Soulless(90)

Miss Tarabotti sighed in long-suffering style.

He returned to nibbling and then nipping and kissing softly up and down the entire column of her throat. This was causing most distractingly invigorating frissons of sensation up and down her sides, over her ribs, and toward her nether regions. It was almost uncomfortable, as though her skin itched from underneath.

Also, due to his unclothed state. Alexia was learning ever more about the veracity of some of those sketches. Still, her father's books had not entirely done the situation justice. Lord Maccon slid one hand up into her hair.

So much for tying it back, thought Alexia as he loosed it from her hard-won ribbon. The earl tugged at the black tresses, pulling her head back so as to more fully expose her neck to his lips and teeth.

Miss Tarabotti decided that there was something excruciatingly erotic about being fully dressed with a large naked man pressed against her from breast to foot.

Since she had not been able to see for herself exactly what the earl's frontal area looked like, Alexia decided to try the next best thing and began to work her hand around to touch. She was not entirely sure this was the kind of action a young lady undertook in such situations, but then again, most young ladies did not get themselves into them to start with. In for a penny, in for a pound, she decided. Miss Tarabotti always was one to seize the moment. So she seized.

Lord Maccon, and the certain portion of his anatomy now firmly in her grasp, jerked violently.

Miss Tarabotti let go. “Oops,” she said. “Should I not have?” She trailed off, humiliated.

He hastened to reassure her. “Oh no, you most certainly should. It was simply unexpected.” He pressed up against her receptively.

Embarrassed but more curious than anything else, purely scientifically, mind you, Alexia continued her explorations, a little more tenderly this time. His skin in that area was very soft, and there was hair nested at the base. He produced the most delicious noises under her tentative touch. She became increasingly intrigued but was also getting more and more concerned with the logistics of any further proceedings.

“Um, Lord Maccon?” she said finally in a cautious whisper.

The earl laughed. “No choice at this point, Alexia; you simply must call me Conall.”

She swallowed. He could feel the movement under his lips.

“Conall, aren't we getting a tad carried away given the circumstances?”

The earl pulled her head back so he could look her directly in the eyes. “What are you blathering on about now, you impossible female?” His tawny eyes were glazed with passion, and he was breathing hard. Alexia was shocked to discover her own breathing was far from relaxed.

She scrunched up her forehead, trying to find the right words. “Well, should we not be abed for this kind of sport? Plus, they are scheduled to return at any moment.”

“They? Who?” He was clearly falling behind the conversation.

“The scientists.”

Lord Maccon gave a strangled laugh. “Aye, yes. And we wouldn't want them to learn too much about interspecies relations, now, would we?” He reached down with a free hand and pulled hers away from its questing.

Miss Tarabotti was faintly disappointed. Until he raised it to his lips and kissed it. “I do not mean to rush into these things. Alexia. You are inexplicably tempting.”

She nodded, bumping his head slightly. “The feeling is mutual, my lord. Not to mention unexpected.”

He seemed to take that as encouragement and rolled so that she was beneath him, and he loomed above her. He was now lying between her legs, component parts flush against hers.

Alexia squeaked at the sudden shift in positions. She was not certain whether she should be grateful or upset that women's fashion demanded so many copious layers of fabric, as this was now all that prevented more intimate contact and, she was pretty certain, sexual congress.

“Lord Maccon...,” she said in her best, most severe, spinster voice.

“Conall,” he interrupted. He leaned back, and his hands began journeying over her chest.

“Conall! Now is not the time!”

He ignored her and asked, “How do I undo this blasted dress?”

Alexia's ivory taffeta gown was held together by a row of tiny mother-of-pearl buttons up the length of its back. Although she did not answer him, the earl eventually discovered this fact and began undoing them with a rapidity that bespoke consummate skill in the art of undoing ladies' clothing. Miss Tarabotti would have been disgruntled, except that she figured it was best if one of them knew what they were on about in the matter of fornication. And she could hardly expect a gentleman of over two hundred years or so to have remained celibate.

In no time at all, he had dexterously undone enough of the buttons to pull down the neckline of her dress and expose the tops of her breasts where they rose above her corset. He bent and began kissing them, only to stop, rear back very suddenly, and say in a voice harsh with suppressed need, “What in tarnation is that?”