Page 23 of His By Sunrise (Disreputable Dukes of Club Damnation #3)

I t was perhaps minutes before midnight when Edwin awoke to the sound of heavy rain drumming against the window glass.

He struggled to breathe as his pulse raced, and his chest hurt. As he struggled into a sitting position with his back propped against the pillows, he tried to quiet his mind where the thoughts whirled about like ponies on a loop.

Dear God, the guilt!

It pressed down on this chest in an effort to steal his breath.

He’d done many questionable things in his past, involved himself in horrible deals to earn coin.

Then there was the lying and cheating at times merely so he wouldn’t lose much of his investments due to the carelessness of others.

All so he could support his family, and depending on the year, either keep them or win them back.

All that at some point pulled him away from the best things that had ever happened to him—his wife and child. But he lost them anyway, and he still wondered why beyond his own shitty luck.

A cry left his throat, and he rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes where moisture formed.

Icy fear held him captive, for he was convinced there in the dark and gloom that Charlotte would leave him despite his efforts to show her he’d changed, to show her that he loved her still; he would lose her all over again, and it would hurt much more this time.

“Oh, God, please let that not be true.” Another half-stifled sob wrenched from his throat before he could recall it.

“I can’t live without her; she is my reason for existing.

” Then, because he couldn’t help it, he gave in to the urge to cry, and for the first time in his life, there was no shame in it.

In the simplest of terms, it was merely an outlet for an excess of emotions, the same as various forms of carnal play was.

As the small, carriage-style clock on his bedside table softly chimed the midnight hour, the door to his room quietly opened.

“Edwin? Is all well? I heard you cry out.”

Shit. “Charlotte.” She must have had trouble sleeping herself. “I, uh... I couldn’t sleep. Had a nightmare.” At least it wasn’t a lie.

“Would you like me to sit with you a while until you calm?” After closing the door, she padded over the floor, her bare feet making almost no sound, and in the dark, she resembled an angel in her pale blue night dress—avenging or saving, he didn’t know. Perhaps he didn’t care any longer.

“Only if you want to. I don’t want to steal your sleep.” Quickly, he scrubbed at the moisture on his cheeks. Would she think him weak for it?

“Of course I do. We all need someone to lean on in our moments when we’ve fallen into doubt.” Then she surprised him by crawling into bed with him.

That only made him feel worse, and once more, the tears stung his eyes. He couldn’t gain control of his emotions, for he was too far gone in his thoughts.

“Oh, Edwin, what’s wrong? I’ve never seen you like this.” The soothing sound of her dulcet voice wrapped around him like an embrace, but when she snuggled beside him and literally put her arms about him, the last of his reserve vanished.

“The last time I felt this low was when you took our daughter and left me.” Another sob escaped his throat as all his regrets pressed in on him.

“I’m so sorry. I should have fought my father, should never have told him of our problems.” She stroked a hand up and down his arm while holding his head to her shoulder.

“I should have come to you first, demanded we take some time for ourselves and talk things through, but I was a coward and grieving. Not in my right mind.”

“And I was cheated out of that.” He clung to her as if that alone would keep her with him.

“I tried to do what I thought was right by you and Olivia. Knew I had to support you, just didn’t know how .

I didn’t have the right connections in the ton until too late.

Now that I do have all of that, I’ve lost my family. ” A sob wrenched from him.

She made soothing sounds as she continued to caress him. “You haven’t lost us. I’m still here.”

“No.” Edwin shook his head. “You’re with Danville, my enemy.”

“Not in this moment. I’m here with you.” Charlotte pressed her lips to his hair. “I don’t even know if he is someone I want any longer.”

At least it was something, but it couldn’t tear him from his maudlin thoughts.

“Edwin, will you tell me the full story of what happened between you two?”

“Not tonight.” He simply didn’t have the strength. “Instead, tell me about my daughter. What have I missed? What is she like? Does she have any of my attributes or mannerisms? Is she a friendly girl, outgoing, or is she more thoughtful, bookish?”

“Oh, where to start?” As she pulled a bit away, a chuckle escaped her, and he adored that sound. “Olivia is quite intelligent and clever. She challenges me at every turn.”

“So she’s willful like her mother?” Somehow, that made sense, and he grinned. “Good for her.”

“Yes, and I suspect she’ll be a handful as she grows older. The girl has a way of holding her head like you, and when she smiles, I can definitely see you in that.” A tiny catch sounded in her voice. “Oh, and she’s stubborn, very much like you are.”

“Willful and stubborn. I pity the man she marries someday.” Then another thought pressed in. “I would like to vet potential suitors... I don’t want her to marry a man like me...”

“Do stop, Nottingham.” Charlotte tsked her tongue. “Olivia has a good head on her shoulders, and she’s quite studious, but at the same time, she’s curious about the world. Lovely manners and she’s respectful, yet if you cross her or lie to her, she’ll call you out on it.”

“Again, like her mother.” It comforted him to know that. “I so much want to be in her life, for I’ve already missed half of it. Please say you’ll let me.” As much as he disliked begging, this was important.

“While I would gladly let you do that, I’m not certain that my father will allow it.”

He huffed. “You are a woman grown, Charlotte. Make your own decisions, especially when it comes to our family.” There were many regrets in his life, and in not being there for Olivia, but the biggest was disappointing Charlotte.

“God, why couldn’t I have remained the man you fell in love with all those years ago?

” His gut clenched with emotion. “Why couldn’t I have just been the man you wanted, to kowtow to society’s rules, to be like the rest of them? Then you would have stayed.”

A sniffle came from her, and she shook her head.

“If you had been that man, that paper doll version of society, you wouldn’t have been the man I fell for.

” A waver went through her voice. “The man you still are, but who has been enhanced in hundreds of tiny little ways, the man who has been tried by experience and has come out all the better for it.”

“Do you truly believe that?” It oddly gave him hope.

“Yes. I wouldn’t have said that if I didn’t.”

A small piece of his heart flew into her keeping.

If he wasn’t already in love with her, this would have been the start, but it only solidified his feelings.

“I suspect I didn’t know how to woo you with words, to tell you what I needed, and that’s why I am like I am in the bedroom. I show you with my body, my touch...”

“There is nothing wrong with that, Edwin.” She finger-combed the hair from his brow. Each light touch had arousal and awareness shivering through him. Too much more and he’d been fully hard. “Men have different ways of expressing themselves. You needn’t be ashamed of that.”

“You were, perhaps still are.”

“No.” She scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks. “I was fearful that I was being lost in that carnal world, feared that was all we had between us. And I wondered what would happen when you no longer wanted me like that.”

“As if that will ever happen.” Above everything, he wanted her in a forever sort of way, in all that entailed. “Did you tell that to your father?”

“I did not. He assumed you were abusive, that you weren’t a good provider...”

“And he used it as an excuse to be rid of me so that you would marry someone better.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. “Yet you adore how we come together, do you?”

“How can you doubt that?” So saying, Charlotte maneuvered herself so that she straddled his waist. “Shall I show you, then?” She rocked her hips against his. “Since you are already quite interested?”

“Damn, Char, are you trying to kill me?” Yet he slid his palms up her sides to hold her head between his palms. “We have already come together so much since you’ve been here.”

“Whose fault is that?” She brushed her lips over his.

“If you didn’t want those results, perhaps you shouldn’t have kidnapped me.

” Then she rose onto her knees, moved the skirting of her night dress out of the way, and then fit the head of his hardened length to her opening.

“We are good together like this, Edwin. Never doubt that; we need only to strengthen our verbal communication skills.”

Then she sank onto his shaft until she was fully impaled, and they both groaned.

Did that mean she was looking to the future with him? He was too much a coward to ask. Instead, he grasped her hips, and as she moved, he helped to guide her. Though her strokes were slow and steady, he didn’t want that sort of pace tonight.

“Let me,” he whispered then wrapped his arms around her and easily flipped them both over. “We both need a hard release, I think, after the excess of emotion.”

“You are always intuitive about that.” She pressed a line of kisses beneath his jaw, spread her palms over his naked chest, and that touch intensified the fires in his blood.

“Only where you’re concerned.” Once he’d laid her out on her back, he kneeled between her splayed legs. Then he encouraged those shapely limbs straight up in the air, and finding her gaze in the darkness, he thrust forcefully into her body.

“Dear God, I can’t think when I’m with you like this,” she whispered, and the sound of the rain nearly drowned out her words.

“Then don’t. Just enjoy and know I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” He meant every damned word of that promise.

Every stroke, each push came fast and hard.

She canted her hips to meet him, and all too soon they moved together with all the power of a summer storm.

Her fingers dug into his forearms as he held onto her thighs, and still he drove into her, telling her with his body how much he adored her, how much he valued her.

How much he hoped she’d come back to him.

Far too primed after everything they’d already shared, heated urgency shot through his shaft.

“Are you close?” Emotion graveled his voice, but before she could answer, he put a hand between their heaving bodies, found that swollen nubbin at her center.

Barely had he bedeviled it when she tensed, and then a half-stifled scream left her throat as she fell over the edge.

He quickly followed, for how could he not when her inner walls compelled him to do just that?

Pleasure swamped him, and he let himself tumble into it, drown in that bliss he’d only ever been able to find with her.

Murmuring nonsensical words as his shaft jerked and pulsed in an effort to empty itself, he collapsed onto her body.

This is pure insanity.

Once he’d come back to himself, Edwin rolled onto his side facing her.

With a sigh, Charlotte snuggled into his hold, curling herself against his body, and not long afterward, she’d fallen into a light doze.

His heart shivered, and the sense of belonging came over him as he held her in his arms. Dear God, how long had it been since he’d had a woman in his bed for something other than meeting a sexual need?

But the fact he’d broken that stretch by literally sleeping with the woman who’d been his wife, the woman he wanted to wed again?

Astounding.

Indeed, perhaps it was time to make another change.

He had steady investments now, owned properties that he rented out with reliable tenants, and was able to draw in a monthly income that was nothing to sneeze at.

He was more stable and could support his family without issue or resorting to unscrupulous business practices. Could he truly win Charlotte back?

Not by that first sunrise that he’d originally thought, but by a sunrise, and hopefully by that fifth one so he could win those wagers and add to his coffers?

That hope was certainly there, and with a satisfied sigh, he closed his eyes as the rain continued to come down outside.

I might just have everything that I’ve wished for all these years.