Not here, she had said.
What fool had agreed to that?
It would be so easy to tug that bodice down, to bare her to him, to taste her here in this darkened room. His body flared at the thought of it, his hands flexing on her delicate ribs.
He could slide his fingers under this skirt. He suspected she would let him. He could feel the way she responded to being touched this way, the way she burned for it too.
With a rumble of pained willpower, he pulled back, tilting his head up to gaze at her, dazed and bleary through his lashes. “Not here,” he repeated back to her, raspy and gone with want.
She was panting, her own dark lashes flickering over those lovely brown eyes. A speckled blush the shade of cinnamon rode over her cheeks and along the bridge of her nose. He cupped her cheek and traced the line of it with his thumb.
She turned her face into his palm and closed her eyes, flattening her hands over his heart, as though feeling his pulse begin to slow might do the same for her.
For a moment, they just breathed. For a moment, they tried to remember themselves.
“Desks,” he said, inspiring her eyes to open again and blink into focus on his. “I hate dishes.”
She looked incredulous for a moment before releasing a short, embarrassed huff of memory. “Oh,” she said with a shake of her head. “Right.”
He couldn’t fight the grin that grew as he watched her, watched the play of bashfulness and wry amusement on her beautiful face. He could watch her, he thought, for the rest of his life.
“And then I will see you safely home,” he said with a resigned sigh, giving his thumb one more pass over her cheek and stroking the back of his fingers along the curve of her neck.
“My home?” she said with a raise of her brows. “And here I thought you’d propose a different change of venue entirely.”
He shrugged, shaking his head. “I feel that would be a poor tactical choice,” he said regretfully. “Your grandfather knows we are having dinner. If you don’t come home, I imagine he will find some creative, doctoral way to kill me.”
“He might,” she said, flashing him a wicked little smile. “Or he’ll just have my grandmother chuck something heavy at your head. She has excellent aim.”
“Oh, I have heard,” he assured her. “But do rest assured, if I could spirit you back to my flat tonight, you would already be there and intimately familiar with the scent of my bed.”
Her smile faded just a touch, that color rising again over the bridge of her nose. “You are a wicked man, Mr. Reed.”
He leaned forward to kiss her one more time, soft and indulgent. “Mae,” he said seriously. “Do not call me Mr. Reed.”
“You are a wicked man, Roland,” she corrected, tittering as she heaved a sigh and leaned back, looking for purchase to climb back onto steady ground. “But I expect you know that.”
“I know everything,” he reminded her.
“And if you were to spirit me back to this flat of yours,” she said, her dimples flashing at the groan he released when she lifted herself back onto the support of only her own legs, “where would it be? Where is this mysterious nest that not even Mr. Beck knows how to find?”
He watched her for a moment, old impulses flickering against his ribs with all the fury of broken butterfly wings. “Soho,” he said. “Only a few blocks from your own home.”
Her eyes widened, surprise clear on her face. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t think you were going to answer me.”
“Just now, I will answer anything,” he told her, leaning back against the stiff wooden beams of the classroom chair. “What other secrets would you have of me?”
“The time and location of the next opportunity to question you as such, if you please,” she replied, trying not to gape at him in shock. “I haven’t prepared a list.”
He gave her a quick, wolfish grin. “Too bad,” he said. “This is your chance.”
She frowned. “Does the offer extend until the end of the night? Perhaps I will come up with something while I wash the dishes.”
“Who can say?” he said with a shrug. “Whims are funny things. But if you ever want to crack my veneer again, I shall tell you how to do it.”
“Oh?” she said, pausing with her fingers on the edge of a plate. “How?”
He nodded down to the box hiding under the table and then looked back up at her with a quick lick of his lips. “Wear that, and I’ll confess to every crime I’ve ever committed.”
