Page 4 of Kidnapping the Duchess
With everyone’s attention on the guest of honor, I lean down and whisper, “Where are your pills?” When she hesitates, I press. “You’re about to jump out of your skin.”
I stare hard into those blue pools as she weighs her need for the medicine against feeling weak for needing it in the first place. “Bedside drawer.”
I give a curt nod, make a discreet exit, and reach my destination in record time. Crossing the enormous room, I head for her bedside table. But before I can complete my mission, my gaze catches on a scrap of silk tossed on her unmade bed. It’s the practically see-through top she had on earlier when she baited me in the hall.
Bait that I took in a moment of fucking weakness. Every day it gets harder to resist her—another reason for my Sundays off. By Saturday, I have enough chinks in my armor to be dangerous and need a day to reinforce my defenses.
Today’s Friday, and I’m alone in her bedroom, staring at lingerie that was nestled against her warm skin mere hours ago. I know I shouldn’t torture myself like this, but fuck if I can stop my hand from lifting it to my nose and dragging her intoxicating scent deep into my lungs.
“Christ, get a grip, man,” I chastise myself. “You’re so fucked in the head over this girl.” Forcing myself to focus before I do something colossally stupid, I return the lingerie where I found it, open the top bedside drawer...and freeze.
Not a single pill bottle to be found. Instead, I’m staring at a stack of romance novels with dozens of colored tabs sticking from the pages, and next to them is what I can only describe as an arsenal of sex toys.
Shock, arousal, and white-hot jealousy circulate through me in a matter of seconds. Jesus, she must use these with the men she brings home. The men I’d like to choke with my bare hands for getting a taste of what’s mine.
My Duchess.
My Daria.
Without thinking, I grab the top book and flip to the pages she’s marked. In addition to the tabs, she’s highlighted passages. Very specific passages. My mind reels at what these could mean, but I do a quick check of the next few books to be sure I’m not imagining it.
I’m not.
Daria highlighted dozens of explicit sex scenes, the pages worn from frequent handling. I’ve essentially stumbled onto a road map of my duchess’s sexual tastes, and fate must be looking out for me, because they align perfectly with mine. Various combinations of male dominance, bondage and rope play, rough sex with hints of sadomasochism...
I’m already half-hard, but when I see the last book, my cock stiffens into a goddamn steel rod.
Kidnapping the Duchess.
Snatching it up, I flip through her tabbed pages. I exhale a harsh breath and drag a hand over my stubbled jaw. “Fucking hell, she’s trying to kill me.”
Remembering the reason I’m here, I start replacing the books just as Daria bursts into the room. “Bottom drawer, they’re in the bottom drawer!” She skids to a stop when she sees the open top drawer. Her eyes fly wide, but as always, she recovers quickly.
“Quite a collection you have here.”
With a crooked grin, she closes the door to her room and saunters toward me. “Don’t be such a prude, Mr. Blackstone. Some people like to play board games at sleepovers.” She plants her hip on the back of the settee and shrugs. “I like to play sex games.”
Oh, Duchess, you have no idea who you’re messing with.
I stretch my neck to both sides until I hear and feel the satisfying cracks of releasing my tension. Then I slowly advance on her as I shed the final threadbare layer of my restraint.
“Izak,” she says warily, breaking out the name she usually refuses to call me. She takes a step backward, then another. “What are you doing?”
“Do you enjoy torturing me, Duchess? Teasing me? Pushing me to see how much I can take before I snap and fuck you senseless on the nearest surface?”
She scoffs, but her bravado falters when her ass hits the wall. She has nowhere to go. But I’m not stupid enough to think that a Daria between a wall and a hard place is a defeated Daria, so I stay alert.
She glares up at me as though she is a full foot taller and not the other way around. “Don’t flatter yourself, bodyguard. I’m much too busy fucking my way through the kingdom’s elite to be concerned with the help. Pick up any tabloid on any given day and you can read all about it.”
I tilt my head, analyzing her words. “Does that bother you? That they capitalize on showcasing your private life?”
“Don’t you think I’d be a bit more discreet if it did?”
Fair point. If anything, Daria plays up to the cameras, whether paparazzi or fellow clubbers. As the only one in her family with midnight hair and a brazen, carefree spirit not typical of royals, the media dubbed her the black sheep of Copeland Manor when she was just a teen. The older she got, the more “carefree” turned into carelessness, earning her the new moniker Duchess of Debauchery.
Or was it the other way around?
Suddenly, it hits me. “It was them,” I say, staring deep into her eyes. “They labeled you, so you decided to live up to their expectations.”
