The sheet had slipped down to Patrick’s waist, leaving only the broad expanse of his shoulders visible. Sophie bit her lip. A fragmented memory of herself clutching those shoulders, arching up against Patrick’s chest, pleading, gasping, panting, flew into her mind.

Cautiously she sat up, tweaking the sheet a bit so that it reached above her waist. Patrick had beautiful shoulders. In the morning light his skin was a dusky golden color that stretched smoothly over bumps and curves of muscle.

Suddenly he gave a little grunt and rolled over, twisting so that the sheet rode even lower on his hips. Sophie gasped and reflexively grabbed at her part of sheet, managing to pull up enough material to cover her breasts. Patrick stayed asleep, his breath coming deep and even, and finally the hasty beating of her heart calmed.

Oh Lord, but her husband was beautiful. Sophie stared in fascination. Midnight-black eyelashes lay curled against his cheeks, echoing the high arches of his eyebrows. Boldly, she lowered her eyes to Patrick’s chest. After all, he was her husband, wasn’t he? She had pressed herself against that chest last night—intimately.

The flare of rosy color in her cheeks heightened as she thought of Patrick’s rough groans. He wouldn’t seek out another woman immediately. Something in her relaxed, a spring wound so tightly in the area of her heart that she hadn’t even noticed its presence.

Cautiously, cautiously, Sophie hooked one finger under the edge of the sheet where it lay low on the ridge of Patrick’s hips. She could see the rise in the sheet that marked the particular thing that she would like to see in the daylight, and when Patrick wasn’t watching. How odd it must be to have a part of oneself always bobbing straight out in front, Sophie thought.

She managed to ease the sheet up a few inches, and she was just leaning forward to peer under it when a choked laugh and a fluid motion erupted from the sleeping man. Before she had time to think, she was smoothly flipped onto her back—like a grounded turtle, Sophie thought indignantly. The very body part about which she had shown curiosity was even now, ah, nudging her. Color streamed up her cheeks as she met her husband’s dark, laughing eyes.

“How long were you awake?”

“Long enough,” Patrick answered with a hint of purely erotic elation in his voice. He bent down and brushed his lips against hers, making Sophie shiver with delight. “Long enough to know that my new wife was awake. Long enough to see you clutching that wretched sheet to your beautiful breasts. God, Sophie, do you know what glorious breasts you have?”