The ball in his throat protruded, a clear sign of an internal war waging. When he turned to face me, the conflict was gone from him.
“I left because I thought I was falling in love with you,” he said, his words clear, intentional, though I wasn’t sure I was hearing them right. But when his eyes made it to mine, I understood everything. “I only made it this far because I realized I already had.”
That strain I’d felt in my chest for weeks lifted as though Edward’s confession had cured it. My fingers fumbled with my gloves, my tongue with my words.
“I could have gone anywhere, but the only place I wanted to be was close to you.” His tone was a rare hesitant. “So I stayed. Keeping my distance. Hoping the need to be by you would go away in time.”
My hands curled around the back of the chair in front of me. “Did it?”
His head shook. “It only grew.”
Swallowing, I gave myself a moment. A minute ago I’d been about to whack a squatter over the head with a poker, and now I was standing in front of Edward while he professed he was . . . in love with me.
“But why did you leave if you thought you . . . felt that way about me?” I asked.
“Because the thought of bringing you into my life terrifies me.”
My head tipped. “Because I wouldn’t fit in?”
He exhaled, a sad note in his eyes. “Because I’d never want you to.”
My hands dug deeper into the back of the chair. What was he trying to say? One minute he was admitting he loved me, the next that he didn’t want me to be a part of his life.
“I hear you’re supposed to marry some duchess or heiress.” My eyebrow peaked at him, my question as much a challenge as it was a test.
“That’s likely,” he answered.
My hand flew in the air. “You’d marry someone you didn’t love?”
“If it meant protecting the person I did,” he almost snapped.
“I don’t need your protection.” I glared at him, ripping off my stocking cap as the temperature in the room continued to ratchet up. “I can protect myself.”
A sharp sound came from him. “The fact that you wandered out here alone and took it upon yourself to confront some unknown occupant proves, quite adamantly, otherwise.”
“I definitely don’t need your mockery either,” I barked back.
His attention drifted a few inches north, his mouth moving as though he were fighting a smile. I patted my hair to find half of it sticking up from static electricity.
“Then what do you need, Charlotte Everly?” he asked, his voice filling the entire space of my childhood home.
I caught myself before I said it. Automatically. Honestly. When I tried to swallow it down, the word got stuck in my throat, refusing to be buried.
My shoulders relaxed, the fight over. “You. I just need you.”
He tossed a fresh log in the fire. “No side agenda tied to that? You don’t need me to be the friend you ask to groom you for some other man? You don’t need me to be the distraction or the backup or the alternate?”
I came around the chair, blinking at him with surprise that it hadn’t been more obvious. “It might have started out like that.” I stopped once only a few feet of space was between us. “But that changed the moment you kissed me.”
His smile curved higher on one side as he closed the distance between us. “I’ve been enamored with you from the moment you cracked me over the head with kitchenware.”
“Seriously. That moment?”
His fingers brushed across mine, our little fingers tangling. “I’m not sure what that says about me or you, and any relationship we could hope to have is likely doomed, but I do love you, Charlotte Everly. And at least once, I wanted you to hear that.”
“We are not doomed,” I replied, almost petulantly.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you say it or how much conviction you say it with, it won’t change the future if we allow ourselves to go down this road.” Even as he issued his warning, he drew closer.
“We can keep this, us a secret. At least through the winter, which will give us time to figure out what to do after.”
His resolve was folding; I felt it shattering in the foot of space that separated us. “We won’t be able to keep it a secret for long.”
My second coat rustled against him as I pressed closer. “We can keep it for tonight.”
His hand caught mine as it lifted toward his face. “I fear your expectations of who you think I am vastly overshadow the reality of who I truly am.” His throat moved. “I am nobility in title alone. The rest of me is a flawed, fragmented man.”
When I wound my hand free of his hold, he didn’t stop me when I reached for his face this time. “I don’t want to be with Edward, heir to the throne. I don’t want to be with the prince.” My palm curved around his jaw. “Tonight, I just want to be with you.”
Edward’s hands lifted to my waist, at first feeling as though they were keeping me at bay. A moment later, they were drawing me closer. “And tonight I want to be with the woman I love.” His forehead lowered to mine. “Tomorrow morning, we can decide what comes next.”
The instant my head moved to nod, he picked me up, his mouth connecting with mine. He somehow managed to hang on to me despite my extra layers and my slippery snow pants, guiding us out of the living room into the hallway.
When he started to carry me inside the first door, I pulled away, breathless. “That was my parents’ old bedroom.”
I glimpsed inside. Not much had changed, from the layout of the furniture to the color of the comforter on the bed. Hard pass.
Edward quickly moved on to the next room, which appeared to be the one he’d been sleeping in.
“This one was my old room,” I protested, grabbing the doorway when he charged inside.
One dark brow lifted at me. “Then it’s perfect.”
“My room as in nursery through the third grade,” I said, blinking at him. “Not so hot now, is it?”
He frowned, backing out of the room. Turning to continue down the hall, he stopped. There were no more rooms.
“Where are you going?” I asked, as he retraced our steps.
“Do you have any objections to the living room?” he asking, waiting for my answer.
I thought about my childhood memories, not finding any that would steer me away from what we were about to do. “No. Just so long as we’re not on the sofa. Or my dad’s old favorite chair.” My forehead creased when I realized that eliminated all furniture options save for a couple of arm tables.
“That leaves the floor.” Edward’s eyes dropped to the hardwood, the corners of his eyes creasing. He set me down and turned to the closet. “Blankets.”
“Padding? That’s what’s on your mind right now?” I asked, watching him dig several blankets out of the closet.
“Taking care of you, that’s what I’m thinking about.”
My heart trilled faster when he carried me back to the fireplace, dropping the blankets on the floor before setting me down. Edward spread out the blankets one at a time while I wrestled with my coat. God, I was about to have sex for the first time with a prince and I was dressed like I was ready for a championship snowball fight.
“Should we turn out the lights?” I asked.
His hand grabbed mine when I reached for the floor lamp. “Leave them on. I want to see you.”
A tightness settled around my throat. “You can still see me with the light from the fireplace. And that kind of light is much more flattering. And forgiving.”
Edward tied my hand behind my back, backing me away from the lamp. “Did you forget that I’ve already seen you naked? With the lights on?”
“No, but that was different.”
“How was it different?”
“That was when we still had the agreement between us, when you were doing me a favor, helping me. But now this is for real and I still have zero experience with sex and I’m this close to freaking out.” I pinched my fi
ngers in front of his face in demonstration, reminding myself to breathe.
It was just sex, right? People did it every day. It didn’t require any special training or licenses or permits; a person just did it.
But how did a person just do it when they had no experience to guide them? Because all of that tangling, rolling, touching, kissing naked thing did not seem like something that came naturally. When Edward kissed me so sweetly, I felt a flutter in my stomach. I felt myself relaxing.
“You’ll be amazing. Trust me.”
“I might have the potential to be amazing with years of practice, but I’m terrified I’m going to be a disappointment of cataclysmic proportions.” I blew out a breath, kicking off my boots as I unsnapped my snow pants. I might have been terrified of doing this, but I was more terrified of not.
Edward tugged his sweater over his head, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it across the room. “To ease any doubts you might have about disappointing me, let me assure you that you could do nothing that would make sex with you anything but a temporary foray into paradise.”
“Says the man who hasn’t had sex with me yet,” I muttered, wrestling out my snow pants and nearly falling over. I wasn’t even capable of undressing sexily.
“Ask me after then. My answer won’t change.” His eyes held mine as he took off his undershirt.
Half-naked Edward had me fumbling with my jeans, my fingers not seeming to remember how to work a zipper. His skin shone from the light from the fire, his muscles seeming to undulate from the shadows.
He backed up a couple of steps, watching as I peeled off my jeans. His mouth quirked. “How many more layers to go?”
I tossed my jeans into the abandoned clothing pile. “One.”
I slipped out of my thermal underwear, thanking the spirits in the sky that I’d performed my weekly winter shaving schedule this morning. The amusement faded from his face now that my fifty layers of pants were gone, the muscles in his forearms tensing as I reached for my shirts. Gripping all three layers, I worked them up my stomach at the same time. Edward looked like he’d stopped breathing. My top layers landed beside my bottom ones, my skin prickling with goose bumps, though more from the way he was looking at me than the cool air.
His lips parted when I reached behind to unhook my bra. He worked at his belt after I slid my bra off.
“Let me,” I asked, replacing his hands with mine, managing to unhook the belt despite the way my fingers were trembling.
His hands found me, one resting on my hip, the other smoothing beneath my breasts, making my breathing shake as well.
“I can barely stay upright with you touching me like that, much less manipulate a zipper.” My back arched when his hand fully enveloped one of my breasts, slowly applying pressure. “How is that supposed to make me undressing you any easier?”
His grip slackened for a moment before tightening again. “It’s not. I want you to take your time. I like feelings your hands at my zipper.”
With the way he was massaging my breast, coupled with the words he was whispering, I felt something pulsing between my legs. Doubt was waning, confidence growing. Giving up on the zipper, I slipped my hand inside his pants, enveloping him firmly in my palm. He flinched, the look on his face telling he hadn’t been expecting that.
“You’re not smirking anymore,” I said, letting my hand slide up and down him several times, until the veins in his neck showed. I’d never touched a man like this. I’d never felt his want in the softness of my hand, but damn, I liked it.
My head felt fuzzy, need overtaking everything else. When Edward recovered a few seconds later, his breath returning as he adjusted to the feel of my hand around him, his hand dipped inside my underwear.
“Damn,” he gritted, his finger barely pushing inside me.
“What’s the matter?” My voice broke when he moved a little deeper.
“You’re so . . .” His finger pulled out of me. “You’re such a virgin.”
My thumb smoothed over him, making the muscles in his shoulders twitch. “You make it sound so derogatory.”
“For you, your first time, it might be.” His hand pulled back some, his wet fingers smoothing under my panties. “For me, there’s nothing in this life or the next that could compare to the feeling I’ll experience being your first.”
His finger rubbed against me at the same time his hand on my breast caught my nipple between two fingers. A whoosh of air escaped past my lips.
“What are you doing?” My arms had to wind behind his neck in order to keep myself from falling as the feeling grew between my legs.
Edward’s head dropped beside mine as his fingers made quick work of the pleasure building inside my body. “Making you come.”
“Don’t we do that together?” My hand got back to stroking him, lightly on the way up, firmly on the way down.
His finger moved faster until my vision hazed. “Believe me, I have every intention of watching you come below me at the same time I’m losing myself inside you.” He pinched my nipple harder, until he’d drawn a gasp. “But to make that happen, I need to relax you a little first.”
My head lolled back, his words triggering my orgasm. I was used to Edward speaking with such distinction and formality. Hearing him grit intimate words into my ear came as a big, albeit welcome, surprise.
My body rocked against his as my orgasm surged through me, a sound I didn’t recognize coming from my mouth. As my euphoria was coming to an end, my muscles turning into gel, Edward flicked my nipple, and I felt as though I was riding the crest of my orgasm once more.
His arms wound behind my back just in time, before I collapsed to the floor in an exhausted mess.
“Charlotte?” Edward husked through a clenched jaw. “I need you to let go of me.”
“Why?” I asked, my vision clearing.
“If you don’t, I’m going to come in your hand.” A ragged exhale spilled past his lips. “And I want to be inside you the first time I come.”
Letting him go, I slid my hand from his pants while he lowered me carefully onto the blankets he’d laid in front of the fireplace. Standing above me, he finished unzipping his pants, watching me the entire time he undressed. My gaze diverted once he’d freed himself of the rest of his clothing, my stomach knotting when my eyes got to explore what my hand just had. I wasn’t sure how or if he could fit that inside me, but I’d spend all night getting creative if need be.
“So when all you guys talk about measuring dicks . . .”
Edward grabbed himself, staring at me with a gleam in his eyes that made me squirm. “I win.”
Sitting up on my elbows, I let my legs fall open. A low sound emanated in his chest before he lowered himself to the floor, crawling over me, his eyes more feral than man, all dark pupil and need.
Bracing himself above me, he dropped his mouth to my ear. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life.” Traces of the Edward I knew outside the confines of desire were present in his voice. “But even more than that, I don’t want to hurt you. We’ll try. I’ll go slow. I’ll stop if need be. But I will not cause you pain.” His chin grazed my neck, sending shivers down my spine.
My head angled toward his, eyes finding his. Kissing him, I rocked my hips into his, aligning his body to mine. “Edward?”
His neck stiffened when he felt my wetness against him, followed by the pressure that followed when I pushed against him. “Yes?”
My fingers trailed down his spine, then I ground against him deeper, until I felt him straining at my opening. “I trust you.”
His head rose above mine, his arms bracing beside my head. “You keep saying that.”
A tremor rocked down my body. “Because you keep proving it.”
Edward’s jaw ground right before his hips flexed against mine, pushing himself a little deeper inside. My hands clenched and my body writhed. Edward stopped, giving me time to adjust to the pressure, the pain, all of it.
I felt sweat dotting
my skin, thanks to the warmth from the fire and heat from within. When pain had seceded to pleasure, my body relaxed and my eyes opened into his.
“Please,” I whispered. I kissed his bottom lip, sucking it gently.
Edward adjusted above me, twitching his hips, burying further inside me. When my head fell back, a sound coming from my mouth, he stopped.
“Don’t stop.” I curled my hands around the caps of his shoulders, bracing myself. “I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re in pain.” The muscles beneath his shoulders tensed as his hand slid between us, rubbing my clit again and sending a wave of relaxation through my body.
“You’re mistaking pain for ecstasy. They look the same during sex. I swear.”
His finger traced the shape of my face. “How would you know?”
Wiggling beneath him, I quickly discovered he wasn’t going to budge until I answered him. “The great destroyer of morality also known as cable television.”
“And based on your cable television experience, how am I doing?” he asked, fighting a smile while pushing a little deeper.
My nails clawed into his back. “Well, your member definitely falls into adult channel territory, but your pillow talk is Hallmark movie sweet, and your concern is hitting Oxygen level terrain. So I’d say you’re the total package. Metaphorically speaking.” My mouth fell open as he sank deeper. “Well, and literally speaking too.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“Do.”
My head moved as he pushed deeper until our bodies were fully joined. My nails were digging into his skin, my ribs feeling as though they would crack from the way my heart was thundering.
“Does it hurt?” His voice was nearly unrecognizable.
My body relaxed, adjusting to the sensation of him filling me. “Not bad. Only a little. How about you?”
“Right now, I’d make any deal with the devil he set in front of me, including exchanging my eternity, for thirty seconds of this.” He nipped at my neck, making me tighten around him. A sound that was animal in nature came from deep in his throat.
He moved inside me, taking his time, though it was obvious from the veins pressing through his skin that it took everything he had to show such restraint. His eyes squeezed shut, a ragged breath shuddering through his body.
Glass Castle Prince Page 17