“I hope you will not be offended…I hope you will not mind if I…that is, if I…” She rasped her tongue on the sensitive underside of the head and felt his body shake in response.

Noble quickly recalculated. He would be lucky if he lasted four seconds.

The look of ecstasy on his face astonished her—she had hoped she would give him pleasure, but evidently her touch was more powerful than she had presumed. She didn’t have a chance to dwell on this thought, however. Three seconds after she took him into her mouth, he yanked her up, and with a move too swift for her to follow, tossed her on the bed, covering her immediately with his own hard body.

“Now it’s my turn,” he said hoarsely just before his mouth took possession of hers. She reveled in the heat of his mouth, wondering if she’d ever get enough of him. It was her last cognizant thought for a very long time.

***

Noble rolled off his wife and lay on his back, exhausted. He would have expressed the immense, overwhelming pleasure she had given him, but he didn’t have the energy to move his lips, let alone prod his brain into stringing together more than two words that made sense. That thought scurried around his mind, nibbling at the edge of his awareness until it attracted his full attention. Why was making love to Gillian so soul-deep satisfying? Why did her warmth seem to penetrate even the iciest corner of his being? It wasn’t right that a man should be so consumed with thoughts of his wife, his control so easily cast over. If she could do that to him now, just a scant two days after they had been wed, what sort of power would she wield after a week of marriage? A month? A year?

Gillian nudged his arm. He knew what she wanted but was too shaken by the turn his thoughts had taken. For it had come—although he had tried to tamp down on it, he had known that it would eventually emerge. That horrible knowledge, that black truth, that darkness slithering around inside him with insidious slowness, gathering before it a familiar feeling of coldness and dread. He closed his eyes and reluctantly acknowledged it.

If he gave her power over his heart, she would betray him.

Gillian nudged him again, then rose up on one elbow when she noticed his frown. “You did not enjoy yourself? That part of you is not bounceable anymore. I assumed that meant you enjoyed yourself. Have I got it wrong?”

He couldn’t give in to this attraction. He couldn’t give her the chance to tear his heart out as Elizabeth had. He couldn’t go through that pain again—as bad as it was with his first wife, he knew instinctively that it would be unbearable with Gillian. Elizabeth’s betrayal had crushed his heart; Gillian’s betrayal would destroy him completely.

“Noble?” She placed a hand on his chest where his heart still beat wildly. “Have I done something to displease you?”