His Black Sheep Bride (Aristocratic Grooms 1)

Tamara refused to glance at Sawyer. If only her father knew. This time he’d met his match in ruthlessness.

“And may you find a lasting happiness together.”

Tamara hid her surprise. She wasn’t expecting that toast. Looking at her father’s face, though, she realized he meant it.

“To Tamara and Sawyer,” the other guests said in unison, saluting them before sipping their champagne.

Tamara set down her glass, and then before she could react, Sawyer picked up her hand and raised it to his lips.

“I shall endeavor to use my very best efforts to make Tamara happy,” he announced, gazing into her eyes.

She could almost read the end of his sentence in his tawny gaze. In bed.

Extricating her hand, she gave a fixed smile. “Sawyer, you’ve already made me happy.”

She thought of her loft back in New York and her dreams for Pink Teddy, and banished all thoughts of Sawyer’s seductiveness.

Sawyer’s amused expression was all too knowing, and she angled her chin up stubbornly.

She refused to be vanquished over plates of salmon in a delicate cream sauce with a side of asparagus spears.

A door connected the master’s and mistress’s private quarters at Gantswood Hall.

Sawyer contemplated the door now. He’d just showered, his hair still damp as he pulled on a pair of cotton pajama bottoms.

In centuries past, the door, which connected the earl’s and countess’s sitting rooms, had been the gateway through which the lord and lady of the house were expected to meet to do their sacred duty—namely, to beget heirs.

It was how his father had been conceived, and his father’s father and so on down the line.

He himself, on the other hand, had by all reports been conceived in one of the luxury hotel suites at Claridge’s, soon after his parents had embarked on their impetuous and tempestuous union.

His aristocratic father had married a free-spirited American socialite and heiress, and the marriage had been a—thankfully brief—disaster.

The thought gave him a brief moment’s pause. He was well-versed in the pitfalls of marrying a woman unsuited to the role of countess.

But he’d struck his bargain with Viscount Kincaid. And even in this day and age, he had a duty to secure the earldom by producing a successor to the responsibilities of his hereditary peerage.

And the truth was he was as impatient to consummate his marriage as any bridegroom. He’d been suffering the pangs of frustrated desire for his bride for too long.

Tonight, God help him, there’d be no untimely interruptions by sad-sack boyfriends or unsuspecting household help.

Tonight, he’d seduce Tamara.

With that thought, he strode to the door and tapped lightly. After a moment, trying again and receiving no answer, he turned the knob and entered.

Tamara’s sitting room was empty, and so, for that matter, was what he could see of her bedroom through the doorway.

Where was she?

It was nearing midnight, and they’d both had a long day. After the wedding breakfast, they’d continued to socialize with various guests, until they’d seen a number of their visitors depart.

Sawyer walked farther into Tamara’s bedroom.

Her personal belongings lay about, and his eyes came to rest on the wedding dress that was draped on a rose-and-gold-striped armchair.

Walking over, he picked up the dress and brought it up to his face, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply.

A hint of jasmine.

A little exotic, a lot erotic.

His body tightened.

Allowing the lacy gown to drop back onto the chair, he let his eyes follow a path of strewn clothing from where he was standing to the bathroom door.

A pair of red panties, a white garter…

His blood began to hum.

He could hear the shower running now, and his feet took him to the bathroom door.

He didn’t even think. He opened the door and walked inside, and immediately focused on Tamara’s silhouette visible through the fogging shower door, her dark-red hair partly wet.

Her face was turned up to the shower jet, her eyes closed as soapy water ran in rivulets over her shoulders and disappeared beneath the steam that partially concealed her from his avid gaze.

Sawyer felt his blood pound harder in his veins. His body was revved, ready on a hair trigger to seek mind-blowing pleasure with her.

At that moment, Tamara turned her head and saw him.

He watched her eyes go wide with shocked surprise.

They stared at each other while the steam continued to rise between them.

Then she slapped her hand on the handle of the shower and shut off the water.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded as she turned to face him again.

“I live here, if you’ll recall.”

He wanted to enjoy the show. Step out of the stall slowly.

He reached for one of the plush beige towels hanging nearby and moved toward the shower door.

Her green eyes flashed, as bright as any fine emeralds. But despite the performance, he could read her nervousness.

“You haven’t answered my question,” she said.

“We need to discuss what we’re doing tomorrow,” he replied. “This is the only time we’ll have to speak privately. We still have guests—including your father—who’ll expect us to act like content, if not lovestruck, newlyweds.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. They did need to talk.

But his body damned conversation. It wanted something more elemental from her.

“Out,” she demanded.

“Precisely what I was thinking.” He held the towel before him. “I won’t look.”

She hesitated, and then chin held high, opened the stall door and stepped out.

He lowered the towel, and she sucked in a breath.

He drank in the sight. Her shoulders and arms were sculpted, her waist tiny. And her br**sts…

He swallowed. Beautiful. Her ni**les were erect and rosy, beckoning to him in their tightness.

And that damned rose tattoo…

“You said you wouldn’t look!”

His lips twitched. “The sight proved irresistible.”

Her eyes rounded, the sexual current oscillating between them.

“Tamara, all grown-up,” he said roughly. “You do make an exquisite countess.”

Her lips parted, her eyes moving from his bare chest and down to his arousal.

The part of his brain still functioning was a bit amused by her loss for words. The other part took satisfaction in the evidence that she was just as affected as he was.

He let the towel fall from his grasp to the floor.

The curls at the apex of her thighs were just as dark and lushly red as her hair.