"No?" She frowned. "I'm not sure I'll like that. Pauline says it's rumored Empress Josephine wears nothing under her gowns, but I always thought it must be rather drafty."

His lips twitched. "Sedikhan's climate is much warmer than France's."

That argument appeared reasonable to Tess. "I suppose we'll have to see."

He looked at her for a moment before he nodded briskly. "Quite right. Why don't we?"

"What?"

"You said we must see.” He untied the black sash around his waist and took it off. "Why not do it now, before the garment is finished? Take off your habit."

His sudden change from amusement to sensuality caught her off guard. "Now?"

"Right now." He held the sash loosely, running his left hand slowly down its length. "After all, we have nothing better to do."

She stared in fascination at his hands on the sash, at his beautiful fingers, strong, graceful, moving with lazy sensuality among the folds of the sable material. Her heartbeat quickened as she watched his index finger lazily delve into a pleat and begin rubbing back and forth.

"And you don't have time to go see Pavda before supper."

She jerked her gaze from his hands, discovering with amazement that she had forgotten all about Pavda.

"You cannot seem to make up your mind whether you wish me clothed or unclothed," she said tartly. "It's most disconcerting."

"Perhaps it's my intention to disconcert you."

She drew a deep shaky breath and slowly began unbuttoning her habit. "I realize what you're doing, you know."

"Indeed?"

She nodded as the habit dropped to the floor. "You're trying to train me as you did Apollo and Daphne." She scowled at him. "And I'm obeying you because I must honor our bargain. But I'm not an animal, and I have no liking for this. "

"Yet I believe you'll come to like it." He smiled. "When you realize that no matter how many demands I make, you're in control."

"You said something like that before." She stepped out of her petticoat. "I don't agree."

"And if you search your heart, I think you'll find another reason you're willing to accommodate me."

"What is that?"

"Curiosity. It's entirely in character for a woman who is so vibrantly alive to want to taste every facet of life." His gaze wandered over her. "By the way, you have superb breasts. Small, but quite perfect."

A hot flush seared through her as she saw the blatant sensuality of his expression. She cleared her throat, but the words still came out in a croak. "Are you done with dithering then?"

He smiled. "That's another thing we'll have to see. Anticipation certainly lends the situation a certain 'heat,' doesn't it?"

She caught the slight emphasis on the word as the last of her undergarments dropped to the floor. "I told you I was no bitch like Daphne."

"If you were, you wouldn't be standing there. You'd be on hands and knees, and I'd be moving in and out of you." He smiled crookedly as he saw her shocked expression. "I'm being most restrained… for me."

"What do you want from me?"

"Heat," he said thickly. "I want you to come to me because you're hurting too much to do anything else. "

She felt the muscles of her stomach clench and a liquid tingling begin between her thighs. "You'd better just do it. It might not ever happen. I'm not like Pauline."

"Nor would I want you to be. Come here."

She hesitated, took a deep breath, and then marched across the floor to his chair and stopped before him. "I'm here."

"Yes." He didn't move; he just sat, his gaze on her breasts as they rose and fell with the increasing tempo of her breathing.

"What next?"

"Why, don't you remember? We're going to see if the material is going to be comfortable for you." He shook out the black sash and draped it around her and across her breasts. The silky fabric was a cool caress on her flesh. "Does this feel pleasant?"

"Yes."

He let the sash fall beneath her bosom, and with the twist of his wrist tightened it, throwing her breasts into prominence. "And this?"

Her breasts were swelling, her nipples hardening to an aching distension. "Not… unpleasant."

He kept her lifted, swollen, offering, for another moment before releasing the knot and pulling the silky black sash from her body with an excruciatingly slow movement.

It made no difference. Her breasts remained enlarged, taut, and aching.

"Is… that all?" she asked unsteadily.

"Not quite." His eyes were glittering, his cheeks flushed as he slowly rose to his feet. "There's another place that must be tested." She inhaled sharply as his fingers brushed her inner thigh. "You'll be riding astride…"

His arm went around her waist, catching the other end of the sash as he thrust it between her thighs.

She gasped, her gaze flying to his face. "What—"

"Sometimes the rhythm will be soft and smooth." He moved the black sash gently and slowly back and forth, letting her feel the soft folds of the fabric like a sensual whisper against that most sensitive part of her. "But since your nature is not of the tamest, more often it will be hard and fast." He lifted the material, jerking the sash in a stronger, firmer seesaw movement.

She cried out, her spine arching as waves of sensation spiraled through her. She could tell he was being careful not to hurt her, but the silky friction caused an erotic shock. She reached out blindly to clutch Galen's shoulders as the sash moved back and forth, tingling, teasing her softness. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. She was dying, in a fever, swelling, starving…

"Galen!" Her teeth sank into her lower lip as the force of the movement between her thighs strengthened, accelerated. "It's too—"

The sash was gone, whipped away, and instead his hard hand was cupping her, petting her, stroking her. "It's all right." He pushed her gently down on the cushions of the divan. "You had to know. "

What had she to know? she wondered dazedly as she looked up at him. That sensation could send you mad, enslave you, make you want to hold, buck, devour? She gasped. "Why?"

He dropped the black sash beside her on the silk cushion. "Because I want you to remember me every time a fold of material touches your body. I wanted you to remember this." He smiled grimly. "One of my more possessive and less civilized impulses." He smiled sensually. "But you will remember, won't you, Tess?"

How could she help it? She was still throbbing, tingling, her breath coming in gasps. "Yes," she whispered.

"And when we're riding and I look at you, you'll know I'm thinking about what I just did to you." His breath was coming fast, harsh in the silence of the chamber. "And you'll remember what it felt like to be in heat." Color mantled the bronze of his cheeks, and his dark eyes glittered with excitement as he looked down at her. He said hoarsely, "I think we'll not sup together tonight. I need time to—" He moved toward the door. "I'll meet you in the courtyard at nine tomorrow morning."

The door closed behind him.

Tess braced herself as she straightened her shoulders and marched down the steps toward Galen. "Good morning." She kept her tone carefully casual as she moved across the courtyard toward the fountain where Said was holding the reins of the horses. "How is Pavda this morning?"