AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His family. His life. His future.
Propped against the wall, his leg stretched in front of him, he rested his head back against the wall. Fisted his hands at his sides and let the grief and pain pour out of him in dry, wracking sobs.
“Aidan? Are you all right?”
The familiar lavender scent. The smoky, sexy boudoir voice sliding like honey along nerves shattered to the breaking point. He opened his eyes. Lifted his arms. And kissed her.
It was grief. Exhaustion. Pain.
Not desire. Not tenderness. And definitely not love.
Cat knew it. Ignored it. After all, she suffered from the same rampage of emotions.
His mouth on hers came warm and brandy laced. His hands cradled her face, skimmed her throat, threaded through her hair. His body shuddering from some inner maelstrom.
“We can’t . . . the corridor . . . the floor . . . it’s cold . . .” What she meant to say was “no, we can’t because it was absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it the wrong thing to do. They’d regret it. It would complicate an already complicated relationship. She’d promised herself not again . . . never again.”
Somehow it hadn’t come out that way.
“Aidan . . . someone will come . . .” She spoke between kisses, between trembling caresses as she responded to his attentions with embarrassing eagerness.
He grunted in a typical male answer. Drew himself up, dragging her all-too-compliant body with him in an iron embrace. As if she might run if he released her. A wise idea if she could only get her legs to work. Tear herself away from the drugged heat of him.
He backed her the few paces to her bedchamber door. Nudged it wide. Steered her unresisting body toward the bed, kicking the door closed behind them.
Moonlight glanced off the dented suit of armor. Picked out the trim on a broken gilt-rimmed platter. Highlighted Aidan’s auburn hair with strands of gold. Bounced off the green of his emerald ring. These snatches of observation buried themselves within her. Points in time she knew she’d remember long after the physical acts of the night had faded. Long after she’d come to her senses.
His gaze swept the cluttered room. The flickering candle. The book turned facedown upon the pillow. “You were reading.” He picked it up, checking the title. Flipped her a smile that never reached his eyes. “Not exactly a comforting bedtime story.”
She pulled the book from his hand. Closed it, setting it aside. “I wanted to know more about this Máelodor.”
His mouth thinned to a snarling whiplash, the harsh angles of his face hardening to granite fury. “I know more than I care to. About all of it. Oh gods, Cat. Father and Brendan—” he looked away, swallowing the rage and sorrow that had brought him here. To her. To the point where any solace would suffice.
The mattress sank beneath their weight, Aidan coming over her, his hungry, desperate stare sizing her up her. Making her all too aware of her thin chemise, her chilled body, and all it implied. She sought to cover herself, but he captured her hand. Threaded his fingers with hers. Refused her attempt at modesty.
No wonder.
Modesty at this point seemed a bit too little too late. And anyway, he’d seen her before. Dismissed her as not his type. But that was then. This was now. And his type was a willing female with all pertinent parts. Escape without the hangover.
“Don’t,” he murmured. “I want to see you. Need to see you.”
“If you’re expecting luscious curves and ample flesh, you’re in for a shock,” she joked, though neither of them laughed.
“I know exactly what I’m getting, a chuisle.”
He lowered his mouth to hers in another bone-melting kiss. Clasped her other hand so she lay imprisoned and exposed under his triangulating hunter stare. The casual endearment skewered her with dangerous precision. A vulnerability she’d thought long callused over. But now, her skin prickled and flared, heat warping the barriers she’d erected after Jeremy, need battering the walls built stone upon stone upon the lifeless body of her
son.
She looked inward for repulsion. Panic. A sick memory to dull the sharp crush of desire, but no images assailed her with gut-freezing horror. Instead a hole had opened, a chasm where life poured in. Drowned the past.
He tasted of brandy and smoke, his velvet tongue teasing her with the promise of what awaited if only she had the courage—or the stupidity—to accept it.
Off went the waistcoat. The neck cloth.
“Catriona,” the rough-edged purr of her name ignited long dormant passions.
She arched into the hard-packed muscles of his chest. Desire like a physical pain between her thighs. A greedy craving for fulfillment.
