Page 54 of A Duke Changes Everything
Nicholas’s gaze dropped to her mouth. He studied her lips and leaned closer. “A man can only try.”
“Why pretend to be someone you’re not?” she asked with the last gasp of air in her lungs. She needed to know. Not just his answer, but hers too.
As he’d done the first night he arrived, he slid a finger against her jaw, notching her chin up. “Don’t mistake me, Mina. I am the monster you see. I am my scars and greed and every other curse that’s been thrown my way.”
“That’s not all you are. I see more.”
He was more. She’d seen as much today, and she felt the truth on a bone-deep level. His tenderness had worked its way past her doubts and uncertainty. He was quickly becoming the biggest dilemma she’d ever faced, because she found the man irresistible.
“What do you see?” His jaw tensed, eyes narrowing warily.
“Pain. Compassion.” Mina fixed her gaze on his. “Temptation.”
So much temptation that she folded her fingers into her palms when he was near. So much that she’d taken up her pencil and paper and tried to revive the meager drawing skills she’d learned as a child in an attempt to capture his likeness. So much that she found herself looking forward to her first glimpse of him every single day.
“Ah, but you’re a woman who likes fairy tales and fantasy. You see what isn’t there.” He took one step backward, leaving a gaping emptiness in the stretch of floor between them. “You should go.”
Mina moved forward. “And if I stay?”
“Then you’d learn what I truly am. And regret ever wishing to know.” He reached for her, bracing a hand against her lower back and dipping his head until their foreheads were pressed together.
The fall of his hair tickled her nose. His breath gusted against her face, down her neck. Heaven help her, she arched into his warmth. Into him. She wanted to feel his heat everywhere.
Twisting her head, she reached up to touch his cheek, settling her palm gently over his scar. A little tremor rippled through him, but he didn’t pull away.
Mina couldn’t resist sweeping her thumb out to feel the texture of his mouth. His lips were so full, softer than she could reconcile. How could this be the same man of growls and glowers? The same whose words cut sharp as broken glass.
She lifted onto her toes until her mouth met his.
Nick thought perhaps he’d died and gone to heaven.
She had to be a fool, this lush, lovely woman in his arms. Yet he knew she wasn’t. She was clever, hot-tempered, efficient, and single-minded. She was his bloody steward, for God’s sake.
What she felt for him was surely nothing more than pity, and he never wanted that from anyone.
Especially from Mina.
But he was hungry, starving for everything she offered. One brush of her soft lips and he was hard and aching as if he hadn’t had a woman in years. God, he wanted her. Even if he could never have more than this one kiss to savor.
Yet he held back.
He was so used to taking what he wanted. Claiming what was his. When he craved a woman, he pursued her, bedded her, and left her well satisfied when he departed. But he always departed.
He wasn’t cold by choice, but necessity. And only on the surface. Inside, the fury that fueled him burned hot as the sun.
But here, now, with Mina’s plush mouth on his, he found himself hesitating. He’d kissed women before and felt nothing more than arousal. Nothing more than carnal need.
Mina was different. His opposite. Everything he wasn’t. Good and loyal and so damn hopeful.
And he knew as well as he knew the odds of every game at Lyon’s tables that she was a risk he could not, should not, take.
One taste wouldn’t be enough. He already wanted more. He couldn’t kiss this woman and walk away unscathed.
When he didn’t respond to her kiss, she tensed and began backing away.
Yes, go. Flee. Save yourself.He wasn’t sure if the words ringing in his head were for her or him.
“Forgive me. I’ve been presumptuous and—”
