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He waited and she leaned toward him, erasing the empty air between them. Her lips rested on his for a moment before his arms swept around her and he licked her lower lip. She opened instantly, arms winding around his neck.

With a murmur, he rocked back on his heels, bringing her with him, their mouths fused in erotic discovery. Devin rose with Viola in his arms and turned to the bed, still kissing.

He laid his duchess gently on the bed but she clung to him so he followed, enfolding her in his arms, aligning their bodies—his hard planes and her ripe curves.

Still they kissed, every stroke of a tongue enflaming erotic desire that already rioted in their veins.

“Jesus,” he gasped sometime later. He was half on top of Viola, elbows on either side of her head, kissing in a way he’d never experienced before. It was overwhelming. The first kiss they shared—a sweet meeting of mouths, albeit meltingly erotic—was a distant memory. These kisses were feverish, their hearts thudding through skin that had never felt thin until this moment.

Viola’s eyelashes fluttered and opened. She looked dazed and exuberant, lustful and curious . . . all emotions expressed without words. Her hair tumbled in wanton curls around her head.

“I don’t know why people don’t kiss all day long,” she said in a stunned voice.

A choked laugh burst from his chest, but her hand was running down his body, leaving fire in its wake. He shifted to his side and curled his hand under her right breast. Her nipple was coral red, like a holly berry on a snowbank.

“There are other kinds of kisses,” he growled, his mind clocking how inarticulate he was.

Viola’s eyes widened and she nodded.

After that, the world splintered into gasping moments: her body twisting under his, the first moan that broke from her lips, the first time he allowed his hand to slip between her soft thighs, allowed a finger to dip into her heat, stroked until she arched off the bed, the ivory curve of her body giving him a fierce wish to pull her beneath him—but no.

He waited, clenching his teeth, showering her with kisses, coaxing her desire higher and higher until with one startled cry she broke, shaking in his arms, burying her face in his shoulder.

Devin caressed her throughout her deep pleasure, memorizing the rosy hue in her cheeks, her gasps, the way her eyes changed from feverish to slumberous.

“That was better than alone,” she gasped, as he waited, cradling her, wanting her to speak first.

He rarely laughed. Was marriage to Viola going to change him into a chortling type of fellow, one whose mouth was constantly curved?

“Hmm,” he said, choking back laughter, bending over to kiss her again.

“I like your hair,” she said drowsily.

“No going to sleep,” he said with sudden urgency, adding, “Unless you’d like to stop there, Viola, because we can. Stop. There’s tomorrow.”

“I was thinking how many tomorrows we have,” Viola said softly, turning toward him. Her breasts swayed, making his tool pulse against his stomach. “I’m glad we didn’t waste time with courting, Devin. That would have taken weeks or months, and all those days would have been lost, when we could have been spending them in bed.”

Devin had a feeling of vertigo, as if he were standing at the precipice of a mountain, not sure how he got there, staring down into the depths.

His wife was watching him, bright eyes shining, talking of tomorrows spent in bed. It felt impossible, on some primitive level. And yet here she was.

He ran a hand down Viola’s curves, over the sweet round of thigh, dragging a flat thumb over her most intimate part. She shuddered all over.

“Wait!” she cried, grabbing his wrist.

He pulled his hand away as if it had been burned. “Of course.”

“It’s my turn,” she said huskily.

Chapter Twenty-four

The one thing that her mother had impressed upon her was that Viola should not play the role of a fainting maiden. “You have the chance to be much more,” Ophelia said firmly, the night before. “I see it in Devin’s eyes. He doesn’t expect you to do more than lie back and accept whatever happens—what gentleman does?—but he will celebrate it if you take initiative.”

“What does that mean?” Viola had asked.

“Follow your whimsy,” her mother had said, smiling. “And remember that Rome wasn’t built in one day.”

To Viola’s mind, if Rome had been filled with men like Devin, it might well have gone up in a day. She rolled on her side, allowing her eyes to savor all parts of him. After a woman has shrieked in a man’s ear, she can stop worrying about whether she looks like a lady.