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It was almost too much, this attention. Her deepest fantasies come true, and yet nearly unbearable, a pleasure so piquant as to demand respite. She broke the moment with a smile. “Now will you let me read your papers?”
He chuckled, quick with his answer. “Now, especially, I won’t. ”
She contemplated this man beneath her. He posed as a loner. Cold and detached, he kept himself a stranger to all, and yet she felt she knew his heart. “You don’t scare me, you know. ”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. ” His trademark light good humor replaced the gravity in his expression. Aidan’s hands roved along her back, thumbs edging recklessly inward, until his palms cradled the sides of her torso. “Though hopefully there are other feelings I rouse. ”
Her breasts pulled taut at the daring touch, until Elspeth couldn’t help but lean close to take a kiss that made her forget papers and pirates.
For now.
Not even hauling water for young Bridget could wipe the smile from Aidan’s face. In fact, he’d volunteered for the duty, stunning his sister, but he couldn’t help how expansive he’d felt since seeing Elspeth the day before.
Since kissing her.
Elspeth was sweet and untried, yet so very unabashed, with a passion that’d nearly undone him. Twice in the night he’d been forced to seek his own release, so vivid was the memory of her, lovely and pure.
Lovely, with fey, yellow-flecked eyes, and a mouth shaped like a delicate bud, equal parts tender and hungry. And yet it was Elspeth’s spirit that’d redoubled his desire. She saw him for who he was, for who he wanted to be. Saw straight through his facade to his very heart, and rather than turn away, she’d embraced him, had made him feel all the more complete.
With Elspeth he felt like a man—his own man—more than any fight or fisticuffs or hard labor had ever made him feel. She was a gift, this strange tutor of his, and the bachelors of Aberdeenshire were fools not to have noticed before he.
“What’d the girl threaten you with?” a voice asked from behind him.
Aidan’s smile flickered, but he’d not let his twin put a damper on his mood. He finished drawing the bucket from the massive well before he looked over his shoulder to face him. “Girl?”
“Bridge. ” Cormac nodded at the bucket. “What’d she say to get you on water duty?”
Bridget—not Elspeth. Aidan breathed a sigh he didn’t realize he was holding. “Oh, her. The chit has enough on her plate, and this is easy enough for me. ” He stood, lifting the bucket from the ground as though it weighed nothing, proving his point.
Though his little sister’s brash ways still irritated, watching Elspeth’s struggles had made Aidan more sympathetic to the vast amounts of work required to run a home.
Cormac lifted a questioning brow. “Helping her like you’re helping that Elspeth?”
Aidan bristled, wondering if that was a smirk he read on his brother’s face. Choosing to ignore it, he walked past him, headed across the courtyard and back toward the kitchens. He was a proud man, particularly in front of his twin, and so had underplayed how much Elspeth was tutoring him. No surprise, then, that Cormac might misunderstand Aidan’s work on the Farquharson farm.
He felt Cormac walk up behind him to ask, “What are your motives with that girl?”
“Why would you think I have motives?”
“I’ve seen you on the road to her farm. A lot. ” Cormac reached out, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “She’s no doxy to be toyed with. ”
Aidan shook off his brother’s grip. “I’d never think to toy with her. ”
“So why?” Cormac asked, but Aidan just stared blankly in reply, and so he repeated, “Why go to her so much?”
Aidan sensed his brother wasn’t going to let it go, and so he put the bucket down. “Why not go to her? She’s a good woman in need of help. ” When Cormac had something to say, he was as tenacious as a dog with a bone— best to give him the chance to say his piece and be done with it.
“I know it’s been years since you’ve been around Scottish women,” his brother said in an aggravatingly deliberate tone. “But Elspeth Farquharson is a homely sort of girl. A spinster who probably—”
Resentment, frustration, and envy drove his fist, and his right hook connected with his brother’s face before he knew what he was about. It was something he’d wanted to do for some time.
Cormac reeled backward, and caught off guard, he tripped on the uneven turf, falling to the ground. He sat up at once, rubbing his jaw, the look in his eyes more disbelief than pain. “What the devil was that for?”
“Don’t speak so of her,” Aidan said, his voice flat and hard as steel.
Cormac studied him for a time, until finally he said, “I see. ”
Aidan watched his brother’s brow soften in understanding, and it made his own furrow all the more. “You see nothing. ”
