Charlotte, who had been happily frolicking in a land made up solely of a naked Dare, suddenly found herself on her back, sinking into the cool bed linens as her husband covered her front.

“Char,” he growled, his mouth hovering over hers. She arched her back so that her nipples rubbed against the soft hair of his chest. “Are you planning on narrating the events of this entire evening?”

“Vyvyan La Blue says that communication during connubial calisthenics can enhance the experience for both husband and wife, and as I wish to please you in all ways, not just with my body, but with my mind, as well, because, you know, my cousin Gillian says her husband—Lord Weston, you do remember him, you tried to kill him once or twice—Gillian says that Noble enjoys her mind almost as much as more earthly pleasures, although she didn’t really specify just what earthly pleasures she meant, but I assume she meant those of a calisthenic nature, so yes, the answer to your question is that for your pleasure I am planning on narra—oh dear God in heaven!”

Dare effectively stopped his wife’s babble with the simple act of taking her nipple in his mouth. She was silken fire, she was satin heat, she had the softest skin that burned like a fire in his blood. He was harder than he thought humanly possible. He wanted her so much he could almost cry with joy over knowing she was his, and she was here, and she loved him. His body shook with the need to bury himself deep into her heat, but he was a gentleman, and she was his wife, his beloved, the woman who would share his life. He owed it to her delicate sensibilities to gently prepare her for the intrusion of his body into hers; he must make sure she was well pleasured and physically aroused before she could receive him. He had to bring her gradually to the point of ecstasy so that she, too, would experience the greatest act man and woman could perform together.

Her legs shifted beneath him. His head snapped back, all thoughts but one gone from his mind. “Now?”

Her eyes fluttered open briefly. “Dear Lord, if you have any mercy, now!”

He spread her legs, lifted her hips, and plunged into her all with one move. She shrieked and spasmed around him, hundreds of little muscles gripping him, squeezing him, caressing him in a manner he’d never experienced before, but which drove him to a frenzy. Sweat stung on his back as she raked her fingernails up his flesh, but all that did was make him more frantic, more wild with the joy of joining with her.

“Why didn’t I marry you five years ago?” he wondered aloud, the words coming out remarkably like a groan.

“You were stupid,” she gasped in reply, her fingers digging into the muscles of his buttocks, her hips thrusting up to meet his.

“I was,” he agreed, his breath coming in gasps, too, pressure building inside him, a familiar pressure, but one so intensified, one so brilliant that it was almost as if his soul had been washed clean by her love. “Very stupid. Incredibly stupid. So stupid I can’t even begin to—oh, Lord, woman, don’t do that again or it’ll all be over for me.”