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“Is this…” she said. “Is this how we’re going to do this?”
“Like this,” he told her, and fitted his c**k against her sex. “Exactly like this. Slowly. Tell me if it hurts, and we’ll give it time.”
She nodded. “I had thought it would be different.”
“This way, I can watch you,” he said. “And if I’m on top of you, I can’t use my hands.”
“Oh.”
“I very much want to use my hands.”
“Oh.” That was said in the back of her throat, at almost a purr. He felt it in the base of his cock.
So he used his hands, sliding his fingers between her legs, testing the slickness of her. She was ready and aroused; he rubbed the head of his c**k in her juices, luxuriating in the feel of her. When she moaned and lifted her hips to him, he slid an inch into her. God, she was so tight around him. The feel of her body, warm and wet around his, pressing all around him, was the second sweetest thing he’d ever experienced. The look in her eyes—that starry, trusting look—was the sweetest.
“All right?” he asked.
“Better than all right.” She smiled at him.
He slid in another inch. She felt good, so good. “Lovely weather we had today.”
She laughed. “The weather? Are we really talking about the weather? Now?”
“I told you. I want to be in complete control. We can talk about the weather, or I could think about how amazing it feels to sink my c**k into you.” God, she felt so good. Better than anything he had imagined. “And then it will all be over too fast.”
“So it would ruin everything if I talked about how this felt?” she asked. “About how delicious it is to run my hands along your shoulders. How much I want your thighs against mine. I could tell you that I’m still sensitive everywhere from what you did before, and that you’re driving me mad, going as slowly as you are.”
“Free.” His c**k pulsed in protest.
“You keep acting as if I will break.” She smiled up at him. “Here’s a secret.”
He dropped his head to hers.
“I plan to do just that,” she whispered. “To break in pieces, and I insist on having your help in getting there.”
It was too much for him. He took hold of her hips and slid all the way in, seating himself deep inside her. She made a noise deep in her throat, and he was lost. Lost in the feel of her, lost in the certainty of her. He slid out and then in. He’d thought of claiming her, but it didn’t feel that way at all. He was the one driving into her, but it was her touch on his face that undid him. He set the pace, but her muscles tightened around him, squeezing him, and he lost any control he’d had. He took her hard and unrelenting, no sweet words, no pauses to make certain that she was well.
But he didn’t need her to tell him in words. He could hear it in her breath, feel it as he brought his hand between them, found that sensitive nub he’d worried earlier. She was gasping now. He brought up his right hand—still gloved—and found her breast. Her nipple was hard against his touch; she threw her head back.
More. More. She needed more, and he gave her all of him, every thrust, every breath, every last caress, until she convulsed around him again. And then he gave her everything in return, spilling into her, his mind turning to nothing but light, nothing but her.
Breath returned first as his body calmed. Then, slowly, his thoughts returned, one by one, like reluctant fowl returning to the hen house. He needed her. He adored her. And when she found out who he was, she was going to hate him.
He pulled away from her heavily. She swung her legs onto the bed, reached out, caught his hand. And before he knew it, she’d pulled her back to him. Her lips brushed his collarbone, his neck. His mouth. He had no choice in the matter. He had to kiss her.
The sun had set by now, and early moonlight spilled across her face, across that lovely, delicious smile that he’d won from her. She reached out and tangled the fingers of her right hand with his left.
“Edward.”
He savored the caress in her voice, that lilting lovely tone of satisfaction. Maybe he’d have a chance after all—maybe, if he could make her smile like that again…
“Darling Free.”
“I have a question.”
He felt every muscle in his body come alert, his shoulders going rigid. No. Foolish. There was no chance. He stopped breathing. God, Free. We could have waited until morning to destroy everything.
“Yes?” he managed. The word came out roughly.
“You don’t have to answer—not if you’re not ready. But why do you always wear a glove on your right hand? You didn’t even take it off tonight.”
Not the question he’d feared. Thank God, not that one. He was so relieved, he was even willing to answer her. He didn’t say anything at all; he simply removed his right glove and held out his hand to her. In the moonlight, it was all too obvious that his two smallest fingers had been cut off at the knuckle.
She inhaled sharply. And then she took his right hand in hers.
“What happened?”
“It was after Strasbourg had surrendered. I’d been sent back to occupied Colmar—that was the village where the blacksmith who had taken me in lived. At that pointed, I only wanted to return home, but now the path back to England led through a foreign army. With no funds and no access to official channels, my choices were limited. So I did the only thing that seemed reasonable at the time.” So long as he said the words, and didn’t think of what they meant, it would all turn out right. “I forged myself safe-conduct papers and a letter of credit.”
Her fingers were warm against his.
“I tried to use the letter of credit first. But the banker—a man named Soames—realized it was a forgery.”
She inhaled.
“But he didn’t turn me in. You see, he was ambitious. He realized that it would be more useful to have his own personal forger than a worthless Englishman subject to martial law in the midst of an occupation. So instead, he used me.”
“He blackmailed you?” But Free’s voice was uncertain, and her fingers, gentle against his, suggested that she knew that wasn’t the case.
Edward let out a long breath. “The first man he wanted me to betray? Blackmail wouldn’t have worked. I didn’t lose my fingers in an accident, sweetheart. I lost them slowly, over the course of two weeks. The fingers weren’t even the worst part. He only started on those after he’d near-drowned me a half-dozen times.”
