Compromising Kessen (22 page)

“Kessen, look at me.”

She didn’t.

“Kessen,” he barked, grabbing her hand. “Look at me.”

She bit her lip and looked into his piercing eyes.

“It’s not a big deal. I think it’s cute.”

Kessen did not like being called cute. “Cute is what you call a dog with three legs. Cute is what you call your nieces and nephews. Cute is just a nice way of saying someone has a good personality. Cute is not what I want to be. I refuse to be cute.” She stood and started pacing. “I declare right here and now that I am not cute, and I will prove it to you by kissing the next three men I see. All three of them, Christian! And you can’t stop me. Not now, not ever! I—”

And then his lips were on hers. In the back of her mind she hoped she still didn’t have sauce on her face, but logic failed her when his lips were so firmly planted against hers.

It was a different type of kiss.

It was possessive.

She liked it very much.

Christian sighed against her mouth. “Kessen, trust me. You’re not just cute. You’re beautiful, hot, gorgeous … trust me. What I should have said…” He kissed her again, feathering his tongue along her bottom lip “…is you’re endearing, delightful, wonderful, sexy.” His warm breath neared her ear as he flicked his tongue along the base of her jaw. “Other men don’t deserve your kisses. I don’t even deserve your kisses.”

Her legs felt like jelly as she sunk into his arms. No longer hungry, she decided to prolong the kiss, but Christian had other ideas. He released her near her chair and pointed to her food.

“Eat.”

“But…”

“Eat,” he growled and held out her spoon.

She gave him an exasperated look and began consuming her food at a rapid pace. “How many more questions do we have left?” she asked between bites.

“More than we could get through in one night.” Christian continued to eat his food as Kessen ate hers. It was a comfortable silence. A silence she would normally try to break, except for some reason, this type of silence with Christian seemed almost normal and fun. It was probably the first time since meeting him they hadn’t threatened to cause physical harm to one another. It was a scary thought. It meant they were getting close, forming a bond, a friendship, something she hadn’t planned for or even thought could happen while in London. Yet here she was, hopelessly drawn to a Vandenbrook.

“We’re alone, you know,” Christian said.

She looked up and noticed he had finished his food and was now staring at her while she ate hers.

“Is that a problem? We were alone the first night, too.” She took her last bite and pushed her plate forward.

He put his elbows on the table and folded his hands, resting his head against them as if in deep thought. “Not like this, Kessen.”

She gulped. “I’m not sure I understand.” Which was a total lie, because she did understand—she understood all too well. The hum of electricity was constantly buzzing between them. When they were walking next to one another, she felt the hotness of his body against hers. And most of all, she felt pulled towards him as a person—a pull she would be the first to admit wasn’t present a few days ago.

Suddenly it occurred to her that she needed to make sure she wasn’t with him late tonight. Nothing good happened after ten o’clock, and she couldn’t be held responsible for her decisions with him if she was drugged with sleepiness.

“We should lock our doors!” she blurted.

“Mature,” he snorted

“No, really, Christian. I think we should, and we should also go to bed early, and close our windows, and no sneaking in, and no breaking in and—”

He held up his hand for her to stop. “You’re giving me a headache, Kessen. Stop worrying so much. I do have self-control, you know.”

Kessen raised an eyebrow in response.

“Come on! I do!”

She laughed. “I’m sorry. How many times have you snuck into my room in the past twenty-four hours?”

“Those don’t count,” he argued

She stared at him. “I’m not an idiot.”

He threw his hands in the air. “Fine. You win—something I realize you hardly hear enough, so spare me your little happy dance. Let’s just go into the study, finish this stupid game, and go to bed.”

She cleared her throat.

He rolled his eyes. “Me in my bed; you in yours.”

“Perfect,” she beamed. “But first you have to do the dishes.”

“And why can’t you do the dishes?” he asked in an irritated tone usually reserved for Duncan.

“Because you forfeited the end of that question; therefore, you lose. I win, and I want you to do the dishes.”

He gave her a blank stare.

“What? No response or rebuttal? Hurry along then, servant … I have some reading to catch up on.”

She waved at him and left the room, but not before hearing him yell something about the duke in her new book killing off the love interest.

She could only assume he meant it as a threat.

Half an hour later Christian wandered into the room with a look of pure joy on his face.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Christian was excited, and who wouldn’t be? Kessen had forgotten to take the game with her, the same game they were going to be playing that night. He had memorized all the answers, meaning she would lose; now all he had to do was come up with a good bet.

“Kessen?” he asked, still smiling; he couldn’t help it if he tried.

“Yes, slave,” she said, not looking up from her ereader. “What is your desire?”

He clenched his teeth together in annoyance before answering. “Well, America, I’ve decided we should place a wager on this game.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, my lord? Didn’t that end badly for you last time? We wouldn’t want a repeat of last night, now would we?”

Christian plopped down next to her and sent her a melting smile. Her mouth immediately dropped open. Putty in his hands. “Yes dear, but that was yesterday. Today is a new day and a new game. You’re not chicken, are you?” He knew he had her. Her eyes flashed with anger as she pushed his hand away from hers.

“No, I was just trying to be nice, but fine! Have it your way; what’s the wager?” Her face was inches from his. If he was being honest with himself, all he wanted to do was make out with her, forget the game—burn it, for all he cared. What he needed was her lips on his, her hands on his body, her—

His mind was going downhill fast. It was time for a distraction, and being the competitive soul he was, he knew just the wager to bait her.

“If you win, I will dedicate the first week of our marriage to reading you every single book in the Vandenbrook series out loud, using accents, voices, and costumes.” Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “But if I win you have to stay up all night with me. Tonight. Alone.”

He leaned in so his lips barely grazed hers. “So, are you scared, or are you game, America?”

She took a few ragged breaths than closed her eyes. “Game, of course. I have nothing to be afraid of since I’m winning.”

“We’ll see,” he declared. Christian laid out the game in front of them and motioned for Kessen to sit on the floor with him. “We will do five questions each. I’ve made it easier this time. I’ll give you five questions, and you can write down your answers on a piece of paper. I will do the same. At the end we will reveal the questions and the answers. Deal?”

“Deal.” She grabbed a pencil and paper and waited.

“Okay, Kessen. Here are your questions. Question one: what was my favorite animal as a boy and why? Question two: how long can I hold my breath under water? Question three: do I sleep with anything, alive or dead? Question four: what was my worst date? Question five: what is my biggest fear?”

He waited for her to write down all the questions. When she was finished, he handed her the other set of questions.

She began to read. “Christian, here are your five questions. Question one: do I snore? Question two: why is the Wall Street Journal my favorite newspaper? Question three: do I have any weird habits? Question four: what is my biggest fear? Question five: am I afraid of the dark?”

Christian spent a few minutes writing down the questions then stared at Kessen. She was concentrating on her writing. Her tongue poked out of her mouth and then she bit her lip. Christian felt his body respond immediately to the particular way her lip looked when the proper pressure was applied.

Aroused beyond belief by the look on her face, he cursed and looked away as he waited for her to finish writing. His answers obviously didn’t take long since he had already memorized them, but he pretended to take a long time and to be confused so she wouldn’t get suspicious.

He waited until after she was finished before putting down his own pencil. “Do you want to start or shall I?”

She shrugged. “Either way you’re losing—doesn’t matter to me.”

“Not that I like rewarding a bad attitude,” he said, putting the cap back on his pen. “But I’ll allow you to go first, my lady.”

She did a mock curtsy—how she managed to do it while sitting down was beyond him—and cleared her throat. “Your favorite animal was a bobcat because you thought they were all named Bob.”

She knew more than she led on, the little minx. He bit back a smile and motioned for her to continue.

“Number two is a trick question. You’ve never tried holding your breath under water for longer than ten seconds, because you believe it’s pointless. After all, who wouldn’t save a drowning marquess?” She didn’t hide the judgment in her voice or on her face. “You sleep in your room, alone, with nothing but your thoughts and sins to keep you company.”

Christian grimaced. That hurt.

“Your worst date was when Duncan set you up with a family friend and forgot to mention she was a fan of your family history. She ended up quoting you to you for an entire hour before sobbing her eyes out about how she was going to die alone. When the date was finally over, she slapped you for being too forward, when you pitied her and wanted to give her a nice peck on the cheek. She proceeded to press charges against you and won on account of psychological damage and now drives a luxury car.”

He shook his head in astonishment and pure anger. That girl had totally played him and used him for his money; he was still seething over that lawsuit. What he wouldn’t give for one more date to show her his true feelings. Too bad she had fled the country soon after and now lived quite comfortably in France.

“Okay, last question, America,” he said, irritated. She nodded her head. He repeated the question just in case and urged her to continue.

She bit her lip, which was something he noticed was a nervous habit when she didn’t know what to say or was uncomfortable. It always ruined his concentration, because it made him think of how soft her lips were and how warm they felt against his own.

He cleared his throat to distract his wandering mind.

“Your biggest fear,” she stated, “is you’ll end up alone.”

Christian cleared his throat to fill in the awkward silence. She had guessed on that last one, but rather than feel excited about winning, he felt nothing but pain. Of course, he had written down his biggest fear as being something silly, like bankruptcy or spiders.

In all honesty though, how could he deny the fact that her guess was spot-on, regardless of what he had written down for his answer? And to make matters worse, he wanted nothing more than to deny it to his grave. What type of aristocrat was he, if he couldn’t even fight off loneliness? He had everything anyone could ever want in this lifetime, yet without someone to share it with, he had felt positively empty. Until now.

He picked up his paper. “You missed the last one.”

“I did?” She sounded shocked.

“Yes. My biggest fear is spiders.”

Her eyes squinted with doubt. “Spiders? A big strapping man like you has a fear of spiders? I don’t believe it.” She crossed her arms and shook her head. “Nope, you’re lying, and you’re cheating.”

He threw up his hands in frustration. “I’ll show you the answer sheet. You, my dear, are wrong. It’s possible, although probably not realistic, that I’ve somehow gotten an answer wrong myself. So, without further delay, let me read my answers to you.”

“Fine,” she bit off.

What right did she have to be angry anyway? He was the offended party. Kessen thought she knew him so well. It would be a dark day in Hell before he admitted to her she was correct in her assumption. The truly upsetting issue was, she had gathered that by only spending a few days with him.

Scary indeed.

Time to focus, he thought, then began reading aloud his answers. “You do not snore, but it’s also a tricky question, because you do tend to talk in your sleep. Nick refers to it as your own made-up language. Something like the Elvish tongue from Lord of the Rings.” He leaned forward and winked. “Just for your information, I am counting down the days until I can experience your private language myself.”

“Dream on,” she muttered.

He blew her a kiss and continued. “You love the Wall Street Journal, because the front of the page allows you to read every single news story within ten minutes. You’re able to find out which stories you want to read the most and which stories you’d rather not know about, without having to search the entire newspaper.”

She shifted uncomfortably and avoided eye contact.

“I’m not finished,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of her face. “You do have some odd habits. The oddest of them all is you have to smell everything you eat before it goes into your mouth. Including drinks and candy, but excluding anything chocolate, for the simple reason chocolate never changes. It is your one constant in your life.” He looked up from his paper and sighed. “Does it bother you that the longest relationship you’ve had has been with a piece of food?”

She threw a pillow at his face.

Thankfully, he knew her better than she thought and ducked just in time. Instead the pillow struck one of his family heirlooms and sent it flying through the air.

She gasped and closed her eyes. “Please tell me that was not the same vase your great-grandfather gave your great-grandmother in the last book I read.”

He shrugged slyly. “Alright then, it’s not the same vase.”