Page 32 of His By Sunrise (Disreputable Dukes of Club Damnation #3)

Methodically, he plucked the pins from her hair, and when that wet and tangled brown waterfall tumbled about her shoulders and back, he buried his fingers in those tresses, and set out to reacquaint himself with her lips and mouth all over again.

Because he could. Because she was his.

“Edwin... please!” The same desperation rang in her tones that was currently coursing through his veins and had his shaft hardening with need. “Put your hands on me. I have no need of foreplay tonight.”

“Are you sure? It only enhances when we come together.” How much did he adore this woman?

She had no qualms in asking for what she wanted—from both life and for her pleasure—and she was as brave as any man, especially when the people she loved were threatened.

It humbled him to know that she’d quite frankly saved his life.

“Yes, yes, of course.” She nipped the underside of his chin. “So help me, if you don’t send me flying, I’ll walk right out of here.”

“Naked, sweeting? I rather doubt that.” He followed her instructions but spun her around so that she faced the door. “I’d thought to make sweet, gentle love to you tonight. You don’t want that?”

“No. There are other times for that.” She glanced over her shoulder at him.

Through the gloom, her eyes glimmered. “I just want you—raw, real, and frantic—as a reminder that we both survived what should have broken us and that we have a future together.” A wave of heat washed over him when she looked at him with adoration. “Yes?”

“I can hardly believe it, and there are other words I wish to say.” As his mind spun with the possibilities, Edwin pressed his lips to her shoulder and slid a hand along her side.

Damn, but her body was gorgeous. With every caress, every strum of his fingers, she shivered.

“This will go quickly.” He was much too primed to battle his control.

“The night has only just begun, Nottingham. There is plenty of time to finesse the love making later.” She wriggled her hips. “Show me how much I mean to you.”

“I rather think you know.” Excitement buzzed at the base of his spine when he contemplated their future, Edwin spent the next few minutes exploring every inch of her skin.

She was like living silk, and with every slight movement, that faint floral scent of her teased his nose.

As she braced her palms on the door panel, he encouraged her to widen her stance with a knee.

The second he brushed his fingertips over her taut nipples, she moaned and squirmed from the attention.

“You said we weren’t indulging in foreplay.” A tiny whine had set up in her voice.

He grinned. “I changed my mind.” After layering his body to hers, he more firmly cupped her breasts, kneaded them, plucked and rolled those gorgeous nipples until she shook from the play.

When he alternated that with hard pinches to those nubs, she whimpered, for he knew how much she adored the pain-pleasure cycle.

He peppered her nape and shoulders with kisses, sucked her earlobe into his mouth, licked at a spot on her neck that drove her particularly wild before snaking a hand about her hips and delving his fingers over her mons and through the hair shrouding her sex.

It took little effort to part her damp flesh and encourage the button at her center out of hiding, and once he did, he rubbed his fingers over it with varying degrees of friction, for he knew what she liked.

And he always would give her that.

“Oh, yes. Edwin, yes!” Her response was a breathless affair, and she pressed her hand over his, not afraid to guide him to where she wanted him the most. Their history together in carnal games had taught her that. “Here, touch me here.”

With one hand tormenting a nipple, he teased that slippery nubbin for all he was worth. “Give in to it, sweeting. Let me see you fly. Surrender with abandon, for I will always catch you.” The crooning words coupled with his attentions all worked at seeing her undone.

Charlotte’s breathing came in short, shallow pants while she bucked her hips into his hand. His shaft pressed painfully against the portion of his frontfalls that hadn’t been released. Needing relief from that throbbing need, he ground his erection into her arse, and they both groaned. “Hurry!”

He increased his play at her button, and when she still didn’t fall over the edge, he quickly encouraged her body around so that she faced him.

Again, he put his hand between her thighs, and from this angle, he had different access.

She clung to his shoulders, kissed his neck and chest, gave a pinch to one of his nipples that nearly separated his soul from his form, and then her body finally stiffened.

Her eyes darkened. A cry left her throat before he could kiss her, and it only gained more strength as she fell over that edge into bliss.

“So fucking beautiful,” Edwin murmured as he wrenched his frontfalls down and with a hand beneath her thigh, urged her leg upward. “Wrap it around my waist, love. I cannot wait to have you. We’re not going to make it to the bed.”

“I don’t need a bed; I only need you.” Her eyelids fluttered as she planted her heel at the small of his back and pulled him closer, dug her fingernails into his shoulders. “Please.”

He didn’t answer with words. There was no need.

Instead, as soon as he positioned the head of his shaft at her opening, he thrust inside, penetrated her fully, and didn’t stop joining them together until he was fully seated.

Again, their groans blended with the rain at the windows, and he withdrew merely for the pleasure of spearing into her again.

Her honeyed heat was warm and welcoming, and when he began to move, he wished to go slowly in order to savor the act.

But his body had different ideas. Urgency compelled him to stroke into her as if he would expire in the next few minutes.

While she clutched at his shoulders, canted her hips to better receive him, moved her body to receive his thrusts, he held her thigh with one hand and braced himself with a palm to the door.

He paused once to kiss her, for those swollen, slightly parted lips were too tempting, then he applied himself to sending her flying once more.

Over and over, he pushed, delved as deep as he could, and with each flex of his hips, every pump of his shaft, he lost himself in the wonder of this woman.

All too soon, the inevitable happened. Need pulled his stones close to his body.

It shuddered through his shaft with that tingling awareness that signaled the end.

Wanting her to come with him, Edwin put a hand between their bodies and once more bedeviled that tiny bundle of nerves.

Her inhalation of breath was the only warning he had that she’d shattered.

To stifle her scream, he claimed her mouth, taking the sound into himself.

Then her passage contracted around his member and set off his own release.

Once more he thrust before he, too, followed into that white-lit world full of nothing except pleasure.

“Dear God,” Charlotte whispered as she slumped into him, and her leg slid down his body. “You always make me come hard and quickly.”

“Because we belong together. That was quite... something.” If he spent that violently each time he was with her, he would live the next few years an exhausted man. Not that he minded.

“It was.” Satiation reflected in her expression as she tipped her face upward, but there was no mistaking the joy shining in her eyes even in the darkness. “I feel as if I’m living for the first time in years.”

His heart squeezed. “Perhaps you are. Everything in our pasts is finally behind us.” When she wobbled on her feet, he slipped an arm beneath her knees and the other about her back, lifted her into his arms, and then carried her across the room to lay her on the bed.

“You should rest.” Damn, with her reclining on his counterpane and even though her hair in damp hunks, she was an angel.

“Thank you.” When she frowned, he leaned over her and brushed his lips over hers.

“For what?”

“Choosing me. Again.” Then he padded into the adjoining dressing room.

“Where are you going?”

“I would like to remove the worst of the blood and mud from my face and neck. Sorry for getting some that on you before we were carried away. Once I lie down, my body will betray me and give into the aches, and I’ll be useless for a while.”

“I understand.”

The sound of fabric rustling met his ears, but as soon as he finished, Edwin returned to the bedroom where Charlotte had crawled beneath the bedclothes.

“I fear we’ve gotten mud on the bedsheets.”

“We will worry about that tomorrow.” He joined her but propped himself on an elbow to peer down at her.

Emotions crowded in his throat while a wash of moisture welled in his eyes.

“Regarding William... I couldn’t let him court you, Charlotte.

No matter what, but if that decision was what you truly wanted to be happy—”

“—hush.” She slipped a hand about his nape and urged his head down so she could kiss his lips. “I am happy. With you, I have always been happy. Even when I didn’t realize that was what I was feeling.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, Edwin.” Her gaze fell to the red marks on his throat where he very nearly died from strangulation.

“Part of the reason why we were divorced was because I loved you so much and so intensely, adored how we came together in carnal endeavors, that I feared I would be lost in that, lost in you.” The delicate tendons of her throat worked with a hard swallow.

“I didn’t want my life to only be that of your wife, or a mother to Olivia even though both of those things brought me joy.

I didn’t want what we found in bed to be our only source of happiness. ”

He nodded. I’m sorry. I have a tendency to be far too intense...”

“Don’t change. I love every second of my life with you, but now I know that I don’t have to lose myself to find what we are together as well as apart.

” When she smiled at him, his world tilted.

“What I’ve found with you? It’s beyond wonderful.

You challenge me to grow, to be stronger, to reach further, and I’m ready to have that again. ”

“You are?”

“Yes.” She touched his cheek, and when he inadvertently flinched, she sighed. “Though you look better, I fear you’ll appear even worse once the bruising comes in.”

“I suppose I’ll have to refrain from being out in public for a bit.”

“True.” The wicked gleam in her eye sent a wave of awareness through him. “I wouldn’t mind spending the next week or so in bed...”

Surely, she would be the death of him, but what a sweet way to go. With a growl, he claimed her lips, didn’t let her go from his embrace until she had that bemused expression on her face again. “I’m sure we can arrange that.”

She put a staying hand on his chest. “When I thought William would kill you...” Tears filled in her eyes. “If I hadn’t already known I was tip over tail in love with you a second time, that would have been the defining moment for me.”

“You saved my life. I suppose that means I’m indebted to you.”

“Perhaps you are.”

“Whatever you want, I’ll give you, then.” And he meant it.

“There is one thing... Well, possibly two.”

“Anything.” She met his gaze, and there was so much happiness in those brandy-hued pools, he wanted to shout from the rooftops how much he adored her. “What is it?”

“First, will you marry me? I promise this second time around will be forever. No more will I allow myself to be ruled by fear or how things might look to society.” Her soul was visible in her eyes, and he fell down, down, down further into love with her.

“Done. Hell, yes I’ll marry you, and you can have whatever kind of ceremony you’d like. No kowtowing to your parents this time.” He slipped a hand about her nape and drew her close to his body. “And the second thing?”

She brushed her lips over his. “Give me another baby, Edwin. The addition to our family that we both wanted all those years ago.” Then, brushing at his still-damp hair, she smiled.

“I don’t care about your past or what you’ve done to get to this point.

None of it matters, for it all made you the man you are today. And I love that man to distraction.”

Oh, God. Everything he’d ever dreamed of having had landed in his lap. For the next several moments, he kissed her, drank from her as if he’d never see her again. When he pulled away, he grinned. “I have never stopped loving you, though I did lose hope at times.”

“I’m here,” she whispered against his lips. “I’m here, and I’m not leaving anymore.”

“I know. And we will meet whatever obstacles come at us together this time. No keeping secrets from each other?” When she nodded, he did too. It still was incredible knowing he’d won her. “I’d like nothing more than to add to our family.” Then he frowned “I just hope Olivia doesn’t hate me.”

“I’ll write to my mother tomorrow, tell her that we’ll come out and pick Olivia up in a week. Then we are all going to Brighton for a while to have a holiday as a family.” She peered into his eyes. “She doesn’t hate you, only misses you. All will be well, Edwin.”

“I have a feeling it will be too.” Then he rolled them over and pressed his body into hers. “Now, about that business of putting a babe in your belly...”