A Study In Seduction(82)

“You already do that most successfully.” He cupped her breasts, then moved his hands up and began removing the pins from her hair.

“Alexander, I—”

“Go on, then.” He continued to unpin her chignon, dropping the pins to the floor and easing his fingers through the long strands of her hair. Pleasure skimmed down her spine.

“Explain your method,” Alexander said.

“Well, it’s called tangential polar coordinates, which differ from a system of ordinary polar coordinates where the position… Oh.”

He captured her earlobe between his teeth. His warm breath brushed her neck. He slid his fingers against the back of her head, rubbing slowly. She melted under the exquisite sensations.

“Alexander, I really ought to—”

“No. You ought to do nothing.” He took the book from her, then turned her to face him. A dark gleam appeared in his eyes, making her heart skip. “Except come to me with both abandon and unrestrained enthusiasm.”

Lydia almost gasped as her blood went into full boil. She didn’t have even a second to respond as Alexander wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her against him for a kiss so heated and thorough that she lost the ability to think.

“So?” he said as he led her up to his bedchamber. “Ordinary polar coordinates?”

“You were listening?”

“And finding it rather arousing.”

Lydia laughed. “Lord Northwood, I’d no idea you were stimulated by my theories.”

“I’m stimulated by everything about you, especially your theories.”

Lydia slipped her hand over his shirt to cup the evidence of his arousal. “Well, in this theory, the pole is a point that determines a certain position—”

“Fascinating.” He lowered his lips to her neck, his hands moving to fumble with the clips binding her hair. “Take off your clothing.”

Instead she worked the buttons on his trousers. “And a given line through the pole is the prime radius…”

“What about the curves?”

“They’re the locus of an assemblage of points—”

“Take off your clothing.”

Lydia smiled. After shedding her clothing and corset, she stepped into his arms. Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek to his shirtfront and breathed him in. The tension dissipated from his body as heat swept over them. She sank into his touch, into the heat of his body. Her thin cotton chemise allowed her to feel every inch of his hard frame, the delicious crush of her breasts against him.

He pulled back to look at her, reaching to brush her hair away from her forehead. Something flashed in his eyes—questions, uncertainty, doubt—that made Lydia’s heart quiver.

“I love you,” she whispered. She touched his roughened cheek and slid her hand around to the back of his neck. “Please believe that. I love you.”

She drew him down and locked her lips to his. In this, at least, she could be honest. She could love him with every inch of her body in the full knowledge that there was no deception in her overwhelming desire for him.

He grasped her chemise, pulling it upward until the heat from the fire stroked her bare bottom. With a whispered oath, his fingers smoothed and kneaded her taut flesh, moving lower to part her thighs. A fierce shudder tore through her.

He gave a hoarse laugh, his hips pressing against her belly. Lydia sighed, sliding her lips down his rough throat, flicking her tongue out to taste the delicious hollow where his pulse throbbed. She wanted to dissolve into him, to feel the heat of his body merge with hers, his heart pounding against her breasts.

Her fingers trembled as she unfastened his shirt, baring his chest to her questing hands. She loved all the different textures of him, the combination of coarse hair and smooth, muscled skin, the hard ridges of his abdomen.

“Sit down,” she whispered.

His eyes darkened to the color of ink. After divesting himself of his trousers, he sat naked in a chair beside the fire. The firelight caressed his body like a lover—long, sweeping shadows that intensified the hot desire in his eyes and bronzed his taut skin.

Lydia’s breath caught as she looked at him, and a tight pain began to coil around her heart. A chill skimmed over her, causing her skin to prickle with gooseflesh. A moan escaped her dry throat as she went down on her knees in front of him, her hands settling on his thighs. He speared a hand through her tangle of long hair, drawing her toward him with an insistence both firm and gentle.