When he continued his trail of kisses, Louise arched toward his lips. A delightful shiver ran through her as her bare skin heated beneath his touch.
When his mouth reached the soft tuft of curls between her thighs, she opened herself to him. When his thumb touched the hard pearl, she gasped.
She ached for more and curled her fingers tightly into his hair and abandoned herself to his touch. When his tongue took the place of his fingers, she closed her eyes, savoring each heartbeat of sensation.
He brought her pleasure with his mouth, worshipping her with single-minded devotion until she shattered apart, biting her own hand to muffle her cries.
Afterward, they lay tangled together for several minutes, her breathing gradually slowing from desperate gasps. Aaron kept his arms around her, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on her bare shoulder as if memorizing the texture of her skin.
“I should—” she began, but he silenced her with a kiss so tender it brought tears to her eyes.
“I want to keep you here,” he murmured against her lips. “Lock the door and pretend the world outside doesn’t exist. That there’s no George to find, no debts to settle, no tomorrow when you’ll leave, and I’ll let you because it’s the right thing to do.”
Louise’s fingers found the scar on his ribs she’d discovered earlier, a ridge of old pain he’d flinched from when she’d first touched it. Now he lay still, letting her explore this evidence of old violence.
“Your father?”
“A riding crop. I was fifteen and had defended a maid he’d cornered.” Aaron’s voice held no emotion, as if discussing someone else entirely. “He said I needed to learn the difference between servants and family.”
Louise pressed her lips to the scar, feeling him shudder beneath her touch. “What an evil man. No child deserves such punishment. Especially when you do the right thing.”
His hand tangled in her hair, holding her against him as if she might evaporate. “And yet … here I am, taking liberties with a woman under my protection?—”
“Stop.” Louise pushed herself up to look at him directly. “You gave me a choice. You gave me pleasure while denying yourself.Even now, you protected my innocence when you could have taken everything.” Her fingers traced his jaw, feeling the muscle jump beneath her touch. “You’re nothing like him.”
Aaron caught her hands, kissing each palm before releasing them. “This is safer. This way you remain … untouched for marriage.”
“I don’t care about marriage.”
“You will. When this is over, when you have choices again, you will.” He helped her restore her clothing with the same care he had shown in removing it. “You should return to your room. Before anyone notices.”
Louise wanted to tell him she would never care about some future marriage to a respectable man who would never make her feel a fraction of what he did. But what would be the point? A duke didn’t marry a woman whose brother had fled, whose family name now carried the stench of scandal and debt. Even if Aaron wanted to marry her, which his careful distance suggested he didn’t, the gulf between them was too wide.
She saw the resolution in his eyes, the walls rebuilding themselves even as his hands remained gentle on her, and she herself also knew that even though they both wanted … Aaron clearly couldn’t give more than he’d just given her.
“Yes. Of course,” she mumbled, and he helped her with her clothing before she slipped through the dark hallways back to her own chamber.
Her body still hummed with satisfaction. In her bed, she pressed her fingers to her lips, tasting him still, feeling phantom touches on her skin.
She thought of his mother’s words in that sketchbook, of love that existed before meeting, of being wanted and cherished and beloved. She thought of Aaron as a child, growing up without those words, believing he had killed the only person who might have loved him.
Louise stared at the ceiling, knowing sleep would elude her.
She was beginning to care for a man who believed himself incapable of the emotion. A man who gave her pleasure but wouldn’t take any for himself, maintaining boundaries that protected her reputation while his own heart remained barricaded.
Tomorrow, they would continue searching for George. Tomorrow, she would pretend that stolen moments in his chambers meant nothing beyond physical release.
But tonight, alone in her bed, Louise admitted the truth she could never speak aloud.
She was in love with him. Hopelessly, impossibly, irrevocably.
And when George was found, when she and Emily left Calborough House, that love would destroy her far more thoroughly than any scandal ever could.
CHAPTER 21
“You look like hell.” Ernest studied Aaron across the private room at White’s, his assessment delivered with the blunt honesty only decades of friendship permitted.
Aaron lifted his coffee cup, willing his hand to remain steady. “Charming as always, Wilstone.”
