Page 85 of The Chaosweaver's Daughter
Thatone. Nes was fairly certain the closed door would deposit her somewhere near the library. If she could manage to get out of the apartment undetected, she could compose herself and figure out how to get back to her room.
A low murmur from a man and chuffing from a dog told her Kas and Lellin were very present in the lit chamber to her left.
Now or never, Nes.
She made a dash for the door, and her fingers closed around the brass handle as a familiar voice cut through the silence.
“Tilal,what do you think you’re doing?”
“Oh, no.”
Behind her, he chuckled, low and predatory, closer than he’d been before. Her heart raced, horribly thrilled when she should have been terrified.
Nes turned to him, trying and failing to wipe the guilty look from her face. He was still ten feet away, advancing like a Gramenian big cat. She raised both hands in surrender and hoped she appeared suitably sheepish—confused, ideally—so she could sell that she’d inadvertently wandered in. It wasn’t a lie! But the gleam in his eyes and the smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth said he wouldn’t believe for a moment that she’d turned up by accident.
She should really correct the misconception. Her heart throbbed as shetook in the sight of him, five feet away and dressed in nothing more than his robe.
Run, you dolt.
Before Nesrina could heed her thoughts and try the door again, he was on her.
In the most excruciatingly exciting attack of her life, Kas pressed both hands to the wall, crowding her against it. She was caged. Staring up at him, mute, the delicious scent of sandalwood, cardamom, and cloves wafted over, offsetting the acidity making waves in her stomach. His cozy aroma did nothing to slow the rapid beating of her heart, if anything it sped things up, dangerously so.
The duke made a low sound, somewhere between a growl and a sigh, a resigned predator.
Her heart stalled, and she blinked at him as she wet her lips.
A muscle in Kas’s jaw tensed, then his mouth opened as if he planned to speak, but he thought better of it, and shook his head.
The move sent his curls swooshing from side to side and Nes nearly reached up to smooth the locks from his forehead. In an attempt to suppress her lustful musings, she grasped the skirts of her nightgown and sighed. Her breath carried with it a hundred unspoken words, easily.
In a flurry of movement, he leaned down, breath hot against her lips as he wrapped her in an embrace. With his left hand cupping the back of her head, his right hooked around her waist; he pulled her hips toward him, and she arched her back. Soft and needy, his lips worked against hers, coaxing her to relax. She kissed him back, of course. She couldn’t help it.
But even as his firm grasp sent smoldering heat from his hands straight to her core, even as her lips pressed against his and their tongues warred, even as he tightened his hold on her, and his knee slipped between her legs—even then, Nesrina knew she could not allow herself to give in.
Her ever-present anxiety no longer threatened to corrode her throat. It had fallen back into a tightly wound ball in her stomach. But still, it was there. For every soothing pulse of heat that flooded her core, a beat of nerves rippled out from her gut.
Abruptly, she turned her head to the side and lifted her hands, herfingers slipping inside his robe as she pushed him off. “I can’t.”
He dropped his hands to his side and stepped back, giving her space. “Shouldn’t or can’t?”
“Can not.”
He looked hurt, almost. “Why?”
Why? Does he not understand?She took a step toward him, clenching her fists as she allowed the sadness she’d been shoving down for the past few weeks to surface. With it came frustration, annoyance, and plain old anger. It was easier, somehow, to work with that than her nerves that were begging to take the reins.
“Why?” She stepped toward him again, parroting his question as she brought her finger up to his chest. He stepped back. She advanced again, accidentally jabbing his exposed pec—she’d been aiming for the robe.
“Yes, why? You said you shouldn’t—”
“Can’t,” she corrected, punctuating her single word response with another jab.
“Why?” He reached up and captured her hand, forcing her to stop poking at him.
“You are a duke! I’m a tutor. That’swhy.”This time she stepped away from him. “I can’t. I just can’t! I can’t do”—she waved her hands up and down, gesturing to his full form and beyond—“this.”
His lips pinched, quivering. “You keep saying that. What do you think is going to happen?”
