The first thrust would hurt her, Edward couldn’t help that, and some dark selfish part of him wondered if he wanted to help it. If he didn’t, in fact, want that one burst of pain to fill Daphne’s body and brand her indelibly as his… his body clenched.
If he warned Daphne of the pain that was to come then she would tense, and that would make it worse for her, Edward reasoned, which was (at least partly…) why he allowed himself to do what he did next. Edward slammed forwards, plunging into the sodden sheath of Daphne’s femininity and tearing through her maidenhead, hilting himself inside his wife’s body in one fierce thrust… and with one word on his lips: mine.
Oh God, nothing had ever-nothing could ever-feel this good… Edward wanted to explode the second that he came to rest inside Daphne’s tight little body. He had forced his eyes to remain open through sheer strength of will, so he’d seen the flash of pain that had lit his wife’s face, but now, now he couldn’t quite read her-that possibly had something to do with the fact he was shaking with his tenuously leashed desire.
“I have to move, Daff,” he croaked. “I can’t-I need-”
A small feminine little smile curved Daphne’s lips. She looked, quite unbelievably in Edward’s opinion, relieved, as if she had finally received what she had been waiting six long years for. Well Edward was damned if this was the level of satisfaction to which he was going to bring his wife! He reared back, reveling in Daphne’s sharp gasp as he pulled almost entirely out of her body.
“We’re not done yet,” he panted, thrusting back home. “Not by a long way,” he growled.
Edward forced his eyes to remain open and fixed on Daphne’s face as he loved her, making each stroke fierce and deep. She was the most beautifully erotic vision that he’d ever seen. Her own eyes were clenched closed, her neck was arched back into the pillows and her mouth was slightly parted.
Pain was swiftly being overtaken by pleasure, judging by the small mews and whimpers that were slipping from Daphne’s lips, urging Edward to explode, and her nails were digging almost cruelly into his shoulders as he pumped mercilessly into her tight, grasping little sheath.
“Edward!” she gasped, unable to stop her hips lifting to meet his thrusts any longer. “Edward, you have to stop!” she cried, clutching at his body. “I can’t-I can’t bear it-” she panted.
Edward only growled and pumped harder, banging the headboard of the large, four-poster bed up against the wall. Daphne was so very close, he could feel the first fluttering of her sheath around him, and he too was about to break.
Oh God, he loved that she was thrashing around beneath him, loved how much he was making her feel-how much she was making him feel. Even in the midst of the heady throes of passion Edward realized that this was more, so much more than just sex. Had Daphne realized that six years ago? Had she known that there was something between them?
He’d waited too long to come back…
…Edward hilted himself inside Daphne’s body savagely. No! He couldn’t think that-he couldn’t have been wrong!
“Edward!” Daphne’s keening scream of his name alerted him to just how perilously close she was to the edge of her endurance. He pulled back, just barely inside her. Edward twined Daphne’s leg around his waist, doggedly intent on bringing her to completion before himself. He surged forwards, sliding inside her wet, dripping channel and striking bluntly against her.
Daphne’s response was immediate. Her most intimate muscles began to tighten.
“Come for me,” Edward puffed, and the coil of tension winding inside his wife’s body finally snapped.
She climaxed violently.
Edward was amazed by the strength of her little frame; she lifted them both off of the mattress as her body convulsed. His own body shuddered in response, and then he finally, completely, let himself go, taking his wife with almost animal ferocity as Daphne continued to spasm and gasp.
Edward’s control had been worn so thin beforehand that it only took a handful of further thrusts before he joined his wife in blinding bliss.
Chapter 13
Once his body was empty, exhaustion hit Edward like a runaway horse. His arms and legs flatly refused to hold his weight any longer, and he collapsed atop his wife in damp, breathless heap. Daphne still seemed rather too mindless with pleasure to complain, so Edward lay where he was and savored the forgotten feeling of pure peace and satisfaction.
His. She was his. Edward couldn’t quite account for the relief he felt when that fact worked its way through the hazy of pleasure enfolding his brain, at least, he couldn’t account for the enormity of his relief at any rate. Perhaps he should have been gentler? Next time Edward silently promised that he would be, but nothing that they had done had felt wrong, it had all felt quite spectacularly right.
He finally managed to lift his crushing weight off Daphne’s little body, holding himself up on his elbows and knees, so that he was able to look down into his wife’s face. She looked… he wasn’t entirely sure, and a sudden flare of panic flooded through Edward veins as he feared that perhaps he’d misread her cries and whimpers.
“Daff?” he choked. “Did I hurt you?”
Edward watched closely as Daphne’s already flushed face darkened to an even deeper shade of red. Her eyelashes fluttered quickly before she seemed able to muster the ability to answer.
“Oh no-that is-only for a moment, and then it felt so-so-” she stammered almost incoherently, finally running out of words, and breath. The heave of her naked bosom caused twinges in parts of Edward’s body that he thought had been thoroughly exhausted.
“Yes?” he purred wickedly, scooting his hands under Daphne’s bottom and maintaining the fragile bond that still existed between them.
“Y-yes what?” Daphne stuttered. Whether because of his question, or the fact that he was swirling his tongue around the shell of her ear, Edward wasn’t entirely sure, but he felt the already engorged muscles of Daphne’s sheath quiver, and another jolt of pleasure shivered through his groin.
This wasn’t possible, not so soon! But as he slowly kissed his wife, languidly thrusting his tongue between her lips in a slow, almost lazy, fashion, Edward could feel his body stirring all over again.
“Daphne,” he hissed, gently rocking his hips as his wife gasped in surprise. She had to be almost painfully sensitive, so he moved slowly, loving her with a tender intensity.
“Edward,” she sighed, her voice a mingled strain of wonder and pleasure, as she dared to wrap her legs around his body. He captured her lips and rewarded her with a kiss as their bodies moved together again.
Edward made sure he collapsed to the side of his wife this time; he couldn’t imagine moving any time soon. He fell in a tangle of limbs face down on the mattress, making a muffled murmur of protest when Daphne tried to wriggle away.
“Where you going?” he grunted, holding her tight against his side.
“Y-you want me to stay?”
“S’your bed,” Edward yawned.
“Oh! Yes, but-”
“And I want you to stay,” he clarified firmly, cracking an eye open and trying to impress on her just how much he wanted her to stay.
“All right then,” Daphne whispered, unable to keep a smile off her lips.
Edward gave a low grunt of approval and then his eyes fell shut. His wife however, could not follow suit. She drew a deep breath and then snuggled down beside her husband, staring adoringly at his exhausted face. Her body tingled and ached, there was an intimate soreness burning between her legs, but in all honesty, Daphne didn’t think that she had ever felt better.
She felt complete, in a way that she never had before. Edward had made her whole again. She played everything over in her mind, replaying the whole delicious experience as her skin flushed and burned at the wicked memories. She had never imagined that it would feel like that! That when Edward was inside her she would scarcely be able to breathe for the friction of pleasure that he wrought upon her!
Daphne shivered b
reathlessly and nestled closer to her husband. He looked to be sound asleep, so she reached out a tentative hand and lightly traced the hard line of his jaw. It was slightly scratchy to the touch, dark with a shadow of stubble that Daphne could just about make out in the dimly lit room. Her fingers moved to whisper over the full, lush curve of his mouth, and then Daphne couldn’t resist the urge to lean even closer and dot her lips against his own. He was asleep after all, what would it hurt?
“Oh Edward, don’t make me love you again,” she whispered, the words spilling out of her mouth before she had even thought about what she was saying. She loved him still. It was silly to pretend otherwise. But her love was like a perfectly pressed flower, only a memory of something that had once been beautiful, and now Edward was threatening to bring it back to life, wakening the sap and unfurling the petals.
Daphne pressed a second kiss against Edward’s lips and then nestled down in the pillows, her tired, sated state finally catching up with her. It took only a few minutes for her breathing to lapse into the heavy, steady rhythm of slumber, so Daphne did not see when two pinpricks of pale green cracked open beside her.
Chapter 14
“Daphne! DAPHNE!”
Daphne awoke with a start and a small scream of surprise. She blinked, completely disoriented for a moment, and then gasped as she caught sight of the profile of her naked husband. He was pulling on his trousers from the evening before.
“What are the chances of your brother not fighting his way past every servant in the house to reach your bedroom and kill your husband?” he asked dryly, reaching for his shirt.
“DAPHNE!!!” The bellowing voice shook the house again.
“M-my-?” Daphne stammered, still groggy from sleep, and well… waking up to the sight of a naked Edward was hardly conducive to rational thought, but then it struck her. “Anthony?” she whimpered, ducking under the bedcovers.
She thought she heard Edward mutter something that sounded suspiciously like ‘and I hadn’t planned to let you leave this room for a fortnight,’ however, he was somewhat drowned out by the sound of the bedroom door virtually crashing off its hinges as it was slammed open.
There was a beat of silence. Daphne forced herself to peek over the covers, wide-eyed, at her red-faced brother. Then she ducked back down and winced as Anthony saw her and his temper erupted.
“SO IT’S TRUE!” he bellowed, snarling at Edward, and looking as though he wanted nothing so much as to launch himself across the room and tear his sister’s husband limb from limb.
“Anthony,” Edward said, and Daphne had to marvel at how incredibly calm his voice sounded. “You don’t seem too terribly pleased to see me.”
Anthony went a very nasty shade of purple, and then he really did launch himself across the room at his brother-in-law, planting a wicked right-hook smack in the centre of Edward’s face.
“Anthony!” Daphne screamed.
Edward hadn’t lifted a finger in his own defense. Daphne almost moved to get out of bed and run to his side, fortunately she remembered her state of undress just in time, however, and stopped herself.
“Get out!” she shrieked at her brother, who, while still looking as though he wanted to kill Edward, was managing to restrain himself from landing a second blow. “Anthony, I mean it-!”
“God damn it, Daff!” Anthony swore, not caring that his sister was a lady. “I can’t believe you’re defending this man after he-”
“I’m not-not really,” she mumbled, although to her shame she would have liked to. “But I would like you out of my bedroom!” she cried hotly. From the stunned, and then embarrassed, look on Anthony’s face he’d just realized that his sister was-was- well, in a state of undress.
“I’ll wait downstairs,” he muttered swiftly. To which Daphne gave a swift, curt nod. But then Anthony reached for Edward, who was gingerly rubbing his left eye, and grabbed his open shirt collar. “We’ll wait downstairs,” he growled the amendment.
“Anthony no! If you lay another finger on him I’ll-”
“Daphne, it’s fine,” Edward interjected, his still calm, even voice so totally at odds with the siblings’ furious and erratic exchanges.
“Oh! But-” Daphne blurted uncertainly. She really didn’t want to let both men out of her sight. She had never seen her brother so angry before… well, maybe once before…
“It’s all right, Daff,” Edward promised her softly. The used of her pet name earned him a look of true loathing from Anthony, while the half of Edward’s mouth that wasn’t battered and bruised quirked in a wry smile. “I can handle your brother,” he murmured.
“I heard that Coventry!” Anthony barked.
“Anthony!” Daphne said sharply. Her brother was completely unable to look in her direction, but he did a valiant job of scowling at the foot of the bed. “If you hurt him again I’ll never forgive you. And you-” she turned her attention to Edward, who stared back at her quite unashamedly, in fact Daphne tightened her grip on the sheets; his gaze was so smoldering. “If you let him hit you again I’ll-”
“He didn’t let me hit him!” Anthony railed.
“That’s rubbish and you know it,” Daphne snapped. “And now, you may get out of my room!”
Edward rubbed his jaw. He had forgotten what a powerful punch Anthony could throw; had he remembered that little detail, he might not have been quite so quick to play the martyr. He followed after Anthony, who blazed his way down to the study – almost as if he knew the way better than Edward himself.
He probably did, Edward reflected. Hadn’t Daphne said that Anthony helped out with the estate? Hell, he had probably worked from the Everton’s study in the past!
Once they were inside the dark wooden room, Anthony rounded on Edward again.
“What the bloody hell are you doing here, Coventry?” he snarled, slamming his fist against the top of the desk that dominated the room.
He seemed to need to punch something, and Edward would have been an idiot not to be relieved that Anthony had chosen to take his anger out on the furniture and not his face.
“This is my home, Anthony,” he said slowly. “I live here.”
“No,” Anthony barked. “This may be your house, but it is not your home,” he reasoned fiercely. “It’s Daphne’s home, it was William’s home, but not yours,” he shook his head vigorously.
“What’s your point, Anthony?” Edward frowned darkly.
“Why did you come back?” the other man asked bluntly. “Why now?” he growled, and Edward knew that he wouldn’t get away with a lie. Besides, didn’t he owe Anthony, the man who had once been his very dearest friend, the truth?
“I have an earldom to take care of now,” he replied, with equal bluntness. He listened to his former friend curse beneath his breath.
“And Daphne?” he demanded furiously. “You’ve had a wife to take care of for the last six years! Didn’t that ever enter into any of your equations, Edward?” Anthony demanded, in the rawness of his anger he reverted to Edward’s name for the first time that morning.
“It’s hard to-”
“You know what’s hard?” Anthony interrupted. “Watching helplessly as your baby sister slowly self-destructs. You destroyed her, Edward,” he hissed. “You ran away like a damned coward, but I had to stay here and watch as she was slowly torn apart.” Edward turned away, unable to meet Anthony’s gaze. He stared out of the window as he tried to master his emotions. “You know, at first, every time a carriage would pass by, her face would light up because she hoped it might be you,” Anthony murmured. “Every time she’d go out in public the whispers would follow her and I watched as she retreated further and further inside herself. I-”
“What is your point, Hargreaves?” Edward interrupted raggedly.
“I won’t let you break her again,” Anthony said with a dogged shake of his head. “If I have to take her away from you, God help me, I will.”
“Daphne is my wife!” Edward roared, as real panic rose in his chest.
Anthony’s expression was black. “And don’t I curse the day that I forced you down the aisle instead of shooting you through the heart.”
“Anthony, that’s enough,” said a small voice by the door.
Edward turned to see Daphne standing just inside the study, dressed in a pale blue day dress, her hair was swept back from her face simply, not appearing to adhere to any particular style. She must have rushed down to join them. He hadn’t heard her enter the study, but that was hardly surprising given the row that he and Anthony had been making; given the look on the other man’s face, Edward assumed his brother-in-law hadn’t heard Daphne come into the room either.
“Have your things collected,” he barked at his sister. “We’re leaving.”
“We’re what?” Daphne gasped, looking horrified, but she was rather drowned out by Edward’s roar: “SHE IS NOT!”
“Anthony, please?” Daphne implored, stepping forward pleadingly. “Don’t do this,” she begged.
“He has no right to do this!” Edward snarled, glaring at Daphne in obvious disapproval of the way that she was pandering to her brother. “He can’t do this! You’re my wife! You belong here with me!”
“Just as you’ve belonged here with Daphne for the past six years?” Anthony spat.
Edward clenched his jaw, hard, not knowing how to respond to that charge again, especially not with Daphne right there in the room with them.
“Anthony,” said Daphne, in a quiet little voice. She looked down at her hands as she spoke hesitantly. “You were going to stay here with me for the weekend anyway, weren’t you? Why don’t you stay as planned, that way you can see that Edward isn’t… mistreating me?”
Edward balled his fists. Why did it hurt so much that Daphne wasn’t instantly and whole heartedly taking his side over Anthony’s? But then… what had he ever done to earn her loyalty? He’d given her one night of passion and lust… a night that had maybe been tinged with something that Edward wasn’t ready to examine. Anthony, on the other hand, had stood by Daphne through everything.
Just One Kiss Page 9
