A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe they will. And they’ll likely be jealous as hell.”

Heather pulled the sheet over her breasts, a gesture that struck him as sweetly incongruous, considering everything they had done last night. He’d explored and savored every secret of her body, some more than once.

“There’s no need to be so modest, duchess.” Sloan caught her hand and turned her palm against his cheek, warm and beard-rough. “You’re my wife. You’ve committed no crime. It’s just sex.”

She turned her face away. She didn’t want him to deny he’d felt all the things she had in their mating.

She rose from the bed and drew on a wrapper to fend off the morning chill. Catching a glance of her wanton image in the mirror, Heather sat at the small dressing table and picked up a brush in order to bring some semblance of order to her wild hair.

Sloan spoke lazily from the bed. “There’s no need for you to get dressed yet. We won’t be finished for a while.”

She glanced at the bed to find him watching her, his hands laced behind his head, the pale sheets barely covering his narrow hips. Her pulse leapt at the sight. He looked like a ruffian, his tawny hair tousled, jaw hardened by darker stubble—thoroughly disreputable and oh so sexually compelling. As tender as she felt in certain parts of her body, Heather could still feel herself growing warm and liquid as she looked at him. “But Janna … the chores.”

“The chores can wait. And I’ll take care of Janna when she wakes.”

“Sloan … it’s broad daylight,” she protested, half in dismay at his insatiable hunger, half at her own unassuaged arousal.

The tension suddenly returned between them.

“What if it is? I warned you before we married, I’m a man of great carnal need. You agreed to give me your body whenever and wherever I want you. You backing out on our bargain, duchess?”

Their gazes locked and warred, hers cool, his burning with intensity. “No, not at all.”

“Then take off your robe. I want to see you.”

His hard, raspy, early-morning voice was sensual enough to make her shiver, for it brought to mind the rawly sexual things he had murmured in her ear throughout the dark hours of the night.

Heather briefly shut her eyes. She was not about to back down, but there was only one way she could keep her composure—by pretending Sloan wasn’t watching her so brazenly, by acting as if they had never made love with frantic, explosive need.

Keeping her back rigid, she unfastened the clasps of her wrapper and let it fall off her shoulders. Then, squaring her shoulders, she faced him proudly, challenging him with her eyes.