"You're foxed," she accused, forgetting her predicament for the moment. It was hard to imagine Sylvester allowing cognac to erode the tight control he kept over himself and his life… and his private concerns, she remembered with a fresh surge of anger.

He shook his head. "Not in the least, my love." He lifted her into his arms. "My dear little gypsy, don't look as if you're going to the gallows." He laid her on the bed and she gazed up at him, her eyes huge and unreadable, her hair a black mantel flowing over the billowing folds of her white nightgown.

He put a knee on the bed beside her and lightly traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertip. Theo didn't move. He ran his thumb over her mouth, expecting her tongue to dart forth in her usual response, flickering against the pad of his thumb. But she continued to lie motionless beneath the caress, although her eyes had darkened and he could read their sensual glow. The glow deepened as he slid his hand down the column of her throat, and his fingers tiptoed into the neck of her nightgown, dancing over the swell of her breast, circling her nipple without touching.

The glow deepened but she didn't move, just lay gazing up at him. There was challenge in her eyes, something he wasn't used to seeing in the bedroom.

He stood up, shrugging out of his dressing gown, letting it fall to the floor before kneeling on the bed again. Theo's eyes darted involuntarily down his body, and he suppressed a smile. He placed a hand on her ankle and smoothed upward over her shin, cupping her rounded kneecap. Pausing, he watched her face. She gazed at the ceiling, but her mouth was soft, a delicate pink blossoming on her cheek.

She wasn't capable of hiding her responses, he thought, allowing his hand to continue its upward journey. Her body tensed, her skin rippled as his fingertips crept into the heated cleft and flickered momentarily against the tight bud of her sex.

He withdrew his hand, and Theo drew a swift breath of surprise and what he hoped was disappointment. Catching up the hem of her nightgown, he began to fold it backward with deliberate care, smoothing each fold before beginning the next, baring her body inch by inch.

Theo fought her unruly responses as the cool air laved her skin. And then this slow exposure paused for what seemed an eternity at the top of her thighs, and she found she was holding her breath. It took every ounce of self-control to keep from moving, from murmuring her impatience, from putting her hands on his chest, lifting her head to touch her tongue to his nipples as he knelt above her. But still she resisted the temptation.

"Stubborn little gypsy," Sylvester murmured, half smiling, feeling her struggle as if it were his own. He took another fold in the fine lawn of her nightgown and then another, until the material lay in a flat roll at her waist. He bent to kiss her bare belly, drawing his tongue over the smooth skin in a damp, heated stroke that set her muscles jumping with a life of their own. But still she kept silent and made no voluntary move.

"Perhaps I should try another approach," he mused, as if talking to himself, and promptly flipped her onto her stomach.

Theo was taken aback. She'd been expecting that moist and tantalizing exploration to continue its downward progression. But now he was rolling up the back of her nightgown as he'd done with the front, baring her body inch by inch until he reached the small of her back. She felt his breath warm on her skin as his tongue darted into the dimpled indentations above the flare of her buttocks. His hand slid between her thighs as he kissed his way over the damask rounds, his fingers probing, stroking, flickering, opening. And finally Theo moaned and her body lifted to his caress, tightening around the thumb that was within her and the delicate teasing fingers at the core of her sensitivity.

Sylvester knelt beside her, his free hand sliding up and under the nightgown, pressing against her spine, working up the bony column to the nape of her neck, and she stretched and arched catlike as the firm pressure released little knots of tension along her back.

He swept the black river of her hair aside and bent to kiss her neck, nibbling and nuzzling, inhaling the sweet fragrance of her skin and hair. There was something wonderfully innocent about the back of her neck, something milky and soft about its scent. Even when she drove him to distraction with her stubborn impulses or her blunt statements, he had only to think of this delicate, soft-skinned column for his anger to lose its sting.

"Draw your knees up," he whispered, running his hand down again, stroking over her bottom while his other hand continued its work between her thighs.

Theo obeyed the soft command, her face buried in the coverlet. He moved behind her, his flat palms spreading her thighs. The intimacy of his caressing fingers deepened, and she could no longer control her soft, whimpering moans of pleasure, and when she felt his flesh glide within her, she reached behind her blindly, to touch the rock-hard thighs that drove him on this joy-bringing, joy-taking voyage.

At her touch Sylvester knew he'd won. He moved within her until the little ripples of the satin sheath that held him began to gather momentum. Then he withdrew and, before Theo could react, turned her onto her back.

"Now," he said, "I want to see your face, my partner in pleasure."

He drew her legs up onto his shoulder and plunged to her core, his hands sliding over the backs of her thighs, and gripping the firm flesh of her backside.

Theo cried out as the changed position deepened the sensation of his flesh in hers, and she reached up to touch his chest, his nipples, to stroke down the concave belly, to slide between his thighs and upward on a deeply intimate journey that drew a low groan of delight from her lover.

He smiled down at her, and there was no triumph in the smile. Theo's tongue touched her lips, her eyes aglow, her skin flushed, and he knew that for the moment she'd forgotten everything that had brought them to this glorious plane.

She began to move, urgent and insistent, and he held himself still. "Wait a little, gypsy."

Theo shook her head, and there was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. With one devastating wriggle of her exploring finger she broke his last reserve of control, and his body seemed to explode as her own convulsed around him and she no longer knew where his skin began and hers ended. His flesh was integral to her own body and his joy was hers.

"You wicked witch," he gasped when the wave receded and he could draw breath. "I was taking my time."

"You can't expect to have everything your own way." There was a tart edge to the mischievous rejoinder despite her languorous tone.

Sylvester grinned. "I gave up expecting that many months ago, my dear girl… but neither, I'll have you know, can you."

He fell onto the bed beside her, pushing an arm under her body, brushing a damp lock of hair away from the alabaster curve of her cheek. Theo lay still, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed, wrestling with the idea of defeat. But it wasn't over yet. She still had a few days, until his mother and sister left. Perhaps she'd better try to make her in-laws a little more welcome.

"Why the face?" Sylvester asked languidly at her unconscious grimace.

"I'm thirsty," she improvised.

Sylvester sat up and swung himself to the floor. "Will water do you?"

"Yes, thank you."

She watched him through half-closed eyes as he crossed to the water jug on the washstand. "Where's the glass?"

"On the dresser."

He picked up the glass she'd been drinking from when he came in and filled it with water. He drank himself before refilling the glass and bringing it across to her. "What's in that bottle?" He handed her the water.