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. “Youareuseful 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 boredye.” 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 tearsabruptly 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 tounlock 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 urge 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, everynerve 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.”
