Page 14 of The Duke of Fire
“What did you say? You have my papers?” Her face had quickly turned from red to white. Even with lips pale and eyes wide with shock, she was beautiful. Every expression on her face made him wonder more about her identity.
“You know where to find me if you want them back,” he said, his voice maddeningly smooth as he took a step backward.
“I will go nowhere near you,” she spluttered.
He tilted his head, smirking. “That is a shame. I suppose I will keep them, then… and read them afourthtime.”
“You read them!” she gasped.
“Of course! Every word.”
“Give them back.”
“Come find me,” he replied, turning on his heel with infuriating casualness, like he had not just set fire to the last of her dignity.
“As if I would ever come to find you!”
He paused, glancing over his shoulder, that arrogant half-smile playing on his lips. “Well, then, you will never get it back. Doyou know why women come to me? Because I can make all their dreams come true. Anything they ask for.”
“Not mine,” she replied, lifting her chin.
Sebastian was enjoying this little game even more.
“It really is a shame,” he said in a near-whisper, stepping close again. “Because I could make every word you wrote come true.”
She staggered back, her cheeks flushed with a furious, mortified heat, but her eyes—damn her—were glassing with unshed tears. If a single tear escaped down her cheek, Sebastian was uncertain what would undo him more—the urge to wipe it away or the darker, far more disturbing urge to taste it.
“I am not like the women you have bedded and ruined.” She finally found the words.
“I certainly hope not,” he whispered. “Because those women bore me. But you—” he looked her over with his fiery gaze. “You might destroy me.”
Chapter 5
“Where were you, Amelia?” Serenity had asked her as soon as she rushed back into the ball, singed hem and all. “I thought you would just take some air, but you were out there for too long!”
“I was in the gardens,” she had replied simply.
With the most infuriatingly handsome man I have ever seen.
His voice still rang in her ears. His touch. His gaze. The memory of his fingers brushing her ankles, the deliberate way his gaze devoured her—those were impossible to forget. Her skin still tingled where his coat had smothered the fire, where his proximity had sparked a far more dangerous heat. She remembered how he watched her as if she were the most enticing woman in the world. It must have worked with so many women.
No. Not with me. It should not work with me.
The brothel. The gardens. Why was it that the two brief moments in which her mundane life became more thrilling had to be in his presence? She blinked and saw his face.
“Oh, so you might have seen the Duke of Firaine storm out. Murmurs around the ballroom mentioned Lady Portia running after him. It was a good thing she was there. The duke is a rake. You should not be near him alone anywhere,” her friend had advised, looking concerned.
“Did you say the Duke of Firaine?”
It had been then that she realized that the rake who had her manuscript was even more dangerous. He not only had wealth but also influence. The party was enough proof of how some people were willing to bend for him and his grandmother.
“Yes. Apparently, those were the only ones missing for a few minutes. I highly doubt that, though. There are a few rakes here. They have their way of sweet-talking women to leave their chaperones,” her friend had continued. “Oh, there he is, talking to his grandmother once more.”
Amelia had followed her friend’s line of sight, and true enough, the infuriating man who had her manuscript had been talking to the Dowager Duchess of Firaine.
What a disaster.
Even back in her home, the duke’s amused blue eyes continued to follow her around. She could still hear his velvet voice caressing her ears.
