With every second of his silence, Katie’s resolve grew stronger. He could see the hunger in her eyes, laced with a sadness that hurt him more than any knife could. It was the look of someone who was preparing for the worst, who was trying to protect themselves from the inevitable pain of rejection.
“Please, Aiden,” she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. “I want to make this work. I want to be your partner, your wife… but I can’t do that alone. You must let me in.”
Aiden swallowed hard, his throat tight. He wanted to say something, anything, to ease her pain, but the words simply wouldn’t come. Instead, all he could do was stare at her, torn between the desire to reach out and the overwhelming fear of what might happen if he did.
Katie’s shoulders sagged slightly, her hope slipping away as she realized he wasn’t going to respond. She looked at him one last time, searching his face for any sign that he might relent, that he might let her in. But when she found nothing but silence, her expression crumbled into one of quiet resignation.
“I understand,” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. “If you don’t want this… if you don’t want me, just say so.”
Aiden’s stomach twisted painfully at her words, but he still couldn’t make himself speak. His silence was a betrayal of everything he felt, but he didn’t know how to change it, how to give her the reassurance she so desperately needed.
Katie took a step back, her hand trembling as she reached for the edge of her cloak. She wrapped it tightly around herself, as if trying to shield herself from the coldness between them.
The silence between them grew thick and suffocating until all Aiden could hear was the pounding of his own heart. He leaned back against the cold stone wall, his hands clenched into fistsat his sides. He had hurt her, and he knew it. He had seen the sadness in her eyes, felt the sting of her disappointment, and yet he had done nothing to stop it. His fear had paralyzed him, and now he was only left with the bitter taste of regret.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I didn’t mean to make things harder for you.”
With that, she turned and walked away, her rapid footsteps echoing down the hallway. Aiden writhed in pain as he watched her leave, his chest tightening with every step she took. He tried to call out to her, to tell her to stop, to come back to him, but his mouth refused to obey.
A tortured, guttural cry tore from his lips, and the dam within him suddenly broke and released him from its stony grip. He ran as fast as his feet could carry him and caught up with her as she rounded the corner. He grabbed her right shoulder and spun her around, and she gasped in surprise and stumbled from the force. He caught her in his sinewy arms, and, with a tormented curse that revealed his anguish, love and fear, he pulled her brusquely to him and kissed her fiercely, his fingers deeply buried in the shining mass of her hair.
The explosion that occurred between them as their lips reunited was earth-shattering. Aiden gasped and shook with the thrill, pulling her nearer to him, trying to mold her body to his. Katie groaned in response to Aiden’s passion, which only fanned the flames of his mounting desire to have her.
Aiden opened his eyes, pulled away slightly from Katie’s lips, and pressed the palms of his hands against her temples as though he could exorcize the pain he had caused her. He needed to erase the image of her forlorn, resigned expression from his mind before it could forever haunt him. He had only wanted to protect her, to keep her safe from the darkness he knew lurked within him. He could no longer push her away and leave her adrift in a sea of silence and unspoken words.
His eyes bored into Katie’s, and he shuddered violently, realizing how close he had come to losing her. With renewed urgency, he crushed his lips to hers and opened her mouth with his tongue, tasting her sweetness and reveling in its warmth. He nipped her lips and sucked on them gently, making her gasp with pleasure and grip his muscular, battle-scarred back as she drew him to her.
His lips trailed down her cheek to the side of her neck, and he inhaled deeply as he rained slow, sensuous kisses from her earlobe down to the hollow of her throat. He flicked his tongue and tasted the saltiness of her skin, mixed with the heady aroma of rosemary and sage from the earlier festivities. Katie groaned in response and threw her head back to give him better access. Aiden obliged and ran his rough hands along her shoulders and her sides, stopping as he met the swell of her breasts.
Katie gasped but urged him on. Aiden grazed her breasts lightly and watched in fascination as goosebumps erupted on her skin. Lowering his head to her bosom, he pulled down the front of her dress and nuzzled between her breasts, licking, tasting and kissing them as he explored each white mound.
Aiden growled into her cleavage. “I shall nae hurt ye again with me silence.”
He raised his head to meet her eyes. “But now ye need to rest. We can talk in the morning.”
In a moment of understanding and acceptance, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, reveling in all that she had become to him.
They walked together back to her room wrapped in a cocoon of intimate silence. He kissed her gently one last time, as he pushed open the door and led her in.
“Rest well, lass,” he whispered in her ear, and smirked as she sucked in a breath. For a moment, it looked as if he was contemplating staying. She wouldn’t have said no. But he didn’t.
CHAPTER 15
Katie saton the edge of her bed, staring out the window into the inky darkness. The moonlight filtered through the curtains and cast silvery shadows on the room. Her heart was racing, and sleep was a distant possibility.
She shivered with delight and wrapped her arms around herself, savoring the taste and heat of Aiden’s kisses, caresses, and unmasked passion. The seed of hope that she had thought fruitless had blossomed into a seedling of possibility.
As she calmed down, her thoughts kept pulling her back to the web of decisions and events that had led her to this moment. Sitting up on her bed, she let the narrative play out in her mind so that she could explore it further.
It had all started with that one lie. A harmless falsehood, or so she had thought at the time. She had been desperate to escape the life her mother had planned for her, a life filled withdull suitors and meaningless chatter in the drawing rooms of London.
So, she had momentarily fabricated a tale of a Scottish betrothed, a man she had met on her travels. The fib had rapidly spun out of control, more quickly than she had anticipated. Her mother had been so thrilled, so eager to see her married to someone of status, that the fictional fiancé had become the reality she could no longer escape.
Aiden had appeared before her at the ball. The first time she saw him, he was nothing like she had imagined. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a face that could have been carved from granite. There was a ruggedness to him, an intensity in his gaze that had unsettled her from the start.
But it was his outrageous, indecent proposal that had truly shocked her. He would agree to play a role in her deception, provided that she would in turn agree to five nights of his choosing. It was the most scandalous thing she had ever heard, and yet there was an intensity in his eyes, something dark and unspoken that compelled her to agree.
But now, as she sat in her cold room, she wondered what she had gotten herself into.
