He grunted at that. "You drive a hard bargain."
"I'm just flexing my muscle," she teased. "But if you don't want to, I understand."
"So now you're backing down?" There was a sly note in his voice that surprised her to hear.
"Well, since you put it that way. . . no." Where was all this playfulness coming from? She didn't know, but she liked it. "Off with your pants."
"Done," he murmured, and he pulled away from her. She heard the rustle of fabric and a soft thump as his sleep pants dropped to the ground. "I'm all yours."
A sudden wave of shyness took over her, and Maylee giggled again.
"You know, Maylee," he said, his voice taking on a clipped tone, "most men don't appreciate a woman laughing when they drop their pants."
"It's not at you," she assured him. "I'm just a little nervous."
She heard him suck in a breath. "You're a virgin?"
"Nope," she said softly. "You make me nervous."
"Until I take my pants off, upon which you burst into laughter."
"I can't see a darn thing," she admitted. "So it's not you, Griff." His nickname felt odd, but pleasant, on her lips.
"We could turn on a light, I suppose, but I'd rather not." He reached for her then. "You know, the blind see with their hands." He found hers in the dark and placed them on his chest. "I think they have the right idea."
She sucked in a breath. Her fingertips brushed along his chest, and she felt the delicate lines of his collarbone. "You want me to explore you?"
"I'd like nothing more," he said, voice husky.
Maylee shivered at that, and she stepped a bit closer to him, only to feel his erect c**k brush against her thighs when she moved closer. Oh. He definitely was naked. Heat scorched her cheeks and she wanted to check him out with her hands to see if he was as long as he seemed to be, but she wasn't ready to do that just yet.
So she let her fingers draw tiny circles on the skin of his shoulders, feeling the muscles there. Then, she slid them lower and felt his biceps, giving a sigh of appreciation when he flexed under her hands. "I thought you were more of a scholar."
"I am." Oh, his voice sounded so close to her ear, and so elegant. She could listen to him talk for hours and hours about nothing in particular.
"You have quite big muscles for a scholar."
He chuckled. "Sometimes the only chance I get to catch up on my reading is in the gym. So I visit it fairly often. I like to be in shape in case one of trips is someplace off the beaten path. In college, Jonathan and I recreated Hiram Bingham's original journey up the Peruvian mountains to Macchu Picchu and it nearly kicked my arse. After that, I decided I needed to be fit."
"Mmm." He definitely kept in shape. She squeezed his arms again, and then moved her hands back to his chest. Her fingers slid lower, and she brushed them over his ni**les, pleased to hear his sharp intake of breath. She wanted to put her mouth on them, to see how he reacted if she took one in her mouth and gave it a little tug with her teeth, but she couldn't bring herself to drag her hands from him. Instead, she raked her nails lightly down his chest, a little breathless moan of pleasure escaping her when she felt him shiver in response.
"I love your hands, Maylee," he told her in that elegant, husky voice that was knotting up her insides. "I was thinking of ridiculous lines when I came back here, to try and figure out how to get you to put them on me. I thought about burning myself with a curling iron like Alex, except I didn't have one. And then I thought about simply telling you that I had a burning ache in my pants, but then I thought that sounded like an infection."
She giggled again. "You really aren't very good with people."
"I'm really not." He sounded rueful.
"All that just so I'd put my hands on you?"
"I would do anything and everything so you'd put your hands on me," he admitted.
Oh. Such sweetly romantic words. Maylee moved in and put her hands around the back of his neck, drawing his mouth toward her own. She wanted to kiss him so badly, to make sure that what they'd shared the other day wasn't simply a figment of her imagination.
His mouth descended on hers hungrily. She was taken aback by the intensity of his kiss, but only momentarily. Being devoured by this man, she decided, was a wonderful thing. And as his tongue slicked into her mouth and danced with her own, she gave herself over completely to the long, passionate kiss that seemed to arouse every last inch of her body.
Eventually, his mouth pulled away from hers, leaving her breathless and clawing at his shoulders. "Oh, lordamercy. You don't kiss like a scholar."