Page 14 of His By Sunrise (Disreputable Dukes of Club Damnation #3)
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Edwin was far too restless that night to sleep. When the longcase clock on the floor below chimed three in the morning, he blew out a breath. Was it hopeless to continue chasing slumber?
At dinner, he’d had a bit too much to drink, for he was reeling from what Charlotte had told him in the garden. They’d lost a pregnancy? He would have had a second child? And she had kept that knowledge from him, grieved alone?
Damn, that was cold, and he couldn’t decide if he was angry with her or merely annoyed for being cheated out of being able to grieve. Even now, there was a hole in his heart that he didn’t know how to manage.
When a noise sounded in his room that shouldn’t have been there in the middle of the night, he cracked open his eyes, but with the slight ache in his head as well as the general grogginess involved from overconsumption and restlessness, he was slow to come to awareness.
Since he slept in the nude, the fact that the cool ambient air stirred over his body surprised him, and the hair at his nape and on his legs quivered with the notice that something wasn’t quite right.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he frowned, for two things became apparent simultaneously.
One, the shadows in the room were moving, and two, his arms were raised above his head, immobile.
How much brandy did I have last night?
As he willed his arms to move, he then realized his wrists were tied and secured to the wooden spindled bedframe.
His heartbeat accelerated and a trace of fear sliced through his chest, but when he turned his head, a wave of shock slammed through him, for Charlotte stood silently beside the four-poster bed, looking at him with wide eyes.
“Charlotte? What the devil is happening?”
“I wanted to see you.” Since the night was clear, a bit of moonlight glimmered through the not quite closed draperies at the windows, and in that ethereal illumination, she resembled a ghost in the pale blue nightdress.
“Why?” Her brown hair flowed down about her back and shoulders in a gently curling waterfall, and as he gawked, it was very evident that she was aroused, for the dusky outlines of her hardened nipples were clear through the thin lawn of the night wear.
She shrugged. “I need you.” Tears made her eyes luminous.
“While I can understand that, I must ask you why you secured me to the headboard.” Though he didn’t mind, and the fact she’d done so ramped up his own desire, but as he tugged on his bonds that were surprisingly secure, he wanted assistance in knowing why.
“I need to couple with you, to remind myself that I’m still wanted.” As she spoke, she shed the night dress. It pooled like a defeated ghost to the floor.
“Are you well?” He had a sense that something was off with her, yet he couldn’t help but rove his gaze over her nude form. The curve of her hips, the soft swell of her belly, the mounds of her breasts called out to him with a siren’s song.
“No. I feel incredibly emotional just now.”
When he tried to maneuver into a sitting position, the bonds at his wrists reminded him he didn’t have room to move. “Did I say something to upset you at dinner?” If he did, he couldn’t remember it, but then, his head ached from the brandy.
“You have been everything lovely, oddly enough, and I suppose that’s set me at sixes and sevens.
” Her laughter sounded far too tearful for his liking.
“Perhaps I wish to bolster my confidence so I can wield the same power over you that you have over me. And I need to know why that is, why I continually crave you when I know I shouldn’t. ”
Well, that was an interesting peek into her feelings.
Was it possible she hadn’t wished for the divorce after all and had been coerced by her parents?
“It is a confounding feeling, isn’t it?” There had been many nights after their marriage had broken that he railed at the heavens because he couldn’t forget her, because she was always on his mind, because his body and skin insisted on remembering what she felt like.
“Yes.” The whispered one-word answer hovered in the air. When she laid a trembling hand on his belly, his muscles clenched. Need streaked through his member, stiffening it.
Fuck, but he wanted her so damned bad. Not in a dominating way or for domestic discipline.
He merely wanted to provide comfort for her, do things differently this time, perhaps kiss her tears away.
“I’ll be whatever you want me to be tonight.
Whatever you need.” It mattered not the difficulties currently between them. Now was the time to usher in healing.
“Good.” She nodded and wiped at the silvery tracks of moisture on her cheeks.
“I also want to do this for me.” She shook her head.
“I’m feeling a bit vulnerable since talking about things with you last night.
Everything from that time has come rushing back, and I’d rather not relive it.
” A waver set up in her voice. “Will you indulge me in distraction?”
Even though she chastised him for exactly that last night?
Perhaps it didn’t matter. Grief and working through the morass of emotions was tricky business for both of them.
“God, yes.” Already, his shaft was so hard and rampant he’d wager he could use it like a sword.
How was he to survive what would possibly be intense teasing from her?
Finally, she offered him a soft smile. “Good.” Then she joined him on the bed, and he again tugged at his bonds as she straddled his waist. “I hate that you still have such a hold on me,” she said in a whisper as she leaned over him, pressed her lips to the side of his neck.
“Yet I can no sooner walk away from you than I can pin a cloud to the wall.”
It was torture to have her body layered over him and he couldn’t take her into his arms. “It is enough that you still feel that connection between us.” Would that be enough to rekindle emotions? To thaw her heart in his favor? Only time would tell, but he would worry about that later.
“There is a certain comfort in that.” As she slid her hands over his chest, need shivered down his spine, but when she moved along his body, carefully avoiding his shaft yet kissing his skin, he knew he wouldn’t last long tonight.
“Familiar, easy...” His thoughts fractured when she rubbed her thumbs over the flat discs of his nipples and brought them to attention.
“Shh.” She brushed her lips over his as he strained at his bonds. “No more talking.”
That was fine by him, for with every caress, each trail of her fingertips over his skin, he didn’t remember how to form words.
When Charlotte leaned down and teased one of his erect nipples with her tongue, he shuddered, but when she lightly blew on the wet spot, shivers chased throughout his body.
Strands of her hair tickled everywhere it fell.
Soon it became all too obvious that he was hyper aware of everything around him.
Edwin tugged at the length of cravat keeping his wrists and hands immobile.
He swore he nearly died the second her fingers danced along the inside of his thighs.
With a groan, he widened his legs, hoping she would play with his shaft but alternately fearing that she would.
Instead, she merely nipped and nibbled his skin, his abdomen, along his belly, around his navel to return to his chest, trailing hair and fingertips over sensitive skin until he thought he might burst from the sizzling sensations.
“Charlotte, please...” If his voice was graveled, he couldn’t help it. Could a man expire simply from touch play?
She ignored him. In the gloom with faint glimpses of moonlight, his former wife and now lover—the exact designation was quite confusing—once more straddled his waist with his engorged shaft rubbing against the delectable curve of her arse.
After tucking her legs close to his sides, she straightened her spine and caught his gaze with hers.
“Don’t take your eyes off me. I want your full attention.” And she put her hands on her breasts, squeezing them in her palms, smashing them together.
As if he had any other choice. With a growl that came from somewhere deep inside himself, he pulled at his bonds as if he would tear the fabric from the wood of the bed’s frame just for the chance to put his hands on her.
Then Charlotte rolled her nipples and her head lolled onto one shoulder as a shudder rippled through her.
The second a moan left her lips, his shaft jerked.
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep his focus so he wouldn’t shoot his wad prematurely, but it was the most erotic thing he’d seen from her in quite some time.
“Oh, God...” She used her palms to provide friction to those pebbled tips, and as she gasped, she changed to her fingertips—plucking, tugging, pulling, rolling.
With each motion, he devoured her breasts with his gaze, flicked his notice over her face, her beautiful nude body, remembered exactly how that skin, those nipples felt against his tongue and in his hands. “This is pure torture.”
“Good. That is exactly what I wanted.” Strain threaded through her voice, but as she uttered a far too throaty chuckle, she leaned over him, planted her palms on either side of his head and offered him her breasts. “See if you can send me flying with only pleasuring my nipples.”
Well, he’d managed it once in their whole history together, but he rather doubted his prowess tonight since he was without the use of his hands.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Truth be told, he was just glad she included him in the play.
For a moment there, he’d thought she would take what she wanted and then might leave him tied to the bed.