by Geneva Lee
“I need you in my fucking mouth,” I growled, cruising my lips down her neck to dip between the valley of her collarbone. My hand slid behind her, unclasping her bra with one smooth motion to free her swollen breasts. This wasn’t like the last time. Belle arched into the contact, offering more of herself with each touch. The message was clear. We were here, and that was all that mattered. I coasted to her nipple, swirling my tongue around its furl until it plumped into a hard pebble, then I nipped it ever so slightly. One tiny drop of milk beaded across it and Belle’s eyes widened with sudden embarrassment. Not breaking eye contact, I swiped my tongue along the top of it. Then I licked my lips.
"How many times do I have to tell you?” I rasped. “I want all of you. You taste so fucking sweet, beautiful.”
I continued down, kissing along the soft skin of her belly. She was softer now, more womanly. My hands sank ever so slightly into the dip of her hips. I didn’t think she could be even more of a wet dream, and yet here I was wanting her more tonight than ever before. I hooked my fingers around the waistband of her trousers, drawing them down slowly, allowing my mouth to follow as I revealed more and more of her pale skin. When I reached her knees, I shoved the pants to her ankles, not bothering to remove them either. I didn’t have time to find a rope and tie her up, but I needed her at my mercy any way I could get her. I planted my palms on the inside of her thighs and spread her wide open. Brushing my nose along the lace covering her pussy, I breathed in deeply. “This is my favorite scent in the entire world. And you know the best part?”
My eyes drifted up to find her watching me, her neck craned as she bit her lower lip with expectation. There was an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
“It tastes even better,” I growled. Shoving the lace to the side, I buried my mouth in her pussy, parting her roughly with my tongue so that I could sweep its tip along the slick heat of her seam. When I reached the swollen knot of her clit, I kissed it softly before tugging it between my teeth.
“Oh my God!” Belle cried.
I pulled back ever so slightly, still close enough that my breath tickled across the engorged flesh. “That’s not my name, beautiful.”
"Oh my sir!” She moaned, her hips bucking closer to me.
I shifted on to my heels, hooking my arms around her thighs and yanking her pussy to my face. My hands splayed across her stomach pinning her to the edge of the bed as I devoured her. She’d been ready for me. She always was, and seconds later, she unspooled over my tongue, her thighs clamping against the sides of my face. But I didn’t stop. I sucked harder, took more, needing to prove that I could push her over the edge as many times as I wanted—as many times as she could take.
Her body writhed against the point where I held her captive to the bed, but I continued the onslaught. She wanted me to be a man. This is what a man did. The only thing he took from a woman was the pride of giving her pleasure. He took her, but only to see the beauty of her unraveling. A real man knew the size of his cock didn’t matter nearly as much as what he could do with it—and right now, I was only working with my mouth.
“Please,” she panted, but I still didn’t stop. “Please, sir, fuck me”
I kept going, enjoying how she begged, knowing she was torn between this pleasure and the other kinds I might give her. I waited until her pleas were nothing more than inaudible moans and groans of pleasure, punctuated by the occasional sir or the even rarer please. I knew what she wanted, but I could give her more than that. When nothing coming from her made sense anymore, I pushed her onto the bed, her feet still dangling off the edge and stood. Unbuttoning my trousers, I let them fall to my ankles. Stepping forward, I pinned her pants to the floor before reaching down to hoist her thighs around my waist. They popped off at her ankles, leaving her bare save for the scrap of lace still shoved to the side of her pussy. I didn’t bother with it. Instead, I lined my dick up until its head was poised at her warm entrance. Belle had dissolved into something primitive, mewling and thrashing with her eyes still closed tightly and her fingers gripping fisting into her sweater.
“Is this what you need, beautiful?" I nudged forward, her soft folds parting around my wide crest. She groaned, desperately circling her hips. “I didn’t understand you.”
She whimpered, following it with a soft please.
“What?” I repeated, growing painfully aware of the blood rushing to my dick with each second I stayed there, so close to being inside her.
I could see the effort it took her to form the words. As they found their way to her lips, she peeked at me from beneath her long, black lashes. “Please, sir.”
Fuck. She could have all of me. I plunged into her and she vaulted off the bed from the impact, an unearthly cry rending the air around us. She was so wet, so ready. “You feel fucking amazing, beautiful. I loved feeling you come on my tongue, but now I need to see you come on my cock. You want it, don’t you?”
“Please, give it to me. Please, give it to me…sir,” she added breathlessly.
“Take it from me,” I grunted. “Let your pussy take what’s yours.”
Belle splintered at my words, and I felt her contracting over my shaft, urging my climax from me over and over until I unloaded inside her, marking her as my own again. When the last of my pleasure had been drank by her insatiable pussy, I lowered her to the bed and laid down next to her.
"I love you, beautiful,” I whispered. “No matter what. Forever.”
“Even when I don’t deserve it?” she whispered.
“You have all of me. You never have to prove anything to me.”
“You’ve given me everything, and I’ve—”
“That reminds me,” I cut her off before she could say something bad about herself again. Maybe I didn’t need to prove her wrong. Maybe I only needed to remind her of the promises we’d made it to each other. I sat up and yanked my trousers over my spent cock. Then I walked over to the closet and found her silk robe.
Belle laid on the bed, blinking dreamily at me. “You usually don’t want to cover me up so quickly.”
"We have company,” I reminded her. “If it were up to me, I’d make you walk around here naked all the time.”
“Now that would shock Mrs. Winters,” she teased, slowly propping herself up on one elbow.
I took her hands and pulled her onto her feet before helping her into the robe. Instead of heading toward the door to the hallway, I walked to the French doors that led to a small balcony we’d ignored until this point. When we first viewed the house, we’d talked about taking our breakfast here in the mornings. But it had hardly been a priority to see to the spot with everything else to be done. We were always too busy to pause and take coffee or watch the sunrise. That needed to change, and we would start changing it tonight. Belle looked curiously at me as I opened the doors and led her outside. I stepped behind her, wrapping my arms around her to protect against the cold, December air. Reaching up, I took her chin and tipped it to the sky. I leaned down, nuzzling my lips against her ear. “I believe I promised you the stars.”
Belle gasped as she took in the night. The sky was cloudless, neverending black cloth, punctured by bright spots of light forming constellations over our heads. Here, away from the city and our past, we can see the stars clearly again. We just had to remember to look.
24
Belle
That night, Penny slept a blissful five straight hours in her bassinet. When she cried out for an early-morning nursing, I rolled over feeling as though I’d turned a page. Smith laid next to me and he stirred when he heard her, opening one bleary eye.
“Need my help?” he asked in a raspy voice that sent shivers dancing through me.
“I’ve got it,” I promised him. I pushed myself up in bed, allowing myself a moment to appreciate how much of him was on display. We had managed to sneak in more lovemaking after Penny fell asleep, and he was still nude, his dick slightly erect and visible under the thin, Egyptian cotton sheet.
Penny’s fus
sing became a more insistent cry, and I tore my eyes away for my husband to go get her. Usually, I carried her to the nursery, and sat there rocking her when she woke at dawn. This morning, I climbed back in bed, cradling her carefully in my arms as I propped myself against the headboard and brought her to nurse.
Smith rolled to his side, watching me without comment. But it was clear something was on his mind.
“Out with it, Price.”
“I was just thinking how beautiful you two are. I can’t believe we made that.” His voice held the familiar note of awe that it always did when he spoke of Penny, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, it filled me with joy. Maybe the medicine was finally working. Maybe things were getting better. Maybe the worst was behind us.
“Oh no,” I whispered, realizing that I’d been too distracted last night to think to take it. “I forget to take my pill.”
“Does that mean we get another one of these?” He asked with a smirk. “Because I’m game.”
“Not that pill,” I said dryly. Of course, if things were going in the direction they were last night, I would need to start that back up again sooner rather than later. Smith might be ready for round two, but I needed a little more time.
He mistook my thoughtfulness for something else. “We don’t have to have more.”
“What?” I asked absently. Then I realized what he meant. “Oh. No, I was thinking about something else. Although, if I’m being honest, I think we should wait a while.”
“We’ll do whatever you need,” he promised. He leaned down to brush a kiss over the downy hair on Penny’s head before doing the same to the back of my hand. “I’ll go get you medicine.”
He jumped out of bed, and I found myself admiring his tight ass as he headed into the bathroom to find it.
“Take your time,” I called. “I’m enjoying the view.”
When he brought my medication to me, he paused his hand cupping my chin to direct my eyes to his. He didn’t say anything, he just stared before turning away. But I’d seen it there—all the pain, all the uncertainty, all the hope. He’d been with me the whole time. He was as constant as the stars he’d shown me last night. I only had to remember to look and I would find him.
Everything felt new this morning. It had snowed. I discovered Edward downstairs, busily following along as Mrs. Winters barked instructions, and looking more stressed than I’d ever seen him.
“We were trying to beat you out of bed,” he said. “I wanted to make you breakfast.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I attempted to peek into the bowl he was stirring.
“I won’t let him poison you,” Mrs. Winters said seriously. Something about her tone suggested she was actually afraid he might do this. He couldn’t be that bad of a cook, could he? But just as I thought this, he followed her instruction to crack an egg into the bowl, dropping the yolk, white, and the shell.
Nevermind.
“I think I’m going to go for a walk. Smith has Penny,” I told them.
“When you come back I’ll make you your tea, and you’ll have a spot of breakfast,” Mrs. Winters said brusquely. I could never be sure if she liked me, but I couldn’t doubt that she was taking care of me. And really, what more did I need? Mrs. Winters elbowed Edward. “Why don’t you go with her, love? I’ll finish this up.”
Edward looked gutted to be dismissed from the kitchen before his coup de grace, but he followed me to the back mud room. Grabbing a spare jacket Smith kept on the hook rather than running upstairs to get his own. We trudged along the back half of the property. There was still so much of the grounds that I hadn’t explored yet. I recalled what Dr. Stanton had said about a lake. Or was it a pond? I didn’t even know.
“Which way?” Edward asked, his hands buried in his pocket and his shoulders shrugged up towards his ears to protect against the cold.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I laughed as I realized his nose was already turning red from the chill.
“Are you kidding? I love snow. About the most fun we had as kids was going to Scotland for Christmas. There was always snow and everyone was a little drunk, so we could spend all day playing. I don’t know how we all still have our fingers and toes,” he confessed.
It was one of the first times he’d spoken so lovingly of his family since he came here. Still, I didn’t want to press my luck so I let the conversation naturally segue into other topics, hoping it was a good sign that he hadn’t immediately started thinking of his troubled relationship with his brother. Sometimes love took time, I realized. Sometimes it wasn’t easy. It was important to remember that the unconditional kind—the type of love everyone wanted—didn’t mean flawless. It just meant it was worth it.
“I think there’s a shed back around here somewhere or maybe it’s a horse barn. I don’t know I lost track of all the outbuildings,” I admitted to him.
“You’ve been hanging around my family too long if you can’t remember what property you own anymore,” he teased.
“I was hugely pregnant when we bought it, and Smith wouldn’t allow me to go too far out on the grounds. He was worried I’d overexert myself.”
“He didn’t seem very worried about that last night, judging from the sound of it.”
I gave him a sly grin. “You heard that, huh?”
“They heard that in London, honey,” he told me. “I’m just glad you two are working through it.”
“I think we have you to thank for that,” I said. Edward had come along at just the right time. Maybe it was coincidence, maybe my medication was finally starting to take effect, but I couldn’t help but feel lighter with him here. He was a reminder of everything that we’d left behind in London. As long as he was here, everything would be okay.
“You think there’s a sled in these stables?” he asked.
“It’s worth looking.”
But we’d only gotten a few meters away, when Rowan came trudging up from the grounds, a large shovel in his hands.
“Where are you two going?” he asked, coming to a stop.
I hadn’t had much contact with the groundskeeper. He spent all of his time outside, which made sense. He seemed respectful of Smith, but not very interested in people. I guess that’s why he was good with plants. But I didn’t honestly know what all he was working on. I looked at the shovel.
“Just out for a walk,” I said. “I heard there was a pond.”
“The pond is the other way, ma’am,” he said, chewing on each word. “I’m in the middle of a project this way, and I’d thank you to leave it be until I’m finished. It’s no place for a lady.”
I was temporarily stunned. I opened my mouth, about to ask him how he dared tell me where to go on my own land when Edward grabbed my hand and tugged me in the other direction
“Let’s go find that pond.”
Rowan yelled behind us. “That pond may look frozen, but it’s not been cold enough. Don’t go walking on it!”
"I had no idea he was so bossy,” I muttered to Edward, “or rude or sexist.”
“That’s not what bothered me,” Edward said shiftily. “What could he be digging right now in the snow? The ground is frozen. He can’t be planting, can he?”
“You’re the one with all the estates. I’m sure something has to be planted in winter.” I hadn’t thought of that. I’d been too busy being offended by the way he’d spoken to me.
“I’m no botanist, but this doesn’t seem like the weather for plants,” he said pointedly. We walked for another ten minutes without finding the pond Dr. Stanton had spoken of. At that point, Edward’s teeth were chattering so loudly that I took pity on him.
“Let’s go have a cup of tea,” I suggested.
“Yes, your special tea,” Edward said with emphasis, "and a spot of breakfast. I wouldn’t worry about Mrs. Winters. I think you have her wrapped around your finger regardless of how she acts. Remember, we Brits show our love in strange ways.”
“Whatever, and it’s only spe
cial tea because it helps me feed my daughter.” I stuck my tongue out at him.
“Well, aren’t you fancy?”
“Are you staying for New Year’s Eve?” I asked him thoughtfully. Getting through Christmas would be the hardest for him, but New Year’s would be a close second.
“Yes, but I plan to get very very drunk,” he told me seriously.
“Good.”
His eyes narrowed in suspicion at the lack of a lecture. “What are you up to?”
I dashed forward, before he could pepper me with more questions and ducked into the mud room, shrugging off my coat. Edward could get drunk on New Year’s. Especially since I planned to invite Tomas. With the baby at home and me nursing, I wouldn’t be able to partake in the same festivities, but that didn’t mean Edward couldn’t have a friend there. Maybe I could even invite Lola. I doubted that Alexander would let Clara make the trek, and she had a baby of her own at home. The thought filled me with sadness for a moment. Of course, she couldn’t come. They would be at Balmoral. I was lucky that I had Edward with me now. Next year, I’d have to convince Smith to go to Scotland with the rest of our friends. I suspected our prolonged absence from them had more to do with Smith’s concerns about the dangers that surrounded them than the convenience of getting back and forth to London. Seeing Edward had proven to me that wouldn’t work. I needed my friends. They were my family. I would just have to show Smith that.
I was already in the kitchen by the time Edward had gotten off his boots and left them by the door.
“Your tea is on the table.” Mrs. Winters nodded toward a porcelain teapot, steam rising from its spout, before turning to Edward. “And what will you be having, your highness?”
“Please don’t call me that,” he said grimly. “I’m just Edward.”
I couldn’t help wondering if that meant he was questioning his place in the royal family. I shook off my concern. He just needed more time.