Gabby, quite given over to indecent pleasure, found an exquisite, rising ache that grew as she arched toward him and met his strokes. Her breath was a sob in her chest. Her body was dancing with liquid fire.

And so the devil’s daughter, as her father was like to call her, found wings of her own.

Now her eyes were closed because eyesight was not needed, not with the potency of the body connected to hers, not with every nerve crying with sharp joy. Not when she was flinging herself against him, trying with ever increasing skill to match his rhythm.

And then Quill gripped her hips, pulled her up, and gasped, “Now, Gabby!” and without hesitation, Gabby followed her father’s first commandment: Obey thy husband, above all else. Her body arched hard, and dimly she heard cries from her own lips and an answering growl from Quill.

A torrent of pleasure answered with its own lovely music the question of indecency and sinfulness.

When it was finished, Quill slumped on top of his wife. She didn’t seem to mind his weight, he thought. Her skin was glowing with a thin sheen. He rubbed his lips against her forehead and tasted salt.

Gabby opened dazed, gleaming eyes. “I know what you were trying to say before.” Her voice was an intimate breath against his cheek.

He twined his fingers through hers and waited.

“With my body, I thee worship,” she whispered. The words rose from her heart like a prayer that washed away her father’s sermons and bitter words. “It’s all in the marriage ceremony, isn’t it?” she asked, wonderingly.

He clutched her hand. He was still deep inside her and it was hard to shape words.

“You haven’t got a headache, have you, Quill?”

“No.” But he didn’t want to let go of the moment. If he fell asleep, he knew, the headache would come. Already he could see faint purple flashes at the edge of his vision, a warning that pain would follow.

He rocked forward, experimentally.

Her eyes widened and her body involuntarily shivered.

He moved again, a deep, lazy seduction.

“Oh,” Gabby sighed.

“Indeed,” Quill murmured.

Chapter 17

QUILL WOKE IN THE EARLY MORNING, opened his eyes, and shut them instantly. Light was unbearable in the grips of a migraine. Throbbing pain answered every beat of his heart and hammered at his temples. Experience told him that wrenching nausea was on its way.

He turned his head, and the pain burst down into his neck and shoulders. But there was Gabby. She was curled on her side, tangled, tousled, velvety curls shading her face. He could just see the voluptuous curve of her bottom lip.