“How about we meet tomorrow at Gunther’s?” she said gleefully.
“You want us to go eat ice cream?” The Duke looked at her with a lethal look.
“You look at me as if I have challenged you to a duel. You can have a sorbet if you don’t like ice cream.”
The cruel chuckle that escaped the Duke echoed in the small room.
“You really are not afraid of me.”
“Afraid of you?” Arabella repeated.
The Duke blinked slowly and took one step forward.
“Yes. Afraid of me.”
Arabella felt cold sweat run down her spine, and her stomach twisted. Oh, she was very much afraid of this man. He seemed to lack basic human decency; he was determined and calculating and completely deprived of empathy. He could simply destroy her family on a whim, and there was no stopping him. But she would rather be damn than show him an inkling of her fear. So she mustered all her courage to face him.
“Pray do tell,” Arabella challenged, “why should I be afraid of you?”
“All of the ton is afraid of me. They avoid me and make sure they stay out of my sight. And yet you deliberately want to... How is it that you put it? Ah! You want to get to know me. Understand me even.”
This was a staring match for the ages. Arabella gave him an openly fake sweet smile, and the Duke returned it with a dark warning look.
“Perhaps, Your Grace,” Arabella said firmly, “I wish to get to know you so I can fear you properly.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. It was subtle. But she saw it. The Duke took another step closer to her, an open act of intimidation. And it was working, even if Arabella had to muster all her courage not to show she was intimidated.
“I am sure you will soon be educated on the matter,” he growled in warning.
“And I am sure you will soon regret ever choosing me.”
The air between them turned to crystal. Thinned dangerously, the small space between them got even smaller. And it was reduced more when the Duke, with a smirk on his mouth, took one step more. Arabella tried, but her body valued self-preservation, so her legs took one step back.
He was so close, she could smell him. Clean, expensive soap, fine wool, and beneath it, something distinctly male. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but she would not look away. Wouldn’t even blink.
He leaned closer, but given his giant body, he practically folded into her. He lifted one hand, and Arabella feared that he would touch her, and didn‘t know what to expect, so her body tensed for the contact.
Instead, his hand passed her by and rested on the wall beside her head. That didn’t improve the situation. She was now trapped between the wall and his body. In all her sheltered life, Arabella didn’t fully understand the full meaning of danger, and now it was incarnated in front of her. And yet she stubbornly retained eye contact.
The Duke’s lips twitched in amusement. He loomed over her as he deliberately used his height to cage her in.
“Your Grace, I am partial to breathing,” she said, in desperate need to put space between them.
A low sound escaped his lips, a dangerous mixture between a laugh and a growl that made her truly reevaluate if she was picking a fight she could, in fact, win. Then all calculation seized when he leaned even closer.
“You should have thought about it, Miss Arabella,” he said, so close his breath fanned her face, “before provoking me. Now you must bear the consequences.”
Her body tightened, and her shoulders hit the wall as her fingers fisted her skirts to hold on to reality. His eyes darkened, making Arabella’s heart pound in her chest. For one, small, fateful second, her eyes dropped to his lips.
The smirk on his lips told Arabella that he had seen that momentary lapse in judgment. And he was very much enjoying his moment of triumph. He closed the space between them more.Was he going to…?
The seconds spent in the limbo of uncertainty ended the moment he came impossibly close, and yet his head leaned lower, past her lips. Arabella didn’t have time to realize what was going on until she felt it.
His lips, hot and wet and persistent, on her skin, right at that spot where her neck met her shoulder. The shock traveled through her, liquid and sharp, and took over the body. Her spin arched without command, and she lost all command of her breath.
He laid one, single, firm claim on her skin, her body, her existence. His lips parted just slightly, and the soft, wet heat of them pressed against her skin. Warmth rushed through her veins and pooled low in her stomach.
“You say,” he spoke against her skin, each move a brush, “you will make me regret choosing you.”
