In a very short time Aden had gone from being the mysterious brother who went his own way with no one being the wiser, to being the one without any damned secrets at all. Oddly enough, though, the idea didn’t eventrouble him. “Agreed. Now get out of my bedchamber, giant.”
With a sigh Coll rose, a book clutched in one hand. “Aye, but I’m taking this with me. This Tom Jones is asgat. Ye didnae tell me any of the books ye read were actually interesting.”
“Take it, then.”
The oldest MacTaggert brother reached the door and pulled it open, then looked back with a lifted eyebrow. “Might I show ye to yer room, Miss Harris?”
Miranda looked from the giant to him. Aden wanted to catch hold of her, make her stay, but he’d spent weeks telling her he’d set her free, and telling himself not to try to put more ropes around her when she’d only just escaped. Clenching his fist to keep from reaching out to this stubborn, exasperating, impossibly irresistible woman, he shrugged. “Do as ye think best, lass.”
With a sour look that felt like a dagger in his heart, she nodded and joined Coll at the door. “Good night, then,” she said quietly, and turned away—to shut the door on the giant’s backside.
“Miranda?” Aden whispered.
Facing him, she leaned back against the door, reaching down one hand to turn the key and lock it. Aden was fairly certain he heard Coll’s low chuckle, then the sound of the door across the hallway closing.
Slowly she straightened and took a gliding step toward him. Both her hands went up, and a moment later her hair came down in a dark, curling tumble. “The way I see it, Mr. MacTaggert,” she murmured as she continued her approach, unbuttoning the front of her pelisse and dropping it to the wood floor, “I am a free woman.”
“So ye are,” he made himself say, wondering that he didn’t burst into flames from just being close to this sultry goddess disrobing in the dimness before him.
“So I am.”
“Ye just said that.”
She paused, her gown down around her waist and only a shift shielding her fine breasts from his view. “Do you really want to argue right now, Aden Domnhall MacTaggert?”
“Nae. I do not.” He enunciated the last word clearly. “But we’ve a sack of notes to burn.”
She looked at his hand, where the sack still hung from his fingers. “If we burn them,” she said, meeting his gaze again, “how would the people Vale has caught know that they’re free?”
“They wouldnae, I suppose. He could claim he still has the papers. Or rather, just nae admit he lost them.”
“Then we need the names and addresses first, so we can let them know they’re free.Thenwe burn them.”
Aden nodded. He wasn’t about to argue with her. She’d nearly been caught by Vale. If she wanted to see the rest of the unfortunates set free as well, by God they would do it.
Aden set the sack into his wardrobe, put a coat over it, and closed the doors again. “That’ll do for now, I reckon.”
Whatever came next, he wanted this damned bonny woman in his arms tonight. Crossing the room he kissed her, reveling in the way she leaned into the embrace, the way her arms swept around his neck to pull herself closer against him. A swift tug of the ribbon at her waist dropped her gown to the floor, and he lifted her out of it.
This wasn’t a lass looking for a pleasant night to hold in her memory against a future of possibly awful ones. Nor was she a lass determined to give her virginity where she would instead of having it taken against her will. Tonight she was a lass who wanted… him. And that was intoxicating.
Crouching, he let her lean against his shoulders whilehe removed her shoes one by one. Then, gathering the hem of her shift in his hands, he lifted, kissing every inch of the skin he laid bare. At the apex of her thighs he slowed further, dipping in for a taste of her. Sweet Saint Andrew, she was wet for him. This wasn’t a ploy, and it wasn’t some payment in exchange for a completed task. This was desire, and he felt it through every inch of his body.
When he straightened, lifting the shift off over her head, she was smiling at him. “Amused, are ye?” he quipped, cupping her warm breasts in his hands, feeling her nipples peak beneath his fingers.
“Happy,” she returned breathlessly, and yanked the coat off his shoulders.
“Free,” he added, pulling off his own shirt and leaving her to fumble with the buckles of his kilt. “Ye live yer life however ye choose, bonny lass. Give a few curtsies to Society, and do as pleases ye.”
“I mean to do exactly that,” she returned, straightening and evidently giving up on the kilt. Instead she pushed him in the chest, and he allowed himself to drop into the chair behind him.
He took off one of his boots while she wrenched off the other. Aden showed her how to unfasten his kilt, hoping that it was knowledge she would care to make use of in the future, and often. This bit was new, where he craved a particular woman, wanted her always in his life, but he knew that trapping her there would be wrong. He was the one who fled a lass’s bed at the first sign of fawning or forever afters, and yet that was what he wanted most with Miranda.
It was a nice, big chair he had, and with a grin he took her hand. “Care to join me here?”
She looked down at his cock. “Right here? Yes.”
Aden half lifted her, settling her over him with herknees on either side of his thighs. “I do adore ye, Miranda,” he murmured, lifting up a little to reach her mouth as she looked down at him.
