“It’s now become my special place when I am home,” he said. “My private place.”
“Is that why you’re repainting the ceiling? To keep your father’s memory alive?” She swallowed, understanding. Isn’t that why she’d fought so hard to be allowed to learn chemistry?
“Perhaps.” His voice lowered and his eyes turned soft in that way that Liliana had come to recognize precluded, at the very least, a kiss guaranteed to curl her toes.
A sudden nervousness gripped her. Geoffrey had never before taken her somewhere so…secluded. Which meant the opportunity existed for their intimacy to be taken to the next level. Her breasts grew heavy and her breath short.
“Your private place, eh?” she said, striving for lightness even as that peculiar yearning that had become a near constant companion these past days took hold. “Pity,” she teased. “I’d thought the folly abandoned and had quite set my sights on a lovely laboratory. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
An indiscernible look crossed his features as he made a slow advance upon her. “Not at all,” he said, his voice turned gruff with arousal. “There are many things I might be convinced to share with you, Liliana.” He stopped directly before her. “The first of which is this.”
He took her lips in a kiss that felt at once familiar and thrillingly different. A kiss with an intent unlike his kisses past. Her body responded to the urgency of his and she threw one arm around his neck, anxious to get closer, closer, now.
The trembling fingers of her other hand reached for his shirt, wanting his warm skin beneath hers like yesterday.
“Ah-ah-ah,” he said, pulling away from the kiss and trapping her hand against his chest. “Not today, my little researcher.” He tilted her face up. “Today, I turn the table. You, my dear will not be the experimenter, but the experimentee.”
Liliana uttered a nervous laugh. “That’s not even a word.”
“No?” Geoffrey’s mouth spread in a slow smile as he leaned in toward her again. “Well, it should be,” he said, taking her lips for the second time. As their tongues entwined, Liliana had the vaguest sense of being moved, backed toward something. The cushioned cover of the daybed met the back of her knees a second before Geoffrey slowly lowered her onto it.
He settled her in the middle, his lips never leaving her. He arranged her body just so, his hands tender as they glided over arms and knees and breasts and face. Heat filled her, so much that her clothes seemed to burn her skin, and she moaned. Geoffrey seemed to understand, as he slipped the buttons of her shirt free, allowing cool air to kiss her heated chest.
“Today I intend to show you what your body can do,” Geoffrey murmured.
“I understand”—Liliana gasped as Geoffrey slipped his hand inside the opening in her shirt and brushed a finger across her nipple, which hardened almost painfully—“understand how the female body works.”
A low chuckle accompanied another flick of his finger. Then Geoffrey cupped her breast in his warm palm and squeezed it gently, dragging his rough thumb back and forth over her distended areola. “You may have knowledge of what I speak,” he said, “but until you experience it, you won’t understand.”
Liliana nodded, closing her eyes. She’d agree with anything he said if he’d only keep doing that.
“For example,” he murmured, bringing her eyes open to look at him again, “do you know what purpose women’s breasts serve?”
“Of course.” Heat scored Liliana’s cheeks, but she answered. “Glands inside a female mammal’s breasts produce milk to nurture her offspring.”
Geoffrey nodded. “Mmm…that’s correct, my smart darling.” He flicked her nipple again with this thumb, and a sharp pang shot from Liliana’s nipple to an answering nubbin far lower. Geoffrey slipped another button loose with his free hand, baring her breast to his sight. “But did you know that babes are not the only ones who might suckle from a woman’s breasts?”
“Wh-what?” She could barely breathe as Geoffrey leaned in closer, as if to kiss her, but at the last moment he detoured and lowered his head to her chest instead.
“Let me demonstrate,” he murmured, and then he opened his mouth upon her.
“Oh!” Liliana groaned. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the sight of Geoffrey’s dark head at her breast. His eyes were closed, yet his mouth worked, suckling her. She watched the curves of his cheek hollow as he drew more deeply of her, and then she had to close her eyes, so sharp were the sensations, a tugging that pierced her, stealing her breath and setting off a rhythmic throbbing below in time with Geoffrey’s draws upon her breast.
Liliana’s other breast felt horribly ignored. She moaned and Geoffrey seemed to understand. He broke from his task long enough to whip the shirt over Liliana’s head. She hardly noticed, so intent was she on expressing her desire for him to treat her other breast to the same experience. She grasped his hand, pulling it to her neglected breast, and gasped in pleasure as he cupped her.
Geoffrey dropped his lips to her and opened his hot mouth. His hand tweaked and rolled her other nipple between his fingers at the same rhythm his mouth drew upon her.
Sir Isaac’s ghost, she didn’t know how much of this she could stand. Liliana writhed in pleasure. Who knew this was possible? No book she’d ever read had alluded to anything like this.
Geoffrey released her nipple from his mouth, then lapped at her one last time, which shot sensation straight through her. He raised his head and speared her with his gaze…His cobalt eyes burned hot, deep blue pools that simmered.
“Do you understand what else your breasts were made for, Liliana?” he asked, sensual challenge in his voice.
She shook her head, waiting for him to show her.
He’d cupped both of her breasts now and was gently squeezing, pumping, shaping them. “Caressing your breasts will help make you ready for…other things.” He took each nipple between the thumbs and index fingers of his hands and gave a sharp pinch at the same time.
Liliana gasped.
“Do you feel that?” Geoffrey asked.
“Yes.” She struggled with words. “It’s like…like there are invisible strings drawn between my breasts and my…my mons. What is it?” Liliana could feel the heat on her face, but her curiosity won out over her embarrassment, as it always did.
Rather than answer, Geoffrey said, “Observe how tight the strings become the more stimulation your breasts are given.” He dropped his mouth again, suckling deeply while rolling her opposite nipple between his fingers simultaneously.
Liliana clenched her fists as the sensation spiraled, the string drew tighter and tighter and the throbbing pressure below built and built until she thought the strings must surely snap. She didn’t know what would happen if they did, and she alternately yearned for and feared finding out.
Finally Geoffrey ceased his torture, bringing his head up to rest against the side of her neck. His hot breath brushed against her and satisfaction swelled within her. He was just as affected as she, and she’d yet to touch him. How fascinating.