This time, he sank into her depths in one solid thrust. This time, he could feel the difference in her body. The little shuddering waves that still traveled through her clutched at his cock. She was slick from want.

He pressed her hand back into place. “Don’t stop,” he said hoarsely. “Keep doing that.”

Her hips rose to his. Her hand continued its motion, an added stimulation at the base of his cock. He could feel her pleasure all around him, first ebbing, and then gathering again as he took her. And as if the dam had been broken to bits with her first orgasm, this time she came quickly—in scarcely a minute, her release a scalding hot wash of pure lust that had her clamping down on him.

He couldn’t have enough of her. He pounded into her again and again, each thrust better than the last, each one building, building to a crescendo that washed over him in fierce waves. It was almost painful, his second release. It was messy and slippery and wrong, and it felt so, so damned right.

He’d had no intention of taking his virgin wife twice in one night—especially not after that disastrous first time. He’d lost all control the moment he’d watch her touch herself between the legs. There had been something about that, something that had touched a deep and primal urge inside him. He’d stopped thinking altogether.

The second time had been everything he’d hoped for and more.

Afterward, he kissed her and she kissed him back. She was all softness around him, melting into him. This was what he’d wanted—this joining.

“Robert,” she said eventually, “I had rather assumed that…being what you were, that you were fairly experienced. Are you?”

“It depends what you mean by experience,” he said carefully.

She didn’t say anything.

“By the time I was old enough to get experience, I had some notion what my father was like. I didn’t want to be like him. So I had to be certain—absolutely certain—that I wasn’t forcing anyone into anything.” He felt his face burn. “And then I also had to be sure that I wasn’t like my father, led only by my cock. Lust makes me stupid. I had to be sure it wouldn’t make me selfish, too.”

Still she didn’t say anything.

“There were a few house parties where…matters were quite close, and would have come to the point, had I allowed things to run their natural course. But I always came up with a reason not to. She was interested in my fortune, not myself. She thought she might get an offer of marriage out of it. It never seemed honest, to take a woman who wanted a duke, when I was just me.”

He looked up at the ceiling, felt her hand on his body, and shrugged.

“I think,” he said carefully, “that given the amount of use I put my left hand to, I really shouldn’t qualify as a virgin. I’ve had scores of sexual experiences. Just…not with other people. I wasn’t saving myself for marriage.”

Just for you.

He didn’t say it. It seemed too raw, too close to the heat of intercourse to share.

Sex with Minnie wasn’t what he had imagined intercourse would be like in his romantic daydreams. That had been too much of flowers and moonbeams, cold and perfect and clean.

This…this was warm and messy, and he wanted it again and again and again with a ferocity that he couldn’t quite comprehend.

“Did we do it right that time?”

She snuggled against him. “Oh, yes,” she said dreamily. “Very right.”

He made a note: If she yawned in his arms afterward, he’d done a good job. A nice goal to have, wearing out his wife. Her eyelids drooped, and he felt a fierce sense of pride wash over him.

He’d told her that he had no expectation of love.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in love. The thought of love was like water in the desert. Now there was a stupid cliché, one that made him think of a man in ragged clothing staggering through the Sahara, searching for an oasis among the sand dunes.

But the Antarctic was a desert, too—a cold desert, one made dry because water there turned to ice the instant it hit the air.

So he believed in love. He’d always believed in love. He’d been surrounded by water all his life; it had simply been frozen solid. He’d loved as hard as he dared and watched it freeze before his face. It was no surprise now when he checked his feelings and discovered that he loved her. The surprise was that this time, when he dared to take a sip, he found water instead of ice.

He could have wept.

“That,” he said to Minnie, “was really…honestly…the most awe-inspiring event that I have ever taken part in. And I want to do it again.”

“Tomorrow,” she murmured. “We have nine more days, after all.”

Chapter Twenty-two

BEFORE THE SUN FOUND THE HORIZON, Minnie woke to feel her husband’s lips against her neck, his arms around her. She’d slept the sleep of sated exhaustion; vaguely, she was aware that she was still tired. But it didn’t matter. If she was tired, it was a good sort of tired, the kind that took delight in the feel of his body against hers, his hands running down her ribs with possessive intent. It felt more like a dream than a waking. She was warm and his touch was sweet.

If last night had been a discovery, this morning was about exploration—about fitting her hands into the curve of his back, about running her hands down his chest and then up again, noting the sensitive spots. The heady, insistent eagerness of the wedding night had been replaced with a sense of quiet wonder.

She was ready by the time he slid inside her. This morning, his thrusts were a gentle rocking, a full-body kiss, one that coaxed her orgasm from her in stages, rather than wresting it from her by force.

When he’d finished, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Good morning.”

The sky was beginning to turn pink. She couldn’t have had a full night’s sleep, but she didn’t want to drift back into dreams. She wanted to capture this moment and stretch it forever.

“Good morning.”

He hadn’t let go of her.

“You know,” he said, “I’m absolutely ravenous. If I’m remembering right from my last trip, there’s a little bakery down the street that should have something out even now.”

By the time they’d dressed, the light of morning had flooded the streets below. The hotel they were in—some fancy affair; on the previous night, the name had been the last thing on her mind—let out onto a wide avenue. A park, ringed by a metal fence, stood on one side. Stone buildings with cunning façades marched down the other. Robert led her down a side street past the park. His little bakery was, in fact, a café that overlooked the River Seine. Not just the Seine; their hotel was in the heart of the city, steps from the Île de la Cité.