This week, I'm snippeting from The Artist's Masquerade. Flavian is thinking about Cathal and reminding himself (again) that's a bad idea to be interested in Cathal at all.
Cathal confused him. So much. His heart still beat too fast as he remembered the look in Cathal’s eyes, all simmering heat and impishness. And Flavian liked that, far more than was good for him. He liked other things about Cathal too—flashes of heart and humor that came through at the oddest times, past the outer shell of propriety and rigid adherence to duty. And that smile of his, not the practiced, polite smile Flavian had seen often, but the real one that had graced Cathal’s lips tonight... that had been beautiful.
But Cathal was rigid and overly proper and infuriating at times and betrothed to Flavian’s friend.