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He was big everywhere.

Her eyes went back to the muscles in his thighs, and she discovered that she had been correct about her affinity for a farmer’s body. “I meant to . . .” she said with a gulp and stopped.

“What?”

“I thought of marrying a farmer,” Torie murmured, her eyes eating up the way Dominic’s muscles bulged as he shifted his weight. His limbs weren’t furry, but they were roughened with hair. Her prickling skin informed her that she would enjoy the sensation of his legs against hers.

“A farmer?” He sounded bemused.

“Who would have legs like yours,” she managed. Dom had been honest with her, so: “I made up my mind about the farmer back when you were betrothed to my sister, though I never looked at you with desire then, I swear it!”

The dimples came back. He wrapped a hand around her cheek and bent to kiss her. Torie put her hands on his shoulders, loving the way he twitched under her fingers as if he were excited by that simple touch.

“May I lie beside you?” he murmured against her lips. “You probably have questions. I would be the first to say that my sketch was insufficient. The legs were just sticks, after all.”

After he threw that big powerful body down onto the sheet, arms crossed behind his head, Torie couldn’t think of a single question. Not when she could caress him until a rough groan escaped his lips, and then rub more to see whether she could produce that sound again.

Which she could.

His fingers clenched in the sheet, and he started talking, muddled, broken half sentences coming without forethought from his throat. Even though, she dimly realized, she would have said that every word Dom spoke came with forethought.

He walked out of rooms to protect himself from spontaneity.

Not now. Not here.

He raggedly told her exactly what her touch was doing to him, especially once she slid lower in the bed and draped one of her legs over his, her fingers dancing down his ridged belly.

She hesitated until he wrapped his hand around his tool, showing her how to slide along its length with a twist. When she imitated him, he wrapped his hand over hers and pulled in a way that made him throw back his head with a groan.

It gave her a deep stab of satisfaction that the man who prided himself on keeping a remote, somber expression couldn’t do so now. Every time her hand moved, he grimaced, eyes gleaming under half-closed lids, gripped by desire that no one could mistake, even someone with as little experience as she.

That is, no experience at all.

“I like your clothespin,” she murmured.

He wasn’t paying attention, lost in a sensual fog. So she tightened her hand and edged closer, examining the ridges that marked his stomach. When she licked them, he shuddered and wrapped one of his hands around the other wrist over his head, as if he were only barely able to restrain himself from touching her.

Torie felt an errant spark of laughter.

This was serious. This was marital consummation, marital intimacy, and all that. But the idea that Viscount Kelbourne had to physically restrain himself in order not to leap on her? That was funny.

It was also funny to watch his stomach muscles jump when she ran her tongue across them, especially when she edged farther down. A smile was fluttering in her heart, curling her mouth. It was an important moment, but it was also . . . funny.

Fun.

Her tongue touched the mushroom head of his tool. He gasped and arched his back, a silent plea, except that Viscount Kelbourne would never lower himself to plead.

She hummed, deep in her throat, and then licked him again.

A sound broke from his throat.

Perhaps she could make him beg.

Torie was rarely confident. But doing this? Making love to Dom? She knew what she was doing, without written instructions, without experience.

Just by touch and feel.

She dipped her head and took the fat head of his clothespin into her mouth. Didn’t he mention this at some point? Or perhaps not. Perhaps he only talked about licking her. But sauce for the goose, et cetera.