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“It could have been,” Stella pointed out. “I’ve been courted by loads of men this Season who would describe me as freckled and fat.”

His eyes snapped open. “Who?”

“No one,” she said hastily—and untruthfully, since she’d overheard just that unkind phrase from a disgruntled suitor.

The pirate was in full ascendance, and she didn’t want to visit her new husband behind bars. “My point was that back in the 1600s, Thomas Nashe said that a woman couldn’t count on a man for her pleasure, and I believed him. As soon as we moved to London for the Season, I visited the Pantheon. It only took one discreet question before I was directed to the right shop.”

“Excellent,” Silvester murmured, closing his eyes again. “I will do my best to satisfy you, just so you know. But if I happen to be away from home, I’m happy to know that you will be satisfied in my absence.”

Stella was rather surprised to see that his tool had lengthened and thickened again. She slid down to lie beside him and then allowed Silvester to pull her partly on top of him.

“I like the parts of your body that society dislikes,” she told him, satisfaction leaking into her voice. “Your nose.” She kissed it. “Your ungentlemanly chest.” She wiggled downward and kissed it. “Arm muscles.”

“Biceps,” he murmured.

He sounded uncaring, but she knew him. To him, this mattered, more than the easy deceptive charm he wore like armor. His muscles were her freckles.

“I like these parts best,” she whispered, running her fingers over his waist, lean hips, powerful cock that rose to her hand. “So soon?” she asked huskily.

“Is your source of information the lamentable Thomas Nashe?” Silvester inquired, his eyes glinting at her under heavy lids. “The man was clearly not at his best.”

Stella tightened her hand and rolled her wrist experimentally. Silvester made a ragged sound in the back of his throat but didn’t move, letting her play. She pulled herself to a seated position, her bottom settling onto his legs, and enjoyed herself, tracing the iron-hard slabs that covered his chest, the way he trembled when she lightly scored her nails down his arms.

She returned again and again to his staff, as Thomas Nashe called it. Each time she touched him, encircled him, Silvester’s hips arched into the air as if he couldn’t control the tiny movement, even pinned down by her weight.

She loved it. “I am not as was Hercules the Stout,” she murmured, “That to the seventh journey could hold out.”

Silvester’s eyes glittered at her. “More Nashe? Seven journeys? Try me.”

Abruptly, Stella realized that she’d set the rules of a game, and Silvester had to win, but this kind of winning . . .

He beat Hercules, naturally enough.

Chapter Thirty

Stella’s maid didn’t arrive at The Swan until the morning, at which point Silvester reluctantly strolled into the adjoining bedchamber so his wife could have a bath.

But when he stopped hearing splashing noises, he walked back into the room, banished her maid, and carried Stella over to the bed, pulling the toweling from her body as he went.

“What are you doing?” Stella asked. “Shall I give Specs to my maid?”

Silvester glanced over his shoulder. “She’s crawling into my boot.”

He was flooded by need, a primitive, base lust. “You must be sore,” he said, kissing Stella’s throat. Her skin was the color of milk.

Stella ran her hands down his back. “No, I am not,” she whispered, arching up so she bumped against him.

He slid a hand between their bodies and sank his fingers into the slick heat between her legs.

“I thought about you during the bath,” his wife admitted, dragging him into another kiss.

Silvester sank into her slowly, instructing himself to let her body adjust. But his body moved without permission, responding to her heavy eyelids and the way she sucked in air.

He braced his elbows on either side of her, so they could keep kissing. Words kept tumbling out of his mouth, words he never thought he’d say to anyone, let alone to his wry, funny wife.

He wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Their marriage was . . .

It was about passion, physical passion.