A Week to Be Wicked (21 page)

After rebuttoning her shift, she lay down on the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling.

A few minutes passed.

“You’re not sleeping,” she said.

“Neither are you.”

She bit her lip. Something lay heavy on her mind, and she didn’t have anyone else to tell. “He doesn’t know me, either.”

His reply was groggy. “Who doesn’t?”

“Sir Alisdair Kent.” At the mention of his name, she felt the sudden tensing from Colin’s side of the bed. “I mean, he knows of my scientific findings, and he admires my intellect. But he doesn’t know the real me. I’ve conducted all my Society business through written correspondence, and I’ve always signed myself M. R. Highwood. So Sir Alisdair . . . well, he thinks I’m a man.”

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.”

I
t’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
nipples
. He emitted a sound that he feared was not quite manly when she grazed his nipples. All the while, his ignored cock 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?”

She froze. “What?”

He slapped a hand over his eyes. This—
this
—was why he had the rules about virgins. The lewd request had just flowed out of him, in a lascivious drawl.

“I’m drunk, Min.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Forget I said anything.”

“How could I forget you said
that
?” Her hand gripped his cock tight, as if she could wring an answer from its tip. “What a suggestion. Do women really . . .” She swallowed, audibly. “
Really?
”

“Would you like to hear a very bald, very earthy, completely scientific truth?” He struggled up on his elbow, reaching one hand toward her face. He cupped her cheek in his hand, traced her parted lips with his thumb. “You,” he whispered hoarsely, “have the most goddamned erotic mouth I’ve ever seen. These sweet, plump lips drive me wild. It’s impossible to look at you and not . . . not
wonder
, how it would be.”

Her eyes went wide. “You’ve
wondered
.”

He nodded. “Oh yes.”

“Y-you’ve actually spent time—”

“Hours, probably, if you added it up.”

“Thinking about—”

“This.” He slid his thumb between her startled lips, pressing it deep into her hot, wet mouth. “Yes.”

They stared at each other, unmoving. Then, after a prolonged, excruciating hesitation, she closed her lips around his thumb. Her tongue curled beneath it, gently tickling. Stroking. A bolt of sensation shot straight to his cock. He groaned with helpless pleasure.

“God,
yes
. That’s the way.” He slid his thumb out half an inch, then pushed it in again, deeper. Her cheeks hollowed as she lightly suckled. “You are unspeakably clever, Min. And so . . . so damned lovely.”

She moaned a little as he withdrew his thumb from her mouth. Her lips cinched him so tightly, he heard a small popping sound when it finally slipped free.

“Holy God,” he muttered, collapsing to the mattress. “You’ll kill me.”

She regarded his cock, holding it steady in her grip and giving it a bold, assessing look. Just the thought of watching his length disappear into her mouth . . . it was almost enough to bring him off, right then.

But then his damned conscience caught up with him. “Min, you needn’t . . . hell, you really shouldn’t.”

“Why not? You want it, don’t you?”

“With every corpuscle in my body, believe me. But I can’t ask it. And you shouldn’t offer. It would . . . it would make things awkward in the morning.”

She convulsed with laughter. “We can’t have that. Because we’ve been getting along so smoothly as it is.”

With a toss of her head, she flipped that mane of long, dark wavy hair over her shoulder, and then her head—that enticing mouth—began a slow yet steady descent. She was true scientific adventuress, this girl.

Rules.

He had to have some rule against this. And even if he didn’t have a standing rule—any code of conduct that allowed him to slide his cock into a virgin’s mouth but not her cunny? Well, that code probably needed some rethinking.

But then her sweet kiss was upon him. And then he was
in
the hot, slick heaven of her mouth. No more thinking would happen tonight.

“Oh,” he moaned, as her warmth enveloped him. “Oh, Minerva.”

Her lips slid downward, slipping over the swollen crown of his erection and partway down the shaft. Then she suckled lightly, her tongue caressing him in sweet waves. His hips arched off the bed, and he cursed.

She pulled away, leaving his cock glistening, aching, and quite possibly hard enough to crush stone. Colin struggled to master his disappointment. She’d performed her experiment, and now she was satisfied. He would not, could not ask for more.

But rather than abandon him entirely, she began to press little kisses up and down his length. He closed his eyes, reveling in the coy whispers of sensation. It was the sweetest torture he’d ever known.

When she took him in her mouth again, he slid deeper this time. Near halfway inside. Her slow, slippery retreat drove him wild with need. He writhed on the bedclothes, grappling for restraint.

No restraint to be found.

Rutting bass-tard that he was, he reached for her and did what he’d been longing to do for ages. He tangled his hand in all that dark, silky hair and made a tight fist. And then he guided her, teaching her how to please him. Dragging her lush, hot mouth up and down his length, in a deep, steady rhythm.

He was a cad. He was a monster. He was going to burn in the fires of hell.

It would be worth it.

“Yes,” he told her, wincing at the exquisite pleasure. “Min, that’s so good. You’re so good.”

He relaxed his grip on her hair, and she backed off him again, sitting straight.

“You don’t—” He gulped for air. “You don’t have to continue.” As if that made him some kind of generous saint.

She only smiled. First, she removed her spectacles, folded them, and set them aside. Then she readjusted her position, hiking her shift to her knees and straddling his sprawled leg as she bent to once again take him in her mouth.

He groaned. She was such a quick study. This was serious now. Shameless, he watched those plump, ripe lips sliding up down his cock. The tight, wet friction was only part of the pleasure. The rest came from the sweet triumph of being stroked by
her
, pleased by
her
. Most of all, just being
inside
her, in some way. He’d been wanting this so damn badly. Those nights of lying
next
to her, wanting to be inside her. To be part of her.