BEATRICE'S POV
I can taste coffee, strawberry, and something sweet as my tongue slips past his lips. His kisses are earnest and hungry but clumsy — slightly off-rhythm, slightly too eager, like a man who studied the theory but never sat the exam.
Which makes no sense. Look at his face. His body. His wealth. How has this man not been kissed a thousand times?
He pulls away slightly. Breathing ragged. Eyes wide with something unfiltered and raw.
"You've never kissed anyone before," I whisper. Not a question. "Have you?"
And Theodore Schweitzer blushes.
His pale cheeks flush pink — then deepen to crimson, spreading slowly down his neck like a confession his body is making without his permission.
My pulse kicks up so fast I feel dizzy. Every ounce of fight drains from my body as I stare at this man — this man who kissed me like he'd been starving — turning red because I noticed.
"You really never have?"
He blinks. "Is that a problem? Was it bad?" A pause. His voice drops to a mumble. "I followed what my friend told me to do when a girl kisses me."
He's stammering. Theodore Schweitzer is stammering.
A real, soft laugh rises through my chest. A fluttering warmth spreads behind my ribs — the kind I haven't felt in a very, very long time.
I always thought Theodore looked like a wolf. Strong, mysterious, beautiful in the way dangerous things are. But right now, with his eyes wide and round and impossibly soft — he looks like a puppy who accidentally knocked something over and is waiting to see if you're angry.
How do eyes shaped like a wolf's become this gentle? I don't know.
"Don't laugh. I'm just —" He glances down at my lips again. Swallows hard. "I'm still a man. Even if I'm a bastard."
"I never called you a bastard."
"You call me an idiot."
I press my lips tight. He's right. I have.
"Do you want to kiss me again?" The question slips out before I can catch it. Mischievous. Testing.
His eyes widen. He shakes his head rapidly — then stops when he catches my expression.
A slow nod. "I should have asked you first."
"Isn't it a bit late for that thought, Theodore?"
He licks his lips. Brow furrowed. Genuinely conflicted. Since when do men look adorable after kissing you?
I can feel how carefully he's bracing himself above me — giving me just enough of his weight to feel him without crushing me. His hips haven't shifted once. Haven't pressed against me. Haven't so much as grazed.
His self-control is either saintly or military-grade. And the realization that I find it devastatingly attractive makes my grip tighten on his collar. Heat crawls through my body, settling in places I refuse to name.
"Can I?"
Two words. A request for permission. From a man who commands a 300-year intelligence empire.
"What if I say no?"
"I run you a bath and put you to bed."
He doesn't hesitate. Not even a flicker of disappointment crosses his face. And that — that certainty that he means it — makes me want to test him.
Will he actually do exactly what he said?
Or is this just a man's way of getting what he wants through patience instead of pressure?
"No."
He inhales sharply. Leans down. And presses his lips to my forehead.
My eyes widen. His heartbeat thunders against my chest. His body trembles slightly with need he's actively, visibly, agonisingly suppressing.
Theodore smiles at me. Softly. Like I just gave him something precious by saying no.
"I won't do anything. Not until you love me."
"What if I never love you?"
His face breaks into the widest, most beautiful grin I've seen on any human being. The dimple reappears on his left cheek. He taps my nose, catching me completely off guard.
"You wouldn't have cried in my arms, let me carry you, let me feed you, and kissed me back — if you weren't already falling for me, Sonnenschein."
My eyes widen. "I never said I'd marry you."
He leans down and presses his lips against mine — softly this time, barely a whisper of contact — and murmurs against my mouth:
"Too bad. In my mind, you're already my wife. Calling me a moron for mixing up your coffee beans. Children running in the backyard. The staff pretending they don't see me completely smitten over you."
Goosebumps cascade down my spine.
No. I am not giving him the edge.
I summon what's left of my composure. "What if I don't want kids?"
"Then we don't have kids."
I frown. "You just said you imagine children."
He pulls back slightly to look into my eyes. Thoughtful. Serious.
"I do. But it's your body. You'd carry the weight of it — nine months of pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, hormonal changes, all of it." He pauses. "A daughter with your stubbornness and a son with your heart would be extraordinary. But they're a bonus. Not a condition."
I just listen. Soaking in every word this man speaks with a certainty that terrifies me.
From day one, he's been transparent about what he thinks, feels, and wants. He doesn't hide behind mysterious detachment. Doesn't perform the cool, untouchable heir who wants to possess me without naming it.
Something inside me is cracking open.
And as he promised — he runs me a bath.
Warm. Bubbles catching the low candlelight. I sit in my undergarments. He offered. I could have said no and he'd have handed me towels and walked away without a word. I know this with the same certainty I know my own name.
That certainty is exactly why I said yes.
Theodore kneels beside the bathtub. His eyes stay on my face. Not wandering. Not hungry. Present in a way that makes the intimacy feel sacred rather than sexual.
His hands move through the water with quiet devotion — soap across my back, fingers tracing my spine with a reverence that sends electricity through every nerve in my body.
I shiver under the bubbles when his palm presses flat between my shoulder blades.
"You have a mole on your left shoulder," he whispers.
Warmth floods through me. His voice alone could undo a woman completely. And he has no idea — because he's never done this before.
"Mm. I guess."
"Two on your hips."
His finger brushes each one.
"One on your left foot."
"One near your eye."
"Another on your stomach."
Each location named. Each touched with the tip of his finger like he's mapping me — memorizing me — committing my body to a memory he plans to keep forever.
I look at him. My resolve crumbling. "You're doing this on purpose."
The corner of his eyes sparks with mischief. "Maybe."
I gasp as he pours warm water over my shoulders and gives me a look of perfect innocence — as if I'm the one with impure thoughts.
"Sonnenschein. You're looking at me like you want to devour me."
He's not wrong.
Under this dim light, candles burning low, he sits at the edge of the bathtub staring at me like I'm a work of art he's afraid to touch. His gaze shifts deliberately between desire and admiration — and the control it takes to hold that line is visible in every taut muscle of his body.
"Never seen a woman's body?" I try to sound stern.
"Never wished to. Until yours." His eyes travel slowly — from my eyes to my lips, down my neck, along my collarbone, to the valley between. Then back up. Always back up.
My chest pumps too much blood. He doesn't touch me. His hands rest in his lap. But those violet eyes are doing things that hands couldn't do better.
I can see his pulse throbbing beneath his jaw. The slight tremble in his fingers. The tension in his legs. The visible evidence of what this is costing him pressed against the fabric of his trousers.
We are sitting apart. And yet.
"You have incredible self-control," I whisper.
His eyelashes lower. Something dark and honest moves through his expression.
"I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from locking you in this house and making sure you never see anyone but me — without self-control."
My heart skips. Traitorously. Eagerly.
I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be getting involved with this beautiful, dangerous, impossibly tender lunatic.
But there is nothing left to resist. Every wall I built, he's walked around — not through. Around. Patiently. Gently. Until the walls were just standing in an empty field with no one left behind them to protect.
His hand reaches toward me. Stops just above my neck. His jaw clenches. His throat bobs.
"Get changed. Sleep. I have something to attend to."
He pulls back. Stands. His shoulders rise and fall with heavy, uneven breaths. He glances at me once — a look so raw and hungry and deliberately restrained that it brands itself into my memory.
Then he walks out.
I hear his palm slam against the wall in the hallway. Hard. Once. Twice. Thrice.
The sound of a man whose self-control just cost him everything he wanted.
I sink lower in the water. Hug my knees to my chest. My body hums with the ghost of what almost happened.
And what I might have let happen under the spell of this beautiful, impossible man.