Page 75 of Christmas Comes to Little Valentine

Nat blanched. “I see.”

“Not that I didn’t already know the basics,” she said candidly. “Papa had many books I ought not to have read, but he was too much a scholar to care for such things. The Greeks got up to all sorts, you know,” she said helpfully, as if this explained everything.

Nat looked at her and blinked, hardly daring to consider what she might have read.

She grinned then, such a look of irrepressible mischief that he could not help but laugh. Unable to resist a moment longer, he sank to his knees before her.

“Nat?” she said, looking down at him quizzically.

Nat pushed closer, between her legs, reaching for her, pulling her mouth to his. He didn’t want to talk anymore. Talking to Meg was a delight, for she constantly surprised him, all the knowledge that buzzed about in her busy brain a source of wonder to him. But he wanted to touch her now, to teach her a new language, one that needed no words, no understanding of philosophy or complicated conjugations. It only needed the two of them, and the feelings that were simmering between them, ready to ignite into something wonderful.

She did not resist, sinking her hands into his hair. Nat sighed, relishing the feeling of her slender fingers tickling his scalp. He pushed his hands under the skirts of her dress, sliding them up over silken stockings as his heart gave an uneven kick. Her breathing hitched too, as his palms left the delicate stockings and moved onto satiny skin.

“Lay down,” he whispered against her lips, smiling at her surprise as she pulled back to look at him.

She looked somewhat uncertain but did as he asked. Nat took off her shoes and then pushed up her skirts, admiring her long shapely legs and noting the little pink rosebuds embroidered on her garters. Rather delighted by this detail, he bent and kissed each one, feeling surprise lance through her as his lips deliberately brushed her skin too. He pushed her skirts higher and bent his head again, lower this time, to kiss the inside of her knee.

“You’ll tell me if I do something you don’t like, or you want me to stop or slow down,” he told her, gazing at the shadowy place under her bunched skirts at the apex of her thighs with longing.

Meg lifted her head. “Yes,” she said, sounding rather breathless. “All very… er… all quite…. Carry on,” she said desperately.

Nat laughed, tenderness swelling in his heart and he bent his head again, trailing his lips up her inner thigh to press another kiss and then another a little higher, and then higher still. He heard her gasp and smiled against her skin.

“I want you so much,” he whispered, nuzzling into the exquisitely silken skin. “I have thought of nothing but touching you, of having you touch me, since before we even got here.”

There was silence for a moment before she replied. “I want you to,” she said hesitantly. “I want you to touch me.”

“It would be my pleasure, love,” he told her, relieved not to have to wait any longer as he pushed her skirts to her hips, exposing the soft nest of curls between her legs. “Very definitely my pleasure,” he repeated and pushed her legs wider apart before ducking his head and trailing his tongue over the sensitive skin at the apex of her thighs.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her hips bucking beneath him. She raised herself up on her elbows, staring down at him in surprise. “Oh,” she said again.

Nat grinned and repeated the action before pressing a kiss to the top of the dark gold triangle. Blowing softly, he made the little curls quiver, and she collapsed back onto the mattress with a sigh, shivering.

“Oh, I see. You are good at this,” she said wonderingly. Her breathing was coming faster now, and he kissed her again, a little lower, and again, and again. He took his time, pressing his mouth a little firmer against the place that guarded the delicate pearl of flesh, and the faster her breathing sped, the slower he kissed her, until she was writhing with impatience.

“Nat.”

There was urgency in her voice, his name a plea, and the sound resonated inside him. He wanted to give her everything, to make her feel pleasure of the kind she barely understood existed.

“Yes?” he asked, aware of the deep timbre of his voice, a low growl of sound he felt deep inside him.

“Nat,” she said again, squirming beneath him. “Please.”

He bit back a smile, his hands caressing her thighs. “Please?” he repeated, feigning incomprehension.

She sat back up on her elbows and looked remarkably fierce, though her hair was tousled and her cheeks flushed.

“Don’t pretend you don’t understand me perfectly well, Nathaniel Ashford,” she said, sounding so much like a prim little governess that it was all he could do not to throw himself on top of her and take her there and then.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, his voice choked as he struggled not to laugh. “I gather you would like me to continue,” he added gravely.

She squirmed for a moment, indecisive. “Not precisely,” she said, her cheeks flushing a brighter shade of red.

He could not help the chuckle that broke from him.

“All right, love. I won’t torture you any longer,” he promised, and bent his head and kissed her again, kissed the curls and the seam that hid the tiny bud he knew ached for his touch, seeking it with his tongue.

“Like this?” he asked, breathing the words against that intimate skin, nonchalant as she writhed and gasped.