She had never imagined anything so shocking. It felt-it felt hot and urgent and indescribable. Nev’s cinnamon hair brushed the inside of her thighs and his tongue teased her there and it was faster and hotter than anything she had ever felt. Then Nev jerked her forward with his hands and thrust his tongue inside her.

Penelope braced herself on the bed and let her head fall back. Nothing existed but white-hot pleasure. She moaned and pleaded and said words she had barely been aware she knew. And then, faster than she had thought possible, she was racked with waves of pleasure so intense they were almost painful.

For a minute afterward, she simply sat there with her eyes closed, feeling Nev’s grip on her loosen. She did not quite want to look at him. What had happened was too intense-it seemed wrong to look and speak as if everything were ordinary. She was afraid he would look unchanged. But finally she opened her eyes and looked down.

Nev met her gaze for a long moment; she did not know how to read his expression, but the tension of earlier was eased. Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head against her thigh, his thumbs tracing small circles on her skin. “Penelope,” he murmured.

Tears pricked Penelope’s eyes. She put a hand on his head, running her fingers through his hair. He tilted his head against her palm like a tired puppy. “I love your hair,” she said softly.

He smiled with his eyes closed, his same familiar small pleased smile.

“Let me-you didn’t take your pleasure.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He meant to be considerate, but it stung her. He had turned the world over for her, and he did not want her to give him anything in return. He had possessed her-branded her as his with his mouth and his hands. All he had to do was touch her, and tiny fires sprang up under his fingers. She wanted to do that for him. She wanted to render him incapable of chivalrous consideration. “It matters to me. Teach me to do something new for you. Please. There must be something-something like what you just did for me.”

“That-” He sounded as if he were having difficulty speaking. “That isn’t something you ask a lady to do.”

That would have stopped her, once; but now she rebelled. “I’m not a lady.” She felt the familiar sting of it-but she felt something else too. She wasn’t a lady; she could not control her base urges when Nev touched her, she could not keep herself from moaning and writhing and spreading her legs. But Nev liked her pleasure, and there was something he wanted that he could not have asked a lady for.

“Penelope-”

“I’m not. Nev-please, when it comes out that Miss Wray is here, everyone will know-everyone will say that I-that you-that I can’t satisfy you. I don’t want it to be true, I want-”

“Penelope, please, don’t ever do anything for me because you think you have to. I-” He reached up and cupped her breast. “You satisfy me,” he said intently.

She smiled, but she persisted. “Would it feel as good if I did it for you? Used my-my mouth-?”

He swallowed. Penelope saw sudden heat in his eyes before he closed them, trying to hide it from her. He nodded, once.

“Then let me-please-”

He pressed his lips together and nodded again. “Penelope-” His voice was thick. “Promise me that if you find it distasteful at all, you won’t do it again.”

“I promise.”

Nev stood. Penelope could see his masculinity straining against his breeches. “Kneel down.”

Nev watched Penelope get up off the bed and kneel in front of him, her expression triumphant but nervous. This was a bad idea, too intense, too much to ask, too much-but there was nothing to be done about it, because Penelope on her knees in front of him was the most irresistibly erotic thing he had ever seen. Her hair was still in its neat coil, and the bright sun that came through the gap in the curtains made a stripe across her stomach and thighs, and Penelope, proper Penelope, was going to suck him in the middle of the afternoon. Nev could no more have stopped this than he could have stopped an avalanche.

Amy, pale and wasted, flashed through his mind. Guilt smote him, that he was teaching his wife new sexual tricks while Amy might be dying a mile off. And yet the thought seemed far away. It could not begin to drown his utter focus on Penelope’s kneeling form. When had familiar, comfortable desire become this furious hunger?

He wondered if he should have undressed to make this easier for her. That didn’t matter either; he couldn’t wait. “Unbutton my breeches. Er, please.” She gave him an amused glance and reached for the flap of his breeches, and with every slide of button through buttonhole Nev’s arousal built. He watched her small, capable hands as she unbuttoned his breeches and his drawers as if she had done it a hundred times, although she never had-always before they had been in their nightclothes, with the exception of that first time in the folly, and then he had dealt with his clothing himself. Then, her hand casually resting at the base of his cock, she looked up at him for further guidance. She looked nervous, but Nev thought she was a little eager too.

He licked his lips. “Take the tip into your mouth.” It came out as a hoarse whisper. She obeyed him. Her hot, wet mouth that he had kissed so many times closed around him, and he almost came just from that. She didn’t move, her tongue pressed patiently against the underside of his cock, and finally the thought pierced Nev’s pleasure-shrouded mind that she was waiting for further instructions. He cleared his throat. “Just-just take it further in and then out, and keep your mouth tight around it.” He wasn’t going to last long enough for her to need more instructions than that.

Penelope gripped him tighter with her hand, took him in deep-and promptly pulled off, gagging.

He winced. “Sorry, I should have said-”

“I suppose it will take practice.” She gave him an impish grin, and then her mouth closed back around him. Nev grabbed the bedpost to keep his knees from buckling.

This time she didn’t try to take in more than a few inches; she moved slowly and carefully up and down him, her mouth and hand hot and close. After a few passes like that, she increased her tempo slightly. Nev watched her in fascination, still barely able to believe this was happening. Soon she tried swirling her tongue, awkwardly; he moaned, and he didn’t know how but he could feel her attention sharpen. He could feel her making mental notes on his reactions. It will take practice. The idea of her practicing this with the same thoroughness and devotion she had given to ledgers and the piano pushed him to the edge.

“Penelope!” He had meant it as a warning, but it sounded instead like a plea, or a declaration, and by the time he realized she wasn’t pulling off he could no longer form words. He gripped the bedpost hard enough to hurt and spent himself in Penelope’s mouth. Pleasure rolled over him, so intense he thought he might black out. She stopped moving, but she didn’t draw back. Instead, she struggled to swallow. Not until his muscles relaxed did she pull off, coughing a little, some of his seed dripping down her chin.

Nev had never, not once, seen Penelope let anything drip down her chin. If she ate a peach she cut it up first. “Get up here.”

She stood, weaving a little. He kissed her gently, amazed by the taste of himself on her tongue, and then pulled out a handkerchief and began cleaning her mouth and chin.

She flushed. “I can do it.”

“I know. Let me.” She sighed and tilted up her face. He felt a flash of something-Penelope seemed haloed for an instant in perfect beauty, and he felt a sharp, unsettling pang as if someone had plucked one of his heartstrings, hard, and found it out of tune. It wasn’t like affection or lust-those he knew; it was something entirely unfamiliar.

“Is something wrong?”