Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (36 page)

But instead of kissing her, he brushed
a finger along her jaw, tracing the curve of it and leaving her
trembling from the contact. Then he passed the same finger over her
cheek and tucked a stray tendril of her hair behind her ear. When
she was almost desperate for him to kiss her, he instead moved the
easel to the side.

Then he pointed toward the stone bench
behind it. “I had hoped you might sit just there for me while I
finish.”

“
Of course.” Sitting and
waiting while he worked would be far preferable to making a fool of
herself with another attempt, and she sincerely doubted herself
capable of completing any task at the moment which would require
her to think. Not while her heart was fluttering and her breaths
were shallow and she could think of nothing but the gentle yet
rough texture of his fingers against her face. Emma sat down upon
the bench while he went back behind his easel.

He kept peeking around the side of his
canvas at her, though, so often that her cheeks grew warm from his
attention.

“
Is something the matter?”
she asked when he’d looked around it for the fourth time in only a
few moments. “Do I have paint on my gown, or—”

“
There’s nothing amiss,” he
cut in. “I’m just seeing how the light hits your
cheeks.”

That only served to fuel
the flames of her blush. He was doing her portrait. He
had
been tracing the
shape of her jaw, so his hands could know how to form it upon the
canvas.

Emma sat as she was, trying not to
think about it but unable to think of anything else as he worked.
If he was creating her portrait—what would that mean for…for how he
felt about her?

And had he been as moved, had he felt
as erratic as she did when he was touching her so?

A love match might just be in her
cards after all.

Trying to make Emma into an artist
might not have been a fully unmitigated disaster, but it certainly
hadn’t turned out how Aidan had planned. No matter how desolate the
possibility of developing her skill in such an area might be, there
was no denying the fact that what was issuing forth from his hands
onto the canvas was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever
done.

Before he’d started this portrait of
her, none of his pastels had been what anyone would term beautiful.
They certainly weren’t something he could ever attempt to sell.
Emma’s portrait, however, would easily take a hefty profit at
auction.

The one he’d burned so many years ago
might have, as well, but he would never know.

Not that he could bear to put this one
up for sale. Even as his hands formed the lines that made the slope
of her shoulders, the soft curve of her waist and hips, he couldn’t
stop himself from thinking of drawing his hands over her actual
skin in such a way. Any man who saw it would be bound to think in a
similar fashion, and the thought of that was enough to send Aidan
back into a rage. No one would ever touch Emma—no one but
him.

So he would never sell this one. He’d
hang it in his chamber, where he and he alone could stare at it and
think lustful thoughts. Aidan wouldn’t seek a profit from
it.

At one point in time, he’d thought to
make his art into a means of supporting himself and his family.
With all the rage that had fueled his creativity of late, that had
fallen by the wayside. He’d told himself it was all right, that he
could live on Niall’s coin, because Morgan needed them all around
her.

But she didn’t need them all anymore.
Emma had seen to that. Aidan’s sister was almost as self-sufficient
as she had been before her injuries, and her desire to prove
herself capable knew no bounds.

Emma had seen what Morgan truly
needed—and for that matter, what Kingley needed—and then had found
a way to make it all happen. In three years, neither Niall nor
Aidan, nor even their mother, had been able to see through their
own ideas of what Morgan needed to get to the truth of it
all.

She needed to be trusted. She needed
to be set free, to make her own way through the world with what she
had left. She needed the freedom to fail, and then to try again
after she’d failed until she could do anything.

No one but Emma had been able to
recognize that…and in less than a fortnight, she’d provided
it.

Emma Hathaway was as sweet and genuine
a young woman as she could possibly be. She honestly cared for
other people, for animals, for everyone and everything around her.
It was no wonder she was so often surrounded by those in
need.

Everyone needed
someone
to care for them.
Why not Emma?

The more time Aidan spent in her
presence, the more he found he wanted to be in her presence. Not
only that, but he was quickly discovering that he didn’t
particularly care to share her attentions with anyone else. Not
even Morgan.

And, while he wasn’t
certain he
loved
her yet, Aidan was absolutely, unequivocally certain of
something else. He did
not
hate her. He couldn’t. It was no longer a
possibility.

Lust, however, Aidan found
to be in free supply. He wanted Emma more than he knew how to
handle—wanted nothing more than to be with her at every moment he
could. With
only
her, as if that were even a remote possibility.

Even now, she looked over at him with
those lightly downturned eyes—eyes that only made him think of
bedding her—and gave him a cheeky grin, her lush lips widening
seductively. “Have you finished yet? I am desperate to see
it.”

She couldn’t possibly be as desperate
to see the portrait as he was to touch her again. When his finger
had moved along her jaw, her cheekbone, it had taken every ounce of
restraint he possessed to refrain from kissing her again—and Aidan
feared that the next time he kissed her like that, he might not be
able to stop himself from doing so very much more than simply kiss
her.

Alas, they remained at David and
Vanessa’s house party. He couldn’t very well take her up to his
chamber and toss her in his bed. Their betrothal had been
announced, and the others were granting the two of them some time
alone when otherwise it would not be done, but even then, there
were limits.

The image flashing through his mind at
the moment, of her in his bed with her long limbs bared for him,
did him no favors. If he didn’t change the course of his thoughts
soon, he might just pull out a blank canvas and attempt to create
the vision in his head.

So instead, he swallowed, wishing he
could wash the thoughts swirling through his mind down his throat
so easily.

“
Come,” Aidan finally said.
“Take a look.”

When Emma came to her feet and took a
step toward him, a moment of panic clutched his chest. What if she
didn’t like it? What would she think?

Before he had much opportunity to
worry over her reaction, she’d made her way around his easel and
stared at the likeness of herself. Silently.

She didn’t say a word, didn’t take a
breath. It was more than Aidan could handle. He turned around and
took two steps away. He shouldn’t have ever shown her. He should
have never opened himself up to her reaction, whatever it may be.
If he could, he would reverse time and never let her know he’d been
working on a portrait of her in the first place. He wouldn’t leave
himself so vulnerable as to work on such a thing with anyone around
to see it, to know such an intimate part of who he was.

But he couldn’t go back in time, and
he couldn’t undo what had already been done. He could only find a
way to live with the regret.

“
I don’t—” Her breaths were
stilted and sharp. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never thought…”

But she didn’t finish her sentence.
The incomplete thought hung in the air between them so long Aidan
feared he might fall over if she did not finish it.

“
You never thought what?”
he prodded when still she remained silent, save the uneven
breaths.

Emma’s hand, so small and delicate,
hovered near his arm but didn’t touch it. He felt her warmth
through his coat, wanted her touch, but could not bring himself to
ask for more than she would give.

“
I’ve never thought of
myself as beautiful. Not until I saw this. I don’t—” Then she did
touch him, lightly brushing her hand over the sleeve of his
greatcoat, her gentle touch as reverent as the awe in her tone.
“This is how you see me?”

How could she not see her own beauty?
Truly, she wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense. She didn’t
have a perfect English rose complexion, nor did she have the golden
hair so popular amongst a certain set, but if she was in the room,
he couldn’t look elsewhere if he tried.

“
Of course,” he finally
said, his voice cracking on the words like they had when he was no
more than a green youth.

She moved around him until she stood
before him, close enough he could touch her if he allowed himself
such freedom. With each shuddering breath, her chest rose and fell,
nearly straining against the delicate yellow fabric of her
bodice.

“
Thank you.” Her lips
remained parted after she spoke, just enough he could see a hint of
the whiteness of her teeth.

He couldn’t look away. It didn’t
matter that he knew he mustn’t kiss her or touch her. To do so, at
this juncture, would be perilous to his plan. Emma wanted more than
lust. She wanted love. But if he kissed her now, he knew beyond a
shadow of a doubt that he would fall victim to need.

Aidan tried to back away, but she came
with him, moving closer with each moment that passed until her lips
came up to meet his.

Her kiss was almost wild, and entirely
too seductive. Placing a hand on his chest for balance, she leaned
in and moved her lips over his in thoroughly untutored fashion.
Aidan held himself back as well as he could, but was unsure how
long he could go without taking control of the situation before
losing that very same control. Restraint had never been a skill he
had mastered.

When the soft tip of her tongue
flicked out and touched the seam of his lips, he very nearly lost
all desire to hold himself back. At that moment in time, all he
wanted in the world was to toss her over his shoulder and carry her
off to somewhere they could be alone. He couldn’t stop the groan
that sounded deep in his throat, but somehow refrained from
ravishing her on the spot.

Emma seemed to take his groan as
encouragement. Sliding one hand up his chest, she wrapped it behind
his neck and tugged him down to her, even as with the other hand
she grasped his lapel in a desperate clutch. Moment by moment, she
grew bolder, her tongue delving between his lips to stroke and
explore, her hands nearly frantic as she tried to get
closer.

It was more than he could bear. He had
to stop her, now, before he forgot why such a thing was
necessary.

Aidan broke off the kiss and took both
her shoulders in his hands. “We can’t do this.”

But she didn’t take his pronouncement
well. She stretched on her toes, trying to kiss him again. “Touch
me. Please. Like you did that night. I want—I want to feel you
touch me. To feel your hands on me.”

Never before in his life had a woman
begged him for his touch. He wasn’t a libidinous bastard by any
stretch of the imagination, but he’d taken his fair share of women
to his bed—and they’d all been more than content by the time he was
finished with them. He was not a man to deny a woman her pleasure.
Not when he could grant it.

But how could he possibly do that with
Emma before she was his wife? If David caught wind of such a thing,
they’d never make it to their wedding day. Either that or it would
occur much sooner than any of them wished. And even if no one
discovered what had transpired, Emma would be sure to come to her
senses and realize it was only lust between them and not love,
wouldn’t she?

Once more, she tried to kiss him but
he turned his head to the side. Her lips fell upon his jaw, and she
trailed a series of kisses along a path to just below his
ear.

“
Emma…”