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FORAMOMENT,Griffin was certain he hadn’t heard her correctly.
Not when his Princess sat before him, looking as fresh and pure as if she had just that moment descended from the clouds above, harp in one hand and halo attached.
Melody was radiant. She had spent hours in a pit of venomous snakes, and yet she sat there before him looking sweet and virtuous and wholly unfazed.
Even as she spoke of hisreputation.
He eyed her a little more closely. She was dressed in what might as well have been battle armor. Her wedding dress had been a glorious confection, a fairy tale in fabric. The casual sophistication of the night before was left to his memories—and the filthy, erotic dreams of her that had kept him up half the night, to his shame. But today’s ensemble was deceptively simple. The elegance was in the details. Not trying too hard—which the more vicious would have used as reason enough to sniff about her—and not trying too little, either, which would have branded her as haughty by some and unfit for her position by others.
Even her hair managed to look effortless yet sophisticated at once. It was tamed and swept back from her face, highlighting the perfection of her aristocratic bone structure. Her makeup was subtle, and instead of dramatic jewelry to proclaim her position, she had only demure hints of sparkle at her ears and the hollow of her throat.
Then again, the ring he’d put on her hand spoke loudly enough.
And the dress she wore was a masterpiece. Griffin imagined that he would see a great many dresses cut precisely like this on the island’s fashionable ladies within the next few months. It was perfectly feminine, yet authoritative. It announced not only the elevation of Melody’s rank, but signaled her ease with her new role. It was both more than a shift and less than a gown, showing off the heartbreaking beauty of her form while remaining modest enough to win the approval of even the most ferocious society matron.
He found he was...proud.
“I should have prepared you for what would happen today,” he said, and then stared down at his hand, astonished to find he was pressing it against his chest. Because something there...ached. “I apologize that I did not. If I am honest, it never occurred to me that they would force this protocol upon you. I assumed you were relaxing into your new role, in private.”
He had also been far too busy frothing about in the grip of his own demons. Not that he planned to share that with his innocent bride.
Who seemed toglowat him. “I’m actually pleased you did not prepare me.”
Melody sat with her legs together and her ankles demurely crossed, a vision of propriety. Her hands were folded in her lap, gracefully, and he found himself staring at them—remembering how it had felt to have those very hands all over him.
And the fire that had kept him up half the night surged back to life. Flames licked over him while all of thatwanttumbled through him, making him edgy with need.
Making him think he might burn to ash if he couldn’t gethishands onher—
Griffin didn’t know what he might have done then. And he would never know, because the staff was all around them, seamlessly clearing away one set of tea things and bringing another to take its place.
And Melody looked as if she was staring right at him with her eyes like the sea in summer, when, of course, she wasn’t.
That thing in his chest unfurled and ached all the more.
“You should not be pleased,” he told her, and only when he heard his own voice did he realize how tense he was. He ordered himself to find his way back to the charm he was known for. “We have been married less than two days and I have already failed you.”
“Not at all,” his bride told him, her voice far airier than his. “It was far more fun to do it blind.”
For a moment, he could only stare at her. Slowly, Griffin blinked.
Then watched, while that ache in his chest hitched and turned into something far hotter, as she smiled.
Wickedly.
He had the lowering, white-hot notion that if they’d been truly alone in this room, he would have ignored the table between them and gotten his hands on her at last. He would have taken her, there and then, any way he could.
It was that wickedness in her lovely smile.
It was the way it changed her. Altered her face, making her look almost as if...
But then she laughed again, and this time, she sounded as innocent as ever. As pure and good.
Untouchable, something in him complained.
When he had vowed to protect her, not defile her. She was goodness personified. She deserved more than...him.
“I shouldn’t say things like that,” Melody said brightly, then laughed again. A tinkling sort of laugh, like a bell, that made him think of the sorts of churches he never entered. Griffin tried to ignore the lick of flames inside him. He tried to shame himself for all this greed, but failed. “Madame Constantinople Dupree was very clear on this point. But she did tell me that a little bit of firmness, just the faintest hint, wouldn’t go awry.”
