Page 71 of A Virgin for the Stone Highlander
Aaron nodded. “Aye.” His voice came out quieter than he had intended. “She wants ye to wear it to keep ye safe.”
Edith’s eyes lifted to his, and he grimaced slightly at the sentiment. The necklace had belonged to their mother before she passed away, and Scarlett had always believed it possessed powers beyond the ordinary.
“Safe from ye, I presume?” she asked, her voice carrying the slightest hint of mischief.
It was refreshing to see that she did not share in his sister’s belief in the superstition.
“Turn around,” he instructed.
Edith obeyed without question. She moved her hair out of the way as he lifted the chain carefully, his fingers brushing the back of her neck as he fastened the clasp.
The cool metal grazed her skin before settling against her collarbone, and he felt her breath catch at the contact. He moved to adjust the chain, but his fingers moved slower than the task required, lightly tracing her neck and then lower to the hollow at the base of her throat, where her pulse beat quick and steady.
He was barely touching her, and yet she stilled completely, her breathing going shallow as her neck tilted slightly to the side.
He leaned in without thinking. His lips brushed the curve of her neck where his fingers had been, and her lips parted, a soft moan escaping her before she could stop it.
The sound of it undid something inside him.
He pressed his lips to her neck again, slower this time. Her hand came up instinctively, her fingers curling around his forearm as though she could not let him go.
Aaron felt her pulse jump where he planted his lips. Her body curved into his, her back pressing tighter against his chest.
That was all it took.
He turned her to face him, and what followed was not so much a choice as it was the inevitable end of weeks of restraint.
His mouth found hers, and the kiss was not gentle. It was the collision of two people who had been guarded against each other for far too long.
Aaron’s hands moved down her waist to the small of her back. Edith rose on her tiptoes to meet him, as though the distance between them had become intolerable. She kissed him back with everything she had been pretending not to feel.
Her fingers curled into the front of his tunic, twisting the fabric as she pulled him closer rather than away, and he felt the last of his composure dissolve entirely.
He backed her up against the wall without meaning to, his hand moving from her back to cup her breasts. He fondled them gently, their kiss deepening into something that had no business happening in a corridor outside their chambers.
Edith moaned against his mouth, quieter this time, and he felt it everywhere.
Aaron.
He stopped. The awareness of who he was, where they were, what he was doing, and what it meant made him pull back. His feet staggered a single step, his heart hammering against his ribs in a way it had no right to.
I cannae do this.
Control snapped back into place like a reflex, his face hardening as though the moment had not happened at all.
There was barely any space between them. Edith’s back was still pressed against the wall, her lips still parted, her chest heaving. Her fingers slowly released the fabric of his tunic as she came back to herself.
She looked up at him with dark eyes, and Aaron forced himself to look away before he did something he would not be able to come back from. He stood there for a moment, his back half turned to her, his breathing ragged.
The corridor was quiet around them. He could hear her settling behind him—the soft exhale, the faint sound of her straightening her gown.
Gather yerself.
He dug his hand into his pocket without a word, reaching for the pouch he had carried with him all day. He had meant to give it to her earlier in the study, but he did not. And he did not care to know why.
He pressed it into her hand. “For ye,” he said.
Edith looked down at it, then up at him. “What is this?”
