He bent his head and ran a lazy tongue over Sophie’s lips, enticing her mouth to open, rubbing himself against her at the same time, carefully avoiding the arching demand of her hips.

But suddenly, with a sharp twist, Sophie slipped out from under him. Small, determined hands pushed him over and down on his back on the wide divan.

His wife’s eyes were shining with a mischievous gleam that matched Patrick’s own. Their eyes found each other’s, each bright with laughter and desire, daring the other to protest. Sophie perched herself on top of Patrick, pressing his shoulders to the velvet surface of the sofa with her palms.

“Now we’ll see how you like it,” she whispered against his mouth, her breath sweetly falling on his lips. She wriggled against him with a movement perhaps more inexperienced than seductive, but it was fire to Patrick. He gasped involuntarily, and Sophie grinned.

She wriggled farther down Patrick’s body, enjoying the feeling of her breasts against his hair-roughed chest. Her lips found his nipples and she imitated what he did to her, blissfully tracking his rough breathing and the feeling of his racing heart under her fingertips.

Then she tipped herself off the couch, her gown falling down over her bare bottom with a silky swish. Every nerve in her body was alive, demanding. Sophie bit her lip, schooling herself to patience. She took him in her hands, giving him a butterfly kiss.

“Sophie!” Patrick’s voice had an agonized roughness that she had never heard before. She grew bolder, ignoring the fact that his hands were straying over her body and had somehow yanked up her dress again, even while she knelt on the floor. Tentatively she flicked him with a small pink tongue, opened her mouth and caressed him.

A ragged moan rewarded her.

So she gave him a little nip, just the sort of small bite he seemed to love when she kissed his nipples. But the response was not a moan, but a yelp.

“Sophie!”

Patrick rolled off the couch so fast that Sophie didn’t know what was happening. In one second she was flat on her back on the thick carpet, her dress swept to her waist and her legs instinctively clenching Patrick’s waist as the lovers came together in a great primal, beating dance. Sophie’s broken cries drifted into the room, punctuated by Patrick’s harsh breathing groans.

“Oh God, Sophie, Sophie,” Patrick shouted. She strained up toward him, catching at bliss as every nerve in her body lit and burst into fire.

The silence which followed was not at all like the silence before Sophie had entered the library, Patrick thought. He rolled over, pulling Sophie onto his chest. She was still breathing in tiny pants, her body shaken by slight tremors.

“Patrick?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you dislike it when I, uh, bit you?”