She rolled her eyes. “Yes, that’s it,” she said. “Or perhaps I want to see if your sexual imagination is as prodigious as you implied.”

“I assure you my ‘imagination’ is prodigious indeed—no, that’s really too easy, isn’t it?”

“Beneath you,” she agreed. “You’re stalling.”

“I’m a genius,” he said. “We don’t stall. We consider.”

“I don’t think I have any circuits for you to engineer, Professor.”

“Engineer, no. I can’t improve on nature. But you certainly have circuits, darling.”

The warmth rose up her chest into her cheeks.

“Option number one,” he said. “I lay you down in front of the fire. I unbutton your shocking excuse for a nightgown; for a woman who’s secretly obsessed with respectability you have incredibly erotic nightwear—”

“I’m not obsessed with—this is a perfectly ordinary nightgown—”

“You are, it’s not, and I look forward to learning what other delightful concoctions reside in your armoire,” he said. “Now do you want to hear your options or not?”

She nodded her head meekly.

“This will allow me to fulfill a long-term scientific interest of mine,” he said, “namely, the exact shape and texture of your breasts, which I will determine using both my fingers and my mouth, because, my beautiful girl—and I’m sorry to dwell on the whole saucy nightgown issue, but that fabric is very sheer—I’ve wanted to set my tongue to your nipples since you dropped your robe.”

His words were darts of sensation; she shivered as they landed, one by one. He moved towards her, kneeling before her and placing his hands on her knees. They were capable hands—strong and clever, with a light dusting of dark golden hair trailing up from his wrist. She thought about the times they’d touched her, and shivered again.

“I’d follow the buttons downwards,” he said, and his voice had lost the amusement, and his eyes were dark and fervent. “Taking my time, until I came to the tuft of hair between your legs, and then, darling, I’d find out what you taste like, because that is another question that has come to occupy much of my time.”

Alva swallowed.

“And frankly, we could be there a little while, because—”

“Option one,” she croaked. “I want option one.”

“Thank god,” he said, and stood, pulling her up and kissing her in one smooth motion. He half-carried her the three steps to the fire, gently resting her on the rug in front of it. The warmth of the fire caressed her skin, but it paled in comparison to the heat building inside her. It wasn’t the first time she’d experienced desire—it was partially desire that had so betrayed her twelve years before—but it was the first time she’d understood the full depth of an adult woman’s passion, this furious, unholy maelstrom of lust and thirst and need.