Page 37 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

"I am not running."

"No," Tristan agreed, watching him with a look that had nothing of the earlier mischief. "You are sitting very still in the middle of a room built for forgetting, refusing every distraction on offer, thinking of nothing but her. I would call that worse than running, Sebastian. I would call it being caught.” His mouth curved slightly. “Though perhaps that’s what has you so unsettled. You’ve spent years enjoying the chase. I don’t believe you’ve ever considered what might happen when you met a woman you couldn’t outrun."

Sebastian did not answer.

His eyes remained fixed upon the amber liquid as he kept turning the glass in his hand.

"And you, Sebastian?" Nathaniel tipped his glass towards him. "What do you say about this matter? Your tastes are known to run deep, surely you have a view on how best to draw forth that surrender."

Sebastian didn't answer.

Then Nathaniel repeated himself. "Sebastian?"

Sebastian blinked. His eyes moved to him.

"What?"

Julian smiled slightly. Nathaniel’s eyebrows rose.

"I asked what you think."

"About what?"

There was a pause.

"We were discussing whether pleasure is diminished when one knows precisely what the other person expects."

Julian lifted his glass. "I said anticipation is often more important than the act itself."

"Because you enjoy complications," Tristan said.

"Because anticipation gives the mind time to participate."

Julian considered that. "Then you believe pleasure is partly intellectual?"

"Of course it is."

Tristan gave a soft laugh.

"You would turn anything into an intellectual exercise."

"And you would turn everything into an excuse to avoid thinking."

"I think very well."

"When necessary."

Tristan placed a hand over his heart. "Wounded."

Sebastian's mouth moved faintly. It might have been the beginning of a smile, which Julian noticed.

"There. We have proof he is still alive."

Sebastian looked at him. "I heard that."

"Good. We were beginning to wonder."

Nathaniel continued as though the interruption had never occurred.