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He turns, slowly, and the firelight caresses his features. He’s handsome like this, and I realize he really is a different person here. He’s barefoot, looking more like Benedict than the buttoned-up duke he normally is at the great house.
His expression is warm, his posture relaxed as he takes me in.
I hesitate at the edge of the main part of the deck, a line in the wood separating the overhang of the lake house’s roof with the open deck.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” He asks, but he’s staring at me, not the lake. He can’t possibly be talking about me.
Not in a million years.
But his scrutiny is exacting and intense, the soft breeze off the lake the only thing cooling my heated cheeks.
I lift a hand to my hair, brushing back some stray strands that are being tugged loose. He gestures to one of the low Adirondack chairs by the fire pit.
“Are you hungry? I am pretty sure there’s supplies for marshmallows,” he offers. “Or… a drink?” There’s a low heat in his voice as I come to sit by the fire. I try to ignore it, but there’s a buzz in my stomach,
“I don’t think that my lady would forgive me if I roasted marshmallows without her,” I point out. I wasn’t sure how, but I feel in my gut that Maddie would justknow. That kid has a sixth sense for bullshit and snacks like nobody I’d ever met.
Well… she is a King. And both Mason and Benedict seem to be cut from the same cloth. Maybe she gets her cleverness from them. The thought annoys me, given how both of them seem committed to making my life a supreme difficulty in more ways than one.
I watch Mason from across the fire pit, the golden light licking at his skin. His eyes are relaxed, and he looks strange and foreign to me here, in this place, under this light. A burst of laughtererupts from me and my eyes widen as I clap my hand over my mouth.
He pops an eyebrow, leaning forward, taking the poker to roll over one of the logs.
“Care to share what you find so amusing?” He asks. I bite the inside of my cheek and try to control the quiver of my stomach.
“I just realized why you look so different to me right now,” I reply, deciding on the route of honesty as much as possible. He looks curious, and not angry, so I venture further into this shadowy, new territory. “You’re not sitting behind a desk,” I say, and my cheeks begin to warm. He stares at me for a long moment before his shoulders chug upwards in a silent laugh, and he glances away, out toward the water. The moon sparkles on the broken surface, rippling in the breeze.
“Lord above, you must think I do nothing but work,” he murmurs.
“That and glare soulfully,” I comment, not sure what is taking hold of my tongue and letting it wag freely like this. I’m not even drunk. He looks at me with curiosity, amusement curling his lips up.
“I do more than glare soulfully,” he says and there is an intensity in the look he is giving me that has my breath catching in my throat.
“Well of course. You rule with… fairness and equity?” I try, the mountain air getting to my head. The cool breeze off the lake washes over me, its seductive song calling to me. What am I doing here, talking so casually to the duke? Am I trying to risk my position? For what?
But looking at him from across the fire, his concerns are miles away. He’s not even focused on my silly words. There’s a distance clouding his eyes, sparks and stars littered across their surface, hiding their green depths in shadows. What is he thinking about?
“You have the care of the most important thing in my world, Miss Bell,” his voice runs rough over my name, sending a shiver up my spine, my skin starting to tingle all over. “And yet…” He falls into silence, and we sit there, the darkness consuming us, the fire beginning to die.
He gets to his feet. My head tilts up and my breath hitches in my chest, my whole body feeling electric. He’s coming toward me. His gaze holds me pinned, trapping me in my chair, until he’s standing over me. He blocks out the firelight, leaving me in near-shadow. He bends down, and the subtle scent of his cologne drags me in. My eyes close, and my body is waiting for, my lips tingling, the kiss that’s coming, his mouth on me, the ghost of that warmth already haunting me—
“And yet, while I shouldn’t compromise your focus, I can’t help myself,” his voice is like a slowly rising fog, threatening to consume me.
His fingers brush over my bottom lip. I gasp. His head bends down next to my ear, and my eyes open wide. He’s inches from me. “You are an absolute torment,” his voice rasps. My body is locked up, my muscles tight and tense, and I can’t move. His lips brush across my ear. He stands up with a snap of his spine. I stare up at him, but he refuses to meet my gaze. My whole body is chilled and warmed at the same time. “Goodnight,” he sounds like he’s fighting to hold back a beast clawing at the door, and he pulls away, moving past me, his footsteps ringing hollow on the deck floor.
Warmth from the dying fire blooms over my face as he disappears, his shadow and bulk no longer blocking the glowing coals.
Despite it though, or maybe because of a curl of a breeze coming up off the lake, I sit there and shiver.
I…. I need to get to bed. Now. And not think of the duke for the rest of the night.
27
Eva
"You are a torment."
Those words haunted me, all night long, until I woke up with the sun as it crept into my room. Outside the windows lived the sky distantly gray and purple, clouds rolling over the hills at the lake's far shore like shaved ice dropped into water, curling and mistily formed.
