“How could you believe that about me?” His breath rushed over her forehead, turning to ice where her skin was wet.
I don’t know,
she meant to say, but the words wouldn’t come.
I didn’t, truly
. A few minutes later, her sobs finally subsided.
“Come,” Aidan said. “Let’s get you home.”
For once, she felt no outrage at being ordered about. She walked through the evening with snow swirling through her vision and felt she was drifting through clouds. They moved toward the alley, avoiding the front door.
Once they were in her kitchen, he locked the alley door and took her cloak.
She looked blankly toward the stove. “I should heat some water. . . .”
“No.” And when he turned her toward the stairs, she went blindly, numbly. The same numbness cradled her as he unlaced her dress and loosened her corset.
“I did it,” she whispered, her voice reed thin.
“Did what?”
“I told my father the truth about us. That’s why he sent me away. And that’s why he told you I was dead.”
“No.” His fingers worked along her spine, freeing her from the awful constraint. “He would never have lied to all of England just to keep the second son of a baron away from his daughter. I’ve been thinking about it. Hell, I can’t stop thinking about it.”
When the corset finally let loose its grip, Kate drew a glorious breath that steadied and soothed her all at once.
“Your father has always been arrogant and proud. He loves nothing better than expounding on his bloodline and complaining that England has lost its respect for tradition. How could he then admit that he’d sent his daughter to the East to marry a stranger with no bloodline to speak of? Can you imagine him explaining that to his friends at the club? He welcomes a foreign stranger into his family, all for the sake of filthy lucre?”
She supposed he was right, but she was too bone-weary to take it in.
When she was down to her shift, Aidan lifted her and took her to her bed. She went with no objection, holding on to his neck when he bent to throw back the bedcover, curling into a tight ball when he laid her down.
He left her and returned within moments to wash her tear-streaked face with a handkerchief dipped in cold water.
When he was done, she closed her eyes and turned away from him.
“I’ll leave,” he said, and suddenly Kate’s mind cleared. She didn’t want him to leave. Not at all.
“Stay,” she whispered to the wall. Miraculously, he heard her.
The scrape of his boots halted. She felt his eyes on her, but she felt no nervousness.
“I’ll sleep in the parlor,” he offered.
“No. Stay here. In my bed.”
Silence again. And then she heard the sounds of cloth against cloth. The same noises of the forest in Ceylon, oddly. The shushing sound of leaf brushing leaf in a steady breeze. The room went dark. When Aidan lay down with her, his trousers touched her legs, but his arm was bare when he curled it over her.
He leaned close and pressed a kiss to the skin just below her ear. She felt as free as one of the birds in the jungle forest, flying high above the grasping green leaves.
Whispering against her neck, he urged her not to worry.
And so she wouldn’t. Not tonight.
Kate stuck her head back into the bedroom and just as quickly withdrew. He was still asleep, sheets tangled around his trouser legs.
She’d already dressed in a panicked rush in the parlor and gone downstairs to brew coffee. Now she didn’t know what to do. Her hands shook, her muscles ached with a trembling need to flee. She paced to the window and stared out at the mist. And then she laughed.
Aidan was in her room. Aidan was in her
bed
. The knowledge filled her up with a raw heat that felt like sunshine. Like the merciless sunshine in Ceylon, except this was a heat she welcomed. She hadn’t felt anything like it since . . . since she’d been a girl. Since she’d loved Aidan.
But she wasn’t a foolish young girl now, and this wasn’t love. It was desire. Hope. It was living instead of existing. Ceylon had changed her, but it hadn’t pulled her soul clean from her body as she’d feared.
No, her soul had definitely been intact when she’d lain in bed and stared at Aidan’s bare chest this morning. Her heart had thundered with nervousness, but that hard pulse had pushed her body to arousal. They’d lain together before, but only in stolen, rushed embraces of rumpled clothing and hushed moans. She’d never seen his bare chest or the strong lines of his arms. She’d never awoken to find his cheekbones brushed with pink warmth and his hair a wild mess.
My God, he was beautiful. Even more handsome than he’d been as a boy.
Today, his beauty didn’t scare her. Instead, it filled her with giddy joy. She gathered up that joy, retrieved the coffee tray, and made herself walk into the room.
He didn’t wake when she set the tray on the table next to the bed, so Kate took that as permission to look at him. He was in her bed, after all. Surely that conveyed some small degree of possession to her. And how could she not look? His shoulders were so wide and stroked with mysterious hollows. The secrets of his body called to her fingertips, begging for exploration. But when she looked to his face, she found his eyes open and watching her with sharp intensity.
“Good morning,” she said before she could give in to the impulse to jump up and run away.
He rose up on his elbows. “I’m sorry. I meant to wake before dawn. Your neighbors . . .”
“We’ll need to take care when you leave. A few titillating rumors are one thing, but the scandal of a man stealing away in the morning . . .”
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“I am the one who asked you to stay, Aidan.”
He paused in the act of sitting up. “Yes,” he said softly. “You did. And nothing could have made me leave.”
She tried to stop a smile and failed. “Nothing but the morning?”
Aidan frowned as she handed him a cup of coffee. “Nothing but a meeting with the shipbuilder at nine
A.M.,
but perhaps I can send a note to Penrose and have it postponed.” When she sat down on the edge of the bed, Aidan propped himself against the wall and watched her.
“It’s enough that you stayed the night.”
His gaze caught between heat and wariness. “Enough for whom, exactly?”
Kate ducked her head and smiled at her hands. Yes, that was heat she saw in his eyes. And it had definitely been life she’d felt in her veins. Her pulse beat a tattoo that urged her to move faster along this path. “It was enough,” she finally whispered. “For now.”
When she looked up, his gaze was sharp as a blade. A blade that wanted to cut the seams of her clothing and remove it from her body.
“You’re right,” Aidan said, the words so soft they floated toward her. “It was enough. I’ve never done that.”
“Done what?”
“Slept in a woman’s bed.”
No, that couldn’t be right. She shook her head.
“Slept,” he said, his voice dropping even further, “in
your
bed.”
He’d been with other women. He must have been. But she understood what he was telling her. He had not cared enough to spend the night in their beds. But he’d stayed in hers.
He could be mine
. The fierce knowledge took hold of her like a ruthless hand.
He could belong to me. Again.
Power flooded her veins. She wanted him. And she need make no other decision besides that. She had just told him that sleeping was enough, but in that moment it became a terrible lie. And if she wanted him, now was the time. He’d said himself that he was leaving for London soon. Perhaps even today. But right now he was in her bed.
“You’re right, though,” she whispered. “It wasn’t enough, was it?” All the power in the world could not convince her to meet his gaze at that moment. Instead, she watched his chest expand with a deep breath. She wanted to touch it. She wanted to know the taste of his skin.
She forced her eyes up, made herself meet the green heat in his gaze. And then she said the words. “It’s only seven. Would you lie down again?”
His brow fell, his eyes clouding with confusion, but he didn’t ask what she meant. Instead he handed her the half-empty cup, and slipped back down to the mattress.
Kate couldn’t pause to think, or fear would stop her. So she put her hands to his chest and spread her fingers wide.
His ribs eased down as he sighed. The long slow exhalation seemed to go on forever. His lips were parted, his eyes dark with question. He didn’t know what she wanted from him, and she could understand that. She didn’t know what she wanted either, aside from the feel of his skin under her hands.
She slid her fingers down, feeling the warmth, the contrast of smooth skin and crisp hair. Down farther, over the muscles of his belly. She watched as they jumped beneath her touch.
Her taut shoulders relaxed by slow degrees as she fell into fascination. He was so hot. So alive. Her hands wandered all over his torso, from his stomach to his shoulders, over the dip of his breastbone and the swell of his muscles and the steely curve of his ribs.
She became lost in her exploration, nearly forgetting, oddly enough, that he was there. Not even noticing his deepening breaths and clenching hands.
“Katie,” he finally said, her name a low rasp.
Blinking from her trance, she saw the tortured pain on his face, and she smiled. “Will you touch me, Aidan?”
“Ah, God,” he moaned, and framed her face in his hands. He pulled her down, covering his body with hers, and guided her mouth to his.
Kate groaned when his tongue entered her. She scrambled higher on his body so that she could slant her mouth over his and kiss him with all the yearning that coursed through her veins. Aidan drank her up with just as much urgency.
His hands roamed down her shoulders, over her back, to her hips. She settled her knees on either side of his hips, and her body went heavy and hot. Every muscle, every inch of skin burned as his tongue thrust into her, a rhythm she knew. A rhythm she
wanted
.
Kate reached for her skirts to ruck them up. When she was settled more soundly against him, she broke from the kiss and sat up.
The sight of him beneath her hit her like a brutal hand. His face was flushed, his eyes glittered. His expression struck some beautiful line between tenderness and cruelty. And above the edge of her skirts, he was naked and so very lovely.
Determined not to lose her courage, Kate inched down and reached for the fastening of his trousers.
“No,” he said, startling her. “No. It won’t be like this. Not this time.”
“What—” she started, but Aidan was easing her up, off the bed. “No,” she said as he rose as well.
But then he eased her around and he reached for the buttons of her morning gown. “Oh,” she sighed. “I can do it.”
“No.”
That simple word stilled her hands. She watched as he slowly unfastened each button, then spread the dress down her shoulders and off her arms. She stared at the pale skin above her white chemise. Her dress fell, pooling around her feet.
Her corset was laced loosely so that Kate could hook the clasps herself. Aidan popped the first hook free.
“Wait,” she whispered. She hadn’t looked at her own body in so long, and now she realized what a dreadful idea this was.
His hands froze. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s so . . . It’s so bright.”
“Oh, Katie,” he murmured. “Close your eyes.” So she did, only because she didn’t want this to stop.
She kept her eyes closed as her corset loosened. She squeezed them tightly shut when his hands drew the shoulders of her chemise down. When he untied the delicate string of her drawers, his knuckles pressed the naked skin of her belly, and she began to tremble. Linen caressed her thighs as it slid to the floor.
And then the room pressed into her whole body. The cool air. The wisps of wind when Aidan moved. She could even feel the light on her, naming her a woman nearly thirty, a whole world away from the young girl she’d once been.
“I’ve waited a lifetime for this,” he said. His hands gripped her hips, and she opened her eyes to find him kneeling on the floor before her. Wetness rushed to the place between her legs as Aidan pressed his open mouth to her ribs. His tongue stroked up, up, until it brushed the curve of her breast.
Kate felt her throat open on a sigh. This was . . . It was beautiful. Even in the light, it was perfect. Yes, her breasts were heavier now, but Aidan’s mouth worshipped the flesh. Yes, her hips were wider, but they served the needful purpose of giving his hands the perfect curve to grasp.
His mouth closed over the deep rose flush of her nipple, and Kate cried out. He sucked at her, and a shimmering, vibrating tension began to pulse deep inside her, spreading through her body like rings of water until her fingers trembled and her skin buzzed.
By the time he lifted his head and his green eyes rose, Kate was caught in a storm of her beating heart and straining lungs. She could do nothing but stare down at his flushed lips in wonder. How could such a simple touch of his mouth draw her sex so desperately tight? Now she remembered why she’d been so foolish all those years ago. Because being foolish with Aidan had been worth any price, any risk. Because she’d been
alive
with him.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “I could never have imagined how lovely.”
His hands turned her hips, and urged her down to the bed. The linens were cool and crisp against her backside, while Aidan’s hands were hot as they slipped down her thighs. In that moment, she decided there was no more vulnerable place in the world than the inside of a woman’s thighs. She shook as his thumbs trailed lower. He parted her legs and bent his head.
“Aidan!” she gasped, trying to scoot back.
“Let me. Please.”
Kate shook her head, but he wasn’t watching her, and she let her knees be eased apart. She let him slide between them, let his mouth touch her
there
.
“Ah!” she cried as his tongue touched her most secret spots. She felt each swipe of his tongue, each circle it traced. Pleasure spread over her like cracks in glass. She cried out raggedly as Aidan’s mouth rubbed again between her legs, finding a little point of pleasure over and over.
He’d mentioned this once to her, in a whispered, breathless conversation. He’d told her of the things that lovers might do after they married. But this was nothing she’d imagined. It felt as though a wicked heart was beating deep inside her, separate from any other body she’d ever known.
Everything inside her clenched tighter and tighter until it burst into a thousand pieces of shimmering light. Her nails clutched the sheets as she fought to anchor herself to the world. Finally a sob was dragged from her throat, a deep-throated cry, and Aidan ceased his torment.
She was crying. She knew she was, and all she could do was let the tears slide down her temples and try not to make a sound. Aidan pressed delicate kisses along her thigh, and she tried to calm herself.
She felt the slide of his body against her legs as he rose. Then the shift of fine wool on her skin. When she opened her eyes, he stood naked and beautiful above her. His eyes met hers directly, meaningfully, and she took what he offered and looked at his body, still and proud, yet somehow vulnerable in the morning light. Her eyes lingered on his wide shoulders, the hard plane of his chest, the long stretch of muscle in his legs. She even let herself stare at his jutting manhood for a brief, thrilling moment.
He went to his knees beside the bed again. He pulled her hips closer; her knees edged farther apart. When the head of his shaft touched her open sex, her body jerked, the slightest touch of him against her jarring and painfully intense. Aidan went still. He was holding his breath, waiting, wanting. Finally, she breathed again, and he pressed forward.
There was none of that pushing, that forcing that was all she could remember of the joining of bodies. His body slid into hers as if it were coming home, as if it remembered her and the way to her soul. It was sweet and slow and like nothing she’d ever felt.
She took him inside in a smooth slide until he was so deep, filling her up, filling a void she’d forgotten existed.