He gritted his teeth. “The rule is because that’s how I like things, and I’m fucking paying you to deal with my bullshit.”
She backed a step, and the small show of deference satisfied him.
“So you don’t like people walking around at night.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding sincere. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset. There’s just a certain way things are done here, and although I expect you to follow the rules, I understand it may take some time for you to adjust.”
Her chin rose slightly. “I’ve always been the kind of person who finds rules easier to remember if I know them. Even better if I know the reason for them.”
“Miss Korsgaard, I’m the master of this house. I don’t explain myself. You will be obedient in all things, or you will leave.” He’d done his best to be polite and interact, but now he was reaching the end of his patience.
She drew a shaking breath and the sound went straight to his hardening cock. Why was this turning him on? Why was she reacting to him like this?
Sutton never should have brought a woman here.
“Yes, Mister Leduc.” The girl inclined her head, and he wished he could see her face rather than only its outline. Her inflection on Mister when she said his name always sounded slightly like master. It was a whole word, all on its own, and not the vaguely polite short form of Mr. she used with other men. It turned him on. She turned him on. “Again, I apologize. Goodnight.”
She moved away, the clean scent of her hair reaching him just as he thought it was safe to let his guard down. The girl smelled warm and slightly afraid. For a long time he sat in the darkness of the screening room, trying to block the memory of other footsteps outside his room, trying not imagine how beautiful it would be to hear Minnow cry.
*
They were taking too damned long in the kitchen. After a lifetime with people whispering behind his back, Severin’s first guess was they were discussing him, and his surliness since Church, Ilse, and the girls had moved. It was stupid for it to still upset him.
Church had stood by him since the day he’d moved in when they were six.
Church was the one who’d shared his mother with an unwanted child, and who’d pulled Severin, scratching and snarling, out of his shell of nonverbal, animalistic behaviors.
Church had taught Severin to read, and gave him the play by play of the social parts of school in such detail Severin had felt as if he was there. He’d insisted Severin help with his homework and projects where no tutor who’d ever been hired for him could get him to speak, let alone learn. They’d played together, fought, got into scrapes, gone on adventures. Together they’d buried their mother. It wasn’t that Church was family. It’s that he was Severin’s only family. Sutton was now too, but Sutton had missed the early years. She hadn’t even known Mom.
His brother had proven himself loyal beyond any shadow of doubt. This had been a chance of a lifetime – he’d had to go. However, that didn’t mean it wasn’t a blow to lose him.
Ilse had been a threat to Severin’s relationship with Church, then each child, but it was the job that had finally stolen his brother.
He hadn’t realized how lonely his life would be with Church gone.
Aside from his usual interactions with Sutton, the only thing keeping him from complete boredom and despair were the projects he was working on, and tormenting Miss Korsgaard.
As if on cue, the girl entered the room with a platter of meat and put it on the table. She smiled, but there was a hint of guilt behind it, as though they had, indeed, been discussing him.
“Sutton will be here in a minute. She’s just putting the potatoes in a bigger bowl.”
She sat in her customary chair directly across from him, even though there was no reason why she shouldn’t take Church’s closer seat now that he was gone. She was careful. She seemed to always be trying to read him.
As soon as her gaze met his, he put his fingers on his fork and slowly slid it off the table. It hit the floor with a clatter. Such a stupid game. It reminded him of when Church’s daughters had started testing gravity by throwing things off their high chairs. He, too, was testing his new toy.
She stared at him for a long moment, her cheeks flushing pink and hot. She was so easy to fuck with, and her reactions made him hungry for more.
“A fork.”
“Yes, Mister Leduc,” she said, voice quiet. “I’ll get you a clean one.” She swallowed hard, then stood, walked slowly to where his fork had landed. Her gaze stayed fastened to his the entire way over, but once she got to the fork, she looked down and didn’t look back up. She retrieved it far more slowly than necessary, her rapid pulse fluttering visibly in her graceful throat.
By the time she rose, his cock was hard as hell and he had no fucking idea why. He kept doing things like this to her, and she kept letting him. She seemed to like it the same way he did. As though in a daze, she passed Sutton who was coming out with a bowl of mashed potatoes.
“Severin, quit being a dickhead,” Sutton admonished. “You haven’t dropped your fork once in all the years I’ve known you, and for the past week it’s been every night.”