“I can’t claim to be a poet,” Damien says, though I think the poem is charming, and all the more wonderful because Damien wrote it.

He hooks his finger under my chin and tilts my head up so that there is no way I can hide my tear-filled eyes. “Three clues. Six days. I think you’ll make it.”

My heart has swollen so much it seems to fill my chest, cutting off my ability to breathe. “You didn’t forget.”

The softness I see in his eyes just about slays me. “Oh, baby. I could sooner forget my own name than our first Valentine’s Day.”

“I love you.” The words seem thin compared to the emotion that pours through me.

“And I you. But, Nikki,” he adds, and now his voice takes on a harder edge, belied only by the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You doubted me. I think that deserves a punishment.”

I cock my head, wary, then squeal when he smacks my bottom. I laugh and take off toward the house at a run.

But not too fast. After all, I’m hoping that Damien will catch me.

Chapter 2

Since Damien is in exceptional shape—and since I’m not exactly trying hard to get away—he catches me easily enough. He tugs me to a stop, then scoops me into his arms. I kick and squirm a little just for form, but there’s no denying that I am a very willing captive.

I keep my arms hooked around his neck as he carries me up the path and then surprises me by veering off onto the newly constructed tennis court.

There is a plush lounge chair on the sidelines, which I have recently realized he put there so that I would have a place to sit and watch him practice. That’s not all it’s good for, though, especially as it is as wide as a twin bed and at least as comfortable.

“Damien,” I protest as he pulls my sweater over my head. “It’s broad daylight.” I don’t add that there is still a chill in the air. The temperature may be in the sixties, but right at this moment my skin is so heated that I could be naked in Antarctica and not even notice.

“So it is.” He doesn’t even slow down, however. Instead he reaches for the button on my pants. He unfastens it, then eases the zipper down. He tugs the capris down over my hips, then moves lower until he reaches my feet, still bare from our walk on the beach.

He brushes a finger over the arch of my foot, making me squirm. Then he pulls the pants fully off, leaving me in only a bra and my very tiny panties.

Damien’s eyes skim over me, the heat in his gaze affecting me as potently as if his hands were skimming over me. I feel my body go soft and wet, and when his focus turns to my crotch, I moan softly in anticipation of his touch.

Slowly, he peels me out of my underthings until I am naked on the lounge chair and burning under Damien’s gaze.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, and I feel the warm current of a blush as it creeps up my skin.

Slowly, he traces his fingers over my body. Up my shin, over my thigh, then along the soft skin of my inner thigh. He moves with casual ease over the scars that once embarrassed me, but that I rarely think about now with Damien. And then his hands are traveling up, over my belly, up my rib cage. He slows at my breasts, using the tip of his finger to stroke and tease before lightly pinching my nipple and sending a shock of pleasure through me that is so sweetly profound it makes me arch up, but whether that is because the sensation is too intense to endure or because I am trying to make it last even longer, I do not know.

“Stand up,” he finally says. “I want to see you.”

I do, standing naked on the court at the foot of the chaise, my body soft and ready. My breasts are tight, my nipples like pinpoints of need. And my clit is so sensitive that even the slight breeze is driving me a little mad. I am wet—so wet—and my sex throbs with demand, my arousal growing with each beat of my heart.

“This isn’t fair,” I say, though I’m not entirely sure how I have managed to form words. “I’m naked, and you’re not.”

“I’d hate for you to think I’m inequitable, Mrs. Stark.”

I watch, mesmerized, as he eases out of his clothes. He is exceptional when he is fully clothed. Naked and erect, he is like a god, wild and virile and powerful.

He lies on the chaise, then crooks a finger to call me. I don’t hesitate, and I ease over him, my knees on either side of his hips so that his erection strokes me, making me tremble. Making me even more wet.

Since I am pretty much certain that I will die if I don’t have him inside me right this instant, I take his cock in my hand—intending to stroke and position him against my sex—but I am foiled by the shake of his head and the crisp way that he says a single word. “No.”

“I—what?”

He makes a spinning motion. “Turn around and come here. I want to taste you.”

I hesitate, not sure why I feel suddenly awkward. It’s not like Damien’s never gone down on me. As far as I’m concerned, his tongue is magical.

But to straddle his mouth, and backward …

The thought is both arousing and a bit disconcerting.

“Nikki.” He says my name in the kind of voice that brooks no argument, and I comply, both because he has ordered me to, and because I want it, this new intimacy. With Damien, there is nowhere he can take me that I won’t go, and so help me I want to go everywhere with him.

His hands cup my rear, and I understand the benefit of this position the moment his tongue strokes me, soft and teasing. Because although Damien is holding me, I have more control. I can shift and move, and make the pleasure build fast or slow.

More than that, I can see him. His long, muscular thighs. That gorgeous chest with just the slightest hint of hair. Those rock-hard abs that my fingers know so well.

And the beautiful cock, so hard now that I think it must be painful. And what kind of a wife would I be if I didn’t give my husband just a little relief?

Feeling both aroused and mischievous, I lean forward at the waist, which has the added benefit of moving my hips slightly even as Damien’s tongue thrusts inside me. I swallow a moan as my body tightens around him. Christ, yes, I want his cock. If not inside me, then in my mouth. I want to feel him get harder. I want to taste his arousal. I want to make Damien feel as wild and crazed as he is making me feel.

And so slowly, I lick the crown, then smile in satisfaction as he grows even harder. As he groans against my cunt before teasing me more, his tongue working magic on my clit.

I take him in, almost coming merely from the taste of him, all heat and male, arousal and spice.