Page 16 of His By Sunrise (Disreputable Dukes of Club Damnation #3)

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C harlotte knew she was tempting fate—and perhaps the devil himself—by provoking Edwin with her words, but she couldn’t help it.

After what she’d just shared with him, her body hummed with pent-up energy, and a desperate longing still crackled through her veins.

She needed more of him that went beyond the physical act of intercourse.

In fact, she couldn’t have enough of him and everything that he was.

It was an eye-opening revelation and one she would have to ponder over the course of the next few days.

The glide of his hand over the small of her back sent heightened awareness crashing through her. A shiver followed, for she absolutely adored it when he spanked her. There was something so satisfying about that pain-pleasure mix that allowed her to focus solely on her needs and her desires.

“Shall we begin?” His whisper was enhanced when he caressed a hand along the curve of her rear as he kneeled between her splayed thighs.

“Yes. Why have you kept me waiting?” It was so easy to tease and provoke him, and he responded in kind. Perhaps that was why they got on well together in carnal endeavors. It was everything else that held tension between them.

Because she was a coward.

“Still rebellious.” His rumbling whisper tickled through her chest. When he leaned over her back with a hand stroking up and down her side, he whispered, “Don’t ever change, Charlotte. It adds spice and excitement to what we do together.”

She nodded and wiggled her bottom. “I agree, but you’re still not giving me what I want.”

“So impatient.” As he tsked his tongue, he lifted off her and again caressed a hand along her rear, and then, without warning, he smacked the flat of his hand to one of her buttocks. That crisp sound echoed in the silence.

“Ah!” The swift jar of pain went through her backside. Warmth quickly followed, and when he soothed the abused flesh with a tender caress, a throb of need went through her core. “Dear heavens. So good.”

“I have always adored your willingness to indulge in this sort of play with me.” He brought his hand down once more to land on her other buttock. “We were a good team, Char. When I needed to take command, you never failed to give up control.”

“And you were always willing for those roles to reverse any time I needed.” The heated pain and pleasure cycle went through her.

A groan escaped her throat, and she squirmed on the bed.

The rasp of the sheets against her already sensitized nipples left her gasping for more.

Truly, he was the only one who understood what she wanted—needed—from bedroom endeavors.

Not perhaps why, but that was beside the point.

Would William prove as indulgent or would he think her depraved, mentally damaged?

“Yes.” Edwin was quick to soothe the stinging skin, and he drew his lips over her buttock this time. The sensual sensations left her shivering with delight. “Which is why I couldn’t understand what went wrong in our marriage.”

She closed her eyes, for she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. Though spanking was a tool used to bring them closer and bind them together, she hated herself a bit more to know she was indeed using him to free herself from the invisible cage she was trapped in.

And what was more, she suspected the only one wielding the key was her former husband.

Before she could ask him to continue, Edwin brought his hand down again, on the other buttock, and this time a tortured cry left her throat.

The line between pain and pleasure blurred; she needed his hands on her, sending her over that glimmering edge again.

Panting, she glanced over her shoulder at him.

“I need another release.” Why she craved this sort of play baffled her, but that was just how her body worked, and this sort of thing had been absent from her life for the past five years of so.

Perhaps he was correct in that she liked not being in control.

Did she trust William to do that, to take her down so deep that she didn’t need to worry? The answer was simple. No. The only man to win that from her had been Edwin... and he was still doing it.

When another smack demanded that she leave her thoughts behind, she truly walked a razor’s edge, for when he soothed the heated, throbbing skin with the veriest glance of his fingers as well as his lips, she nearly went over.

In such things, he was a master at wielding that power, and she adored him for it.

“Have you done this to anyone else since we parted?” It wasn’t well done of her, but she needed a distraction, or she would surely perish from his ministrations.

“I have not. It didn’t feel right, and frankly, it took me a long time to heal from the betrayal of our failed marriage.” He eased his palms over her backside then along her spine, massaging the tight muscles as he went. “Sometimes I’m not certain if I truly have healed,” he added in a soft voice.

“I know exactly what you mean.” It had been difficult being ripped from the life she’d known for so long, at being away from the father of her child—the man she suspected she still harbored something for. “Do you, uh, no longer have feelings for me then?”

He heaved out a sigh. “I don’t know. It had been a while since I last examined myself in that way.” When he leaned over her body, he pressed his lips to first one shoulder blade followed by the other. Then he gently gathered her hair, moved it out of the way so he could kiss her nape.

Tingles sailed through her lower belly.

“What of you?” he said, and the heat of his breath warmed her skin. “Have your feelings for me truly dissolved?” A tiny catch in his voice might have been overlooked by someone else, but to her, it was all too evident.

“That is difficult to answer. When we wed, I hardly knew you, but I hung all my hope on that overwhelming connection and physical attraction between us.” That had never been a lie.

“My parents said our match was ill-fated. I didn’t care, for I was thrilled to marry at all, and you were charming and handsome and mysterious.

I was swept away with the adventure of it.

and dear God, physical relations between us were amazing. ”

He snorted as he caressed and massaged his way down her back once more. “Still are?”

“Do shut up,” she said with a grin, for he managed to disarm her and stress her all at once.

A chuckle left his throat, intimate in the darkness. “Until you realized I was no catch.”

“I don’t know.” Charlotte shrugged. “By then I was with child, so it didn’t matter, and I adored our baby, hoped you would prove yourself as a father, take being domesticated seriously.

” As he stroked his fingers over the sensitive skin of her buttocks, she shivered again.

“After that, you were allegedly involved with the Club Damnation members. I didn't know what to do.”

“Just because a man is part of a club doesn’t make him a criminal.” There was an edge to his voice that made her wary.

“I know.” She forced down a hard swallow. “When I lost our second child, my life upended itself. You were rarely home, out doing God knows what.”

“Providing for my family. Believe it or not, it’s difficult to do for a man who’d been to prison and without connections to the ton .”

“When my father discovered you’d been released from Newgate not long before you and I met, he lost his head.

Said my marriage was an aberration, that I’d made a mistake, but he wouldn’t hold it against me once he freed me.

That he would find a decent, titled man so that I could marry again and put you in my past.”

“Damn.” He brought his hand down on her buttock again, and they both groaned.

“Somehow, he convinced me you were a murderer and that I’d barely escaped with my life when he stepped in.”

With rough hands, Edwin flipped her over, leaned over so she had no choice but to stare into his eyes. “You could have believed my side of the story.”

“The story you never told me? The one you refused to talk about? Even when William alluded to it the other day?”

“I was afraid if I talked about it, the rage from that time would have consumed me again.”

“Did you kill that man?”

“No.”

“Yet William said you did.”

“He’s a liar and a blackguard. But I confessed to the crime in order to spare him from prison.”

Shock plowed through her. “Why? Were you friends?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Best friends, or so I thought. I believed that because he would come into a title, he was somehow more important than I was, that my life was more expendable than his.” When he shrugged, shadows haunted his eyes.

“I guess when you hear something enough times, you start to eventually believe it.”

“He told you that?” When he remained silent, she made a sound of denial. Her heart ached for him. She rested a palm on his chest. “You know you aren’t less than him, don’t you?”

Slowly, he nodded. “I’ve come to see that, but it took some time.

” He searched her gaze with his in the gloom.

“Tell me you aren’t seriously considering Danville’s suit.

He’s the one who killed that man years ago, Char.

Killed one of our professors because he didn’t like the marks given at the end of term.

He isn’t worthy of your notice let alone your love. ”

In many ways, she knew that but hadn’t wanted to believe it. “Then who is?”

“Me.” Seconds later, he brought his mouth crashing down on hers in a kiss that was so intense, it stole her breath and set fire to the blood in her veins.

By the time he pulled away merely for them both to take in air, her head was spinning.

“Right now, I am going to take full possession of your body, exclusively for your pleasure, because you have been denied that over the years.” Again, he kissed her.

“We might not have been together in a forever sort of way, but we are together now.”