Oh, perhaps her sharper tone had actually brought him alive: for now his defensiveness had taken on a different tone, as if he might actually be offended by it, or actually likely to blush at her unsolicited assessment of him.

Mattie refrained from smiling back, as if she could pretend she was offended; really, she was just distracted by his finally looking at her directly. She held his gaze instead, observing his face for as long as he might allow her; people said eyes were the windows to the soul, and she didn’t know if there was anything deeper to be gleaned in his, but she wasn’t ashamed to be looking.

Finally, the smile crept to the corner of her mouth, because although he was annoyed she wasn’t entirely dissuaded yet. “Well, please, Mr. Orpington,” she suggested brightly, “never mind your thoughts, then – show me one of these activities you do take pleasure in.” However he did have fun, if he had so profusely protested that he did; something he cared about he could be more open about. Prove it, she may as well have said.

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He’d heard the dare behind her demand. And he’d risen to her first challenge, so why shouldn’t he not entertain this one? Because it’s completely idiotic to do any such thing, his inner voice responded, scoffing at the sheer idiocy of merely contemplating it. She met his gaze head on too, not flinching when he held it for longer. It was after a few moments’ silence that he realized they’d stopped walking.

He had two options in front of him. Tell the truth, or lie. There was really only one activity he truly took pleasure in, and that was his work. But he wasn’t about to bring Miss Farris into a full on dragon den. So: “I don’t think it’d be all that appropriate an activity for a respectable lady such as yourself.” His gaze lingered on her, before sweeping down to the hem of her dress and back up to her brown eyes.

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Whether he was worried for her safety or simply trying to be rid of her, Mattie didn’t particularly care. She also didn’t much care what he was particularly thinking of – it could be dragonkeeping or duelling or gambling or rolling about in the mud, for all she cared – but she didn’t like his argument against it.

She simply had to protest that, and find a new way to provoke him. “Am I a respectable lady?” Mattie echoed, with a laugh, as if she were surprised at his (rather reductive) assessment of her. “And how about this? Is this an appropriate activity?” There was a meaningful gleam in her eyes, and her motions were fluid, with no self-consciousness at all – she lifted herself onto her tiptoes and, one hand on his shoulder, pressed her lips to his to steal a playful kiss. Entirely unabashed, she pulled back to see how offended his sensibilities would be.

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At this point Dominic knew he could absolutely take a wild guess at what her angle was and land squarely on it, and he didn’t like it. For one, it raised his hackles; he was never good at responding to being provoked. Any poking and he knew he would absolutely bite. Was she provoking him? Absolutely. Should he bite? Of course not. And yet frustration and irritation rose in his chest in equal measure and before he knew it, his hand had snatched Miss Farris’ wrist at his shoulder, his other shooting out to catch her chin.

His eyes narrowed, his grip tightening as he fought to keep his temper under control. He’d clearly failed in his attempts to get her to back off; quite the opposite. “Be very careful, Miss Farris, about how you proceed.” He muttered in a low tone under his breath. Fingers twitching slightly, he brought her face closer to his. “Are you sure this is a path you’d like to go down?” His gaze raked over her features. “Or are you merely a bored debutante trying to prove something?”

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   Matilda Farris

The way his hands had lurched up to grab her wrist and underneath her chin sent – mixed messages, maybe. There was a roughness in it, a forcible suggestion she should stop, as if everything he was projecting was stay away from me. But then... he was holding her there, too, drawing her closer in spite of the warning.

And this pent-up aggression, or frustration, or whatever it was, was the most intriguing he had been thus far. Mattie’s heartrate betrayed her calm expression as it picked up, stomach fluttering furiously at the prospect he might touch her more, or kiss her back with that same propulsive energy. She felt danger now, as if she had walked into the dragon reserve alone; she was playing with fire.

Fortunately, playing with fire was what she had set out to do all along. So – “Perhaps you should have asked me that earlier,” Mattie teased, because she had plied him with questions enough already, and leant in a fraction of an inch to keep closing the distance again. “Now I suppose you’ll just have to find out.” She pressed her mouth to his again, kiss a little deeper, a little more assured. Because yes, she was sure she wanted to go down this path, wherever it might lead.

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   Dominic Orpington

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He’d expected her to back off, to back away, and yet here she was, standing her ground, the stubborn creature.

Dominic had dealt with stubborn dragons all his life, not to mention stubborn people. But stubbornness around Dominic usually implied prying something out of him that he didn’t want. And yet, at the first touch of her lips against his, he knew he very much wanted this; had been craving contact like this for years, and had been depriving himself of it on purpose. Any sane man might have visited brothels or whore houses, but it didn’t seem like anything Dominic wanted to provoke himself with out of fear of forming some sort of attachment.

And here this debutante came, marching on up to him and attaching herself to him without a word of warning. Perhaps that’s what he’d needed all along, because as soon as she pressed up on her toes to kiss him again, his hand released her wrist, only to snake around her waist and draw her to him. The hand that had caught her chin delved into her hair as he pulled her close. Every alarm bell in his mind was going off and yet Dom couldn’t seem to care as he deepened the kiss. His tongue flicked along the seam of her lips, seeking entrance, wanting to drink in more of her.

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Mr. Orpington didn’t need to like her one whit, because she could tell already that he liked this well enough. He was no stranger to it, and yet there was some surprising urgency in the way his arm curved about her waist. Was it want, or was it need? She wasn’t sure. She could feel the simmering tension in him, like it lived in his body and never had any release.

Well, she was happy to oblige, if that was the case. Her mouth opened willingly under his, gently touching her tongue against his as her hand crept up from his shoulder to the nape of his neck. His hand was in her hair – she made a mental note to unmuss it later, and put it up more neatly again before she returned to (relative) civilisation – but mostly it had the dangerous effect of making her want to get a little more dishevelled first. So, after a while, she leant into his body until she could feel the deepest layer of her corset pressing firmly against his shirt, and let her hand wander downwards over his clothes, just to see whether... “Are you having any fun yet?” she whispered, the next time she pulled back ever-so-slightly for a better breath, and her gaze darting upwards, a little suggestive. “...Or should we try a little harder?”

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He was mad.

He must be. Here he was, locked in a heady embrace with this woman he barely knew who was pulling sensations from him that Dominic had tried to bury under layers and layers of sheer willpower. And it had all broken just because he wanted to prove to her that she didn’t scare him.

What a load of bullshit that was.

And as her hand drifted down over the waistband of his trousers and she pulled back, her lips curling as she regarded him with a wicked gaze, the reality of the situation hit him with full force. Dominic wrenched himself out of this spell she seemed to have cast upon him. It was like a slap to the face; one moment his expression was full of heat, of want, and the next it had shuttered so quickly that he nearly felt a snarl rattle through his chest.

He shoved her backwards, enough to put some distance between them, and his hand came up to wipe at his mouth, the taste of her still lingering on his lips. “What the fuck are you playing at?”

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   Matilda Farris

Just when she thought she had won him over, she discovered that she had pushed him too far. Or, in this case, Mr. Orpington had shoved her back with as much mortifying force as he’d grasped her waist a few minutes ago. He was angry, then, at her or at himself; but as Mattie stumbled backwards, trying to fight the heat rising on her cheeks, she told herself she would not take the blame for whatever his problem might be.

She had made a misstep somewhere, certainly; she had been sure he wanted her. And for all she liked to push a boundary, Mattie wasn’t much used to being rebuffed, not in anything and certainly not in this. He, then, was a more complex creature than the boys she had known at school, the men she had flirted with before. Or was he just too rigidly upstanding? Did he suppose she had debased herself in being so forward, and expected her to be ashamed of herself?

Well, if she was hurt by his rough rejection of her, she was determined not to let him see it. Mattie drew herself up to seem as calm and unaffected and expressionless as she could, chin high as she took down her hair in order to retwist it into a neater version of the bun it had been. “I wasn’t playing games, I assure you, Mr. Orpington,” she said coldly – he had changed his mind, and made a fool of her – “but I won’t trouble you again, if that’s how you feel.” She turned on her heel to go, grateful for any excuse to hide the lingering flush of humiliation on her cheeks.

(She could hardly go back to the festivities at the farm now, so she started off in the other direction – to walk back to the Yarwood house instead and take herself home from there, where he wouldn’t dare cross paths with her again.)

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