Tears pricked her eyelids. She trembled from head to toe, not just from the onslaught of pleasure, but from the emotions welling from her chest. Emotions that he’d unleashed.

She felt like a woman tonight. She felt beautiful and desired. Like a bride should. How she should have been made to feel on her wedding day, instead of an inferior replacement.

His tongue circled her entrance and then slid inside, shocking her with the sheer intensity of the sensation. She arched upward just as she finally, finally broke free of the excruciating pressure building from deep within.

It was the single most bewildering, most powerful, most absolutely wonderful experience of her life. She flew. Soared impossibly high and then floated ever so gently back toward the ground.

She closed her eyes and melted into the bed, so boneless, so positively sated that she couldn’t even imagine moving so much as a finger.

Her body quivered in the aftermath and tiny little shocks simmered through her blood, humming and buzzing. There was still a pulse between her legs, a slight ache and a throb, a reminder of the attentions he’d just given her with his mouth.

She’d never imagined such a thing. Surely this wasn’t normal. She’d never heard other women speak of such. He hadn’t just kissed her as he’d promised. He’d licked her. He’d suckled her.

Surely there was no more intimate act a husband could perform for his wife. Contentment warmed her entire body and she smiled in satisfaction, marveling at how happy she was at this precise moment. No matter what tomorrow brought, she’d always hold tonight close.

She felt Caelen leave the bed, but she couldn’t summon the energy to open her eyes to see what he was about. A moment later, he pulled the furs up over her and climbed in beside her, his heated flesh a shock against her still quivering body.

Having no experience in such matters, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Her mother and father never slept in the same chamber. Certainly not in the same bed. She knew Mairin and Keeley both slept with their husbands every night. Their husbands would allow nothing less, not that either woman wanted it any differently. Perhaps ’twas a McCabe thing. Maybe they were so possessive of their women that they couldn’t bear to let them out of their sight. Or maybe they were just protective.

She decided she didn’t care. What was the worst that could happen? She’d gain Caelen’s censure? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done that many times over the past few days.