Meggie was slow, but at last she did tap her glass lightly against his.
He’d given her too much time to fret. He said, “After we have eaten and drunk just a bit more, what were you thinking would happen?”
“Since I don’t know anything specific beyond kissing, as you well know, I admit things get a bit muddled. All right, really muddled, perhaps even incoherent. Right now I know I’m happy and that you’re smiling. Do you think maybe that could be enough for you to go on?”
“There will be a lot more than just smiling, Meggie.”
“Like what?”
“You. are endlessly curious, aren’t you?”
“Since this will involve me very personally, I don’t think it all that strange.”
“What will happen is pleasure, hopefully for both of us.”
“I have already felt pleasure when you kissed me.”
“Different, stronger pleasure.”
She looked very skeptical about that.
He didn’t move from the table until she’d drunk a half glass of champagne. He sat back, his hands laced over his lean belly. “Why don’t you get in bed, Meggie. I will blow out the candles.”
“Do you really wish to?”
“To what?”
“To blow out the candles.”
“Ah, a dollop of interest in me?”
“Well, yes, to be honest about it. It’s difficult to think about this, but since Mary Rose and my father are married and they do sleep in the same bed, I suppose they do see each other without their clothes. That is difficult for a daughter to imagine.”
“A son as well. Does this mean that you wish to see me naked?”
She met his dark eyes and very slowly she nodded. “I have been thinking some more about what I want to have happen. I want to add you to my fantasy. I want you to be my main character.” She gave him a nervous smile.
He didn’t say a word.
“All right, you force me to be blunt, Thomas. I want you to take all your clothes off.”
“And will you undress for me as well?”
She rose from her chair and walked over to the bed. She paused a moment, and said over her shoulder, trying to smile a siren’s smile, not all that successful, but she tried, “Well, this is my fantasy, not yours. However, to be fair, perhaps I can think about that later, much later. You are the one who knows what is going to happen. Let me at least decide how we will begin it.” She sat on the bed and let her feet dangle over the side.
He too rose and walked to the bed, stopping not three feet from her. He stood in front of her for a moment, then pulled off his beautiful buff jacket. “You say I’m beautiful, Meggie, but I’m about to prove you wrong. I’m a big hairy man.”
“I think since it is you, I shall quite like big and hairy. Show me.”
She watched him remove each and every item of clothing, fold each and every item and lay it neatly on a chair, watched him so closely that when he straightened, naked, he was already hard as the oak floorboards beneath his bare feet, and surely that would alarm any virgin.
She stared at him as he stood there, his arms at his sides. He wanted to ask her if she believed him to be as well-looking as Jeremy, but he couldn’t, of course, he wouldn’t.
“I was wrong,” she whispered, her eyes never looking away from his sex.
He was shaking, getting even harder, something he wished didn’t have to happen, but there was no hope for it, not with her staring at him like she wanted to—no, he wouldn’t think about her in front of him, her mouth on him. For God’s sake, she was a vicar’s daughter. But to the best of his memory no woman had ever looked at him like that. Now that he thought about it, neither had he ever before stripped off his clothes in front of a woman in order to advance her education. He cleared his throat. “What were you wrong about?”
“You aren’t beautiful, Thomas.”
“You see, I told you I was just a big hairy creature, and that—”