Visions of the well-muscled, masculine, shackled form of her very naked husband danced before her eyes. She had serious doubts as to her ability to obliterate such a fascinating image. She had doubts as to whether she ever wanted to. Weighing his command to forget the image against a lifetime without that particular entry in her mental picture library offered little difficulty. The infuriated male before her in battle stance, however, his legs braced apart, his hands fisted on his hips, clearly indicated that outright refusal of obedience was not an option.
“Well, my lady? I’m waiting for your agreement.” He looked mad enough to kill, but she wasn’t going to start her marriage by courting distrust with falsehoods.
Unable to agree to his demand, Gillian shrugged. The edge of her faded blue dressing gown slipped off her shoulder. Noble’s gaze pounced on the exposed flesh, the pulse in his throat suddenly accelerating as his silver-eyed gaze caressed her skin in a manner that raised goosebumps of excitement on her arms.
A warm kernel of womanly knowledge blossomed and spread inside her. Could it be this easy? Noble was an intelligent man; surely he wouldn’t be susceptible to something so mundane as a bit of exposed flesh. Slowly, with deliberate movements, she shrugged her other shoulder and let the dressing gown slide down her arms. She was wearing nothing underneath.
Noble stopped breathing.
She felt her skin prickle even though he had yet to touch her. With great purpose, Gillian rose to her knees, allowing her dressing gown to fall to her hips.
Noble made an inarticulate, choking sort of sound.
It couldn’t be so easy, but it evidently was. Her Lord of Eyes, who moments ago had looked as if he’d like nothing better than to wrap his hands around her throat, had stopped speaking and was staring at her, his gaze devouring her torso. A flush of a hitherto unknown emotion washed over her — this must be the power of seduction. God’s nightgown, it was a heady thing indeed! Gillian was light-headed with this newly discovered knowledge, and filled with great design, she slid out of bed, leaving the dressing gown behind as she stood before her husband.
She curled one hand around the back of his neck and combed her fingers into his silky hair. “Breathe, Noble,” she murmured as she traced the corner of his mouth with the very tip of her tongue.
His eyes crossed.
She trailed kisses over to his ear and sucked on his earlobe before whispering, “Are you breathing, my love?”
“I doubt it.” His voice sounded like cracked rocks, but she smiled as she felt his ragged breath on her neck. He stood rigid, his hands clenched into fists at his side as she mumbled against his ear.
“It must be all these clothes you have on. Too constricting.” She licked a path down his stubbled cheek to his jaw, nipped his chin, then continued down to lave his Adam’s apple. Although he hadn’t donned his normal evening wear upon returning home, he had clad himself in trousers, shirt, and waistcoat. Gillian was thankful he didn’t have a cravat to interfere with her exploration. With one hand still curled in his hair, she unbuttoned the buttons on his waistcoat, pushing it off his shoulders as she kissed the hollow of his throat.
He moaned.
A little disturbed to find that her own breathing was on the rough side, Gillian welcomed the warmth that seemed to flow out of Noble, warmth that sparked a slow burn that started somewhere in her stomach and spread out to her limbs. She was consumed by fire, but she craved his heat to make the fire burn even hotter. One by one she unbuttoned the mother-of-pearl buttons on his shirt, following each with scattered kisses on the exposed area of chest. His soft curls tickled her nose, but she was fascinated by the ripple of muscles that tightened beneath her trail of kisses. She moved lower, pulling his shirt off as she sank to her knees before him.
Noble’s mind stopped working at the sight of his wife kneeling before him, her hand on his waistband.
Gillian sucked her bottom lip nervously. She wasn’t sure if he was pleased with her boldness, but the fire his nearness had ignited was burning too strongly to let her back off. Eyes darkened with passion, she looked up at him for direction. A muscle in his jaw twitched. Twice. She took that as permission to proceed.
With both hands she unbuttoned the twin row of buttons on his trousers, then pushed them down over the sleek, muscled line of his hips, down his steely thighs, and after removing his slippers, over his long, narrow feet.
She lifted her head to find herself staring at his genitals. Joy filled her at the sight.
“You were right, Noble. You are not broken. You look just fine now. More than fine.” She reached out a hand to hold his silky hardness and delighted at his gasp of pleasure. “Look, you bounce when I do this.”
A shudder ran through him.
She held him with both hands, one tugging gently on the softness lower down, the other curled around the length of his arousal. “So hot. You’re as hot as the fire you have started inside me.”
With great delicacy she leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on the tip of him.
Noble was convinced he had died and gone to heaven. He just hoped St. Peter wouldn’t notice the long list of his transgressions until his wonderfully uninhibited wife had finished her exploration. Idly he wondered how long it would be before his control snapped. He took into account his history with women, his vaunted control, the fact that he was a sophisticated man and not a base animal driven by primitive urges, as well as the earlier anger he’d held toward his wife, and reckoned he had less than ten minutes.
“I hope you will not be offended…I hope you will not mind if I…that is, if I…” She rasped her tongue on the sensitive underside of the head and felt his body shake in response.
Noble quickly recalculated. He would be lucky if he lasted four seconds.
The look of ecstasy on his face astonished her — she had hoped she would give him pleasure, but evidently her touch was more powerful than she had presumed. She didn’t have a chance to dwell on this thought, however. Three seconds after she took him into her mouth, he yanked her up, and with a move too swift for her to follow, tossed her on the bed, covering her immediately with his own hard body.
“Now it’s my turn,” he said hoarsely just before his mouth took possession of hers. She reveled in the heat of his mouth, wondering if she’d ever get enough of him. It was her last cognizant thought for a very long time.
Noble rolled off his wife and lay on his back, exhausted. He would have expressed the immense, overwhelming pleasure she had given him, but he didn’t have the energy to move his lips, let alone prod his brain into stringing together more than two words that made sense. That thought scurried around his mind, nibbling at the edge of his awareness until it attracted his full attention. Why was making love to Gillian so soul-deep satisfying? Why did her warmth seem to penetrate even the iciest corner of his being? It wasn’t right that a man should be so consumed with thoughts of his wife, his control so easily cast over. If she could do that to him now, just a scant two days after they had been wed, what sort of power would she wield after a week of marriage? A month? A year?
Gillian nudged his arm. He knew what she wanted but was too shaken by the turn his thoughts had taken. For it had come — although he had tried to tamp down on it, he had known that it would eventually emerge. That horrible knowledge, that black truth, that darkness slithering around inside him with insidious slowness, gathering before it a familiar feeling of coldness and dread. He closed his eyes and reluctantly acknowledged it.
If he gave her power over his heart, she would betray him.
Gillian nudged him again, then rose up on one elbow when she noticed his frown. “You did not enjoy yourself? That part of you is not bounceable any more. I assumed that meant you enjoyed yourself. Have I got it wrong?”