Page 62 of The Duchess Games

“I’m the one who stole from you. I’ll…” she searched for an alternative to arrest. “I’ll just go. You’ll never have to see me again.”

“Unacceptable.”

“Please, Callum.”

“Who knows what else you might have stolen?” He wondered. “A duke can’t be too careful.”

She blinked at him. His entire demeanour changed. The air was charged with something completely different. Her body understood it before her mind could fully catch up. Her nipples pebbled underneath her nightdress.

“I think a thorough search is in order.” There was a glint of mischief in his blue eyes. It made her bud pulse hotly between her legs. “Don’t you?”

“You’re not angry?”

“On the contrary, I’m very angry,” he corrected her. He eased back. She didn’t like it. “Whatever happens here between us, Cat, it’s not retribution. It’s not duty or debt. Are we clear?”

She nodded.

“I’m going to need you to say it, Cat.”

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“This isn’t bribery or blackmail. Say it and mean it, Cat. Or go.”

She should absolutely go.

“It isn’t bribery or blackmail,” she said instead.

He closed his fingers very gently around her throat, nudging her chin up with his thumb. “Did you steal anything else?”

“No.” Her breath trembled.

“Show me.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Time stopped.

Instead of blaming her, berating her, or shutting her out, Callum was creating a pocket outside of reality. Away from smuggling and stealing and etiquette. She didn’t know how he managed it. How his cold gruffness evaporated at the very moment when he was most entitled to it.

Instead, there was only his searing gaze moving over her, his arms folding over his chest. His eyebrow lifting in command.

Show me.

His words echoed through her.

Her fingers touched the laces at the neck of her nightdress. She pulled them loose, slowly.

“Are you going to make me ask you again?”

She nearly whimpered just at the stroke of his voice, and he hadn’t even touched her yet. “Maybe.”

“Is that so?”

Another stroke, just from his voice, shivering over the back of her neck, down her throat. She swallowed and fisted the material of her nightdress, finally pulling it over her head. She was naked underneath, nothing between her and his hungry gaze. She faltered briefly, nightdress crumpled in a ball in front of her.

“Keep going, Caitriona.”

She swallowed. “I’m not…”