Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (18 page)

Only one bit of her speech resonated
with him. It stuck in his head and refused to leave. “I don’t get
in Morgan’s way.” It left him more irritable than normal that this
infuriating woman was trying to redirect their conversation. “And
your feeding that hound matters to me because Burington is my
friend. I won’t have you doing anything that will cause him
problems.”

“
No, I’ve already caused
enough problems for the people in your life, haven’t I?” she shot
back.

“
Yes, as a matter of fact,
you have.”

She pursed her lips together, which
only served to make her look like a prim governess. Her eyes
flashed a mere moment before she stomped one of her slippered feet
down on top of his boot.

He would have laughed at the lack of
pain it caused him, were it not for the instant flood of tears that
hovered just on the brink of spilling down her cheeks. Good God.
She was the one who’d assaulted him, and she was behaving like he’d
tried to ravish her.

“
Blast!” Miss Hathaway
hopped on her other foot, trying to reach down to the one she’d
just harmed, but he hadn’t released her arms. She flailed about,
kicking out her legs while her arms flew at anything and nothing.
“Let me go. You are impossible.”

“
Be still,” Aidan grumbled.
The blue muslin of her gown whipped about from all her exertions,
entangling both his limbs and hers even as he fought to contain her
struggling. It was no use, particularly since she fit so perfectly
against his frame, like she was made just for him and no one else.
In her innocence, she couldn’t possibly have an idea of the effect
her movements were having upon him, but Aidan was entirely too
aware of certain parts of his anatomy. He’d have to be mad to let
her go.

“
Callous, unfeeling,
insensitive…” The litany of her insults rang out into the empty
night air, echoing in his mind. She kicked again, this time
connecting with his calf, and the swirling fabric of her gown
tightened around both of their legs. With a jerk, she tried to
disengage herself, but she only succeeded in shifting all of their
weight until he fell with her beneath him.

Somehow, he twisted mid-fall so he hit
the ground first with her on top. Her gown was trapped beneath him,
and she couldn’t move an inch.

Aidan wrapped his arms fully around
her torso, entrapping her arms and keeping her still against him.
With all of the fury she had built up, now was not the best time to
release her—lest he end up covered in scars from her scratching at
his eyes or something else of the sort.

A furious woman was not to be
underestimated.

“
Insufferable, churlish,
despotic, tyrannical…” The stream of her contempt seemingly had no
end, and her voice continued to rise in pitch.

If he didn’t quiet her, and quickly,
someone from the main house would hear her and come out to
investigate. And while his cock was rather accepting of their
current position, with her squirming atop him, being discovered
thus was far from what either one of them wanted. The last thing
they needed was to be leg-shackled.

Aidan didn’t know what else to do. The
need for silence grew heavier upon his mind. He moved one hand to
the back of her head, pulled her down, and kissed her.

Emma was in the midst of calling Mr.
Cardiff a scurrilous, indecent cad, following a litany of other
insults, when his lips pressed hard against hers—further earning
every name she’d called him and more. Her eyes flew open at the
contact, only to find his boring into her as though he was trying
to etch every detail of the moment permanently into his
brain.

He would do something like that, too.
Emma had no doubts on that score. It would be just like the
loathsome cur he was to take such delight in the moment that he
ruined her that he would wish to relive it in his mind over and
over again. For that matter, he might be committing it to memory so
that he could recreate it in a piece of artwork later.

The licentious brute.

Even as his lips moved over hers,
deftly maneuvering in such a way that he could slide his tongue
across her tightly closed lips, he readjusted the hand against her
nape and angled her head. His touch was almost punishing, falling
just short of potentially bruising. And yet, while it was
absolutely nothing at all like what she’d imagined a kiss would be,
she couldn’t help but part her lips for his questing tongue and
shudder in delight at the sensation of his invasion.

She’d always thought her first kiss
would be sweet and tender, thoroughly romantic. She’d imagined
herself so in love with the man kissing her that she’d lean in and
one foot would lift up behind her, toes pointed, oblivious to
everything but the man she was with.

She
was
oblivious to everything but Mr.
Cardiff, but in such a different way. His kiss was demanding,
aggressive, needy. It was perhaps because of how different it was
from her imaginings that she was so lost within it. Within
him.

For what it was worth, she did lean
in, seeking more. More heat. More pressure. More of his roving
hands and heated lips, which were now traveling along the length of
her neck, his tongue dipping out to taste her.

Just more.

Which was all wrong. This was the path
to disaster, and they were racing along it neck-or-nothing. She had
to slow him down. She had to separate herself from him before they
were caught in such a compromising position.

Before she lost her heart.

Emma squirmed against him, desperate
to stop him, but her efforts were pointless. Short of ripping her
gown, she couldn’t escape his vise-like grasp on her. She screamed
her frustrations, but the sound was muted against his mouth even as
her fisted hands were tangled in knots of fabric against his
angular, dangerously muscled chest, rendering them useless in her
struggle. Her fists pressed back into her so hard it almost
hurt.

As he worked his tongue between her
lips once more to stroke inside her mouth, he let out a groan of
sorts. His eyes darkened in the pale moonlight—twin pools of lust
that undulated with a need she’d never witnessed before—pools that
mirrored what she knew must be evident within her own
eyes.

He tasted dark, a perilous and
inadequately masked feast of sin.

His tongue swept over every inch of
her mouth, tasting and exploring and kindling something wanton and
delicious and, to this particular point in her life, left
unheeded.

With one arm still holding her tight
to his chest, Mr. Cardiff shifted her higher over his body until
her lips were at a level with his and he could plunder her more
freely. The friction of shifting fabrics and hard muscles against
her breasts left them feeling heavy and needy, and somehow
aching.

Without realizing what she was doing,
she opened her fists and flattened her palms against his chest,
mimicking his actions and exploring the hard angles of his
muscles.

He let out a growl, feral and
inhuman—her only warning before he left her mouth to ravage the
path leading from her jaw to her earlobe with his lips and tongue.
Breaths coming in rapid bursts, pulse pounding loud in her head,
Emma’s entire being swam with unfamiliar sensation.

She didn’t know how she came to be on
her back with him above her and the cold, hard earth beneath
her.

She couldn’t have possibly determined
when he’d stopped suckling against her earlobe and nibbling the
spot just behind her ear to move lower.

All she knew was that her hands
remained trapped between their bodies, kept immobilized by his
superior size, and Mr. Cardiff’s hot, searching mouth had moved
perilously close to the edge of her bodice. Her back arched up as
though her traitorous body welcomed his assault upon her senses,
and a storm of anxiety-laden pinpricks rattled against her core
from the inside.

It was too much. Too wrong.

Too needy.

A moan tore from Emma’s lips when his
questing fingers drew down the cap sleeve of her gown and his
tongue dipped beneath the fabric, the moist heat of it sliding over
the sensitive flesh of her bosom in a way that left her trembling
in both terror and desire. She couldn’t want him like this—so needy
and raw. She couldn’t let herself feel such a deep well of
sensation. Not until she had a husband. Not until he couldn’t rip
all her hopes and dreams out from beneath her and leave her a
shattered mess.

Thus, it was the terror that broke
through the haze of sensation first.

“
Stop. Stop this.” Emma
thrashed her legs, startled at the discovery that she could move
them again. The moment of realization halted her struggle long
enough that Mr. Cardiff was able to reposition his thighs and trap
her legs beneath him.

But he did stop kissing her so
intimately even if he remained atop her, staring down with a wild
look in his eyes and frayed breaths spilling from his lips. She
reached out her hand to cup his cheek—an instinctive gesture—but
pulled back before making contact.

In an instant, his eyes filled with
profound remorse. As fast as it arrived, it was replaced by sheer
panic.

He removed his hand from her sleeve
and placed it over her mouth, but must have thought better of it
only a moment later. Pulling it down to rest beside her body, he
lifted some of his weight from her, situating it on his strong
forearms.

“
Promise me you won’t call
out.” His words were a prayer in the night. “I doubt that being
discovered in such a thoroughly compromising position is what
either of us wants.”

At the moment, Emma didn’t
have the first inkling how to voice what she wanted. She wanted him
to go on, to take her further than she’d allowed. She wanted to be
as far away from him as she could possibly be. She wanted never to
be too long outside his touch. She wanted a kind man to marry her,
and only
then
to
fall in love.

Everything she wanted was a convoluted
mess in her head.

But he was right. If anyone from the
house party were to find them, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind
what David would insist upon. Her brother-in-law was too
honor-bound by half. She’d be married to Mr. Cardiff within a
sennight, if not sooner.

The mere thought of it was enough to
send a tingle racing over her spine. “I won’t call out,” Emma
repeated, though her voice shuddered and threatened to give way
before she’d gotten even the first of the words out.

Taking more of his weight onto
himself, Mr. Cardiff carefully extracted his legs from Emma’s
skirts and then rolled aside. He stood, brushing grass and dirt
from himself before holding out a hand to assist her.

When she stood again, trying to regain
the ability to breathe, the moonlight allowed her to see just how
much damage had overcome her gown. There were grass stains and a
few small rips along the skirt, and the bodice was completely
crushed. The muslin was ruined. No laundry maid would ever be able
to salvage it.

Clearly Mr. Cardiff was experiencing
those very thoughts. He looked over at her and his lips quirked
down into a frown. “I don’t suppose there’s much hope for it, is
there?”

“
None. But don’t trouble
yourself over it.” Not that he would, anyway, but that was beside
the point. “I’ll tell my maid about feeding Kingley, and that I
fell down in the dark. No one will ever know about…” She gave an
empty gesture with her arms toward the place on the ground they’d
been tumbling about.

“
I wasn’t…” Mr. Cardiff
stopped himself short and pressed his eyes closed for a moment. “I
shouldn’t—”

“
You should go back inside
before you’re missed, sir. I need to return this plate to the
kitchens before Cook sends someone out searching for me.” And
before she could do that, she’d have to calm herself enough that
her lies would be believable. Not an easy task, that was for
certain. Blast, she wished she were a better liar.

A muscle ticked in his cheek, and he
started to nod, but then he shrugged and muttered an oath. “I do
not understand how you have such control over me, Miss Hathaway,
but I do not like it. Not in the least.”