Page 12 of A Lady Igniting Wicked Passions
To lose his close presence. The smell of him; a cologne that spoke of subtle masculinity. His sheer physicality.
So, she reached out and took his arm. He turned back to her and his face was hidden in shadow. But there was no clever retort or wry smile. No raised eyebrow. He moved swiftly, stopping himself close enough that his nose almost touched hers. His chest rose and fell rapidly, in unison with hers.
The fact that she had produced such excitement in him was intoxicating. Arabella’s knees shook and her head spun. Then Aaron dipped his head and his lips touched hers. Several moments were lost to Arabella’s awareness.
Seconds suddenly crawled by like treacle, stretching effortlessly into hours. Or seeming to. One moment he was pressing his lips to hers, while she froze in his embrace, the next her arms were around him.
She gasped against his warm, firm lips as she felt the wall suddenly pressing into her back. His arms were tightly around her waist and upper back, imprisoning her against him. Her arms were about his shoulders and her hands roamed through his hair and over his face.
Greed engulfed her. She wanted more of the sensations she was feeling and more of him. His neck was firm with muscle but the skin was soft and perfect. The scent of the pomade in his hair, the soap he had bathed with and the cologne he wore combined to reduce her to a sighing, liquid limbed mess.
Discovering his broad shoulders, she squeezed, feeling the muscles at work beneath the constraints of his coat and shirt. A thought flashed through her mind that she wanted to feel his naked skin beneath her fingers.
It was enough to make her moan his name in a brief window in which her mouth was not locked to his. He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. Her touched had reached his chest, fingers spreading against the broad, flat pectoral muscles.
When it seemed like he would speak, Arabella pressed a finger to his lips and then followed with her own. She was stretched to her tiptoes to kiss him and her calves burned from the effort.
As though he were inside her mind, experiencing her body’s sensations at the same time as she did, Aaron crouched briefly and put his arms beneath her buttocks. Then he stood, lifting her effortlessly. Arabella gave a scream, soon muffled by her own hand, then by Aaron’s lips.
He had raised her above him, as though to a pedestal for reverence. Her every nerve and sense became focused on the area that he held her by. His arms were wrapped around her buttocks and his hands held her hips. Her breasts were almost level with his face.
She took his face in her hands and traced its contours, kissing in the wake of her questing fingers. He kept his eyes open, looking up at her with a half-smile on his face. It was a smile of wonder and delight. Of an acolyte being given the boon of meeting his goddess. Arabella’s mouth ached from its separation from Aaron.
She found herself craving the taste of him, the wetness of his lips and tongue. The skill with which he sucked and bit at her lips, creating sharp pangs of pleasure that made her squeal and writhe.
Suddenly, from above there came the sound of raised voices. The gaggle of matrons were coming closer to the balustrade and would only need to look down to see that two people were wrapped in a tryst below them. If they made a fuss, others would come and see the commotion and descend the steps. Arabella would be found in the arms of her sister’s husband. Scandal would ensure. Arabella felt the icy chill of fear.
“Where can we go?” Aaron asked urgently.
“What?” Arabella hissed.
Her instinctive response had been to lead him to the stables, to the soft, warm comfort of a hay loft. The words were almost upon her lips but she stopped herself.
Because she did not know if she would have the willpower to hold back her honour in that setting. Or if the man who now held her was honourable. He might be seeking to seduce her and discard her, leaving her family in ruins in his wake.
“I would not relinquish my hold on you so soon. Or go back to that bloody crowd,” Aaron said with the searing heat of desire in his voice.
He still held her above him, pressed between his unyielding masculinity and the wall. There was no sound of effort in his voice, tremor in his arms or sweat upon his brow.
Arabella realized that in those arms she had never felt safer, despite the proximity of prying eyes. But the stables were too much. A place where passions would ignite to such heat that clothes would be burned away and bodies would melt into each other.
“The wine cellar,” she whispered, inspiration striking her out of the night air.
Aaron lowered her to her feet and stepped back. She seized his hand and, with a cautious, craning look at the balustrade above, dashed away from the wall. The exterior hatch allowing entry to the wine cellar, to allow his father’s vintners to deliver casks into the cool, shadowy vaults beneath the Abbey, was around a corner of the building.
In reaching it they would be in full view of anyone looking from the veranda in that direction. A knife-sharp line of darkness delineated the edge of the shadows that hid them. Beyond that spilled the golden light from above. Then, ten yards beyond was the comforting shield of the shadow cast by the house itself. They just had to cross that broad path of yellow light.
Rounding the corner, Arabella was trying to stifle laughter, feeling almost hysterical. No hue and cry had been raised, no change in the steady babble of conversation. Aaron pressed his back to the wall and peered around the corner, much to Arabella’s chagrin.
“Who was that down there?”
“I didn’t see anyone. Perhaps it was that fox we saw earlier?”
“It was a man, I am sure.”
“Probably a servant. I say did you see the Duchess of Norfolk’s dress…?”
Aaron withdrew, letting out a snort of laughter. “That was enlivening,” he said, drily.
