Page 50 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

She could not let him affect her. Just because he was handsome and arresting and smelled like amber and incense.

What was the point of this line of thought again?

“Pippa.”

She lifted her chin mutinously. “Professor.”

His eyes flared. He took a step closer to her, and another. His shadow touched her first, then his feet nudged hers under the water. If she took a deep breath, her breasts would brush against his chest. Her nipples tightened in anticipation. She inhaled. Just a little.

The physical awareness between them crackled.

“I think you’re trying to distract me,” he said, softly, sternly. His voice was sweeter than fairy fruit, more harrowing than lake ice cracking under your feet. “With your big eyes and your rosebud mouth, pink as a strawberry.” He brushed his lips over hers so gently that she thought she might have imagined it. “And I do love strawberries.”

She very nearly whimpered.

“But you agreed to training, Miss Cavendish.” He stepped back, sounding like a professor again, strict, firm, knowing. It did nothing to detract from his appeal.

Quite the contrary.

Blast him.

“I don’t recall agreeing to any of this at all, actually,” she pointed out. She was breathless, but at least she could tell herself she had not melted away entirely into a puddle of quivering submission. Yet.

“You made a wish.”

“I know,” she grumbled.

“And do you want to be at the mercy of this for your entire life?”

“I probably won’t live that long.” She swallowed at the cold glare he sent her way.

He narrowed his eyes. “Try again.”

“N-no,” she replied, because, unfortunately, he was quite right.

“Good girl. Now take it off. Where did you even get that atrocity?”

“I bought it off an Iron Crow.”

He raised a brow. “Naughty girl.”

She decided she liked that as much as being his good girl.

And then she decided she was clearly depraved. Or, at the very least, addled by the very air of Faery.

Lachlan kept his gaze on her, patient and knowing, as if he could hear her every thought again.

Mortifying.

“Why did you claim my wish?” she asked softly.

“I did what I had to do.”

“Did you?” It was her turn to push. She may as well. She was trapped here, after all. “Why?”

“Your wish was very loud.”

“I barely whispered it. Everyone makes a wish on solstice eve, Wishing Well or not.”