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Chapter Fifteen
He had restrained her against him and kissed her.
At first, Ariadne couldn’t even believe it. She watched in stunned silence as he had bent his head toward her, containing her in the span of his arms as if she didn’t weigh more than a bird’s feather to him. And when his lips came down on hers, a moment followed where Ariadne thought she was suspended in a space where she couldn’t tell the difference between reality and a dream.
His lips were soft and pliant against her as he plundered her senses, his hand moving to her back to hold her. Ariadne kissed him back. She was aflame at his touch, and there simply wasn’t any other choice as the passion wrapped around them both.
She found her hand moving to his nape and then softly caressing the hair there. Edward groaned against her and his tongue darted out as he sought permission inside her mouth. As he gently touched her hair and angled her face further toward him, Ariadne found her mouth falling open to let him in. His sweet tongue explored her mouth and the flame inside her stomach grew hotter and hotter until—
Ariadne’s eyes flew open at the realization that she was kissing Edward. Without thinking, she brought her hand up and slapped him. The contact made his head move away from her, breaking the kiss and she quickly stepped back.
“That is for your insolence, my Lord,” Ariadne said. “I didn’t ask to be kissed.” Ariadne was deeply aware of how she looked. She was wearing men’s clothing and she smelled awful—like grease and dirt and iron. She was also very sweaty after having worked on the new design she was working on and was due for a nice, cold bath. It didn’t seem to have fazed him however because he had held her close to him and kissed her.
Edward rubbed his cheeks and his jaw clicked as if he was barely restraining himself. It was almost like he was waiting to pounce on her again and Ariadne both dreaded and anticipated it. “You kissed me back,” he simply said. His voice was triumphant.
“I slapped you!” Ariadne said. Didn’t her appearance bother him? It bothered her deeply because, despite everything, she didn’t want him to see her in this way. Also, he had laughed at her.
“You crave control, Ariadne. You slapped me because you kissed me back,” Edward said with a shrug. Ariadne fumed at the audacious assumption.
“I most definitely did not. I have enough self-control,” Ariadne insisted. She didn’t have anything to prove to him but he seemed to have taken her compliance for something else. She had kissed him in shock rather than anything else. And yet when he had put his tongue in her mouth, her feet had almost buckled under her.
“Really?” he said, a note of disbelief in his voice. “Because I seem to think otherwise.”
Ariadne blinked at him in surprise. This was definitely not where she thought things would head after the kiss. “Aren’t you angry?” She had expected to face his wrath after she slapped him.
“No, as you said, I did kiss you without your consent,” Edward said. He looked away. “I got caught up in it.” But he didn’t apologize for kissing her in surprise. He made it sound as if he had no choice except to kiss her.
Ariadne wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Edward’s eyes flashed at the gesture. He touched his lips but he did nothing to erase her imprint. Instead, he licked his lips again. It was a simple action but it still made her skin hot.
There was something so primal about it, and the kiss itself. It wasn’t the behavior of a gentleman, a future duke no less. They had kissed with unfettered passion. And if she hadn’t broken apart first…Ariadne shuddered to think about what could have happened.
“Why are you here?” Ariadne asked. She no longer wanted to discuss anything about the kiss or to even remember it even though the imprint of it was now seared on her lips. His arrival had distracted her from the mysterious note that she had hidden away in her pocket along with her mother’s pendant.
“I came to apologize,” Edward said. “My father’s actions don’t speak for me.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Ariadne said. “What happened with your father was unfortunate but you didn’t have to seek me out because of it. Besides, he left us with coins aplenty for our troubles. Consider the matter settled.”
“What you did for me goes beyond money,” Edward said.
“And yet that was what my worth was reduced to in the end,” Ariadne said. She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter. I bear no ill feelings toward you. I took care of you because I saw it as my duty, nothing else.”
“Nothing else? Truly?” he said, his voice resigned.
Ariadne frowned. There was an undercurrent of something else in his words, but she couldn’t decipher it. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Nothing at all,” Edward replied. His answer annoyed her. She observed him surreptitiously. His health had drastically improved since the last time she had seen him when he had appeared gaunt and ill. It was like he had almost become a different man in the last three weeks. His hair was carefully combed and styled and his clothes were the finest she had ever seen. He was the very image of a high-society gentleman, and Ariadne had to remind herself that she disliked men like him. Edward was not an exception. He represented everything she stood against—a rich, spoilt brat to whom poor people were expendable. And yet here he was—
What game is he trying to play?
“If you have nothing else to say, then you can leave, my Lord. I have a lot of work to do and I can’t idle around.”
“I’m curious about this place,” Edward said. He walked around her, picking up some of the smaller, older inventions and running his fingers through them. His inspection irked at her. The studio wasn’t a scientific specimen for him to study. She snatched away the restored compass from his hand and returned it to the table.
“What does this one do?” he asked. Ariadne ignored him but Edward was persistent. He picked it up again. She turned to glare at him. “It has two needles that tell you time along with the direction. It’s a modified version of a simple compass.” It was also one of her father’s earliest inventions.
Edward nodded, satisfied, and left it alone. But he continued to inspect the rest of the inventions.
“Do you mind?” Ariadne said. She needed peace and quiet to work and he was intruding.
