She swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid her feet into her slippers. If he was down there, and if she didn’t go look, would he think she’d been kissing him and flirting with him simply to get his assistance? Or worse, would he decide she was stupid for not being able to decipher his abysmally vague clues?
Slipping on her blue dressing robe, Miranda relit the bedside candle with a spill ignited from the fireplace coals. If someone saw her, she didn’t want to look like she was sneaking. Being restless and searching for a book to read made perfect sense. She’d done it before, and on multiple occasions.
The candle in one hand, she slipped into the hallway and toward the main staircase. She wasn’t trying to be unseen, she reminded herself. Only silent. As far as she knew Matthew hadn’t yet returned home, and while she preferred not to run into him at all, at least she had an excuse in mind. Of course, her brother was likely out losing another ten thousand pounds to Captain Vale, but repaying those notes couldn’t realistically be a part of any plan, anyway.
Matthew didn’t arrive in the foyer as she reached the ground floor and then turned up the wide hallway leading past the library at the back of the house. No one appeared to keep her from going to see if she did indeed have a man waiting for her there in the dark, or if she was just hoping that would be the case.
Blowing out her breath, trying not to look like a wanton hoyden by bursting into the room, she pushed down on the door handle with her free hand.
The door opened silently, thanks to the butler and his obsession with eliminating squeaks. Thank you, Billings. Inside the large room the quartet of curtains masking the tall windows stood open, allowing in the light of a fog-dimmed three-quarter yellow moon. Her candle became the only other source of light in the library.
Aden MacTaggert was not in her library reading, at any rate. She felt abruptly ill that she’d put so much faith into such a silly notion, and that she’d wanted so badly for him to be there. And now she hoped he’d never been there at all; if he had been, and he’d left, he would not be thinking well of her.
“If ye mean to stay, lass, come in and close that door.”
Chapter Twelve
The low voice came from directly beside her. Miranda jumped as Aden eased into sight around the half-open door. The candle wavered wildly in her hand, sending nightmare shadows up the walls and along the floor. Aden caught hold of her hand before she could drop it and set the entire house on fire.
Shaking herself, she relinquished the candle and closed the door behind her. “I hope you know those were very poor hints you gave. I nearly fell asleep before I realized you might possibly have been trying to tell me—”
His mouth closed over hers. The fingers of his free hand tangled into her loose hair, the sensation nearly as intimate as the kiss. Miranda slid her palms over his shoulders and lifted on her toes, leaning her body along the long, muscular length of him. He was there. She hadn’t imagined some silly rendezvous simply because she craved his company. Aden had said he wanted her, but those had just been words. Except that they weren’t just words, because this kiss would have most damsels swooning. Even she felt weak in the knees.
Pulling her away from the door, he blew out the candle and set it on an end table. “Those were poor hints, I reckon,” he drawled, putting both of his hands on her hips and drawing her up against him again. “But then if ye hadnae come down here I could tell myself I was too cryptic or someaught. I wouldnae have to think ye were just batting yer eyes at me because I’m useful to ye.”
She hit him on one shoulder. “I do not bat my eyes at anyone.”
“Aye, but someaught about ye pulls at me, Miranda. I’ve an answer for nearly everything, but I cannae explain ye, or why the day seems brighter and the room warmer when I’m about ye.”
That might well be the nicest thing she’d ever heard. He was a cynical, practical man, and yet he very nearly waxed poetical trying to explain how he felt about her. “You are useful to me,” she stated, meeting his gaze in the moonlit gloom. “You’re also infuriating and extremely annoying, with the way you refuse to tell me the details of things but expect me to catch up and go along with whatever it is you’re up to.”
“Ye’re my partner,” he returned, as if that explained everything. At her glare, his mouth softened into a grin. “I wouldnae throw things in yer path if I didnae think ye capable of climbing over ’em. Just as I wouldnae be here if ye didnae keep me on my toes.”
“If I bored you, you mean?”
“Aye. And I reckon ye wouldnae be down here in yer library if I bored ye.” Amusement edged his voice. “But if ye’re here tonight because ye do feel obligated, tell me so, Miranda. I’m nae some villain to force myself on ye because ye need an ally.” He stopped, frowning. “I gave my word to help ye. That doesnae change, whether ye want me to stay or ye ask me to leave.”
“For a man who prefers being called a barbarian to a gentleman,” she whispered, trying to fend off the tears abruptly threatening to fill her eyes, “you appear to be rather honorable.”
“Boireannach gaisgeil, if I were an honorable lad I’d nae be in yer damned library. Because I’m nae here for the conversation, and I’m nae here to plot. I want to take that bonny robe off ye and that damned night rail ye’re wearing, and I want to put my hands on ye.” He narrowed one eye. “And nae just my hands.”
With those same hands splayed around her waist, Miranda didn’t doubt he felt her shiver. She could barely keep herself from tearing all his English-style clothes off before he’d even finished speaking. “I don’t know what might happen tomorrow or when Captain Vale comes here for dinner on Thursday or at the end of all this,” she said, plucking at his simple cravat with her fingers, “but I do know that I mean to have as much say in my life as possible.”
“I’d expect nae less of ye, Miranda, and I reckon I like the way ye talk through a problem, but if ye dunnae tell me ye want me in the next minute or two I’m going to have to go climb back out the window behind me and go find myself a lot of drinks.”
She snorted. “That’s more direct than your usual conversation, Aden.”
“Miranda, for God’s sake. Say aye.” He scowled. “Or say nae. I prefer aye.”
“I do want you, Aden, even with the amount of trouble that could cause me. Yes. A—”
Before she could finish saying aye, he lowered his head to kiss her. Her breath, her senses, fled as he yanked her hips against his, their tongue tangling in a heated dance she felt all the way to her bones. Aden might look poetical with his too-long wavy hair and silent observations, but he kissed like a sensual hedonist.
She half expected to be tossed to the ground and ravished, and if that satisfied the keen yearning that had been coursing through her for the past days, she would have not a single objection. Instead he leaned in, tilting up her chin as his lips and tongue dipped to explore her throat, the base of her jaw, every touch sizzling through her like streaks of fire and lightning. She felt raw and naked, and yet neither of them had removed a single stitch of clothing. In the library. Her family’s library. Where her father also wandered at night from time to time.
“We can’t do this here,” she panted, still clinging to his shoulders.
Aden straightened a little. “I’ll lock the door,” he said, freeing one hand to reach behind her.
“And invite someone to unlock it?”
“We could go out to the garden,” he suggested, slipping a finger beneath one shoulder of her dressing gown and tugging it down her arm. “I dunnae want ye getting rose thorns in yer arse, though.”
She shrugged back into the robe. “I don’t want thorns, either.” Cupping his face in her hands, feeling the beginnings of whiskers beneath her palms, she kissed him again.
“Miranda, I want ye. But I want all of ye. Leaving ye dressed and lifting yer skirt—that’s nae enough for me. Or for ye, I reckon.”
No, it wouldn’t be. This was about them and trust and need, not about a quick—she assumed—impersonal ur
ge either of them could satisfy with anyone. And given what could well happen later if Aden’s ill-explained schemes didn’t suffice to rid her and her family of that … man whose name she didn’t even want to conjure, she wanted tonight to be something she could hold on to later. The memory might have to last her a very long time. An eternity.
Pushing out of the circle of his arms, she caught hold of his hand before he could lock the door. Deep satisfaction sank through her when his fingers curled around hers. She didn’t think he was a man who followed anyone else’s lead. “Come with me,” she whispered, and opened the door with her free hand.
He didn’t protest, but allowed her to lead the way out of the library and up the hallway toward the foyer and the main staircase. Lean and athletic as he looked, Aden was still broad-shouldered and over six feet tall. Despite that, it was her slippers she heard on the stairs, her robe rustling in the night’s quiet as they climbed to the second floor. For all the noise he made, he might as well have been a shadow.
Upstairs she continued past Matthew’s still-empty bedchamber, past the master bedchamber where her parents hopefully slept very soundly, and on to her own doorway. Hardly daring to breathe, she pushed open the door and slipped inside, Aden on her heels.
He closed the door himself and turned the key that rested in the lock. When he faced her again, she wondered what a young lady was supposed to do under the circumstances—offer him a beverage? Lead him to one of the cozy chairs by the fire? Strip off her clothes and lie on the bed? “I—”
In that same heartbeat his arms wrapped around her waist. Her feet left the floor, and she gripped his shoulders as he lifted her into the air. Miranda was fairly certain her feet hadn’t been touching the floor, anyway, and the rush of her pulse made her feel giddy and giggly, neither of which she would ever have used to describe herself before. Then with an apparently effortless flex of his arms, he slowly lowered her until she could catch his upturned mouth again.
They kissed, openmouthed and tongues tangling, every nerve in her body awake and shivery. Aden set her down onto her feet again, then, still kissing her, lifted her up under her shoulders and knees to carry her to the bed. “You’re rather strong,” she managed, between kisses.
“Ye’re lighter than a sheep,” he returned, lowering her onto the bed.
“So now you’re comparing me to a sheep?”
He snorted. “Nae. I haul sheep about when it’s time for shearing. This”—he climbed up over her, using a forefinger to tug down the front of her night rail and lowering his head to kiss her exposed breastbone—“is much more fun.”
Her eyes rolled back in her head when his mouth strayed over the mound of her left breast. “Well,” she rasped, “I’m glad I’m more fun than sheep shearing.”
“Aye,” he replied, his voice muffled. “I prefer ye to sheep shearing, a pint of beer at The Thistle—that’s the tavern close by Aldriss Park—and a game of vingt-et-un.”
“Oh, my, even more fun than wagering?”
He lifted his head to eye her. “If ye still have enough wind for sarcasm, I’m doing someaught wrong. I’ll see to that now, shall I?” Taking the neck of her night rail in both hands, he tore it open all the way down her front. The trio of buttons popped off and plinked onto the floor.
“Aden!” she gasped, then slapped a hand over her mouth too late to hold in the sound.
“Hush, lass. We’re being improper,” he said, grinning, and bent to take her right breast in his mouth.
Good heavens. He hadn’t given her any time to think, but perhaps he’d done that intentionally. She had spent a great deal of time thinking, lately. The sensation of his very capable tongue flicking across her aroused nipple drove everything but want and need out of her mind.
Moaning again, writhing beneath him, she wanted … more. Since they were partners, she would take his lead in being—what had he said?—improper. Unable to keep her hands from shaking, she dug her fingers beneath the lapels of his dark gray coat and shoved. Rather obligingly he freed one arm and then the other so she could get it off him and drop it to the floor.
She tugged off his cravat next, while he pulled aside the ragged edges of her night rail, leaving the entire length of her exposed and naked except for a bit of her shoulders and upper arms. Then he reached a hand down to her ankle, slowly sliding his hand up her leg, his fingers drawing toward her inner thighs until they brushed against her there. She jumped, but didn’t have much time for startlement as his teeth and tongue captured her nipple again.
“I don’t think proper men do that at all, Aden,” she said shakily, arching her back when his fingers returned to her intimate place and opened her to slide inside. The sensation made her tense, and she fought to keep from clamping her knees together.
“I hope that’s nae true, Miranda,” his response came, reverberating into her chest. “Because unless ye have an objection, I reckon I’m doing it the right way. Now that I can see and touch all of ye, that is.”
He shifted, sitting up to kneel with his thighs on either side of hers. Putting his weight on one hand he leaned over her, dipping the forefinger of his other hand inside her as he did so.
“What do ye think, Miranda?” he murmured, studying her face with an intensity that all in itself made her breathless. “Do ye have any objection?”
His finger inside her curled, pressing … “Oh. Oh!” She convulsed around his finger, every inch of her centered on that one touch. Grabbing onto his shirt, she dragged him back down for another kiss. As he obliged, she shakily pulled his long-tailed shirt from his trousers and yanked it up toward his shoulders.
“I’m assuming ye’ve nae objection, then,” he drawled, his voice sounding not quite as composed as she’d become accustomed to hearing. Straightening for a moment, he finished pulling the shirt off over his head and tossed it aside.
“Whatever that … was, I want you to do it again.”
“That is my intention, lass. But I’m nae going to use my damned finger.” Aden tilted his head. “Ye ken?”
That made her look down at the rather impressive bulge straining at the front of his trousers. In the very back of her thoughts she realized, very belatedly, that he still wore his attire from the Darlington ball, that he must have come straight from there to break into her family’s house in order to … claim her. And she very much wanted to be claimed. She very much wanted it to be someone she liked and respected rather than someone she feared and loathed. Miranda nodded. “I understand.”
Turning onto his back beside her, he grabbed off his boots and set them fairly quietly onto the floor beside the bed, before he lifted his hips and started unfastening buttons. “I should’ve worn a bloody kilt,” he grunted. “Whoever invented trousers needs to be hanged by his nethers.”
Despite his complaining, he had them down his hips quickly, and kicked them aside as he rolled back onto his hands and knees over her. Long, sinewy ribbons of muscle flexed beneath his skin, hard, strong and warm beneath her questing hands. His great cock and testicles—as her father’s well-hidden illustrated anatomy book deemed them—moved large and hot between her thighs.
With one hand he parted her legs further, drawing a bent knee up over his hip. She felt very exposed and very vulnerable, and very, very aroused. This was desire, she realized. This was how it felt to want something so badly she couldn’t even speak a coherent word.
“There’s pain and there’s pleasure, lass,” he rumbled, his voice tight. “Much more pleasure, but bear with me, because the pain comes first. And just this once.”
She nodded, and he pushed his hips forward. Pausing at her nether lips, he said something in Gaelic and then slid slow and hot and tight inside her. Deeper and deeper he penetrated her, until with a sharp bite he buried himself in her to the hilt.
Miranda squeezed her eyes closed and dug her fingers into his broad back, refusing to utter as much as a squeak. When Aden kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose, and her chin, she opened her
eyes again. “I’m fine,” she stated, even though she still wasn’t quite certain of that.
“Ye’re still a terrible liar,” he whispered. “I hope ye nae need to ever be otherwise.” Running a finger down her cheek, he bent down again, this time kissing her on the mouth.
It took a moment before she wanted to move again. She began by relaxing her fingers, moving her hands from his back to tangle them into his lanky black hair, guiding his mouth back to hers and then down to her throat and lower. With a muffled chuckle he licked and nipped her breasts until she moaned again.
That seemed to unleash him, because he made a low sound and slowly canted his hips away from her and then forward again. Miranda opened her eyes wide, wanting to memorize the exquisite sensation, the weight of his hips on hers as he entered her deeply again, the wanton … craving she felt for him.
As he increased his tempo she locked her ankles around his thighs, unable to help panting and mewling like a kitten. And there she lay, on her back with her legs spread, her shredded night rail and her dressing gown still beneath her. One by one she shrugged her arms free, shifting her grip between his shoulders, his back, and his fine, muscular arse as he continued pumping into her. The bed rocked, the footboard bumping against the trunk sitting at its base. Openmouthed kisses, his fingers teasing at her breasts as he rested his weight on his elbows, touching and caressing until she wanted to scream with ecstasy.
She drew taut again inside, her fingers flexing helplessly. Aden kissed her as her entire body shook loose. He thrust fast and hard into her, grunting with a shiver she felt beneath her hands and all the way inside her to her very center.
“Sweet Saint Andrew,” he breathed, sliding onto his right side and drawing her left leg up over his hip as he did so.
They lay there for a moment, facing each other, touching but not conjoined. She wished that they were; her skin felt cold where his body didn’t cover hers. Her breath came hard and ragged, as if she’d just run all the way from Marathon. Aden panted as well, a fine sheen of sweat on his chest and brow. His right arm lay outstretched beneath her head, his fingers playing idly with her hair and sending goose bumps along her scalp.
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