Sawyer chuckled. “Why not? Queen Victoria and her progeny did it. We had a royal model.”
“And you’ve since been multiplying like bunnies, apparently,” Tamara muttered.
Sawyer leaned close and murmured, “Your tattoo is showing above the bodice of your dress.”
He caught Tamara’s small gasp just before her hand slapped over the spot on her bodice where the tattoo was daring to show itself.
“Are you worried your aristocratic friends will be offended?” she asked tartly, nevertheless matching her low tone to his.
“No,” he murmured. “I’m worried they’ll want to bed you as much as I do.”
Sawyer watched with satisfaction as her skin tinged pink.
Good.
He’d been suffering the temptations of the damned ever since their wedding night, thanks to her. Let her feel some of the heat.
“Are you concerned that I’m being perceived as sexually available?” Tamara demanded, still refusing to look at him. “Because I can assure you that my behavior tonight has been beyond reproach.”
“I see you’ve misunderstood me,” he replied. “You couldn’t possibly be more sexually promiscuous than some of the women here.”
“Speaking from personal knowledge?”
“I’m in the news business.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” he inquired, letting his hand slip to cover her backside and leaning down again so that his mouth was close to her ear. “I wonder.”
Her lips parted.
“I’m afraid some here will be consumed by the same inescapable desire I am,” he said. “The desire to strip you out of that emerald dress, for example, and make slow and sweet love to you until you cry out my name again and again.”
Sawyer watched as Tamara’s eyes, focused on the room in front of them, went wide with shock and, yes, a mirroring desire.
She wanted him, too.
She swallowed. “It’s hot in here.”
“Quite.”
She finally looked at him, and her eyes conveyed the same message that was in his. Let’s leave.
“Tell me you feel faint,” he said thickly.
He’d seize any excuse she gave him.
“I—”
Unfortunately, they were joined at that moment by the Consulate General.
Sawyer managed to school his expression into a pleasant one as he exchanged greetings and shook hands with the other man.
Damn it. Were he and Tamara destined to be forever interrupted?
Hours later, Sawyer drove them home in his Mercedes and parked in the private garage next to the town house. Tamara alighted from the car, but before she could take more than a couple of steps, Sawyer came around and took her hand.
Together they walked from the garage directly into the garden and toward the town house itself.
“Did you have a good time?” Sawyer asked, his voice deep.
“Yes,” she responded.
She realized with some surprise that she had enjoyed herself, despite how unsettled she’d felt thinking about this evening ahead of time.
Tonight, she’d smiled and chatted even as she knew she was comporting herself flawlessly. In fact, she hadn’t been sure where Tamara Kincaid had ended and the Countess of Melton had begun. One had blended seamlessly into the other.
On top of it all, a couple of female guests had expressed interest in Pink Teddy creations, and it was only belatedly she’d discovered it had been Sawyer who had extolled her work to them.
His support of her work was oddly touching. Of course, he was probably just looking out for his investment, but still, his encouragement was more than she’d gotten from any man in her life before.
And all along tonight, it was Sawyer’s eyes she’d felt. His appreciative gaze had made her acutely aware of her femininity as she’d sipped champagne and tried to concentrate on the conversation around her.
Sawyer stopped in the garden now, and raising their linked hands, placed a kiss on the back of hers. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” He bent and brushed a kiss across her lips. “You make a lovely countess.”
“Mmm,” she responded just before he kissed her again.
When they broke apart, she breathed against his mouth, “What are we doing?”
It had been a magical evening, but she wasn’t so far gone on champagne and tiaras not to be lucid enough to ask the question.
Since when, she mused, had starchy ceased to be a turnoff for her and started being a powerful aphrodisiac?
Tonight, Sawyer had looked every inch the titled aristocrat born to wealth and privilege—one who, she acknowledged, by dint of his own intelligence and hard work, had expanded the family business to make himself one of the most powerful media tycoons on either side of the Atlantic.
Once upon a time, she would have disdained the aristocrat and not appreciated the executive. But tonight, she’d thrilled to his barest touch and trembled at his heated gaze.
She hadn’t been able to help herself.
“I’m giving in to the pull between us,” Sawyer said, adding with a note of self-mockery, “We are married, after all.”
“An arrangement,” she felt compelled to point out.
“One for which we can change the rules at any time.”
He kissed the corner of her mouth, and then flattened her hand on his tuxedo shirt, right over his heart.
She felt a flutter, and then another. He was vital and uncompromisingly male.
It was a warm night, the heat of the day fading only a little. Beyond the high wall of the garden, traffic along the nearby avenue stirred the air.
Sawyer eased down the zipper at the back of her dress, and she did nothing to stop him. As her dress sagged against her, and her small satin handbag dropped to the ground, he surveyed her with golden eyes.
She shivered and her ni**les hardened further.
“You’re irresistible,” Sawyer breathed.
She wet her lips. “I didn’t think you were paying attention.”
“Oh, I was paying attention, all right,” he responded, tracing the tattoo that had been exposed near her breast. “This rose has been driving me crazy ever since I first saw it.”
At her inquiring look, he added, “While we were dancing at Belinda’s wedding reception.” He nodded at her now crumpled dress. “Where did this emerald concoction come from?”
“A lucky last-minute find.”
“An inspired choice,” he modified. “I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you all evening.”
He bent and covered her nipple with his mouth—a kiss that had her body rising up to meet him as the breath left her lungs.