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“Yes, yes, I understand.” She raised her head, and he could see the tears in her eyes. As she blinked, drops rolled down her cheeks.

“Sweet Emily,” he said, husky voiced. “Don’t cry over me. I’m not worth it.”

“Yes, you are,” she said fiercely and kissed him.

He froze at the touch of her lips against his. But the explosion of pleasure her touch provoked made him raise his hands to her face and move his lips over hers, testing, nibbling, experimenting. Her lips parted on a gasp as she responded to his touch, to his tentative kisses. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of her mouth moving against his. Without conscious thought, his tongue licked her lower lip and then ventured more boldly beyond her lips, and the feeling that provoked in his body made him groan involuntarily.

The effect on her was equally electric. Her whole body moved closer, molding itself to his, one leg straddling his thigh as her lips widened, and she used her tongue in imitation of his to explore his mouth, too. And the sounds in her throat as she did this made his already inflamed body harden further.

This was nothing like the sloppy kisses he recalled with such horror from his teenage years. This was exquisite. Why, oh why, have I never tried this before? Because I have been waiting for her. I’ve been waiting to kiss Emily, my wife. The pleasure of it took his breath away.

He deepened the kiss, giving more, taking more. His heart thudded so hard the pulse beat in his ears threatened to deafen him.

She moved her body over his in an effort to get closer and nudged at his cock that was straining against his belly with her hip. The touch sent a shudder of hard desire through him. His cock twitched and leaked on his belly beneath the cloth of his shirt and robe, triggering memories of his humiliation. Of the hot rush of his seed exploding all over Marah’s rucked up petticoats and bared lower belly, and her subsequent disgust and contempt.

He broke the kiss and a cold shiver of self-loathing passed through him as he caught his breath, his cock withering a bit as if he’d doused himself in cold water.

“What’s wrong?” asked Emily, staring up at him.

“I can’t,” he said brokenly.

“Can’t what?” She sat up and the removal of her warmth made him shiver. “Deo?” Her expression of bewildered hurt cut through the fog of his past terror.

This dear, sweet, innocent woman wanted him. And here he was behaving like the humiliated adolescent boy he had always felt like on the inside. But he was no longer fifteen. He was a thirty-two-year-old man who was incapable of pleasuring his own wife! For a moment his self-contempt threatened everything. What would my friends think of me if they knew?

He shuddered and then some stubborn pride rose to the surface. He was tired of being kept a prisoner by ghosts from the past. He had an opportunity here and if he passed it up, he would, he suspected, lose the greatest treasure of his life. But he was miserably aware of his own inadequacy.

“Deo?” she prompted him again, her hand coming up tentatively to stroke his cheek. He caught her hand and kissed the palm. He prided himself on his self-control, yet he realized with a sudden flash of insight, that he had shown little real control at all, only able to keep his baser impulses in check by a rigid set of external controls. It is time to do better.

“Emily,” he whispered. Pulling her gently back into his arms, he cupped her face and kissed her, a dozen small kisses, gradually deepening into full open-mouthed ones, that had them lost in each other for minutes at a time.

His lips strayed to her neck and her ear and along her jaw and back to her mouth, for more deep, drugging kisses. It feels so good. Nothing has ever felt so good before. Her neck was delicious, her skin so soft, the little noises she made so sweet. He found her mouth again, unable to stay away from it. More kisses, more deep, slow kisses. Minutes passed in just kissing. Kissing. Kissing. Kissing. His senses were completely swamped in the shared delight. He had never known it was possible to feel this close to another human being.

She moved her body against his restlessly and he let her, his hands sliding over her, feeling her warmth through the thin fabric of her gown. Over her back, glancingly along the side of her breasts, up to her shoulders, down to her slender waist. Divine, adorable Emily. Venturing down from her waist to hold, squeeze, and press her buttock with his palm, pressing her against his thigh where she squirmed with increasing urgency, her breath coming in little pants, those little noises becoming more imperative.

More kisses, lips, tongues, tasting, biting, rubbing.

Her hands on his chest, shoulders, face, in his hair. Touching, stroking, grabbing.

He had not anticipated this when he placed that advertisement. Emily was the perfect wife he never knew he needed. So deliciously perfect she made him dizzy with wanting her. All so new and enticing and terrifying. My perfect little wife . . .

But is she? My wife? His conscience poked him. They shouldn’t be indulging in this kind of intimacy, no matter how delightful it was, when their status was unknown. A cold shiver sluiced down his skin. This is wrong if we aren’t married. Unfair to her.

Breaking the kiss, breathing hard, he cupped her face gently, “Em, we shouldn’t, not while we don’t know if you’re legally my wife.”

“Oh!” She flushed. “I—I suppose you’re right.” Her hand moved on his chest, the fingers gently teasing the bare skin revealed at the shirt’s opening. He swallowed a groan at the tingle this provoked in his groin. His cock was hard and hot beneath his robe and shirt, and he was mortally afraid she would discover it at any moment and get the fright of her life.

He picked up her hand and kissed the fingers. “We should stop.”

Her lips were swollen, her chin reddened from the scrape of his whiskers, her eyes wide and dark. For the first time, he felt a visceral rush of desire just from the way a woman looked at him. He had never let himself feel that before, not so strongly, at any rate. Whenever he had looked at a beautiful woman, he had perceived her through a veil of the unattainable and put a barrier up mentally. Beautiful women weren’t for him. But this one was, she was here in his bed. She is my wife . . . I hope . . .

Everything in him rebelled at the notion of stopping something that felt so damned good, but he must for her sake. She was such an innocent, so sweet and affectionate. She overwhelmed him with emotions he didn’t know how to deal with. He needed to put some space between them, even as part of him clamored to pull her back into his arms and never let her go. He had never felt so conflicted and confused in his life.

Which told him more clearly than anything else that this needed to stop.

He pushed her very gently away. “You need to sleep,” he said firmly.

She blinked at him, and he caught the flash of hurt in her eyes, the bewildered look she had given him earlier.

“Just until we know our status, Em. It’s the right thing to do.”

She nodded slowly and withdrew to her side of the bed. He watched her turn her back on him and curl into a huddle beneath the sheets.

He got out of bed and padded into the dressing room, where he shut the door and leaned against it, his legs shaking, and his heart thudding hard in his chest. He felt slightly sick. And his groin ached abominably.

He found the oil and took himself in hand and stroked firmly and rapidly. It didn’t take long as he was so overwrought. Stifling his groan of release, he leaned against the door, his knees trembling and fought to get his breath back. Then he cleaned up rapidly and returned to the bedroom. Em had her eyes closed and didn’t move or speak as he climbed back into bed and rolled onto his side away from her.