FriendFoe? #2
Amelia retreated to her bed, lay across it, her body tense with a longing she’d experienced no matter how much she had tried to deny it.
Almost of their own volition, her hands began to wander, one sliding up to cup her breast through the thin fabric of her nightgown, the other drifting lower, beneath the hem.
Her fingers found the sensitive flesh between her thighs already slick with desire. She gasped softly at the contact, then bit her lip to stifle the sound. What was she doing? This was improper… unwise—touching herself while thinking of a man who would be gone in a year.
Yet she couldn’t stop. Her fingers moved in gentle circles, each touch sending waves of pleasure through her trembling body. In her mind, it was Charles touching her, Charles whispering her name, Charles claiming her as more than just a temporary arrangement.
A soft laugh drifted through the door. He must be reading something amusing. The sound sent an unexpected shiver down her spine, remembering how that same laugh had wrapped around the word “wife” this morning.
When she finally found release, it was his name that nearly escaped her lips—a confession swallowed back just in time as pleasure shuddered through her. She lay there afterward, breathing heavily, shame and satisfaction warring within her.
Amelia reminded herself she would not spend her nights yearning after a man who saw her as an unfit wife and mother even if he lusted after her—possible only because he didn’t know the full extent of her injury.
Even if that man was currently separated from her by nothing more than a wooden door and her own stubbornness.
“One year,” she whispered into her pillow. “Just one year.”
But in the darkness, with the faint sounds of him moving about his chamber, that year stretched before her like both a promise and a threat.
How was she supposed to maintain her emotional distance when every interaction left her more intrigued?
When even his most infuriating qualities—that aristocratic arrogance, that carefully cultivated indolence—were beginning to fascinate rather than repel?
Sleep was a long time coming, and when it did, her dreams were full of undone buttons and candlelight on bare skin, of elegant fingers and knowing smiles, of doors that remained stubbornly, maddeningly closed.
*
Charles loosened his cravat with a weary sigh, the weight of the evening finally settling on his shoulders.
The dinner with his mother had been a success by any measure—Amelia had been remarkable, holding her own against the dowager’s thinly veiled barbs with grace and wit.
He couldn’t help but admire her refusal to be intimidated by his mother’s formidable presence.
As he worked the gold buttons of his waistcoat, a flicker of movement caught his eye—a moving shadow darkening the narrow gap where the connecting door stood slightly ajar.
He paused, fingers stilling on the third button.
Amelia must be moving about in her chambers, perhaps unable to sleep after the tension of the evening.
The thought sent a thrill through him.
He continued undressing, removing his waistcoat before tackling his cufflinks. These proved particularly troublesome tonight—or perhaps his distraction made them seem so.
“Damn these infernal things,” he muttered, struggling with the intricate fastening.
Barker appeared silently at his elbow, as was his custom. “Allow me, my lord,” he said, handing him a glass of brandy and taking over the cufflink duty. “A difficult evening with the dowager marchioness requires fortification.”
Charles accepted the drink gratefully, lifting the glass to his lips as his valet made quick work of the cufflinks.
His attention drifted back to the connecting door and paused amid taking a sip of the brandy.
Someone was standing by the crack of the door.
The shadow was close and unmoving which suggested deliberate observation.
The realization that Amelia was indeed watching him—studying him in this private moment—sent a jolt of awareness through his body. His hand jerked involuntarily, the brandy glass slipping from his fingers and shattering against the hardwood floor.
“My lord,” Barker observed with a long-suffering sigh, eyeing the amber liquid pooling among the crystal shards, “at this rate, we shall need to outfit your chambers entirely in unbreakable materials. Perhaps cork floors and pewter glasses, as one might provide a particularly clumsy child.”
Despite his distraction, Charles couldn’t help but laugh.
“Your concern for my dignity is touching as always, Barker,” he said absently as his valet cleaned the floor, his attention returning to the door and its hidden observer. “That will be all for tonight.”
Barker bowed slightly as he quit the room. “Good night, my lord.”
Once alone, Charles moved toward the connecting door, wondering if Amelia had wanted something from him.
Perhaps she wished to discuss the evening, to debrief after his mother’s visit.
The shadow had disappeared, but he allowed himself to open the door a fraction wider, just enough to peer through—and froze at the sight that greeted him.
Amelia lay on her bed, her nightgown hiked up to reveal the smooth expanse of her thighs.
From his angle, he couldn’t see below her knees or above her chest, but what he could see was enough to send desire coursing through him like wildfire.
One of her hands moved beneath the bunched fabric between her thighs while the other kneaded her breast and massaged her peak.
The sounds of stifled moans and pants had his blood shooting straight to his cock.
He should close the door. He should withdraw, grant her the privacy she deserved. Yet he found himself transfixed, unable to look away as she arched her back, her hand moving in regular rhythm.
This was his Amelia—his wife. She was not the composed or prudish woman he thought she would be, but a woman of passion and liberal mind. A woman pleasuring herself, perhaps thinking of…
A soft gasp escaped her lips, and Charles felt answering heat pool in his groin. His own breath quickened as he watched her movements grow more urgent, her hips rising to meet her fingers. There was something unbearably arousing about witnessing her like this—unguarded against pleasure.
When she reached her climax, her body tensing and then shuddering in release, Charles could barely restrain a groan. He backed away from the door, pressing himself against the wall of his chamber, his arousal painful in its intensity.
Almost without conscious thought, his hand moved to his falls, freeing his straining member. With Amelia’s image still vivid in his mind—her hand between her thighs, her breast in her hand—he found his own release in quick, urgent strokes.
As the waves of pleasure subsided, Charles slid down the wall until he sat on the floor, his breathing ragged, his mind reeling with the implications of what had just transpired.
Whatever arrangement they had agreed upon, whatever distance they had tried to maintain, was clearly crumbling.
There was something building between them—something that transcended their practical agreement.
And God help him, he found himself unable to regret it.
With a sigh, Charles rose and moved to his bed, knowing sleep would prove elusive tonight. The image of Amelia in the throes of passion would haunt his dreams, a tantalizing glimpse of what might be possible if they both gave in to their base desires.