Jane battled to stay enmeshed in sensual bliss. When Hugh first kissed her, the unfamiliarity of what he did left her reeling. Then she reeled because she’d never known anything as intoxicating as the pressure of his lips on hers.

How amazing that a kiss could heat every inch of her. When he began, she just felt disturbed and needy. Then the heat became more specific, weighting her belly and waking a restless craving in the secret hollows of her body.

Barely had she found her balance in this incendiary new universe when he changed the game yet again.

He’d licked her. It sounded so bizarre. But in practice, it was… It was like someone set a blazing torch to dry tinder. That yearning sensation intensified, and her heart pounded hard and heavy, shaking her with every beat.

He kissed and kissed her, as if he fed off her. She lost all contact with the Jane she’d been before and verged on becoming Hugh’s creature, quaking and grasping. Natural caution made her retreat from the brink, even as she kissed Hugh back with all the untried passion she’d had no idea existed within her.

Natural caution whispered one unwelcome word. A name. A ghost. A curse.

Morwenna.

Hugh laid her down on the bed and rose over her. Even in her innocence, she couldn’t mistake what was about to happen.

She arched up to meet him, struggling to silence that insidious voice. Hugh had married her to have children. She owed him the use of her body. It would be cowardly—and dishonorable—to draw back now.

Morwenna.

Over and over, that name played in her mind, no matter how she fought to block it out.

Hugh’s powerful form dominated hers as he shifted closer. She felt utterly consumed in his animal appetite. He was hot and strong, and ready to do his duty.

Duty was another unwelcome word, although surely that was all that held them together.

Jane strained toward him. He didn’t appear to notice the desperation creeping into her responses. Or if he did, it didn’t make him pause.

One large hand landed on the breast no man had ever touched. She tensed against a liquid surge deep inside her. Was this arousal? When she yielded to her husband, she’d expected something swift but measured. Pain, if Susan was right. An invitation to participate in actions that might seem strange and perhaps repugnant.

She hadn’t expected to be swept away into an ocean of temptation. An ocean likely to close over her head and drown her.

He squeezed her breast, and her nipple tightened into a tingling point. Unfamiliar forces battered her from all sides. It was all too much.

She made a distressed sound against his lips and stiffened in his hold.

An instant longer, his hand remained heavy on her breast, before he heaved himself to the side with a guttural groan. His eyes fastened on the ceiling, while she remained on her back and gulped for her first full breath in what felt like hours. Searing tears pricked her eyes. His scent suffocated her. Hot, male musk.

“I’m sorry, Jane.” His voice was so gravelly, it emerged as a growl. “I went too far too fast.”

She rose on one elbow to study him. His massive chest heaved as he sucked in air. The loose dressing gown allowed shadowy glimpses of dark curls across his chest.

He looked like a ruffled Zeus. Massive. Virile. Omnipotent.

His thick hair was untidy, and one coffee-colored lock tumbled over his noble forehead. In some men that might add a boyish touch. Not in Hugh.

Almost convulsively her gaze ran over him. Now she’d touched him, she knew how strong those shoulders were and how his body covered hers when he lifted himself over her. Even as she told herself to stop, her attention traveled downward. Over his flat stomach to where the part that he would thrust into her rose hard and insistent against his belly. There was hair down there as well. She bit her lip and couldn’t help staring, even as she wondered how it was physically possible for something so large to fit inside her.

When she looked up, she realized he’d shifted his attention from the ceiling to her. A slant of one eyebrow mocked her imprudent curiosity. A painful blush flooded her cheeks when he tugged the rich crimson silk across his legs, restoring his dignity, if not hers.

Jane flopped back against the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Both she and Hugh seemed to find it of surpassing interest. The tumult in her blood gradually subsided, leaving a bitter residue of shame.

Not at what they’d done, but at her timidity. And her inability to forget that he wished he lay with someone else.

“I’m sorry, too.” Her voice was almost inaudible. “I shirked my duty.”

His grunt indicated disgust and irritation in equal measure. “I began to hope that there might be more than duty between us.”

“You must try again,” she said, even as something inside her shrank from the idea. “I promised to be your wife in every sense.”

He leaned over her, until she couldn’t avoid those searching dark eyes. “I know you did, but it’s been a long, difficult day, and I wasn’t as…careful as I might have been.”

Her lips tightened, as she steeled herself to venture back into that strange world she’d entered tonight for the first time. “You’re my husband. You have rights over my body.”

Those thick brows lowered over his blade of a nose, and he sat up against the headboard. “Spoken like a right little martyr.”

She flinched. “I don’t know what you want.”

Which wasn’t quite true. She’d recognized his increasing interest. If she’d held her nerve, he’d even now be pushing inside her, and she’d be a virgin no more.

He remained displeased. A displeased King of Olympus was a daunting prospect, especially when only a layer of silk covered his nakedness.

“More than I thought I did, it seems. Those kisses got me devilish excited, Jane.”

She hid another wince, even as some wanton part of her relished his praise. “I didn’t…I didn’t know kissing could be like that.”

He looked shocked. “You’ve never been kissed before?”

“Who would I kiss?” Her lips turned down in self-derision as she sat beside him. She felt at too much of a disadvantage lying flat on her back. “Mr. Jones the bailiff? Billings the butler?”

His disbelief didn’t fade. “I thought perhaps at some assembly or house party.”

“I told you my life has been quiet. Now and again, I went to dinner with the neighbors, but there was never much chance for flirtation.”

“Yet you said you’d had a proposal or two.”

She gave an unamused laugh. “Old men looking for a nurse and a housekeeper. No flirtation was required.”

“What a waste.”

She shrugged, while the lonely years of toil and obligation pressed down and threatened to crush her. “A girl can live without kisses.”

“She shouldn’t have to.” He paused. “I liked kissing you, Jane.”

Heat rose to her cheeks. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“I’m afraid we do.”

She made herself meet that probing gaze. She sought but didn’t find anger or resentment, although given how she’d pulled back, she wouldn’t blame him for feeling either. “I’m willing to do what I must.”

His eyes sharpened on her. “I know you are, but I’d rather you enjoyed this. Especially after those kisses.”

She flung out one hand in an annoyed gesture. “Will you stop harping on about kisses?”

“No. Did you like kissing me, Jane?”

Jane wanted her side of the bed to sink through the floor and take her with it. “You know I did.”

“That’s something we can work on.”

He caught her hand. After being in his arms, the heat the contact sparked wasn’t as bewildering as it had been. She rapidly reached a point where she liked Hugh to touch her. She thought back to how overwrought she’d been when the world lurched off its axis.

“I’m not sure about any of this, Hugh,” she admitted.

“I know you’re not.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, setting off another wanton quiver. “It’s asking too much to think you might be, dear Jane.”

She struggled to avoid turning into a puddle of syrup when he called her dear Jane. Turning into a puddle of syrup had been the problem when he’d kissed her. She raised her chin. “I made a promise to you—and to God.”

“Our marital relations aren’t a mountain you must climb.”

That was exactly what they felt like. A high, rocky, barren mountain, riven with dangerous cliffs and chasms. When he’d kissed her, she’d felt like she was trapped in a landslide.

His grip on her hand tightened. His hold wasn’t reassuring at all, although she supposed he meant it to soothe her fears. “Shall we try again, Jane?”

Dread jolted her. Dread, and a shameful wash of anticipation. She’d never expected Hugh to have this power over her. She was—almost—convinced she didn’t like it.

Still, she’d made vows. She hated that she was too spineless to fulfill her marital obligations. But it took an almighty effort to meet that velvety gaze and nod her head. “If you wish,” she forced out from a throat as tight as a drum.

A light glinted in his eyes, a light that did nothing to banish the nerves curdling her stomach. “By God, I do wish.”