“You are perspiring. Are you too hot? Should I open a window? Fetch you a cold beverage? Would you like me to fan you?” Gillian snuggled closer and placed a hand on his chest. Her fingers drew lazy circles around one flat brown nipple. He slapped a hand over hers and held it tight. He’d never make it through the night. If he didn’t shame himself first, she was going to kill him with her innocent erotic seduction. He ground his teeth together in an attempt to distract himself from the thought of plunging deep inside her.

“Nothing. Just lay there. Don’t move. And if you have any mercy in your soul, stop touching me there!”

Gillian jerked her hand back. “I’m sorry. I thought it was allowed.”

Noble tried hard to swallow past the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. “It is allowed; nay, encouraged under normal circumstances, but this, my lady wife, is not a normal circumstance.”

“Oh.” She lay next to him and wondered if his breathing was always so ragged. Surely it couldn’t be good for him to be breathing so shallowly for any length of time. Perhaps if she stroked him as she did the hounds when they became distressed, he would calm down and his breathing return to normal. Disengaging one hand, she lightly caressed his chest from shoulder to navel.

“Oh, God.”

Gillian didn’t think he meant that as a prayer; it sounded more like a groan of agony. His head must be paining him. She tilted her face up until her lips were a hairbreadth away from his. “Do you hurt, Noble?”

He moaned softly against her lips and with one hand cupped the back of her head so he could plunder her mouth.

“Is it your head?” she asked, the words catching in her throat.

Now her own breathing was erratic, but there didn’t seem to be much she could do about it, what with Noble’s tongue probing her mouth like an enthusiastic explorer in a particularly moist cave. Unable to withstand the surge of emotions and desires flooding her body, she pressed against him, eliciting another moan from deep within his chest. Then suddenly she was on her back and he was poised over her.

“I meant to do this right, I swear I did,” he said hoarsely as he positioned himself. “But you’re so damn hot. Bloody hell, I’m only human! You can’t blame me for being human! Tell me you don’t blame me!”

He seemed to require some sort of reassurance, so she stroked his arms and back gently. “I don’t blame you. You’re beautiful, Noble. Even your muscles have muscles. You’re made very differently from me.”

Weston stared at her for a moment that seemed to him to last at least a lifetime, then slowly, with a patience he thought beyond human control, he sank into her.

“Well, I think this just about answers all of my questions,” Gillian gasped, her voice simultaneously huskier and higher than she had ever heard it. There was a sharp jab of pain, but it quickly faded into unimportance in the rush of other, much more pleasing feelings.