After dinner was finished, everyone sat around chatting for a while, but I found myself falling asleep in my chair. It had been a long first day, full of about a month’s worth of experiences, both emotional and physical.
I flat-out refused to let him carry me upstairs, when everyone started mentioning bed. Duke hadn’t argued, of course. Just bundled me into his arms and left Harriet and Anna laughing at my weak struggles. I didn’t speak to him on the walk back to the room, but I was impressed he didn’t even breathe heavily carrying me up the stairs and to the other side of the house.
Luckily, he let me use the bathroom on my own. I managed to change into my nightgown on my own too.
I’d chosen it carefully. For revenge. Whether it was rational or not, I was furious with him for acting like this, like the concerned fucking boyfriend, since he’d made it so goddamn clear that’s exactly what he wasn’t earlier today.
Luckily Andre had packed all my best lingerie. Whether or not he thought I’d be getting some while hiding from a murderer or he thought I’d being lying around in my nightgown, it didn’t matter.
This particular one was longer than the rest. A deep emerald, pure silk with slits that went all the way up to my hips. It clung to my body like a second skin, and was delicately edged with lace. The entire body was sheer lace. It was meant to tease, so the lace design was perfectly poised to barely cover my nipples. And if you looked hard enough—which Duke most likely would, he was a hot-blooded male and my tits were excellent—you’d see the faint outline of them.
I fluffed my hair in the mirror, pinched my cheeks to redden them, and slid on some clear lip balm that made my lips shine and taste like cherries. Not that Duke would be tasting them.
My leg hurt. A lot. David had given me some decent pain pills which, combined with the two shots of tequila, took the edge off. But it was a low throb, the area was noticeably hotter than the rest of my body, and the skin felt hot. It was also swollen, which meant it was great that my sexiest nightie also hid the evidence of my weakness, stupidity, and the events of the afternoon.
Duke was waiting at the door, waiting to escort me to bed.
“I can make it a couple of feet on my own,” I snapped.
He didn’t respond, though he didn’t manage to hide his sharp intake of breath seeing my nightgown.
Score for me.
Then his face evened out to almost blank and he snatched my hip, half carrying me, half dragging me to bed. I should’ve been a lot more against him manhandling me, but I was tired. And I did hurt. So the bed was welcome.
Duke did not say a thing after I’d settled in bed, but the way he held himself told me he was affected. Men were like that. They could hate you as a person but they couldn’t stop themselves from wanting to fuck you if there was attraction.
Which there was.
A lot of it.
This little theory of mine went both ways. I wasn’t sure whether I liked Duke or not, but I was certain I wanted to have angry hate-sex with the man.
I snatched the book on the nightstand and did my best to make it look believable that I was reading it. What I was really doing was watching Duke undress. He didn’t make use of the bathroom for changing. No. He just dropped his trousers right here. It was a strangely intimate thing to have someone do in front of you and it hit me in that tender spot in my chest he’d opened up with his question earlier.
It was now hard to swallow, so I forced my attention back to the words on the page. They were little more than a jumble, but I made sure to stare and turn pages like someone engrossed in a book might.
The bed depressed as he got in it and I held my breath, still pretending to read. He didn’t grab any kind of prop, nor did he try to feign sleep. He just lay there, staring at the ceiling, shirtless, the covers barely covering his abs.
I waited for him to say something. Entertained the fantasies I’d been harboring about him grabbing me roughly, kissing me, devouring me and fucking me violently.
That was not something I should’ve been doing with the shirtless man in question in the same bed as me. My grip on the book tightened as I forced myself to not act on the desire that was coursing through my veins.
“You can’t do that shit again,” Duke clipped after we’d been silent for a while. “You can’t storm off in a fucking hissy fit. This isn’t the life you’re used to. This isn’t the world you’re used to. That could’ve been much worse if I hadn’t found you and you’d been there all night. You could’ve fuckin’ died.”