“Professor Pickering!” he gasped. “I just told you my darkest secret and you just smiled and—and—” The word broke apart as she tightened her grip. “Oh my God,” he moaned unscientifically, his eyes rolling back.
“The evidence suggests you are either in a state of pleasure or pain,” Beth said. “Should I stop? I don’t want to hurt you.”
He answered with a kiss that quickly restored them both to mindless passion. “Come here,” he begged, gathering her close. “Please.”
Beth gladly allowed him to pull her onto his lap. But unsure of the etiquette—how and where exactly did one sit when one’s seat was soelaborate?—she rose on her knees, draping her arms over his shoulders. Their gazes meshed, heavy with desire.
“Beth,” Devon whispered.“Beth.”He said her name again and again, kissing her throat or jaw or mouth each time, as if he were tasting something sweet. “You’re like a night full of bird stars and magical dreaming. I am so in love with you.”
“Thank you,” she replied automatically. Then the words reached through her old, defensive blockade of manners to fill her with happiness. A few grim memories crawled out, trying to scratch and bite her, but she shoved them away. “I love you too.”
“In that case,” Devon said, “we can reach only one logical conclusion.” Taking hold of her hips, he lowered her to complete and delightful corruption.
The heat that had evolved between them throughout their travels blazed now into a wildfire (fortunately metaphorical in nature, considering the tinder-dry conditions of the moorland at midsummer) as they moved together slowly, at first a little awkwardly while Beth grew accustomed to the mechanics involved. She tried to make mental notes for later inclusion in her field journal but quickly lost track of them. Leaves chafed her bare knees, but she did not care. Devon’s eyes watered—“smoke from the fire,” he insisted, and went on kissing her as if irritation of his corneas was not a serious threat. Their bodies grew slick with sweat, and their backs ached. Finally, grasping blindly for his coat, Devon spread it over the ferns, and they lay down, facing each other in a tangle of breath and limbs. Whispering of skies and thermals andoh my God, right there, don’t stop, I love you, they ventured a more intense rhythm until the night went utterly dark, and silence enfolded the moorland except for their mutual sighs as they reached fulfillment.
—
Devon woke atdawn, yanked from a dream by the obnoxiouschut! chut!of a red grouse nearby. Aggravation clenched his body, but the moment he saw Beth lying asleep beside him, a shy wonder eased it away. He could scarcely credit that he’d gotten to spend the night with her. And moreover, she was still here in the morning. Granted, there was nowhere for her to go, out here on the moors, but Devon didn’t want to consider that. He watched her face grow luminous in the unfurling light, like a sacred pearl drawn out of the dark ocean, like a dream he could not believe was real…
He winced, appalled by this degeneration of his rationalbrain into cloying sentimentality. He tried to focus instead on how cold he felt, lying naked on the ground, the campfire having burned out—but it was no use. Beth quite simply bewitched him, beyond linguistic sobriety, beyond quantifiable data analysis. She was beauty. She was peace.
She was looking at him.
Devon’s pulse leaped up and began running frantically around his circulatory system, sweeping up, shoving things behind curtains, even while he gave her a languid smile. “Hi,” he said.
Her eyes grew wide, and she frenetically brushed her hair so that it covered her face and breasts. “Hello,” she answered through the shroud. “How lovely to see you. Would you mind terribly going away?”
Devon blinked, taken aback. “Um—??”
“No, don’t look at me.” She flattened the palm of her hand against his face. “I need to tidy—and wash—and oh God, my teeth.” He heard a puffed exhalation, then she groaned. “Don’t breathe, don’t look, just…give me a minute.”
“Okay,” he said against her hand, trying hard not to laugh.
“Close your eyes.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t care—”
“Close. Your. Eyes.”
He closed them obediently and the hand moved away. The warmth against his body vanished as Beth clambered up. Amused, he lay back, stretching and yawning as he listened to the urgent rustles of a woman getting dressed. The habit of wickedness in him hoped she would come back into his reach so he could pull her down and muss her again in delicious ways, but an unexpected domestic part of his heart smiled contentedly to think she was making herself nice for him, and hedrew his coat over himself to conceal, and hopefully subdue, how much it aroused him.
“You may open your eyes now,” Beth said at last, sounding so dignified he felt certain her chin was tipped up and her arms crossed tightly. Opening one eye cautiously, he squinted up at her, and smiled to see his suspicions were confirmed.
“There’s enough water in the flask for you to wash also,” she told him briskly. “But no hope for tea, I’m afraid.”
Devon sat up, rubbing his face. “And no hope for wake-up sex?” he asked in an entirely scientific manner—after all, you don’t get a result unless you pose a question.
“Gracious heavens!” she exclaimed. “Is that quite the done thing?”
He shrugged. “In some parts of the world, yes.”
“Perhaps tomorrow morning, then,” she allowed, and all his metaphorical test tubes began bubbling over. “While I’m keen to replicate our experiments of last night, it’s more of a priority to get the caladrius safely to Dover.”
“You’re right,” Devon agreed, despite his baser nature. Casting aside the coat, he began to stand, and Beth hastily turned her back. “You’ve already seen it all,” he pointed out as he got to his feet and looked around for his clothes.
“Hhmughhmm,” she answered, and he justknewshe was blushing. For that matter, he was close to doing so himself. He’d had more than enough sex over the years to feel blasé about it the next morning, but it turned out that love made a remarkable difference to the experience. Never before had he lain quietly afterward while a woman stroked his eyebrows, and kissed the corners of his mouth, and generally made him feel so cherished that he’d had to roll her gently over and slide back inside her just so he could breathe.
And it was just as good now—all right,mostlyas good—listening to her talk about travel routes and buying yet another suitcase and what she wouldn’t give for a cup of tea, while she tidied the campsite. Her voice was like music to him, but he heard not one single word of it, too busy imagining when he might be able to get her into a bed.
