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should have been the end of it. He even started to leave the room, taking the bottle of vodka with him. He didn’t get very far before his mother’s words struck his back like shards of glass, lacerating, drawing blood.
    “Even you, disreputable scamp that you are, won’t dishonor your father’s name.”

4
    T anya lifted her veil slightly, just enough so that her tongue could tease the flat male nipple she had exposed on her husband’s chest. He groaned and reached for her, but she made a warning sound and his hands returned to their death grip on the back of the chaise longue he was lying on.
    Not being able to touch his wife was driving Stefan crazy, especially with her straddling his loins and having no such restriction placed on her. But they’d made a deal. She would dance for him as long as he swore to control his response this time. He’d sworn, and she’d already danced, but now he was having the devil’s own time keeping his word, and his sweet little witch had decided to do some teasing while she had the chance.
    The night they’d first met, in a tavern in Mississippi, she’d danced the provocative harem dance, at least her version of it, for a roomful of avid river rats. He’d thought he could buy her for a few coins and had tried to do so. He hadn’t known at the time, and neither had she, that she was the missing princess he’d been sent to find and bring home, the bride he’d been betrothed to from the very day she was born.
    Tanya had danced just for him once before at his request, not long after they were married. Her sensual, though not very revealing, outfit for the dance had been left behind in America, so she’d worn one of her silky negligees instead. Stefan’s response had been unexpected, his desire so inflamed that their lovemaking, while incredibly satisfying, had been rather bruising as well.
    But Tanya hadn’t complained that time. She had actually laughed afterward, delighted that she could drive him so wild. His mistresses used to complain if he happened to leave the slightest bruise on them, but his Tanya’s passion was always equal to his. And the very fact that she had created a new dancing outfit, one designed to bring out the savage in a man of Stefan’s lusty proclivities, proved that she enjoyed provoking him.
    The promise she had insisted on, however, had nothing to do with her own preference and everything to do with her new condition, which only recently had been confirmed. To the delight of the entire kingdom, his queen was already carrying the royal heir, and taking everything the court physicians told her as gospel. And for Stefan that meant no more losing control, instead having to make promises he could barely keep.
    “You know I’m going to get even with youfor this.” He tried to sound casual, but there was nothing casual about what he was feeling.
    Tanya raised her head and he could make out a grin beneath the sheer material of her veil, whose color nearly matched her pale green eyes. “How?”
    “I know a merchant who sells fine silken cords,” he told her.
    “You would tie me down and do this to me?” There was some very clear interest in her tone that wouldn’t be there if she didn’t trust him implicitly.
    “I’m thinking about it,” he replied in a half growl, half groan.
    Her grin was positively impish. “When you make up your mind, let me know.”
    Her head dipped again and she scooted back so that her tongue could trail down the center of his chest toward his navel. He sucked in a breath. His loins lifted involuntarily, nearly unseating her.
    “Tanya—I can’t—bear any more,” he gasped out.
    She took pity on him instantly. “Then you don’t have to,” she said sweetly.
    She sat up to toss off the double veils that had concealed her lower face and long black hair. The top of her two-piece outfit defied description in its transparency and secrets. He wanted to rip it off her. He wanted to kiss her right through it. But the