Her eyes flew from the flower to his face. She couldn’t help it.

He held out his hand. “Come,” he said. “We should eat.”

It was an apology. She saw it right there in his outstretched hand. She just wished she knew what he was apologizing for.

Stop, she told herself. Stop questioning everything. For once she was going to let herself be happy without needing to know why. She’d fallen in love with her husband, and that was a good thing. He’d brought her unimaginable pleasure in bed. That was a good thing, too.

It was enough. It had to be enough.

She took his hand. It was large and strong and warm and everything a hand ought to be. Everything a hand ought to be? She let out a little burst of absurd laughter. Good gracious, she was growing melodramatic.

“What is so funny?” he asked.

She shook her head. How was she to tell him that she had been measuring the perfection of hands, and his topped the list?

“Tell me,” he said, his fingers tightening around hers. “I insist.”

“No.” She kept shaking her head, her thoughts making her voice round and full of mirth.

“Tell me,” he growled, pulling her closer.

Her lips were now pressed together hard, the corners desperately fighting a smile.

His lips drew close to her ear. “I have ways of making you talk.”

Something wicked jumped within her, something greedy and lush.

His teeth found her earlobe, softly scraping the tender skin. “Tell me, Iris . . .”

“Your hands,” she said, barely recognizing her own voice.

He stilled, but she could feel his smile against her skin. “My hands?”

“Mmm.”

They spanned her waist. “These hands?”

“Yes.”

“You like them?”

She nodded, then gasped as he slid them lower, cupping the gentle curve of her bottom.

He brushed his mouth against her jaw, along her neck, and then back to the corner of her lips. “What else do you like?”

“Everything.” The word spilled forth without warning, and she probably should have felt embarrassed, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not with him.

Richard chuckled, the sound full and solid with male pride. His hands moved to the front of her body, each one grasping a dangling end of the bow knot she’d tied in the belt of her dressing gown.

His lips touched her ear. “Are you my present?”

Before she could respond, he gave a sharp tug, staring down at her with hot desire as the robe came loose.

“Richard,” she whispered, but he had already moved on, sliding those wonderful wonderful hands up along her body, pausing for an agonizing moment on her breasts before reaching her shoulders and pushing the robe away. It felt to the floor in a cloud of pale blue silk.