Page 49 of Misadventures with a Duke

“Oh, lordie.” She sighs while dealing a chastising push at my mouth. “I’m going to start calling you Eeyore 2.0, mister.”

I snort and pull away. “I know not of this pointy ore—or, for that matter, what you continue to speak of besides answers to my honest questions.”

She pulls her hand back. Splays her fingers along her furrowing forehead. “You know what? You do make me insane. But not in all the worst ways. Hey. That was a joke.”

I relent my glowering mope, though not swiftly. “Understood. But perhaps ’tis best that one of us keeps to the not worst side of sanity.”

She bats at my chest. “Oh, that doesn’t sound like any fun.”

“Désolé,” I mumble, already reveling in the way she leaves her hand there, working her sorceress’s magic through every available pore in my body. “Fun has been a rarity in my schedule as of late. Situations with His Majesty have become more and more…complicated.”

A sound spills from her, humor wrapped in odd nettles that I cannot interpret. “Gee, you think?” As soon as my frown deepens, she burrows her hand farther up on my scalp. “Okay, I’m désolée too. That’s a subject for a much different midnight. Or whatever time it is.”

“You cannot check on your small tablet? The one that lights up?”

She copies my arched brow. “That would be my phone, remember?”

“Ah. Yes. Phone.” It would be easier to recall the word, so closely tied to its Greek origin, if she actually used the device for speaking. But that feels like another subject for a different midnight, as well.

“But your point is valid,” she inserts. “Though I’m not in a hurry to get across the room. The less I wake that thing up, the better. If Dick Gorgeous has figured out I’m really not Degas’s long-lost-great-great-grand-something-or-other and is already tracking my apps for location alerts…”

I am proud of following the majority of her comment now. I am not comfortable with the meaning it infers. “Tracking. Logan can do that to you without actual tracks? Through the phone device?”

“If he tries hard enough, yes.”

“But he has to thread a few fine needles.”

“Or get permission from the proper authorities. Which, I imagine, is a little of the same thing.”

I suck in a sizable breath. “What about other things to distract him, as you and Drue discussed?”

“That’s a possibility too,” she offers. “And obviously the scenario we want. But traipsing out of here now, assuming that’s how all the morsels have melted, would be a big mistake. They gave me a dining guide when I ventured over to the front desk to ask for a phone charger. I think we can find some decent take-out, once we’re hungry.”

“Take what? Out of where?”

She snickers softly. “It’s one of the better things about living in New York. I guarantee you’ll approve.”

I huff. “That is welcome news, since my list of the good things about this place is sparse.”

Her focus spikes up by an obvious notch. “What’s on the list so far?”

“You.”

She laughs again. “Excellent start. What else?”

“That is all.”

“Then that’s a shitty list, buster.”

My own chuckle comes quickly, due mostly to the enchanting flush that flows over her cheeks. At once, I want more of it. The demand does not even scream solely from my cock anymore. The pulses between my legs have expanded to unmistakable intensity in my mind and a primal pull from the center of my chest.

Primal…and undefeatable.

And intimidating.

Because, for the first time in my existence, I cannot explain away any part of it.

This attraction is unlike any other, including my passion for Magique, because there is no logical reason for it. Every woman in my life, most especially in my bed, has always been there with valid justification. The way that female has excited me with a flirting stare or engaged me with a silken jest. And, oui, loath as I am to admit it, the advantage of gaining some new court gossip.