Sweet Temptation by Leigh Greenwood

told she was to marry Gavin, until Betty closed the door to her bedchamber, Sara had been too busy to do much more than try to understand and follow what was happening to her. Not once had she stopped long enough to wonder about her wedding night, but now it was here, and her husband could enter the room at any minute. She knew nothing of what was going to happen, and as the clock ticked inexorably on, she became more and more apprehensive. The difficulties ahead multiplied as the empty minutes piled up, until Sara was sure the ordeal itself could hardly be more awful than this waiting without knowing. Sara found herself picking at her skin, then chewing on her nails. If he doesn’t come soon, she thought, I’ll be nothing but sores and bleeding stubs.
    But she did not have very long to wait.
    The door was flung open without warning, and Gavin stood framed in the light. A double ripple of excitement made Sara sit straight up in the bed. The moment she’d been waiting for with fear and anticipation had arrived, but now that it was here, she wasn’t at all sure she didn’t want to postpone it a little longer. Yet the sight of Gavin’s body—as he shed his coat and stood revealed in a sheer shirt and skintight pants—caused her own body to tingle in response. Even without understanding why, Sara felt drawn to that mighty, muscled physique. The long, clean lines of his legs and thighs made him seem graceful, the flowing shirt over hard-sinewed arms gave the impression of sinuousness, but his powerful chest and broad shoulders left her in no doubt as to the rugged strength of the man who was about to claim her. She was shaken by a quiver of pleasurable anticipation.
    “The bride in her marriage bed,” Gavin mocked as he advanced into the room.
    Instinctively Sara drew the covers around her shoulders.
    “What, no warm greeting for your new lord? I might get the idea you don’t wish to lie with me.”
    “I am somewhat anxious about it,” stammered Sara, holding on to the covers more tightly still, “but I am prepared to do my duty.”
    “Yeah, we must all do our duty,” Gavin growled fiercely, as he drew closer to the bed. He had drunk too much, in the hopes it would numb him to the innocence of his bride and the disgust he felt with himself for acting as his father’s pawn. But now that he was face to face with the blameless victim of their struggle, he felt his resolution draining away. With a fiercely muttered oath, he steadied himself against the bedpost. The brandy hadn’t been able to numb him to the shame he felt at the violation of his own principles either. He was preparing to deflower this innocent girl, a rite of passage she believed would truly make her his wife, but one he knew would only deprive her of something else irreplaceable, and he couldn’t stop himself.
    Hell, she married me for what she could get, he thought with a surge of rage. She can damned well take the consequences. “You just do your part,” he muttered. “I’ll do the rest.”
    “That’s just it,” admitted Sara sheepishly. “I’m not perfectly sure what my part is.”
    No man is ever too drunk not to be sobered by that statement, and Gavin directed his penetrating gaze to Sara’s lovely, fearful face.
    “Do you mean to tell me neither that Rachel woman, nor any of the dried-up prunes that infest the place, ever told you about laying with a man?”
    “No.”
    “Goddamnit to hell!” moaned Gavin, swinging on the bedpost so that he dropped onto the bed. “The wench is not only a virgin, she’s an ignorant virgin. She’ll probably scream.”
    “Scream?” inquired Sara faintheartedly, her fear beginning to assume significant dimensions.
    “They all do. Seems to be a law or something, that every gently bred female has to shout down the house.”
    “But you don’t want me to scream!”
    “Of course not. Puts a man out of the mood quicker than a bucket of cold water. Besides, there’s no call to be afraid. You’ll