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Starting with hishands.

“But you see, I just embarrassed myself!” she moaned in abject misery. “I randomly left in the middle of our conversation, and now he will never want to teach me. He must think me the veriest fool alive?—”

“He would not dare,” he growled. “Not if he knows what is good for him!”

“Daniel,” she sighed in exasperation. “You cannot just threaten everyone to make them bow to your wishes.”

“Who said I was going to stop at threatening?”

She gave him a look that told him she absolutely forbade him to do whatever he had in mind. She was far too softhearted, and he had seen far too much of the world to ever be as kind.

“Do not worry overmuch,” he reassured her. “I shall take care of it. Before this night is over, that damned Mr. Turner will be begging to teach you whatever you want.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Well, thank you… I suppose.”

“You suppose?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Laughingly, she turned her face back to the fireworks. “That depends on how you will be able to convince him, of course—if you can even do so without resorting to violence.”

“Oh, you of little faith,” he murmured, his gaze softening as he continued to watch her upturned face.

This time, there was no fear in her eyes, no trembling of her lips. Instead, there was a slight smile, her eyes wide as she took in the display before her.

He took that opportunity to lean in and whisper into her ear, “See? Only good things happen to you when you listen to me.”

She turned slightly towards him, her face so near to his. Her lips only a breath away.

“Will you listen to me, too?” she asked him. “From time to time?”

If she continued to look at him like that, he might be tempted to promise her that he would lay the world at her feet.

It was a dangerous, dangerous game they were playing, with both of them circling each other warily as their attraction flared hot and fierce between them.

He allowed a small smile to tease the corners of his lips. “It depends.”

“It depends on what?”

“On whether what you are asking is within reason.”

“Oh.” She did not sound the least bit disappointed. “Kiss me,” she told him instead.

Daniel pulled back slightly, his eyebrows snapping together in a frown. “You do not know what you are asking for, sweetheart.”

She trailed her finger down the side of his neck to his chest. Damn it, the woman was a natural-born seductress. Just where the hell did she learn how to heat a man’s blood like that?

As if a single look from her does not have me hard and aching to bury myself into her wet heat…

“You are my betrothed, are you not?” she asked him, her voice a sultry whisper. “Kiss me, Daniel.”

Had he been in his right mind, he would have refused her. Had he valued his friendship with her brother a little more, he might have pulled away from her.

But Daniel had decided that when it came to Evie and even her littlest demands, he was hardly sane nor grateful.

If she had asked him to burn the world for her, he would have asked her how hot she wanted it.

What was a kiss compared to the destruction of the world?

If she wanted that, then they would both burn for it.