“I am very much alive, I assure you, Your Grace.”
“It didn’t seem like it from where I was sitting,” Arabella said, smirking. “If I am not mistaken, you did manage to secure the investment you worked so hard for. I was expecting an insufferable haughty Duke for the rest of the night.”
His lips twitched to an almost smile. Arabella decided to regard this as a victory. But then his look darkened again, perhaps remembering the encounter that soured tonight’s mood. Arabella knew better than to press for more.
“I never thought that you would be so deeply sensitive, Your Grace.”
The Duke turned to her with deep shock on his face.
“After all,” she continued lightly, “Don Giovanni met the fate that he deserved.”
A low chuckle escaped his lips, and he shook his head as if he had to deal with an incorrigible toddler. But Arabella didn’t mind, because she had managed to pull him out of his dark thoughts, and somehow that felt like the greatest achievement of the night.
* * *
Arabella was sitting at her vanity, brushing her long black hair. She had slipped into her nightgown, the fire from the fireplace still raging, making the use of the robe unnecessary.
She was still reminiscing about the night, thinking of all the little things that had happened when the door knocked. Her hand froze midair. The last thing she asked Winnie was for a warm cup of chamomile, but it was still at the little table in front of the fireplace. And then she gave leave to her maid to retire.
“Arabella?”
Gerald was outside her room, asking for permission to enter. That simple call, her name on his lips, and she was transformed. She could see herself in the mirror getting flustered, her cheeks a bright shade of pink that went up to the tips of her ears, her breasts moving as she was struggling to maintain her breath.
“You may enter,” she called out.
Gerald stepped into her room, and Arabella looked at him through the mirror exactly like Perseus did to avoid the look of Medusa. Arabella found herself wondering when exactly she would turn to stone if she kept looking at those devastating green eyes.
Looking through the mirror did nothing to dampen the effect Gerald had on her. Arabella feared that his goal would be just a debrief of the night, to recount the success of the endeavor and maybe discuss the next part of their contract.
“Let me do that for you,” Gerald said and pulled close behind her.
The moment their eyes met through the mirror, Arabella knew that this was not a social call. Gerald had clearly come straight from his bath. His dark hair was still damp, curling slightly at the ends. He was wearing a dark robe loosely tied around his waist, revealing his skin in the most delicious of ways.
Arabella followed a drop of water, taking a path from his temple down his cheek, over his jaw, gliding down his throat, going past the collarbone, and then to the exposed chest till it vanished under the robe. She was suddenly thirsty.
“Give me the brush, Arabella,” he commanded, stirring her out of her haze.
Arabella gave him the brush with trembling hands. He looked at her through the mirror as his fingers went through her black locks in a slow, reverent manner. He started brushing her hair, an act so intimate in its innocence that Arabella closed her eyes and bit down on her lip to stop a moan from escaping her.
“Your hair is so soft,” he whispered close to her ear.
That made Arabella snap her eyes open just to see him look at her through the mirror with a molten look. Gerald’s hand slowed. The brush moved through her hair one final time before he set it quietly on the vanity.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then he gathered her hair and moved it aside, letting it spill over her right shoulder. He leaned in and breathed over her exposed skin, and Arabella, all her defenses gone, leaned away to give him more access.
Gerald was not one to let an opportunity pass by. His lips slowly grazed the skin on her shoulder, lingering there before going up her neck till he found himself close to her ear. He took the earlobe between his teeth and bit down just enough to make Arabella moan with need.
“I like the sounds you make, Arabella,” he growled into her ear. “Let me see if I can make you make more.”
Arabella’s fingers tightened on the edge of the vanity. They looked at each other through the mirror. Arabella could see exactly the effect his actions had upon her. She was a pure mess of want and need and desire, and he could see all of that. They were written in the way her lips were parted, panting breaths coming through them, in the way her eyes were hooded, lost in his haze.
Gerald kept kissing and nibbling and licking behind her ear, over her neck. But his fingers didn’t stay idle. He raised them both, taking the slow path from her waist up her sides, a further reminder of the sides of her breasts, and then up her shoulders.
He found the hem of the nightgown. Slowly, he teased the skin with soft circular motions. Arabella didn’t die that night, so she was sure she could withstand everything.
“Look at you, Arabella,” he said so close to her ear. “Look at how much you want this.”
Arabella felt equally ashamed and debauched as she studied that through the mirror. And when his fingers released the nightgown off her shoulders, she watched as the fabric got caught at her breasts, going over her peaks before it pooled around her waist.
