“The scientists.”
Lord Maccon gave a strangled laugh. “Aye, yes. And we wouldn't want them to learn too much about interspecies relations, now, would we?” He reached down with a free hand and pulled hers away from its questing.
Miss Tarabotti was faintly disappointed. Until he raised it to his lips and kissed it. “I do not mean to rush into these things. Alexia. You are inexplicably tempting.”
She nodded, bumping his head slightly. “The feeling is mutual, my lord. Not to mention unexpected.”
He seemed to take that as encouragement and rolled so that she was beneath him, and he loomed above her. He was now lying between her legs, component parts flush against hers.
Alexia squeaked at the sudden shift in positions. She was not certain whether she should be grateful or upset that women's fashion demanded so many copious layers of fabric, as this was now all that prevented more intimate contact and, she was pretty certain, sexual congress.
“Lord Maccon...,” she said in her best, most severe, spinster voice.
“Conall,” he interrupted. He leaned back, and his hands began journeying over her chest.
“Conall! Now is not the time!”
He ignored her and asked, “How do I undo this blasted dress?”
Alexia's ivory taffeta gown was held together by a row of tiny mother-of-pearl buttons up the length of its back. Although she did not answer him, the earl eventually discovered this fact and began undoing them with a rapidity that bespoke consummate skill in the art of undoing ladies' clothing. Miss Tarabotti would have been disgruntled, except that she figured it was best if one of them knew what they were on about in the matter of fornication. And she could hardly expect a gentleman of over two hundred years or so to have remained celibate.
In no time at all, he had dexterously undone enough of the buttons to pull down the neckline of her dress and expose the tops of her br**sts where they rose above her corset. He bent and began kissing them, only to stop, rear back very suddenly, and say in a voice harsh with suppressed need, “What in tarnation is that?”
Alexia lifted herself onto her elbows and looked down, trying to see what it was that had stopped the annoying but unfortunately delightful ravishment of her personage. However, given the nature of her copious endowments in the bosom department, she could not make out what it was about her corset that had so taken his attention.
Lord Maccon picked up the shard of mirror wrapped in a handkerchief and showed it to her.
“Oh, I forgot about that. I pinched it from the dressing room when the scientists left me alone for a moment. Thought it might come in handy.”
Lord Maccon gave her a long, thoughtful, only mildly amorous look. “Very resourceful, my dear. It is at times like this when I really wish you could be on the BUR roster.”
She looked up into his face, embarrassed more by the compliment and the endearment than she had been by their previous physical proceedings. “So, what is the plan?”
“We are not going to develop a plan,” he growled, placing the mirror carefully down on the floor next to them, out of view of the doorway.
Alexia grinned at such foolish protectiveness. “Do not be ridiculous. You can hardly hope to accomplish anything more this night without my help. It is full moon, remember?”
Lord Maccon, who had, outrageously, forgotten the moon, had a momentary shock of terror that, in his absentmindedness, he might lose proximity with her. Alexia's preternatural abilities were the only thing currently keeping him sane. He quickly canvassed to make certain they were in firm physical contact. His body reminded him that, yes, firm was the operative word.
He tried to keep his head focused on their future non-amorous actions. “Well, in that case, you are to remain tangential as much as possible. None of those fire-eating antics you are so fond of. In order to get us out of here, I may have to use violence. In which case, you will need to hold on to me tightly and stay well out of the way. Do you ken?”
Alexia was going to get defensive and angry and explain quite severely that she was practical enough to avoid fisticuffs, especially when she had no brass parasol to protect herself with, but instead she said, “Did you just ask if I kenned?” She could not help grinning.
Lord Maccon looked ashamed of the verbal slip and muttered something about Scotland under his breath.
“You did! I was just kenned!” Miss Tarabotti's grin widened. She could not restrain herself; she did so like it when the earl's Highland lilt came out. It was currently her second favorite thing he did with his tongue. She leaned up on her elbows and kissed him softly on the cheek. Almost despite himself, Lord Maccon moved his own mouth toward her lips and turned it into a far deeper kiss.
When Alexia finally dropped back, they were both panting again.
“This has got to stop,” she insisted. “We are in danger, remember? You know, ruination and tragedy? Calamity just beyond that door.” She pointed behind him. “Any moment now, evil scientists may come charging in.”
“All the more reason to grasp the opportunity,” he insisted, leaning in and pressing his lower body against her.
Miss Tarabotti pressed against his torso defensively with both hands, trying to stop him from kissing her again. She cursed fate that had set life up so that when she finally did get to touch Lord Maccon's bare chest, there was no time to appreciate it.
He nibbled her earlobe. “Just think of this as a sort of wedding-night prelude.”
Alexia was not certain which part of that particular statement gave the most offense—the fact that he assumed there would be a wedding night or the fact that he assumed it would take place on the hard floor of a barren room.