“Would you agree to anything right now?” she asked with a breathless laugh as he used the grip on her rear to pull her more firmly against the hardness of him, a sensation which made her gasp as a bolt of desire shot through her.
“Most likely,” he said without hesitation.
She tried to squirrel away this knowledge for later, but she frankly doubted her ability, at the moment, to make cogent, lasting memories. She might be able to argue with Aaron, but he was still doing a remarkable job at turning her brain into little more than a blur of pleasure and an unrelenting message ofyes, yes, mine, yes, please more.
She had, however, just enough focus to grasp his face in her hands and pull him away from her throat. He made a noise of protest which she enjoyed immensely.
“In that case,” she said, pulling his head back up when he tried to look down at her heaving bosom, “take me to bed, Aaron.”
He gave her the kind of reckless smile that said that he could have enjoyed a robust career as a rake, had he not taken to the navy instead.
“As my lady commands,” he said.
And then, in an impressive show of strength, he stood with her in his arms and carried her, legs still wrapped around his waist, out of the library and down the corridor.
“Aaron!” she squawked, not certain if she was alarmed, delighted, or both. “People could see!”
He treated her to another unrepentant grin.
“I thought that you were Phoebe Warson, unafraid of the gossip of thetonmatrons,” he told her as his long legs ate up the distance between the library and his bedchamber.
“I am,” she insisted, even as she combed her fingers through his hair. He had such lovely hair. The thought made her wonder if she had been made fully giddy by this—admittedly impressive—display of strength. She’d never thought that she could have her head so easily turned by a man.
“Then what is your objection?”
“I—” She couldn’t think. “Decorum?”
“Fie on decorum,” he said, which felt like a very good argument to her at the moment.
Aaron didn’t put her down even for the time it took him to kick open the door to his bedchamber, an act that thrilled Phoebe more than it ought to have done.
He crossed the room to the bed, then tossed her—none too gently—upon it. She glared up at him in outrage but found, when he looked at her with a playful arch of his brow, that she didn’t regret the rough treatment.
“How dare you?” she said without heat, mostly for the show of the thing.
He put his knee on the bed and crawled toward her in slow, leonine movements. Phoebe wanted to remain arch but found that she struggled against the impulse to just drop back and yield to him like the predator he so clearly was.
“I dare,” he said, and the words came out like a purr, “because I am not going to leave you, either, Phoebe. I have decided to keep you. And that means that you aremine.”
He punctuated this final word by tipping forward until he was pressing her fully into the mattress, his weight a delicious presence atop her. She felt herself light up in every place that he was touching her—which waseverywhere.
“Aaron,” she said because she didn’t know what other words she had aside from his name.
“Phoebe,” he replied, and his voice was unmistakably fond, “Do you remember when I told you that I would let you know when it was time to make an effort at an heir?”
Phoebe wasn’t an idiot—she knew what he was getting at, and the idea made her shiver. But she kept playing the game.
“Yes,” she said. “It was high-handed and rude.”
He ignored her. She would never admit it, but he might be better at playing this than she was.
“The time is now,” he told her, and then he kissed her so senselessly that she didn’t have the air to think of a response.
Fortunately, however, her hands seemed to operate of their own volition. She coasted her touch over the muscular expanse of his shoulders, then tugged at his jacket when she decided that she wasn’t getting enough of him.
“Take off your blasted jacket,” she demanded when the fine wool caused her to face resistance.
“You are not the one in charge here, my sweet little wife,” he argued—though this was apparently just for the sake of arguing, as he contorted himself to remove the coat without ever moving himself too far from her person. He moved sinuously to make this happen, and Phoebe tried to appreciate his movements as much as possible, even if her position offered her a limited perspective.
