Piers didn’t trust his ears to have told him the truth, but his eyes confirmed it. She’d said yes. Hallelujah, there is a god. But wait-did Judith really want what he did, or did she want their normal, five-minute, impersonal bedding?

He’d been a damned brute on their wedding night, impatient to the point of hurting her far more than was necessary, and she hadn’t been able to look at him afterward. It had been nearly a week before she’d met his eyes again. Since then, Piers had taken great pains to cause her no more pain than necessary with his lustful urges, bedding her only often enough to ensure an heir, despite the long nights spent alone with only his own hand to sate his needs.

Judith was too far too precious for him to willfully harm her again.

But her fractured breathing right now, her heavy lids and open lips-if they were signs of desire and not shock, he might expire on the spot from amazement. Her tiny, pink tongue darted out to wet her lips and it was all Piers could do to remain on his feet.

Everything about her was so small, so delicate, so perfectly delectable it was utter torture for him to touch her and not take all that he wanted.

Perhaps tonight he would not have to stop himself. Even if it could only be for a moment, he reveled in the thought of sinking into her perfect, tight body again and again, of enjoying her until he was spent, of hearing her cries of ecstasy and not of pain or mortification. Would she allow him?