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gift.
    What he had in comparison was nothing.
    “Ah…” Words weren’t coming to his head. Probably because most of the blood in his head had pooled between his legs.
    Allegra pulled away completely, sitting up, indignant. “Douglas Kowalski.” He knew he was in trouble when she used his full name. “A deal’s a deal. You got your present and now I want mine.”
    Fuck. Allegra was like a dog with a bone when she got this way. No sex unless he gave her the present. And though he’d shown amazing self-restraint these past four months, right now he wanted to make love to his wife more than anything else in the world. He could barely control himself.
    “Douglas…” Allegra’s beautiful green eyes were narrowed at him.
    There was no way around this. He stood with a sigh and rummaged in his suit pants pocket for the box. He held it out to her. “It’s not anything like the gift you gave me,” he warned.
    But Allegra wasn’t listening. She was untying the silk ribbon carefully, putting it to one side, then picking at the scotch tape holding together the wrapping paper. That was carefully set aside, too. Then there was the box. She held it in her hand for a moment, studying it. The shop had done him proud there. The box was tooled leather with a brass clasp. She undid the clasp, lifted the lid and gasped.
    “ Douglas! ” Her eyes shone. She lifted the necklace with one hand and cradled the pendant with the other. It was pretty. It had caught his eye in the hotel jewelry store upon arrival and he’d bought it at the last minute. It reminded him of Allegra. A diamond-cut emerald slightly darker than the color of her eyes, held with gold clasps, on an intricate gold chain. “It’s beautiful!”
    It wasn’t as beautiful as she was, but that was too corny to say. And it wasn’t anything like what she’d given him, but she wouldn’t accept that.
    Still, her enthusiasm was genuine and he was happy she was happy.
    “Oh, man!” Allegra hung it around her neck and went to one of the silver-framed mirrors to admire herself. She twisted left and right to see the necklace from all angles and sighed with pleasure. She turned to him, her dressing gown fluttering a little around her pretty feet. “How does it look?”
    Suddenly, Kowalski was seized by desire so ferocious it nearly choked him. She was so outrageously desirable right now—pale skin pink from pleasure and sunshine, green eyes gleaming. The dressing gown had come a little undone when she twirled to him; he could see the swell of a pale breast and a hint of pink nipple.
    “It looks beautiful on you,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. It was a miracle he could talk at all. Her eyes rounded at the sound of his voice. She knew that tone. “But it would look even better on you if you were naked.”
    They’d made love countless times but he could still make her blush. From pale pink she flushed bright red, right down to her breasts. His meaning was very clear.
    “So that’s the way of it, eh, Kowalski?” she murmured in the Irish accent of her youth.
    He nodded. His throat was too tight to speak.
    She walked up to him, ran a long slender finger down the center of his chest. “That bein’ the case, darlin’, maybe ye should do some of the work fer me.”
    Oh yeah. He couldn’t talk, maybe, but he could sure move. He reached out, undid the belt of her silk dressing gown, let the belt fall to the floor. Oh man. The dressing gown opened up, covering her sides but showing a straight column of pale flesh flanked by the turquoise panels of the dressing gown. The gold necklace nestled between her breasts. There was a dark red cloud between her thighs.
    It was a glorious sight and he stared, transfixed.
    Allegra rolled her eyes. “Douglas…” she murmured.
    There was more. There was going to be more than this, and this was already great stuff. Kowalski hummed a little in his throat as he reached out to slip the dressing gown off her shoulders. The heavy