Page 76 of Caught by the Forbidden Duke
“I came downstairs,” he said. “Into the music room.” He had run it through his head thousands of times, and it had never come out of his mouth before, and in the room it sounded smaller thanit did inside his skull, for all that it contained more. “She was against the piano and there was…there was blood on the keys.”
“Heavens, Dominic…” Her hand did not lift from his own like he feared it would have.
“My father was standing over her. He was shaking, and there was blood on his hands, and when he saw me, he told me to go to my room.” He exhaled. “They called it an accident. A fall. No one had any reason to question it.”
He looked up. She was turned fully toward him. Her eyes were clear, and there was no flinching in them, and she was looking at him the way he had watched her look at James in the garden on the evening they had first met: like she was going to wait as long as it took.
“He locked the music room after that,” Dominic said. “And I understood… I could become him.”
“You are not him,” she said.
Dominic was shaking his head. “You can’t know that.”
“You stood in your own study,” she said, “and let Lucien hit you twice, and you did not raise your hand once.” Her thumb moved across his knuckle. “I was standing in the doorway. I watched it.”
He looked at her thumb on his hand. Then, he turned his hand over and closed it around hers, lifting his eyes to her face, and hisother hand came up and settled against her jaw. Heart pattering against her throat, Annabelle leaned into his touch.
“There was nothing you could do then. You were but a child,” she said, her voice soft.
“He was my father,” he retorted, as if it explained everything, like that in itself was the key to the great awakening.
“Yes, he was, and though you share his blood, last name and title,” both of her hands cradled his face. “You are. Not. Him.”
Dominic’s thumb brushed the edge of her jaw, his grip tightening just a fraction as if trying to anchor himself to her words. “Blood has a long memory, Annabelle. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see his eyes looking back at me.”
“Then look at me instead,” she whispered, her palms warm against his cheeks, forcing him to stay present. “Let me be the mirror. I do not see a monster. I see a man who’s fighting to be different.”
“You say it so easily,” he murmured, his voice dropping low. “With those beautiful, certain eyes.”
“I say it easily because I believe it. And so should you.”
Dominic considered her words as he watched her.
“Annabelle…” he uttered, her name feeling far too natural on his tongue.
She leaned in closer, and every cell in his body felt pulled in by her, burning to feel her nearer.
“You have entirely too much power over me, standing this close. What am I to do with you?” he added.
Annabelle gulped, then glanced down at his mouth.
“I…” she muttered, her eyes still fixed on his lips.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he breathed, his voice fracturing as his forehead dropped against hers. “You keep looking at my mouth like that and I am completely unraveled…”
He could no longer resist.
He kissed her.
She kissed him back without hesitation, her hand coming to his shoulder, her fingers curling in. He put his arm around her and pulled her closer, until she was warm against him and her mouth was open under his, and he had stopped thinking about Lucien, or challenges, or the morning.
He drew back enough to see her face.
Her eyes were open, and her color was up, and he reached past her to move the candle to the mantelpiece so it wouldn’t throw shadows where he needed to see clearly, and then he put his hand at her waist and lowered her back against the pillows.
He kept his eyes on her face. He intended to keep them there.
He worked the tie of her robe loose, and she helped, lifting her shoulders, her hands settling flat against his chest afterward, not pushing. Holding on. He could feel the warmth of them through the linen of his shirt.
