“Stay.” The word was a low, rough command, stripped of all polish.
“Why?” she whispered, her lungs struggling for air.
He released her slowly, but he didn’t retreat. Instead, he stepped into her personal space, his heat radiating through her silk robe, forcing her to take a trembling step back toward the armchair. He didn’t stop until she felt the edge of the velvet against the back of her knees, trapping her between the chair and the sheer, overwhelming force of his presence.
“I have questions,” he said, his voice dropping into a lower, more intimate register that seemed to vibrate in the air between them.
“Questions?” Diana asked, her fingers digging into the scandalous leather of her book.
“About our courtship. About how it began.”
She laughed once, a sharp, humorless sound that cut through the quiet of the library like a blade. “Courtship? Don’t be absurd, Your Grace.”
He tilted his head slightly, watching the way her chest rose and fell with her quickened breathing. “Explain it to me, then.”
“There was none,” she said plainly, the bitterness she had buried for a year finally beginning to seep through the cracks. “We met for the first time on our wedding day. You examined me as though I were a prize horse, assessing the bone structure, the lineage, the temperament. You informed my uncle that I would do. And that was that.”
He didn’t interrupt, but she saw the muscle in his jaw jump.
“After our wedding, you told me,” she continued, her voice trembling with the ghost of that old humiliation, “that you had no interest in a wife. Only a Duchess to manage your house. You said I was free to do as I pleased, but all without you.”
A heavy silence followed, broken only by the soft, rhythmic pop of the fire. The flames caught in Alexander’s green eyes, making them glint in a way that sent Diana’s stomach droppingunexpectedly. She had almost forgotten how dangerously handsome he was when he looked at her like that.
“If I behaved so poorly,” he said quietly, stepping into the narrow gap between her knees, “then perhaps this void in my head is a mercy. An opportunity to improve.”
Her breath caught in a jagged hitch. He moved forward, crowding her gently, his presence a wall of heat that forced her back until her knees hit the velvet of the armchair. She sank into it, her silk robe sliding up her legs, exposing a sliver of pale skin that he didn’t miss.
Alexander leaned down, bracing one hand on each armrest. He caged her in, his large frame blocking out the rest of the room until there was nothing left but him.
Her heart slammed against her ribs like a trapped bird. He was so close now that she could see the dark shadow of stubble along his jaw and the subtle, hungry tension in his throat. The heat radiating from his chest was a physical weight, pressing against her until she felt dizzy.
“Tell me, Diana,” he murmured, his face inches from hers, his gaze dropping to the trembling curve of her lower lip. “If the man I was gave you nothing but coldness…how would you prefer your husband to behave now?”
He leaned a fraction closer, his lips hovering a mere heartbeat from hers. The scorched heat of his breath grazed her skin, a searing invitation that made her vision swim.
“Show me,” he whispered, the words vibrating against her mouth. “Show me exactly what I’ve been missing.”
Diana’s skin burned as if she were standing in the center of the hearth. The raw, unadulterated intimacy of his tone terrified her; it was far more dangerous than his arrogance had ever been.
She opened her mouth to breathe, to protest, to sayanything, but her voice had deserted her. Instead, her gaze dropped—traitorously, helplessly—to the firm, cruel perfection of his mouth.
His eyes followed the movement, his pupils blowing wide until the green of his irises was almost gone. Then, his gaze lowered further, settling on the book clutched against her thighs.
“The book,” he said, his voice dropping into a register so deep it felt like a physical caress.
She startled, her heart giving a violent lurch as she looked down at the scandalous volume. He reached for it, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he trailed his fingers over the leather cover, his knuckles brushing the silk of her nightdress, and the sensitive skin of her inner thigh beneath it.
“Is this how you would prefer it?” he asked, the words a low rasp. “Shall I behave as the hero does?”
Her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears it drowned out the crackle of the fire. The scent of him was making her lightheaded.
“I—” she started, but the word died in her throat.
He leaned closer still, caging her so tightly into the chair that she could feel the radiating heat of his body through her robe.
“Do you want me to do what the book says, Diana?” he asked, his voice a rough, dark command. “Do you not want me to be polite?”
Her body answered before her pride could even draw a breath. Every nerve ending she possessed was screaming for him, a year of starvation manifesting in a single, desperate ache.
