His lips and tongue tease up my calf, tickling at the back of my kneecap before moving onto my thigh, pushing up the drawers as he goes.

When he reaches the top of my inner thigh, he pauses.

“Oui, crécerelle?” he says, his voice hoarse. “This is all right?”

“Yes,” I say, even if I am still not quite certain what I am agreeing to.

His mouth moves back to my thigh and inward and then— Oh! Oh, my. I— Oh my.

My education was sorely lacking.

Sorely lacking indeed.

Oh, Nico. You are a wonder.

18

Afterward, Nicolas lowers me to the floor by the fire, and I barely notice. I am lost in the aftermath of something I have never experienced except by my own hand, and even then, it was not like that.

When I finally lift my head, still dazed, I say, “I will write you that letter of recommendation.”

He throws back his head and laughs. “I may accept that offer, only because I cannot wait to see what you write.”

“Superlatives. A page of superlatives.”

He kisses my nose. “Careful, crécerelle, my confidence does not need inflation. I am pleased if you are suggesting that my performance exceeded that of previous contenders.”

When I don’t reply, he shifts to look at me. “There were previous contenders, non? I am surely not the first in that particular regard.”

My cheeks heat. “I am not a virgin, as I said. However, no one has ever”—I clear my throat—“done that.”

He shakes his head. “Men can be remarkably reticent when it comes to that particular pleasure, while they fully expect the woman to do the same for them. I am sorry to hear that they overlooked it in their repertoire.”

“I do not think they had a repertoire.”

The words come before I can stop them, and he looks down even more sharply.

“Please tell me they did something for you?”

My cheeks heat more.

“Did they, at the very least, ensure you enjoyed the act they did perform?”

My face is red-hot now, and it takes everything I have not to bury it in his chest. An odd shame washes over me, as if it were my oversight for not insisting.

“I was inexperienced,” I say carefully. “I knew that I should expect more from intimate relations, and when I did not receive it, I decided I had chosen my partner poorly. So I tried again twice more and discovered that the sort of man did not appear to be the issue. As my sole purpose in taking lovers was to enjoy the experience, it was . . . disheartening.”

“I can only imagine.”

“I may not have been clear enough on what I expected. I tried to be, but it was difficult to make my wishes known. Even the most considerate of the three found such discussion embarrassing.”

Nicolas sighs and pulls me to him. “We tie ourselves in such knots on matters that should be natural. If we were not intended to take pleasure in the act, why would such pleasure be possible? I blame the Puritans, of course, though I must also lay some blame at the feet of doctors, who are remarkably loath to develop better methods of preventing procreation and the spread of venereal disease. Instead, we ask women to shoulder the responsibility by teaching them to fear intimate relations.”