Matthew huffed out his own breath. “I sympathize with your statement of knowing something academically but not emotionally. There is nothing, though, that can dint the friendship I feel for you.”
Alexander delivered one of his easy boyish grins as he straightened to his full height. “You best conserve your mawkish mutterings for my sister. After all the novels she’s read, she expects pretty words from a suitor.”
Alexander winked and then headed whistling to the lead carriage, which held the Wick cousins and Tavish. The jaunty tune floated back toward Matthew, and he wished he could share his friend’s joviality. Although he was relieved that he and Alexander had agreed they could move beyond the secrets Matthew had kept, he felt much less certain of his relationship with Charlotte.
Battling both trepidation and excitement, Matthew entered the rear coach. Charlotte had already pulled the curtains closed, but the light from the open door framed her perfectly. The decidedly wicked smile on her angelic face momentarily paralyzed Matthew’s heart before the confused muscle began jumping about.
“This is only the second time I’ve planned an assignation. It is a bit rushed, but I did not know when the opportunity would present itself again.” Charlotte winked, her green eyes sparkling with mirth and something even more intoxicating—want. “How am I doing?”
“Argh.” He sounded like a strangled goat.
Charlotte, however, did not appear to mind his inelegant response. In contrast, it appeared to delight her.
“I shall take that as a yes,” she laughed brightly. She reached up and tugged at his hands just as the carriage started.
Matthew pitched forward, nearly tumbling onto Charlotte’s silk-covered lap. Fortunately, she released his fingers just in time to allow him to catch himself. His arms bracketed her slim body, his palms pressing into the plush, upholstered seat back. Only a scant inch separated their lips, their eyes on level with each other. With each intake of her breath, her breasts grazed against his chest, the softness teasing him. Their legs had become a hopeless tangle of limbs with her petticoats wrapping their calves together.
“Hmm, I am perhaps more talented at trysts than I even thought,” Charlotte said and then pressed her lips against his.
Matthew’s mind, which always seemed to churn out thoughts even when he wished to quiet it, went blank—or rather, not blank but utterly and completely saturated with Charlotte. The faint smell of rosewater on her skin. The heat rising from her body. The friction of her mouth against his. The feel of her fingers tangling in his hair. The slight weight of her uninjured arm resting on his back.
He lost himself in her entirely just as he had in the hothouse. His doubts melted into pure need. He stopped worrying about whether he was right for Charlotte and instead reveled in how right he felt wrapped in her arms.
Matthew had spent his youth in scholarly pursuits and much of his adult life at sea or in the wilds of the Americas, which had given him little time to woo women. Yet his inexperience with the opposite sex did little to inhibit his natural response to Charlotte. His ardor, so long confined, flowed freely into hungry caresses and deep, endless kisses.
Her sighs guided him like stars, telling him where to touch, where to linger, and where to tease. It was as if his heart were an astrolabe specifically designed for the sounds of her pleasure.
He moved his mouth from hers, trailing it across the delicate skin of her jaw. Her gasp ricocheted through him, and he swore his body trembled in resonance with hers. He loved exploring her smooth skin. Whenever a spot seemed to particularly delight her, he lingered, devouring her pleasure, making it both of theirs.
Her delicate fingers drifted over him, leaving glowing trails of sparks in their wake. They teased his scalp, then his back, next his forearms, and finally, his chest. Charlotte was diligent as a surveyor, her hands appearing to map every contour of him—as if she craved him as much as he did her.
Her hand tugged at his loose cravat as he explored the intriguing juncture between her neck and shoulder. Need pulsated through him, hot and messy and more powerful than any urge he had ever experienced before. Her hand slipped beneath his clothes and skimmed across his bare shoulders. The intimacy of the touch nearly undid him. She made a sound deep in her throat, and his cock, which he thought could not swell bigger, hardened even more.
She pressed against him, and he groaned. Driven by instinct,his body began to move against hers. Despite the need fermenting inside him, Matthew remained careful not to brush against her injured arm.
Charlotte tugged insistently at his layers of garments with her good hand. In a heat-filled trance, he obligingly shed each one—frock coat… waistcoat… linen shirt. In between each removal, his lips moved farther and more intimately down her skin. His mouth drifted to her shoulders as he followed the line of her collarbone. Her breaths became sharp, uneven sounds.
Her hand moved from his chest to his back, and she pulled him toward her. Arching her body sinuously against his, her fingers slid with delicious friction along the muscles near his lower spine. He groaned and then kissed the soft, delicate flesh of her breasts, still constrained by her stomacher. He couldn’t just hear her heartbeat but could feel it. His profession was the study of human bodies, but this was no clinical examination. This was beyond science, beyond mere sinew, bone, and blood. There was something deeper. Something magical. Something transforming.
A rattling bump brought Matthew tumbling back to reality. Charlotte hissed in pain. Her hand flew from his back to rest on her sling.
“Did I hurt you?” Matthew asked, aghast.
“No.” Charlotte gave a quick shake of her head. “It was the jolt from the carriage.”
“I should have been more careful,” Matthew said as he sat down beside Charlotte. He swore his body still vibrated like a tuning fork. “I daresay I stopped thinking entirely.”
“So did I.” Charlotte pressed against him, resting her head on his shoulder. She shifted to gaze at him, her green eyes shining. “I know it is risky being together, but it’s so intoxicatingly thrilling.”
Certainly, the description applied to Charlotte, but to him? Worry slivered through Matthew, and not just because of hermention of danger. Was the peril the main reason for her excitement, her attraction? Would she want plain, boring, studious him once she discovered that his life was more about scientific theory than rooftop capers?
“I generally prefer dull pursuits,” Matthew blurted out.
Charlotte blinked and lifted her head. “Pardon?”
Matthew’s face flamed when he realized how terribly clumsy his words had been. “I do not mean to say… that is… I liked the kissing, and I would very much like to do it again.”
Charlotte grinned, her body once more relaxing against his as she cupped his face with her hand. “As would I.”
