“Good,” he groaned once he had retrieved his tongue, and gave a moment of attention to the twin breasts clamoring for his notice.

“Oh, my, yes, very good, my lord.” Gillian squirmed, wanting to close her legs around his probing fingers and pull him in closer. “Very, very good.”

Noble chuckled as he shucked his breeches, then slid both hands along Gillian’s legs, spreading her for him. “I meant it was good Nick is enjoying London.”

“Oh, yes, that.” Gillian watched as Noble began kissing her thighs, her thoughts as scattered as dandelion seed in a storm. Was he going to…would he do what he did last night? That thing with his tongue? Oh, lord, he was going to. She grabbed onto the carpet beneath her and felt her back arch as Noble’s hot breath steamed over her most private area. “He told me he was happy here, and I wanted you to know…to know…oh dear heaven, Noble, don’t stop!”

He didn’t. Not until she bucked beneath him, clutching his hair as she called his name over and over again when he lifted her to a height she hadn’t known possible. He rose up over her, settling between her thighs, gazing at her flushed face and passion-filled emerald eyes.

Noble’s last coherent thought just before he plunged into his wife’s sweet depths was that he hoped to God none of the servants would choose that moment to open the door. He didn’t think he could stop, not even if the entire staff trooped in to watch.

***

“What did you mean he told you he was happy here?”

Gillian, squashed up against her husband’s chest, sated, drowsy, happier than she’d ever been, lifted her head from where it lay on his biceps. Noble was on his side facing her, his arms wrapped around her, their breathing in perfect synchronicity, as, she was sure, were their heartbeats. She raised a languid finger to trace the length of his nose. How was it possible that each time Noble made love to her, she felt less and less an entity made up of herself, and more one made up of the both of them?

Did he feel that he was part of her, too? She hoped so. She wanted him to give his heart into her keeping just as she had given him hers. She sighed. Did he know she had relinquished to him her most prized possession?

“I know,” he said with a dark, unfathomable look, and pulled her closer so that his chin rested on her head. “I’ll keep it safe, sweetheart.”

She would have blushed at the reappearance of her Unfortunate Habit, but then, she reasoned, she was lying naked on the carpet in the library in the middle of the day, after having engaged in activities that were not usually conducted in such a place. Surely there were many other worthy things to blush about!

“How do you know that Nick is happy to be in London?”

“Hmm? Nick? He told me.” Her Lord of Loins was certainly a man who explored a subject thoroughly before letting go of it. Her lips curved into a smile as she recalled just how thoroughly he had explored her. Thoroughness was not necessarily a bad quality in a man.