He gave a shrug. “I don’t know, but I swear if you think any harder, steam will start coming out of your ears.”

“Steam. Really.”

He grinned. “Smoke?”

“Nicholas.”

“You’d be surprised what they teach us these days in medical school,” he said, his expression oh-so-innocent.

“Apparently so.”

His fingers walked their way up her thigh, crossing to her hand, and then up her forearm. “I’d like to kiss you again,” he said softly.

She nodded. She wanted that, too, but she wasn’t sure how to put it into words. Or even into action. It wasn’t that she felt frozen—that was far too cold a sensation to describe what had come over her body.

But she was still. Utterly motionless save for her breath, which had, in opposition to everything else, begun to quicken. She didn’t know how to move; she’d lost the ability to do so. All she could do was react, and once he touched her … really touched her …

She wasn’t sure what would happen, only that it would be like nothing she’d ever known.

He sat up, his nightshirt gaping a little at the neck to reveal a sprinkling of chest hair. It seemed so intimate, especially since she, too, was dressed in the loose white muslin of sleep.

“Georgie,” he said, and his hand came to her cheek, part caress, part entreaty. He leaned in, and she leaned in, and they kissed.

It was exactly how it had been in the carriage.

And at the same time completely different.

He groaned her name again, and his other hand came up so that he was cradling her head, holding her close as he explored. The kiss was deep, and it was hot, and it stole everything from her in a way that made her just want to give more.

The entire moment was a contradiction—the same but different, stealing but giving. It was all so new to her, and yet he seemed to know exactly what to do.

How did he know how to do this? How to move and touch and give and take in exactly the right way to make her simmer with desire?

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered.

“You’re already doing it.”

She did not see how this could be the truth, but she wasn’t sure she cared. She just kept kissing him, doing what felt right and trusting that he would tell her if it was wrong.

He touched her leg, his hand trailing delicious shivers along her skin. “You tell me what to do,” he whispered.

She felt herself smile. “You know what to do.”

“Do I?”

She drew back, feeling the confusion on her face. “Haven’t you done this before?”

He shook his head.

“But—but—you’re a man.”

He shrugged, the very picture of nonchalance. But his eyes didn’t quite meet hers. “Everyone has to have a first time.”

“But—But—” This made no sense. Men of their society sowed their wild oats before they married. It’s what they did. It was how they learned. Wasn’t it?

“Do you mind that you’re my first?” Nicholas asked.

“No!” Goodness, that had come out with a bit more force than she’d intended. “No, not at all. I’m merely surprised.”

“Because I’m such a rogue?” he said with a self-deprecating quirk of his brow.

“No, because you’re so good at it.”

His mouth slid into a wide, naughty smile. “You think I’m good, do you?”

She covered her face with her hands. Dear God, she was blushing so hard she was going to burn her palms. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Oh, I think you did.”

She made a vee with the fore and middle fingers of her right hand and peered through the space. “Maybe just a little?”

“Just a little bit good?” he teased. “That’s not much of a compliment.”

“Do you see how embarrassed I am?”

He nodded solemnly.

“And you have no remorse.”

Again with the solemn nod. “None.”

She snapped her fingers back together.

“Georgie,” he murmured, gently prying her hands from her face. “If I’m any good at this, as you say, it is only because I’m with the right person.”

“But how do you know what to do?” she asked suspiciously. Because if he didn’t … well, they were going to be in trouble. She’d been counting on him being the one to move things along.

“All I’ve done thus far is kiss you,” he said, “and I must confess, I have done that before.”

Her eyes narrowed. “With whom?”

His lips parted with surprise, and then he let out a bark of laughter. “Do you really want to know?”

“Wouldn’t you want to know if it were me?”

He didn’t answer right away. “I’m not sure,” he said.

“Well, I am. Who was it?”

He rolled his eyes. “The first time was—”

“It was more than once?”

He poked her lightly in the shoulder. “Don’t ask questions if you don’t want the answers, Georgiana Bridgerton.”

“Rokesby,” she reminded him.

“Rokesby.” His eyes softened. “So you are.”

She touched his shoulder, letting her fingers trail seductively over his nightshirt to the warm skin of his neck. “Although …”

His voice hitched. “Although?”

Her eyes met his. A strange womanly thrill zipped along her skin. “Some would say,” she said slowly, “that I’m not truly a Rokesby yet.”

He kissed her, once, and lightly, whispering his words against her lips. “Then I suppose we will have to do something about that.”

Chapter 19

Nicholas had never planned to remain a virgin so long. He had certainly never explicitly thought to himself—I shall not lie with a woman unless we are wed.

He had no moral objection to sexual congress before marriage, no religious one, either. Perhaps a medical objection—he knew far too much about syphilis to find attraction in indiscriminate intercourse.

But he’d never made a conscious decision to hold onto his virginity until he lay with his wife. It was more that the opportunity never seemed to present itself. Or at least not the right opportunity, and the thought of doing the deed simply to have it done had never sat well with him.

If he made love to a woman it should mean something. It didn’t have to mean they were married. It didn’t even have to mean he was in love. But it ought to mean more than the ticking of a box.

Maybe things would have been different if he’d done it when he was young, when all his friends were foolish and immodest and eager for pleasure. It might have happened—hell, it probably would have happened—his first year at Cambridge had it not been for an ill-timed head cold. A group of his friends had gone out carousing, and they’d ended up at a high-end brothel. Nicholas had meant to be with them, but he’d taken ill the day before, and thought of adding a hangover to his congestion was more than he could bear.

So he’d stayed in his rooms, and his friends were taught the so-called ways of manhood. He’d listened to their boasts because—well, because he was nineteen years old. Did anyone think he wouldn’t listen?