“Ride me.”

“Ride you?”

Noble opened his eyes just long enough to place both hands on Gillian’s hips and hoist her over him. “Ride me.”

Gillian looked down. “But you are covered in Oils of Araby and ethereal essences. I would hate for them to go to waste.”

He moved her back and forth across his oiled, essenced bodily endowment. She felt so good, he almost spilled his seed right then and there. He gritted his teeth against the building rush of energy. Gillian’s eyes darkened as she picked up the rhythm. “Perhaps it might benefit the purifying process if I were to…ah…ease you.”

He lifted her up slightly and tensed his entire body as she slowly sank down upon him, her heat enveloping him with a pleasure that was so intense it was almost pain. As she slid downward on him, slowly, consuming him inch by painful inch, Noble shed the last remnants of control and thrust his hips upward, joining himself completely with her body and her soul. His spirit merged with hers and soared higher and higher until he thought he would shatter into a million bright, glittering pieces. At the highest point he shouted her name, pouring out the emotions of his newly opened heart, singing her praises and whispering words of love and joy.

He had left her behind on his journey to heaven, but still he felt her lips on his face, on his cheeks and eyes. Odd how comforting such a simple gesture was. He felt consumed by a strange lethargy that soon melted into something more elemental when Gillian shifted on top of him.

He opened his eyes and gazed into the bright, shining green eyes of the woman seated astride him. “My dear, let me tell you about a list I made earlier this evening. I believe it will go a long way in making up for my…er…appalling lack of manners of a moment ago.”

Gillian smiled back at him and wriggled slightly. A streak of fire shot from his groin out to all points of his body.

“I will need your Oils of Araby.”

A sudden line appeared between her eyes.

He smiled at her frown. “You look tired, my dear. I believe your blood could use purifying as well.”

Ten

“M’lady?”

Gillian moaned slightly and buried her head deeper into the pillow.

“My lady?”

There was that pesky voice again, trying to draw her away from the sated, relaxed feeling that had held her in its embrace ever since her Lord of Araby bestowed his own ethereal essences upon her. Repeatedly. With much vigor and manliness.

“My lady, you have guests.”

As mind-numbingly enjoyable as those Imperial Exercises turned out to be, what filled Gillian with happiness were the words Noble had spoken. Among the words of pleasure and passion, he had admitted that he loved her. She hugged those words to herself, cherishing them, holding them close in her heart. He loved her.

“The guests are in your sitting room, my lady.”