Ah, those nights, he thought to himself. He wanted those nights, all of those nights with her, all of her forever. That simple realization made him breathe easier. Nodding to himself, he sat at a small writing table and wrote a note to Carlisle apologizing for his comments and accusations, then enclosed it in another to Harry, his second, with instructions to see that Carlisle received it immediately. He sent Tremayne out to rouse a footman to deliver the letter; then, satisfied that he had solved the problem in a manner that would greatly please his wife, he headed for his bedchamber to please her in other, more tangible, ways.
Gillian was waiting for him. After tucking Nick into her bed, she had disrobed, bathed her eyes, and hurried through the connecting door to have Noble’s snifter of brandy ready when he arrived. Tremayne’s voice filtered through from the attached dressing room, alerting her to Noble’s presence. She tucked her feet under her as she sat before the fire, warming the brandy. First she would get him to drink the brandy, then she would tell him about Nick.
Noble threw open the door to his bedchamber and paused dramatically, one hand on the door, the other on his heart.
“Wife!” he said in a deep voice that rumbled around Gillian in a manner that made her knees turn to water. The look in his eyes made her own widen — God’s drawers, how was she to get the brandy in him when he was wearing that look? How was she even to hand him the glass when his very glance made her tremble with anticipation?
“Noble!” she squeaked and, taking the glass in both hands, held it out to him.
“Gillian!” he answered and, raking those parts of her visible with a look that left no doubt in her mind as to his intent, he stalked toward her. Slowly. As he smiled. Gillian’s hands twitched, sloshing the brandy around inside the rounded balloon of the glass.
“Brandy?” she gasped. He didn’t even look at the glass as he plucked it from her hands and set it down on a nearby table, then turned and plucked her off the ground just as easily. Gillian blinked to find herself suddenly seated on her husband’s lap, the soft satin of his dressing gown sliding sinuously beneath her fingers.
Noble cupped her head between his hands and gazed into her eyes. “I am about to make you very happy, wife.”
Gillian squirmed against the protrusion poking her in the thigh. “Yes, I can feel that you are, you always do, Noble, but you know, I really think before you make me very happy, you ought to have a sip of brandy. It’s been a long and strenuous day, and now that you’re talking to me again, you probably need a little something to help you relax and calm your heated…uh…brain.”
She held out the brandy to him again. He took the glass and leaned down to kiss her. Gillian heard the clink of the glass striking the table just before his tongue slipped in between her lips.
“Ah, yes, my darling, moan for me,” he said against her lips. “I love it when you moan, Gillian. Your moans make my toes curl. Moan again.”
Gillian opened her eyes and looked up at her Lord of Curled Toes. “Brandy.”
He handed her the glass. “No, you must drink it,” she said quickly and pushed it at him.
“I don’t care for any; you have it,” he said, taking the glass and putting it to her lips.
“No!” she squealed, and clamped her lips tight until he removed it. God’s garters, he was making it difficult to get a simple little draught inside him.
“A simple little draught of what?” he asked, his eyelids low over his eyes as he bathed her in a look so seductive, she felt her skin tingle with excitement. His hands started those marvelous, familiar little fires all over her person, turning the skin tingles into a raging inferno. She looked down. How had he managed to take off her dressing gown without her knowing it?
“I’ll tell you if you tell me what the draught is,” he said, and began nibbling on her nape. “Is it something good for me? Something to improve my stamina? Something to bring the wellspring of vigor and manliness bubbling forth? Is it”—he traced the outside of her ear while she moaned softly—“something that will allow me to pleasure you all night long without a break?”
“Oh, yes,” Gillian said, her mind refusing to consider anything but that one attractive thought. Noble’s face hovered before her, his breath mingling with her breath, his lips so close she could feel the heat from his mouth.
“Then I shall take it, my lovely wife. And then I shall introduce you to yet another item on my list, and once you’ve shouted my name out to the heavens at least four times, then I shall tell you my secret.”
Secrets. His name, making her shout it. Four times!
Noble tossed back the brandy with one quick movement, then scooped Gillian up and carried her to bed.
“And now, my little kumquat, I shall kiss you silly, then proceed to item number eight on the list.”
“Item number eight?” she gasped as his lips nibbled a path beneath her breasts. “Number eight? Didn’t that involve two lemon wedges and a pot of strawberry jam?”
“What a good memory you have,” he said as his mouth made ever-narrowing circles around her breasts. Gillian felt her nipples harden to pebbles as his breath steamed over them.
“You would think,” he said, his tongue snaking out to quickly lick a pert little nipple, “that if I were to breathe warm air on this little morsel, it would lose its wrinkles.”
He breathed hot, steamy air over her wet nipple. Gillian’s back arched as her hands kneaded the muscles in his shoulders.
“But I find that the opposite is true. How very curious.”
“Yes, how very curious indeed, my lord.” Gillian gave up trying to talk, or breathe for that matter. She just existed, one big, quivering mound of flesh whose sole purpose in life was to give pleasure to Noble. As he was exploring the strange phenomenon of nipple physics with her other breast, Gillian gathered her wits long enough to let her fingers roam over the muscled bulges of his shoulders and back, down over the silky skin on his behind, and lower, to that part of him he enjoyed having squeezed ever so lightly. She squeezed. He moaned against her breast. She squeezed again. He reared up, his eyes flashing silver, and with one hand spread her legs and entered her with a deep thrust.
She shouted his name.
“That’s once,” he groaned, and withdrew himself almost completely. Her hands were tangled in his hair, pulling his face toward hers, licking and nipping at his chin until he gave her what she wanted. Her tongue was wild in his mouth, twisting and twining around his, dancing an erotic tongue waltz, stroking and cajoling his tongue into joining with it in a celebration of tonguely love. He slid a hand down her sleek belly, spreading his fingers wide as they combed through her fiery curls, then seeking lower, parting, probing the hot, wet inner parts of her. Gillian writhed against his fingers and, tearing her mouth from his, shouted his name again.
“That’s twice,” he said hoarsely and, hooking her knees with his arms, pushed forward against her, reveling in the feeling of her silken sheath tightening and spasming against his hard length. He stared into her emerald eyes, made soft and misty with passion as he withdrew slowly, then surged back into her with short, powerful thrusts.
Her nails bit hard into his shoulders and raked long lines down his back. He felt the sting of sweat on the scratches, driving him on harder and faster. A fog started to settle over his eyes, a fog of lust. He shook the fog away and focused his eyes on Gillian’s green, endlessly deep pools of emerald. She cried his name again.
“Three times,” he grunted as the fog thickened. He was panting now, panting in time to the rhythm their bodies had set, groaning with each plunge deep into Gillian’s body, gasping for air with each withdrawal. The world ceased to exist beyond the confines of their bodies. There was just Noble and Gillian and nothing else. He stretched and reached for the moment when even the two of them would no longer exist, replaced instead by the glorious being made up of their souls merged together.