Several moments passed.
“He’s in for a great surprise.”
She giggled up at the ceiling. “Indeed he is.” Whether it would be a pleasant or unpleasant surprise, she was afraid to guess.
“But that’s odd, “ he said. “There was genuine affection in that letter.”
“Mere friendly interest, I’m sure.”
“I’m not so convinced. Perhaps he’s in love with you.”
Her heart gave a queer flutter. Not at the idea, but at the sound of that word from his lips: love.
“How could that be?” She rolled onto her side, bending her elbow and propping her head with her hand. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Sir Alisdair thinks I’m a man.”
“Oh, I heard you.” Devilish eyes slid to meet hers. “Perhaps he thinks you’re a man, and he’s in love with you. Poor fellow has some heartbreak ahead of him, if so.”
She frowned, unsure of his implications.
He chuckled low. “Don’t listen to me, pet. My bollocks are aching, and my pride is smarting. I’m foxed, and I’m feeling very wicked tonight. If you know what’s best for you, you’ll ignore me and go to sleep.”
“Why are your bollocks aching?” She sat up. “Were you injured somehow? Was it the highwayman?”
With a groan, he threw his wrist over his eyes. “My dear girl, you might be a brilliant geologist, but your grasp of biology is dim indeed.”
She dropped her gaze to the front of his breeches. They were impressively tented.
“Go to sleep, M.”
“No, I don’t think I will. Not yet.” With sudden determination, she plucked at the buttons of his falls. She had one side completely unfastened before he managed to struggle up on his elbows.
“What are you doing?”
“Indulging my curiosity.” She snaked her hand under the fabric, and he flinched. A heady surge of power rushed through her. The wine she’d drunk downstairs was doing its work, melting away her inhibitions. She wanted to know and see and touch it—this most honest, real part of him.
This doesn’t lie.
She said, “I did as you asked and played your mistress downstairs, and I’ve earned this much. I want to see and touch it properly. I never had the chance, before.”
“Mother of—”
“Do be calm. What was it you told me? Think of it as an . . . an excavation.” Smiling, she curled her fingers around his hard, hot length. “It’s in the name of science.”
It’s in the name of science.
Hah. That was a first-rate line, that was. Ranked right up there with, “You could save my life tonight,” and “Darling, teach me what it means to love.” Colin made a mental note to remember that one for the future.
Then her hand closed around his swollen cock, and his mental slate blanked.
“Good Lord,” he heard himself mutter. This was dangerous. He was half drunk and scarcely in control of himself as it was.
Rules, he reminded himself. He had rules.
But curiously, none of them covered virginal caressing in the name of science. Leave it to Minerva Highwood to transform bedsport into a completely new endeavor.
She held him gently for a moment, rubbing her thumb up and down the underside of his cock. The slight, delicious friction did more to tease than satisfy. Then she released her grip and began tugging down his breeches and smallclothes, wrestling them over his hips.
“They’re in the way,” she explained, when he sent her a scandalized look.
He let his head fall back on the pillow, resigned. He had no idea how to arrest this scientific exploration, and truthfully—no desire to do so anyway. He helped her by lifting his hips and kicking out of his breeches, once she had the fabric bunched around his knees.
“Oh, why stop there,” he muttered, gathering his shirt in both hands and drawing it over his head before flopping back onto the mattress. “There. Now you have your life model. Explore at will.”
And she did. She explored his body—every inch of it—at a leisurely pace that made him fair crazed with desire. He began to regret offering himself as a subject of experimentation. When she dragged a light touch down the center of his chest, a damned snail could have raced her fingertip.
Too exhausted and intoxicated to do otherwise, Colin simply lay there and endured. Suffered her slow, sweet exploration of his arms, chest, abdomen—God, his ni**les. He emitted a sound that he feared was not quite manly when she grazed his ni**les. All the while, his ignored c**k leaped and strained for her attention, arcing up to his navel in what he assumed must be quite livid shades of plum and dusky red.
“If you mean to torture me,” he gritted out, “you’re doing an excellent job of it.”
“Am I?” She skipped her fingers over his collarbone. She was deliberately teasing him now, the minx.
With a curse, he grabbed her hand and dragged her touch where they both wanted it. The relief was immediate, intense. And nowhere near enough.
“Goodness.” She spoke the word in an awed, highly gratifying tone that made him wonder why he didn’t debauch virgins more often. “It’s so very . . . stiff.”
“You make it that way.” Unable to resist, he curled his hand over hers and silently urged her to grip tighter, showing her how to stroke. She obliged him for a few tantalizing pulls.
“What do you call it?” she asked. “I know there are different names.”
“Names? Like Peter, Belvedere, Sir Charles Grandison?” His breath was shaky. “It’s just my cock, pet.”
She stroked down to the root and grasped the base tight. “Your cock.”
Oh, holy God. She drove him wild when she talked that way.
“I quite like your cock. Smooth as talc on the outside.” She slid her hand up again. “But like granite beneath.”
He laughed. A strained, ha, ha, ha, I may die of this laugh. “Well. We both know how you love rocks.”
“I do love rocks, as a matter of fact.” A coquettish smile crept into her voice. “I find them utterly fascinating. I’m forever taking them in hand. Exploring their every ridge and contour.” She skimmed a petal-soft fingertip over the head of his cock, tracing the flared ridge of the crown and the dewy slit at the tip. Then her touch teased down his length, all the way to the root. “Some of them have very interesting veins.”
“I don’t suppose you ever—in the name of science, of course—put these utterly fascinating objects in your mouth?”