“I am not,” she said with full Tolliver fury.
He paused. “You are not a virgin,” he repeated, as though the words had become a puzzle box in his hands, “but no man has ever touched you?”
“Correct.”
“And you’ve never even seen—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she cried, throwing up both hands before collapsing backwards onto the bed. “I have had one in me, if you must know. But no, I have never had a man’s hand between my legs, nor seen his cock, if that completes your anatomical survey.”
There was a long pause, in which Jasper blinked slowly. “I see.”
“You do not see.” Lottie let out a strangled groan and threw a pillow over her face. “Marchmont,” she said, muffled. “It was Marchmont.”
When she peered out from beneath the pillow, Jasper’s face had gone very still. “It was only twice,” she said, hating the smallness in her voice. “And it was not what I would call instructional. I did not even—” She flailed a hand. “I did not see anything. He kept most of his clothes on. The first time, he was in a hurry, and it was… rather brief. The second time was in the dark.”
Jasper made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a growl.
“And he certainly did not do any of what you just…” She waved one hand vaguely towards the machine lying on the bed. “That. So no, I am not some wide-eyed debutante. But apparently, I have managed to miss the tour.”
She finally sat up, chest rising and falling, her hair a wild halo of indignation.
Jasper said nothing, but very slowly, he tucked himself back into his trousers—which, really, was long past due.
“No,” Lottie said suddenly, sitting up straighter, her voice clear and ringing with that peculiar Tolliver certainty that always preceded mayhem. “I want to see it.”
Jasper blinked. “I… You… Pardon—what?”
“I want to touch it,” she said firmly. “I am tired of being treated like a child. I am a woman, Jasper, and I do not care in the slightest if it is not proper. I want to know what it feels like.”
He stared at her for a beat too long.
She tilted her head. “Well? May I?”
He exhaled slowly, tension radiating from every part of him. “If you keep talking like that,” he said, voice rougher than before, “this is going to be over very quickly, and you shall be describingmeas very brief to your next gentleman.”
She smiled. “So… I may?”
Jasper nodded once, though she noted his mouth had fallen open.
She reached for the front of his trousers again, and this time, he did not stop her. When she freed him and took him into her hand, her breath caught once more. He was thick in her palm, hot and heavy, and flushed dark at the tip. She stared at him with a kind of mesmerised reverence, as though she had unearthed some sacred relic and was not quite sure if she ought to kneel or run screaming.
“Good Lord,” she whispered.
Jasper gave a hoarse laugh, bracing one hand against the bedpost. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
She ignored him, for curiosity had taken over. Her fingers curled around him slowly, not entirely sure how tightly to hold him, nor how much pressure to apply. She watched his face as she experimented: the tightening of his jaw, the way his lashes lowered, the sudden jerk of his body when she found a rhythm that pleased him.
A strange thrill moved through her. It was not the overwhelming, helpless pleasure he had wrung from her, but something more astonishing. He was at her mercy. He was trembling because of her hand.
The discovery went straight to her head. “Does it…” She swallowed, her voice softer now. “Does it feel good?”
He laughed, breathless. “God, yes, it feels—” He cut himself off with a sound that was not at all noble.
Lottie’s eyes widened, for he was beautiful. Candlelight slid over the line of his jaw, the open collar of his shirt, the hard rise and fall of his chest with every pass of her fingers.
“Show me how to give you pleasure,” she said.
His eyes opened. “Lottie—”
