Gradually the pressure intensified. His tongue worked faster, his fingers joining him once more. He took her over mountainous peaks and long, teasing valleys, bringing her to the brink, over and over again, each time larger and higher than before.

When he finally let her fall, screaming his name and clinging to his shoulders, it was as though she would fall forever.

He held her as the last tremors passed, touching her lightly here, stroking her there, unable to take his hands from her.

“Now I know what all my friends were talking about,” she murmured, his hands beginning to warm her again.

Sam chuckled, a low, masculine, intimate sound. “Is that what women talk about? It sounds much more interesting than male conversation.”

“In Paris,” she said, her breath catching as he brushed his fingers over her breasts. “My friends in Montmartre. They called it brouter le cresson—”

“To graze the—I don’t know the word.”

“Watercress,” she said, with a small choked laugh that ended in a gasp as he leaned over and kissed one of her nipples. “It’s not the most flattering translation, although far from the worst I’ve ever heard.”

“To graze the watercress,” he said, grinning. “I like it.”

He kissed the other nipple, pulling it into his mouth and making her lose her train of thought.

“So you and your French lady friends talked about grazing the watercress, did you?” he asked, after a few seconds of delicate nibbling.

“They talked,” she said. “I didn’t believe them; eventually I chalked it up to charming French depravity. I take it all back.”

Sam’s eyebrows snapped together. “Do you mean that was, err, that you haven’t—”

“It’s not that shocking.”

“It’s a little shocking.”

Alva laughed, refusing to let the past intrude on the lovely glow enveloping her. “Do you know, my friends in Paris had other outlandish stories,” she said.

“They did?”

“Something called fumer le cigare,” she said, rolling onto her side and trailing her fingers down his chest.

“Um … smoking the—Ah.”

“Another story I didn’t put much credence in,” she said. “But presently I think perhaps it’s unwise to dismiss something without a fair trial.”

His breath caught. “A laudatory sentiment,” he agreed. “But if I’m to survive this encounter, we’d best leave the trial to a later date.”

“And here I believed you were a man of science,” she said, feeling deliciously wanton as her hand found his length. He made a low moaning sound. “Where is your sense of experimentation?”

“Every man must keep something for himself,” he said, pulling her against him and flipping her over, so he was above her. “Science cannot have it all. And in this case, sweet Alva, I’ve been thinking about burying myself inside of you for far too long to waste myself anywhere but here.” He slipped two fingers inside of her, her entry too wet to pose any barrier.