“I told you,” she said, trying to sound calm. “It was a mere mistake. I was meant to be... elsewhere.”
The man’s forest-green eyes glittered with interest as his lips tugged into a smirk, and he shook his head.
“I do not believe you,” he replied.
Through her fear, Elara felt a flicker of her bravery return, and she set her hands on her hips as she squared her shoulders.
“Are you so arrogant as to assume that someone like me would come looking for a man like you?” she retorted.
To her surprise, a chuckle broke from the Duke’s lips.
“Everyone who has been invited to one of my parties knows the rules that are required to be followed when permitted in my home,” the Duke replied, leaning closer. “One such rule is that guests are only permitted on the first and second floors of my home. To enter this floor risks a grave punishment.”
Elara opened her mouth to speak, but faltered. She had found a flaw in her plan and had not heard a rumor of such rules.
“Therefore, my little demoness, I must deduce that you are here not by invitation but by way of your own invention. You snuck in somehow, yes?”
“I...” Elara breathed, her heart racing in her chest as she realized she had been caught. And by the man she had come to spy on, no less. “That is not true.”
“And what other reason would a woman have to risk such feats to invade my chambers unless it was to see me and beg me for a taste of heaven?”
Elara stopped trembling then and deadpanned.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked.
“You have heard the rumors, no doubt,” the Duke whispered, reaching up to caress her jawline with his knuckles.
His touch made her shiver with pleasure, a reaction that both alarmed and worried her. He was a stranger, after all, as well as the man she suspected of hurting Evander. He had no right to evoke such feelings in her and yet…
“The... the rumors?”
“Of the pleasure I am capable of drawing out of a woman?”
It was Elara who let out a laugh this time. She had to mentally shove the pleasure from his touch down and slapped his hand away from her face.
“You truly must be the most rakish of cads if you have to say such a thing rather than trust the truth of it,” she shot back. “Surely, if you were as good as you say, I would already have been throwing myself at your feet.”
She made a show of looking down between them, then looked back at him with an impish smirk.
“But look at that,Your Grace. I am still standing.”
The Duke of Ashworth’s deep, rumbling chuckle sent butterflies fluttering in Elara’s lower belly.
“What a spitfire you are,” he said, as if impressed.
He then swept his gaze down her costume, and Elara felt every inch of her body heat up as his eyes slowly made their way back up her red silk-wrapped figure. His brazen gaze then lingered shamelessly on her breasts, which, to her surprise and offense, made her nipples tighten, and her flesh feel suddenly sensitiveagainst her corset.
She refused to let the shiver take over her when his eyes eventually made their way upward again, taking in her collarbone, her throat, and finally, meeting her eyes.
“That is what you are, are you not?” the Duke asked.
Elara blinked, then blushed.
“What... what are you saying?” she asked snappily.
“Your costume. You are a flame,” the Duke stated.
Elara swallowed as her heart began to hammer again.
