“Please,” she repeated. Her lips settled on that spot just below his earlobe, her warm breath fanning over him and tickling the sensitive flesh of his neck.
This was madness. There could be no other explanation for why, instead of taking both her hands in his, putting a good foot or more between them, and telling her precisely the reason what she was doing must stop, he fisted his hand in her hair and lowered his head to capture her mouth with his.
Emma had been happily sinking in Aidan’s kiss for what could have been hours when he broke away again. He had both hands in her hair, holding her captive as he trailed wet kisses over her neck, her jaw, her shoulder blade.
Then, just as suddenly, he pulled back. His eyes were nearly black with intensity, and his chest was heaving as erratically as hers. “Not here.”
Not here? She barely had, “Wha—” out of her mouth before he’d taken one of her hands in his and started walking, rapidly, across the lawn.
She almost had to run to keep up with him, he was moving so fast. By the time he slowed at the trail through the woods, she was far more breathless than before.
“Where are we going?” Emma finally asked. He seemed to be in such a rush, she couldn’t imagine what the hurry might be.
“The hermitage.”
The hermitage? “Do you feel the need to sculpt right now?” One minute, he’d been kissing her passionately and the next, he wanted to hammer away at marble. No matter how much she thought she was beginning to know him, she would never truly understand the manner his mind worked.
“I can’t very well take you up to my chambers, can I? Even though the rest of the guests are out hawking, the servants are all in the house.”
She’d only thought she was breathless before. Now she knew she was, yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from wanting to move faster. As frustrating and infuriating as Aidan could be at times, Emma was fairly certain she loved him. Or at least that she was falling in love with him.
And there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she wanted to be with him, at least this one time. If he couldn’t fall in love with her, then perhaps they would have a marriage in name only. If that was to be her fate, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life without at least knowing what was missing in her marriage.
Then she could resign herself to her fate, whatever it may be.
But for now, for this moment in time, she wanted to experience all she could with this man. She wanted to know the source of the ache in her core, to see if he could help her relieve it. She wanted to feel his body against hers like it had been that first time he kissed her, when they were so tangled together she couldn’t think. And maybe, if fortune decided to favor her, maybe it would be enough to convince him to love her in return.
How could a man, even one as jaded as Aidan, share such an intimate act with another and not give at least part of himself to that other person?
Finally, they reached the hermitage. Aidan hastily undid the lock and threw back the door, and before it had fully closed behind them, he’d hauled her into his arms.
He kissed her and drew her closer, his strong hands pulling against her until their bodies were nearly joined despite the barrier of their clothing.
After that, everything happened in frenetic fashion. Hands and fingers, lips and tongue. Aidan removed their clothing, frenzied and hot and needy in his quest. It was so fast, so new, Emma didn’t know what to do or how to react. A rabid need built within her, straining at her core and tingling through her limbs all the way to the ends of her fingers and tips of her toes. A rush of heat fled to each place he touched, and all the while a pervasive ache built higher and higher in her center.
Then he was above her, surrounding her, sliding over and within her. Everywhere. He was everywhere, filling her like she’d never known was possible. Nothing in her imagination could have prepared her for the sensations racing neck-or-nothing through her veins. From head to toe, every pore of her body felt alive. Her mind couldn’t contain it all. One thought chased the next, none of them settling or fixing permanently in place.
Then it was as though a dam burst. A flood of heat.
Aidan lay over her, covered in a sheen of perspiration. His weight trapped her between his body and something soft—a settee?
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have…that was too fast.”
She shook her head. Too fast? It was all a blur, but it had been a wonderful blur.
Lifting his head to look down into her eyes, he kissed her, his tongue delving between her lips and making it impossible for her to speak. Not that she could have anyway. His hands brushed over her, molding against her breasts. With his thumbs, he teased her swollen nipples.
“Ah,” Emma cried, and her back arched up to meet his ministrations.
The warm heat of his mouth came down over one breast, and he suckled and licked. That desperate pull, the gathering of wetness and heat started between her thighs again, pooling together and pulsing. Aching.
Aidan moved his attentions to the other breast and slid one hand down between their bodies, lower, until his fingers tangled in the wetness of her curls.
Each time he suckled, he slipped his fingers deeper, searching, tantalizing.
Emma writhed beneath him, her hips driving her closer to his touch. “Oh my.”
The pad of his thumb found a nub much like her nipples, swollen and tender, and he rubbed it, circled it, tickled and teased it until she thought she would die from the pleasure.
This time it was a wave, building and gathering speed until it washed over her and she collapsed, sated, against the cushions.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, then he kissed her again.
They lay together like that, Aidan atop her, Emma desperately seeking the return of her ability to think, for a long time. She lost track of anything but the weight of his body, the feel of his breathing, the musky scent permeating the air around them.
He repeated something in her ear. But she couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t make it out. Couldn’t focus on anything but the shivery weightlessness the heat left behind.
Eventually, he rolled off her and lowered himself to lie on the floor, then pulled her to drape over him. His hands moved in lazy trails over her back, the rough calluses of his fingers scraping in a pleasant way along her overly sensitive skin.
When once again she felt the effect of gravity upon her person, when the bones returned to her limbs and she was no longer just a limp mass, Emma lifted her head and met Aidan’s gaze.
In all the time they’d known one another, Emma had seen countless expressions on his face—but never this one before. He seemed almost confused. Distraught. The urge to comfort him became overwhelming, so she lowered her lips to his and kissed him long and slow.
When she lifted her head away again, Aidan raised his hand to her face. He tucked her hair behind her ear, then cupped her cheek.
“Did you not hear me?” he asked, with a harsh edge in his tone. Then he shook his head, a wave of pain rushing through his eyes. “Never mind. It is probably best this—”
“Hear what?”
His other hand came up, and he held her head between the two of them. The pads of his thumbs repeatedly smoothed over her cheekbones. “I said I love you.”
Aidan could hardly believe that the words were coming out of his mouth the first dozen or so times he’d said them, when he knew Emma was in such a fog of sensation that she couldn’t possibly know what he was telling her.
But then for him to tell her again, when there was no more possibility that she could misunderstand him? And more importantly, for him to mean what he’d said? It left him shaken through to his core.
He did love her. He loved how she cared so much for her friends that she would do anything she possibly could do to help them. He loved the way her eyes turned down at the corners, and how her nose tugged to the right when she was upset. He loved her awkwardness, and how she was so unaware of her own beauty and the effect she could
have on others. He loved that she would argue with him for hours over a book.
More than anything, he loved that she attracted fragile and broken things, and that she never turned them away.
He loved her.
And, most importantly of all, he’d told her so.
Yet, instead of saying that she loved him, and instead of reacting with the sort of unbridled joy he’d felt upon uttering the words aloud, she lay there draped across him, simply staring.
No, that wasn’t quite right. There was something decidedly not simple in her stare. He couldn’t quite make up his mind if it was shock, or perhaps fear.
Shock was a sensation he could well understand, since he felt rather surprised himself, but why would Emma be afraid? She had essentially given him an ultimatum, telling him they must come to love one another or she would not go along with having a normal marriage with him. And now that he truly was in love with her, now that it was not simply something he was feigning in order to get her into his bed, she was afraid?
“Emma?” he said quietly.
Instead of responding, she abruptly removed herself from his grip and stood, reaching for her clothing.
“Stop,” he said softly.
But she wouldn’t stop. She kept frantically trying to sort out her undergarments and get them on, but she was making a muck of it. Aidan put out a hand and stilled hers, and her eyes shot over to meet his.
At least she wasn’t crying. He could handle a great many reactions she might have, but tears—particularly when he wasn’t certain of the source of her reaction—might have been too much for him.
Since Emma wasn’t talking, Aidan decided he’d better do so or he’d never understand what was wrong. “You wanted us to fall in love—”
“Yes, I did. I do. I want us to love one another.” She finally got her drawers on properly and then grabbed her shift, tugging it into place as quickly as she could. Her movements were harsh. Sharp.
Angry.
“What I do not want,” she rasped, her voice cracking, “is for you to say you love me, try to fool me into believing you love me, only so that I’ll be biddable in your bed.”
She didn’t honestly think he would have said those words if he didn’t mean them—did she? But then again, the manner in which he’d always glared at her had to cause her some doubts. Damnation! Aidan dragged a hand through his hair, then reached for his clothes as well. Once she was dressed, there was no telling what she would do, and he needed to be prepared to chase after her if she should try to run off.
“That’s not what happened.”
Emma spun on him and jabbed a finger into his chest. “That is precisely what just happened. You can’t switch from hating me with every fiber of your being one day, to gleefully picking fights with me another day, to supposedly loving me the very next. It doesn’t work that way.”
By normal standards, she probably had a point. But how was love ever normal? It just happened, whether you wanted it to or not, whether you were ready for it or not.
“Love can’t just fit into a perfect little box, Emma.”
“I’m not trying to fit it into a box,” she muttered, fumbling with the ties of her stays. Finally, she got the ties to settle into place and gave them a hard tug. “I’m trying to avoid ending up as heartbroken as your sister was when Lord Stoneham betrayed her trust.”
“You’re not going to end up heartbroken.”
“You’re right. I won’t.” Emma pulled her dress over her head. “I’m not going to let you hurt me. We both know how you’ve felt about me all this time.”
His misplaced hatred.
But of course, she’d known. She had to have known. Aidan hadn’t made any effort at all to hide his feelings toward her in all that time. She’d be a fool to believe him now—now, when he finally saw the truth of what he felt for her.
She was almost fully clothed again, though shoddily so, and he had hardly done more than pull on his breeches. Aidan worked faster to make himself presentable.
“I won’t hurt you. Christ, Emma. I love you.”
Lifting a brow, she said, “Is that so? For some reason, I have a much easier time imagining my own interpretation of what took place in here is closer to correct.” She reached for one of her half-boots, tripping over her skirts which were still tangled about her knees in the process.
Aidan caught her and set her to rights, his jaw grinding together all the while. “I don’t know what else you want me to say. I’ve told you I love you. How am I supposed to prove it to you if you don’t believe it?”
This time, finally, she looked up at him—truly looked at him—with a tear shining in her eye. “That’s just it,” she said a moment later. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to believe such a thing. There’s been so much animosity, and I swear to you I’ve never understood a lick of it. How should I believe you’ve put all that well and truly in the past? How should I believe you love me?”
He knew because of the ferocious pounding of his pulse anytime he was with her. He knew because of the irrational jealousy he felt, which made him want to rip Sir Henry’s head from his shoulders any time the baronet was alone with Emma. He knew because even when he wasn’t with her, he thought about her and wanted to be with her.
But Aidan didn’t have the first inkling what to say in response to her question. None of those things were tangible. None of them were things she could grasp or feel or experience.
When he didn’t respond, Emma shook her head. “They’ll be back from hawking soon. We should return to the house before we’re missed.”
As her sure fingers closed the series of tiny buttons along the back of her gown, Aidan felt like she was closing the door on any chance they could have a true marriage. He felt like she was stabbing his heart with a hot poker, over and over again. It wasn’t just about having her in his bed. Not any longer. He wanted to spar with her over books, and to laugh together over her attempts at painting. He wanted to watch her collect all of the broken and damaged people around her, fix them, and send them on their way whole again.
Yet he was perhaps the most broken of them all, and she was merely breaking him further.
“Of course,” he said. His voice sounded flat to his own ear. Emotionless.
He was about as far from being free from emotion as was humanly possible. It would be a blessing just now, because there were so many of the blasted things coursing through his veins he felt like he might explode from them at any moment. Love, fear, rejection, anger… There were a great many he couldn’t even name, but they were powerful and overwhelming, and he worried they might topple him if he weren’t careful.
Nevertheless, Aidan finished donning his clothes and helped Emma to repair hers, so it wouldn’t appear that anything was amiss. Then together, they left the hermitage and began the silent journey back to the main house.
As they came out of the path onto the main lawn, they were greeted by chaos. The party had returned from hawking, and they crowded the vast expanse: houseguests, horses, and dogs were milling about, with servants rushing amongst them from one to the next.
No, milling about wasn’t quite right. They were racing, as though in a panic.
Perhaps someone had been injured on the hunt? But if so, why hadn’t they taken the injured person inside and sent for a doctor? No, that couldn’t be.
Aidan glanced over at Emma. Her lips were pursed together and her eyes held an intense sense of purpose. She knew something was very wrong, as well. Without a word to one another, they increased their pace.
When they drew near the gathered crowd, Aidan spotted Niall and started to veer them in his brother’s direction—but Sir Henry Irvine stepped into his path and blocked his way.
“Miss Hathaway, thank goodness. I’ve been looking for you—”
That was as far as the baronet got before Aidan’s fist landed squarely on his nose. “I warned you to stay away from my intended,” he growled, even as Irvine toppled over to the ground with blood gu
shing past the fingers covering his nose.
He’d had more than enough of Irvine trying to get close to Emma. Every time Aidan turned his back, Irvine was trying to wheedle his way closer to her, like he would steal her out from under Aidan’s nose. That wasn’t going to happen.
He hauled Irvine up by his shirt and pulled his free arm back to swing at the would-be-usurper’s face again.
“No!” Emma tried to rush in, but Aidan jerked Irvine away from her.
“And you,” he shouted at her. “You may not love me, but you can damned well honor our betrothal by staying away from him.”
He pulled back for another blow and had nearly connected again when Niall caught his arm.
“It’s Morgan. She’s missing.”
Just as quickly as it had all begun, Aidan dropped his hold on Sir Henry, and the baronet collapsed to the ground. Emma rushed forward to see to him, her heart pounding all the while.
Morgan was missing? How could that have happened?
She ripped off a strip of her petticoat and pressed it to his nose. “Hold that in place, please.”
He nodded and kept the cloth where she’d placed it, but instantly pushed himself to his feet then reached down to help Emma up.
When she released his hand, it was Aidan that she focused upon—his face contorted with anguish and pain and fear and anger, all of it so intense and acute she felt it radiating from him despite the distance between them.
She reached for his hand, hoping to feel for broken bones or see to any cuts it might have, but he snatched it away from her.
“We have to organize a search party.” He said it to Lord Trenowyth, not to Emma. He wouldn’t even look at her. “All too soon it will be dark, and then we’ll have no hope of finding her before morning.”
Her heart cracked a bit, but now was not the time to wallow in her own pity, despite the fact that this only served to prove what she’d realized in the hermitage. He didn’t love her. He might never be able to love her, so it didn’t matter how desperately her heart yearned for him. Her love would never be enough. He was like a wounded animal, lashing out to hurt anyone in his path before they could hurt him any more than he already had been. He didn’t know how to let her love him.
Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon Page 24
