“How can I test you? You leave me to myself out at Ealdwick Manor. I have nay friends out there! Then, ye snatch me away the moment someone deigns to talk to me?”
He pulled her closer, the distance between them shrinking to a dangerous minimum. “Lamfort is entirely unacceptable, and other men being near you is not convenient for me at all. In fact, I find it quite intolerable.”
“Intolerable?” she challenged, her chest rising and falling quickly as she looked up at him. “Ye have nae right to this kind of possessiveness! Ye have nae earned it!”
“Watch yourself, Duchess.”
“You kissed me. And ye called it a mistake, and now ye want to claim me in front of the entireton? Ye me impossibly close to yer perfect body and I am to…to” She was flustered by his proximity, yet she did not wish to give up an inch of the high ground. “That is the height of hypocrisy!”
“Hypocrisy be damned,” he muttered, his expression hardening. His hand slid slightly, tightening its grip on her back and grazing the top of her full bottom. “You are my wife, and I claim the right to protect what is mine.”
He leaned down, his mouth near her ear again, the warm intensity of his breath sending hot shivers down her spine.
“If you allow a snake like Lamfort near you again, I will not simply claim you on a dance floor, Isla, for all thetonto see,” he vowed, his voice low and gravelly. “I will take you from this ball, carry you home, and ensure that every moment you spend in my company is a reminder that you are bound to me and no other.”
Her breath hitched and caught in her throat. The heat and sudden dominance of his words made her head spin. All the longing, the sharp sting of his previous rejections, were momentarily erased by the overwhelming force of him and his immediate, undeniable attraction.
“Wait a moment… did you sayperfect body?”
“Ye must have misheard me,” she said, her cheeks growing redder with each twirl about the dance floor, eyes following them like they were playing a cricket match.
“Well, what did you say then, wife?”
“I could use a hot toddy?”
“You will have to do better than that.”
The music, mercifully, ended with a final note of string instruments as the room began to rise in applause.
Is that for us, or for the players?
Isla stood rigid in his arms for a long second, her eyes locked with his.
The moment was too intense, too palpable. She could see the same dark, desperate desire reflected in the depths of his azure eyes, and she knew, with a sudden, devastating clarity, that another second would lead to another inevitable, painful rejection. It was all too much, too fast. She was balancing on a house of cards, and it was only a matter of time before she came crashing down again.
I cannae endure him pullin’ toward me only to yank himself away from me again... it hurts too much…
Isla took a shaky step back as the applause finally finished and the next song started, pulling her hand from his grip.
“I… I cannae,” she whispered, not to him but to herself. “This is too much.”
Before the Duke could say a word, before he could reach for her again and dampen her resolve, she turned on her heel and fled.
She pushed through the crowd with the panicked, urgent need to escape. Not them. Him.
She needed to put distance between herself and the terrifying, demanding desire he had just ignited inside of her.
Benedict did not hesitate.
The shock of Isla’s sudden bolt lasted only a few seconds before the instinctual need to follow her took over, his feet moving before his brain could register what he was doing. He muttered an apology to the nearest peer and moved through the crowd with swift, purposeful focus, careful not to bump anyone.
His eyes scanned the packed ballroom. Luckily, she stood out easily to him, but that was because he had memorized her appearance from all the times she haunted his dreams. She was a tall, statuesque woman with perfect curves and luminous dark blonde hair. While other women sank into the background, she shone bright. Her scars only accentuated her striking otherworldliness.
She is mine.
He made his way to a long, empty hall and into a gallery. He found her in a small room tucked away behind the main gallery, dimly lit by the moon filtering through a fine lace curtain.
She was standing by the cold hearth, her back to the door, her shoulders rising and falling quickly with uneven breaths. She ran her hands up and down her arms, and all Benedict wanted to do was wrap himself around her, to show her the heat he felt for her.
