“It delights in physicality, little luna.”
Her cheeks blazed red while her eyes blazed with ire. “That is not what is rubbish about it. It is themetaphysical bit.” She pushed the book further away from her, but her gaze riveted there, on its plain brown cloth cover.
“You do not believe in a connection between body and soul?”
“Not particularly.”
“There is another text,” he said.
“I beg you to keep this one to yourself.” But curiosity flicked her eyes toward the towering bookshelves at the back of the room. He knew it was curiosity, had seen the particular emotion light up her eyes on numerous occasions.
Still, he shrugged, opened a book on medieval fortifications sure to dry his eyeballs into sand. “As you wish.”
She opened a book, too, and they read for several ticks and tocks of the hallway clock.
He read until he felt her gaze on him.
Without lifting his attention from his book, he asked, “Yes, Gwendolyn?”
“Should I read this other text you speak of?”
“I cannot give you a copy. I only ever saw a few pages, but the person who shared them with me divulged some very interesting information regarding its contents as well. But you are not interested.”
She waved her hand at him and refocused on her book, a picture of the studious scholar. “It is of no matter.”
More silence in which they pretended to read.
Then… “What is it called?” A hesitant question pretending not to be.
He lifted his gaze from words he’d not read and found her blue eyes on him. “The text is calledVatsyayana Kama Sutra. Sometimes, though there are other names for it as well.”
“Sounds dry.”
“Anything but. It, too, delights in the physical. And the metaphysical. And the interconnection of the two. It is worried, most, with the unity of man and woman.”
“Unity in a physical context is brief. It may offer pleasure, but it never lasts.”
“You’re doing it wrong, then, love.”
“And you would know?”
He almost flinched. She’d been his only lover. Their time together in the Paris tower room, his only night of passion. His lack of practical experience, though, had not seemed to bother her then. He’d made sure his years of research into the amorous arts had guided him, and he’d brought her to screaming pleasure three times that night.
But he’d also heard women could lie about such things. With their bodies.
And he’d lay down his pride in service to her pleasure.
“True,” he said, “my practical experience is negligible. Perhaps you should tell me if I’m doing it wrong.”
She licked her lips. “I would be a liar if I suggested you were in any way… unacceptable. I think you’ve figured everything out well enough.”
He tapped his fingers on the table, drew a slow sensual circle against the grain, tightened it. Her breath tightened as well, and with his gaze fixed on her, he saw where she looked—at his fingers, circling, tightening. She licked her lips.
He should not be doing this. He’d promised her.
But she seemed entirely fearless at the moment, entirely desirous of the one thing he could give her—distraction.
“The text,” he said, “so I’ve been told, mind you, teaches that everyone should strive for well-being, delight, a sense of morality, and independence from the actual world. Notice these elements are not physical, but if these elements are in place, the physical… it reaches new heights.”
