Page 85 of The Scent of Intuition
“Smart?” He looked down at her with a combination of manly cockiness and boyish vulnerability. “Like books at a library?”
“Like reading one thick book in front of the fire on a snowy day.”
“I’m not sure what this scent is,” he whispered, still holding her gaze.
“Call it the scent of my intuition.”
“Is that your female intuition?”
“Perhaps.”
“And what would confirm your suspicion of how smart I am?”
“An examination.”
“I assure you that I have passed all my exams with highest grades.”
“Not a paper exam, a physical.”
After a moment’s blink, there was a glint in his eye of a man who’d been naked before many women. He looked like a warrior who’d used many a sword and always returned from battle victorious. At least, that’s what Bea thought. He’d certainly seemed to know his way around the female anatomy after her oatmeal bath.
“What gives you the credentials to perform such an exam?” he asked, but he’d already tucked his index finger under the cravat and loosened the knot. It was a simple knotà la sentimentaleand Bea pulled one end, watching it slowly unfurl, and then she pulled the white fabric out of his collar.
“My female intuition.”
“Of course,” Alfie nodded, letting his eyes fall to her cleavage. “You have a great supply of that.”
Now he was speaking to her décolleté, and Bea should have been scandalized, but she felt heat rushing to her head instead.
Caught in a wave of brazen courage, she unbuttoned the top of his shirt.
She didn’t dare look in his eyes now and focused on the buttons. After all she’d permitted after her bath, she tried to tuck away that pesky thought that she had effectively ruined her reputation already regardless of whether anyone else knew.
Then his hands came to her upper arms, and he gave her a gentle squeeze. “Bea?”
“Hm-hm.” She focused on button number four and then five, avoiding his gaze.
“If you want me to take my clothes off for you, all you have to do is ask,” he rasped.
She swallowed and tried to remember to breathe but she couldn’t concentrate anymore. His shirt was split in the middle and from underneath, masculine perfection emerged. The effect of seeing his skin, so much of it, sent her mind into a hazy space as if she’d stepped onto a cloud and was about to reach for the next.
“I mustn’t.”
“If you asked, I wouldn’t say no, so why not try?”
If she was flushed before and heat rose to her head, she was now about to incinerate.
“I’ve lost my only virtue—or what’s left of it. If I say it aloud, it becomes too real.” She focused on button six, pushed the little white circle through the hole and exposed another section of chiseled abdomen. A slight tuft of dark hair covered his skin, and Bea stroked his chest carefully, almost afraid to touch something so beautiful for fear of breaking it—no, of losing the moment.
Then his hand covered hers and she flattened her palm against his body. “Your reputation is by far not your best virtue.”
She dropped her head. “It’s what matters to the Ton.”
“To stupid men who don’t deserve you and don’t see you for who you are, perhaps. But I hope that none of them will ever have you.”
She tried very hard not to look at him because even though he was half naked, she felt more exposed than she had when she was nude and wet in his arms.
“You are not… I mean, you’re learned, and you have diplomas, honors, and apprenticeships that make you far more worldly than me.”
