For a moment, he stood there and stared down at her, taking in all of Fyre’s nuances. The way her hair was braided and wrapped around her head, how her collar was up, hiding the marks on her neck. The steady strokes she made with the pen as she wrote in a new book, working with care. He knew it was so she didn’t mess up. His woman was meticulous in her work and he admired the fuck out of her for it.
“Hello, Fyre.”
To her credit, she didn’t jump, but he knew he’d shocked her by the way the pen wobbled a tiny bit before she finished her current line. Then she looked up at him and his heart was lost once again.
Fyre didn’t understand what it was about this man that did these things to her. Logically she knew it was foolish to even think about allowing a relationship with him. He was a titled English lord and she was a dark-skinned nobody from the islands.
I do his books. That is all.
Yet, it wasn’t. He’d kissed her. Fleetingly? Yes. Did that make it any less powerful? Not in the slightest.
“Good afternoon, my lord. I will give you back your chair.”
“Nonsense. You are in the right place to work. I will sit in a different one after they bring my food. Unless you’d like to sit in my lap as you work.”
Her entire body trembled at the suggestion. She grew slick and she shifted on the seat.
Refusing to release his gaze, she gave him a smile. “As much fun as that would be, my lord, I do not believe you would be able to concentrate on your work.”
She bit the inside of her cheek as she waited to see how far she’d overstepped. Phillip stared at her before his eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled.
It wasn’t something she saw him do with a lot of people. In fact, only one could she recall. His friend, the Marquess of Heartstone. With that man, he’d been predisposed to smile more. Other than with him, she’d not been able to recall another person that he’d smiled with. Besides her.
“Cheeky. And you are right, Fyre. My concentration would be shit with you on my lap. At least about numbers.” A slow blink. “Well, the ones you put in that book. I would have no problem with the ones keeping accounting of how many times I took you. How many times I made you scream my name while being bent over or spread out on this desk.”
His gaze darkened, reminding her of the storms that rolled in off the sea. Dark. Dangerous. Potent.
“Your food, my lord.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw but he didn’t move back. Nor closer. He was a suitable distance away from her, his hands in his pockets. Only then did she notice his clothing was wet. The servants bringing his food were there and gone in moments, leaving as silently as they’d come.
Using the distraction to pull her attention off the lord of this manor, Fyre went back to work, filling in the columns he would be using. She glanced up at the sound of another chair being dragged over. He sat on the same side as she but left distance between them. And food.
In her peripheral vision, she noted the way his strong fingers plucked things up off the main tray and placed them on a smaller plate before he slid it in her direction.
“Eat.”
There was a low command in the single word. She mulled that over in her mind as she finished up her current row.
Mainly, why had she considered doing that with just the slightest bit of hesitation? She should know better than to just follow anyone’s command. She’d worked hard to be her own person and individual. Hard to do with Elonne as her overprotective brother.
A flash of sorrow pierced her.
Not something I have to think or worry about any longer.
She put the pen back in its spot and stood as she reached for the plate.
“What are you doing?”
Fyre honestly tried not to look him in the eye. But, like everything else in regards to her when it came to this man, she was falling short of her mark. There were things she needed to be and do. Distant. Unfeeling. No fantasy. Massive failure on her part. Rolling her lower lip in her teeth, she blinked before she slid her gaze to his.
“Moving to eat somewhere that is not your desk.”
“Why?”
His question was straightforward and, try as she might, she couldn’t discover any hidden meaning in his inquiry.
“Because one in my position does not just eat at the desk of an earl.”
Phillip was against the side of the desk and in the process of fixing his own plate, but he stopped and pinned both those gray eyes of his on her. Insides clenching at the heat that sliced into his gaze, she fought the urge to shift or lick her lips.