Carmine flopped onto the mattress with all the grace of a man preparing for his own funeral.
This is ridiculous.
It was only a dance.
Only a lesson.
And yet…
He groaned into the pillow, kicking at the sheets with a frustrated twist of his legs.
His body still remembered.
The warm press of a gloved hand at his waist...
The deep murmur against his ear...
The slow, steady orbit of those black eyes, circling him like a wolf in no hurry to strike.
"Ugh... damn him."
Carmine rolled onto his back, staring hard at the ceiling.
He hated how easily Mr. Lysander got under his skin.
It wasn't fair. No man should have the right to be that composed, that smug... that good at everything.
Not when Carmine could barely stumble through one waltz without tripping over his own feet or his own heart.
He hated him.
He really, truly hated him.
Except...
His gaze flicked toward the window.
Outside, the night stretched deep and velvet-dark. Soft summer wind rustling the ivy against the glass.
In the servants' quarters across the garden, the lights were already out.
Mr. Lysander was probably asleep by now.
His shirt sleeves neatly rolled.
His gloved hands folded atop the thin blanket...
Or maybe he'd slipped them off for the night.
Maybe he'd loosened that stiff collar.
Maybe he was stretched out long and lean on that narrow cot, one arm tucked behind his head.
Carmine's heart thudded painfully against his ribs.
Oh, for God's sake!!
He clamped the pillow down hard over his face. As if he could suffocate the thoughts out of himself by force.
It didn't work.
The memory was still there. His voice, soft and low. Curling through the dark.
"Focus, Young Master."
Carmine kicked the mattress with both feet.
"I am trying, you bastard!"
There was a muffled knock at the door.
"Young Master?"
Carmine froze.
Ambrose's voice, faint but unmistakable, from the other side of the wood.
He nearly leapt out of bed, then immediately flopped back down again. Sheets tangled, hair sticking up in wild tufts.
God have mercy, was the man a bloody mind-reader now?
"Y-Yes?" His voice cracked halfway through.
There was a beat of silence, just long enough for Carmine to curse himself to hell and back. Before Ambrose replied, calm and utterly unbothered.
"I merely came to remind you, Young Master... Tomorrow's dance lesson begins at three."
Carmine's stomach plummeted.
Another lesson.
Another afternoon of steady hands at his waist and velvet whispers at his ear and…
No!
No, absolutely not!
He was not going to lie awake for another night thinking about that man and his wolfish smirk and his infuriating, sinful, utterly unfair way of looking at him like he already knew every scandalous thought running through his head.
"Understood!" Carmine's voice pitched a little higher than necessary.
He waited, breath on hold, for the sound of retreating footsteps.
But instead, there was the faintest chuckle. Low and barely there. Before Ambrose's voice curved silk-smooth through the crack in the door, "Sleep well, Young Master."
The footsteps faded down the hall.
Carmine buried his face in the pillow again. Hot all the way down to his toes.
. . .
The night settled deep over the Ashford estate. Velvet black and heavy with the hush of sleeping walls.
In another wing of the house, far from the warmth of gilded bedchambers, Ambrose Lysander sat alone at his desk.
His gloves lay folded with surgical precision beside the inkstand. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Linen cuffs pushed back, exposing the lean cords of his forearms. A single glass of cheap beer stood untouched on the desk, casting fractured light across the wood.
The mask he'd worn all day had slipped. Not shattered, not cast aside. Simply... eased loose at the edges.
A low breath escaped him.
What a ridiculous little thing.
That boy, flushed and gasping in his arms, stiff as a board. As if Ambrose were about to ravish him right there on the parquet floor.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
He should have felt nothing but satisfaction.
Should have.
Except…
Ambrose's fingers curled slowly against the desk's edge.
Except the boy had looked at him.
In that one fleeting moment, before he'd wrenched his gaze away. Carmine had looked up at him with something painfully, achingly earnest.
A small animal still too foolish to fear the wolf circling closer.
Ambrose closed his eyes, pressing his thumb into the corner of his brow. He could still remember the exact placement of his hand, in the waist, the rigid tension in the boy's spine, the way Carmine froze when his fingers passed the boundary of comfort.
It was a game. It was always a game.
He'd played it before. Countless times.
Every step calculated. Every touch measured.
So why was this one still echoing in his mind?
Why did the boy's startled breath, quick and barely audible, still catch at the edge of his thoughts like a thread he couldn't quite pull loose?
His eyes flicked open.
You are here to ruin him and his family.
.
.
.