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A lady doesn’t ogle.

Viola ogled.

Devin had large, shapely, broad shoulders, and strong legs. Golden hairs glinted on his chest and on his legs, and even in a slender line down his stomach.

“It’s as if you’ve been gilded,” she said, reaching out to trace that tantalizing line with her finger. Under her touch, his stomach clenched.

He made a rough sound and reached forward, wrapping a hand around himself.

“May I do that?”

He cleared his throat. “Certainly.” His hand fell away.

Viola reached out and wrapped her hand around him, just as he had. She tried tugging, as he had, and a wild sound broke in his throat. A pulse of triumph went through her. She wasn’t lying around like a wilting violet! She was—she was—

“What am I doing?” she asked, perplexed.

“There are many terms that apply,” Devin said, his voice strangled.

A primitive instinct took over and Viola’s hand tightened on the silky skin. All her senses were alive, delighting in Devin’s groan, in the way his body arched toward her hand, the way his hand tightened on her thigh as if barely controlling himself.

“Enough,” he said a moment later, wrenching his heavy-lidded, intense gaze away from her hand. She let go reluctantly.

He reached for her breasts, and while she was still startled by the erotic ache that followed the brush of his fingers, his mouth followed. After that, moments passed in a blur of pounding heartbeats, shattered moans, and aching limbs.

Every time Viola felt a flash of embarrassment, she would feed her courage not with a muttered phrase but with the look in her husband’s eyes. With the thud of his heart, the tremble in his fingers as he touched her, the way his thick shaft seemed to grow harder every time she caressed it.

His desire was in every growled word, in his hard kisses, in the longing she saw in his eyes. Culminating in the moment when he braced himself above her and said, “May I?”

It was like their marriage vows but more intimate, more quiet, perhaps more heartfelt.

“Please,” Viola breathed, having shed her embarrassment.

His fingers slid once more between her legs, and she said, “Yes.”

Devin gave a choked laugh that might have been a groan, tucked her under his body, and slid slowly into her warmth.

Her eyes widened as he slid home, and he asked, “Too painful? Shall I withdraw?”

“No,” she said with a gasp. “Well, not much. I hadn’t imagined . . .”

But she didn’t finish the thought. It pinched when he moved, but she couldn’t pay attention because an erotic storm was gathering in her veins, slowly, like huge storm clouds building in her body, forerunners of an all-encompassing tempest.

Devin lavished kisses on her face and eyes, coaxing her into kissing him even though she couldn’t pay attention to more than his slow movements, each one sinking deeper into her, as if she were unlocking a door that he longed to enter.

All the time the storm built until Viola couldn’t think, as fierce need dictated that she not lie quietly any longer. She just couldn’t. Following instinct, she bent her knees and thrust up awkwardly, meeting his stroke, a pant breaking from her mouth.

“Am I allowed to do this?” she gasped.

One look at his expression and she felt no shame. Every feature was lit by ferocious desire and the oath that broke from his lips built the storm higher until she was panting, reaching for it, her fingers biting into his arms as she tried to match his strokes, arching to meet him.

He reached down between them, brushed his fingers against her—and the storm broke and she cried aloud, shaking, her body losing the rhythm they had established.

Devin looked down at his tousled, beautiful, erotic wife and lost control in the act of love, for the first time in his life.

He dropped his head and thrust forward, blind to everything but the feel of her, the perfume of her skin, the tight grip of her body.

He lost himself, and only hours later realized that perhaps he had also found himself.