Page 19 of A Lady Igniting Wicked Passions
Arabella stopped too, looking back at Aaron over her shoulder. “Transgressed?”
“I have sworn to marry your sister,” Aaron said. “I behaved like a cad.”
“I recall clutching at you just as fiercely as you to me,” Arabella replied with an arched eyebrow.
“So, you behaved like a cad too,” Aaron said.
Arabella laughed and then looked around. There was a general babble of conversation coming from the direction of the Cake-House, muffled by the vegetation.
“And now I seek to make up for it by helping one, hungry urchin. I cannot help them all, but one will do when he comes across my path,” Arabella remarked.
Aaron found himself smiling as she resumed her searching and coaxing of the invisible boy. He resumed his own looking.
“I have seen many hungry children. In Spain and here in England. It is hard to walk by and I vowed that while I must sometimes, when I can stop, I will,” Aaron replied.
“Then you will get along with my sister like a house on fire,” Arabella said.
“I am beginning to see that.”
Arabella straightened, lifting her arms in exasperation. “Boy!” She called out. “Please come out. I know you must be here somewhere! We are trying our best to help you!”
There was an answering rustle in the undergrowth, then silence.
“Do not marry him,” Aaron suddenly said, catching Arabella’s hand and turning her to face him. “I know it will only bring you misery.”
Her green eyes, set in porcelain skin were enchanting. He felt that he was gazing into the face of an elf or pixie. The inhabitant of a wondrous and magical realm. Her lips were parted and her eyes wide as she looked up at him.
“I cannot refuse,” she said simply.
“Yes, you can,” Aaron replied with urgency. “Your destiny is your own. Mine is not. I am not free to walk away from Helena. But you can walk away from that man. I know something of him, and he cannot give you what you need or deserve.”
“Can you?” Arabella whispered hoarsely. “Aaron.”
Hearing his name on her lips was an intimacy that made him close his eyes briefly. The sensation that flashed through him may have been intense pleasure or crippling pain. It was impossible to tell. He wanted to hear his name spoken by her, falling from her lips over and over again. He needed to hear it. And he knew he could never hear it in the way he wanted.
“No,” he whispered.
They had moved closer, inches separating them. Once again, her perfume filled his awareness and sent shivers down his spine. Colour rose in her cheeks and she looked expectant. As though she waited for him to do something, openly, defenceless before him. It was maddening.
“I cannot. Helena is my salvation. Without her I am disgraced and my family name with me. I cannot allow that. I do not have the luxury to forge my own path.”
“Please.” The word was so softly spoken that Aaron was not sure he hadn’t imagined it.
Arabella was raising herself to tiptoes and lifting her face. Her lips touched his. The barest of caresses. She pulled back, her nose beside his and her breath warming his mouth. Then she kissed again, a longer touch followed by a moistening flick of her tongue. Aaron lifted his hands to enclose her face and when she darted in for a third, soft butterfly brush, he claimed her.
She gave a squeak, the sound absorbed by Aaron’s mouth, and then a sigh. She pushed up to the tips of her toes, straining to press her lips against his as he opened his mouth, his tongue touching hers and then exploring he mouth, then biting her lip before sucking it between his own.
His arms went about her, holding her and then lifting her from her feet. Her arms fastened to his shoulders and then upper arms. Then she delved under his arms to clutch at his back. Aaron felt his lower lip clamped between her teeth and pulled. He hissed in pain and pleasure, impossibly feeling both sensations.
When he opened his eyes, the azure blue eyes of a lioness stared back. She released him and he had a momentary glimpse of a ferocious beauty before he bit at her throat, drawing a hoarse moan from her as he squeezed his lips around her perfect, milky skin.
Then ran his tongue from her shoulder to her ear lobe, as though tasting her. The sound of paper, gently rustling drew Aaron from his passion. He looked down in time to see a grimy hand, poking from a ragged sleeve beneath a bush. It had snagged the bag of cakes that Aaron had dropped when he seized Arabella.
Lowering Arabella to her feet, he pointed, and she crouched to get a look at the urchin, lifting the branches of a hawthorn. There was a crashing of undergrowth as the child darted away. Aaron caught a glimpse of him leaping and running through the copse, clutching the bag.
“You are most welcome!” He called out.
Arabella laughed and leaned her head against Aaron’s chest. He put his arms around her, stroking her hair, lowering his head to the top of hers and taking a deep inhalation.
