'You never mean it.'

'I do right now.'

'Sure?' His smile was cheeky. 'And here I thought you'd like to ride me.'

'Do I have a choice?' She took issue with the damning fact he was probably right.

'Of course you do,' he pleasantly said, raising her enough to meet the crest of his erection.

She pushed at his chest. 'I dislike undue prerogatives…' Her words trailed away as he eased her down his engorged penis.

'And so you might if you weren't so wet,' he whispered, gently stroking her hips, thrusting upward in slow, measured degrees.

'You can't-just do-whatever-you want,' she protested, breathless at the deliberate, thrilling invasion. Her last