Chapter 31
“Is everything all right?” Sophia asked, standing in the doorway with her heart hammering against her ribs.
Edward filled the frame of the connecting door, and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe.
His shirt hung untucked, the linen parted at the collar to reveal the strong column of his throat and a glimpse of the chest beneath.
Candlelight played across the planes of his face, catching the sharp line of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, the way the fabric stretched across muscles earned through years of violence in dockside taverns.
Her gaze dropped to his hands, clenched at his sides. She could see the faint scars across his knuckles, pale lines mapping a history of pain and release. Those hands had broken men. She wondered what else they might do.
Heat crept up her neck.
His hair was disheveled, as though he had been running his fingers through it, and his expression caught between determination and agony. He looked undone in a way she had never seen him. Exposed. Human.
Devastatingly handsome.
“I wanted to speak with you.” His voice came out rough, a rasp like iron over silk. “Privately.”
She stepped aside to let him enter, acutely aware of her own state of undress.
The guest chamber was smaller than her rooms at Heatherwell House, the fire burning low, the candles casting soft shadows across the walls.
She had been preparing for bed when the knock came, her hair loose around her shoulders, her dressing gown tied at her waist. The silk suddenly felt too thin, too revealing.
Edward moved to the center of the room and stopped. His hands clenched at his sides. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He looked as though every word he needed to say was lodged in his throat, refusing to emerge.
Sophia waited. She had learned, over these past weeks, that pushing Edward only made him retreat further. He needed space to find his way to the words he wanted to speak.
“I wanted…” He stopped. Started again. “Your father said…” Another stop, and a harsh breath. “I am not good at this.”
“At what?”
“Expressing myself.” He ran a hand through his hair, destroying what little order remained. “I have spent my entire life learning to hide what I feel. To present a mask to the world. To be what my father expected me to be.”
Sophia took a step toward him. “You don’t need to wear a mask with me.”
His eyes met hers. Something raw flickered there, something vulnerable and afraid.
“Thank you.” The words emerged on a breath.
“For everything you have done. For Oliver. For the way you have cared for him, taught him, and loved him. You were trapped in this marriage, bound by circumstances beyond your control, and yet you have given him more warmth and affection than I could manage alone.”
Sophia shook her head. “You do not need to thank me. I care for Oliver. Deeply. He is Jane’s son. He is…” She paused. “He is family.”
Edward closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they burned with an intensity that stole her breath.
“I want you to be happy.” The words seemed to tear themselves from somewhere deep inside him.
“Not because you are my wife. Not because of duty or obligation or any of the reasons this marriage began. I want you to be happy because…” He struggled.
“Because when you smile, I can breathe again. Because when you laugh, I want to be the cause of it. Because I lie awake at night wondering what it would take to make you look at me the way you look at Oliver, with that warmth, that openness.” He swallowed. “That trust.”
Sophia’s lips parted. She could not speak. Could barely breathe.
“I have spent so long building walls.” Edward’s voice dropped, raw and broken.
“Keeping people at a distance. Protecting myself from feeling too much, wanting too much, losing too much. But you…” He stepped closer.
“You make me want to tear them down. You make me want to be the kind of man who deserves to stand beside you. Who deserves to call you his wife.”
Sophia drew in a long breath, barely realizing how shakily it came out as she exhaled.
“I know I have made mistakes.” He stood before her now, close enough to touch.
“I know I have pulled away when I should have reached out. I know I have confused you, hurt you, left you wondering where you stand. And I am sorry. I have been a coward. Too afraid to risk what little peace I had built, even for the chance of something more.”
She reached up and pressed her fingers to his lips, silencing him.
“You are not a coward.” Her voice came out thick with emotion. “You are a man who has been hurt. Who has lost more than most people ever risk having. And you are here. Standing in front of me. Saying things I never expected to hear.”
Edward’s hand came up to cover hers. He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her palm, his lips warm against her skin.
“May I kiss you?” The question was barely a whisper.
She nodded.
He leaned in, and his lips found hers.
The kiss was gentle at first, tentative, as though he feared she might shatter beneath his touch. His hand cupped her face, his thumb stroking along her cheekbone. She tasted salt and heat and longing, felt the restraint trembling through him like a wire pulled taut.
Sophia pressed closer. Her hands found his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. She wanted more. Wanted everything. Wanted to erase the distance they had maintained for weeks, the careful choreography of avoidance, the ache of wanting without having.
The kiss deepened. Edward’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her against him until no space remained between their bodies. His hands slid into her hair, tilting her head back, claiming her mouth with an intensity that made her knees weaken.
“Sophia.” Her name was a prayer on his lips. He kissed her jaw, her throat, the sensitive spot behind her ear that made her gasp. “Tell me to stop. Tell me, and I will. I swear it.”
“Do not stop.” She pulled his mouth back to hers. “Do not ever stop.”
His fingers found the tie of her dressing gown. He paused, his eyes searching hers for permission. She answered by reaching up and pushing the garment from her own shoulders, letting it pool at her feet.
She stood before him in her thin nightgown, the fabric doing little to hide the shape of her body. Edward’s gaze traveled over her, hungry and reverent, and she felt beautiful in a way she never had before.
“You are…” He swallowed. “You are everything.”
He kissed her again, walking her backward toward the bed. The backs of her knees hit the mattress, and she sank down, pulling him with her. The weight of him settled over her, solid and warm, his mouth never leaving hers.
His hands explored her body through the thin fabric, tracing the curve of her waist, the swell of her hip.
He moved slowly, as if memorizing her, as if he had all the time in the world and meant to spend it learning every inch.
She arched into his touch, breath catching when his fingers brushed the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.
A tremor ran through her. Not fear. Anticipation.
“Let me.” His voice was rough with need, but there was restraint there too. A question beneath the command. “Let me show you.”
She nodded, beyond words, beyond thought. There was only Edward. Only the heat of him pressed close, the steady rise and fall of his chest against hers. Only his hands, his mouth, his whispered promises against her skin.
He kissed her again, slower this time. Not urgent, but deliberate. His lips moved from her mouth to her jaw, to the hollow just below her ear. She felt each touch as if her body had been waiting for this—aching, almost—for the simple rightness of his hands on her.
His fingers slid along her back, splaying wide as he pulled her closer. She felt the strength in him, the restraint, the way he paused just long enough for her to draw breath before continuing. When he lowered his mouth to her collarbone, she gasped, fingers tangling in his hair to steady herself.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured against her skin.
“So are you.”
He huffed a soft laugh. His hands drifted higher, then lower, exploring with reverence rather than haste. Each brush of his fingertips sent sparks racing along her nerves. When he traced the line of her thigh again, slower this time, she instinctively shifted toward him, inviting him closer.
His forehead rested briefly against hers, their breaths mingling. “You undo me.” The confession emerged raw, unguarded. “Every part of me wants every part of you.”
She answered by pulling him back to her mouth.
The world beyond the room seemed to disappear.
There was only the heat of his body, the soft rasp of fabric shifting, the way her pulse thundered in her ears.
His hands grew bolder, mapping her curves through silk and linen, learning the places that made her shiver, the places that drew those breathless sounds from her throat.
When he finally drew back just enough to look at her, his eyes were dark, intent. “Beautiful,” he said, as if the word had been waiting on his tongue for years.
She felt it then. Not just desire, but something deeper. Surrender not from weakness, but from trust.
“Edward,” she whispered, and reached for him again.
As his lips captured hers, his hands slipped between her thighs. No hesitation. Just desire. Desire to know every inch of her. Sophia opened her thighs, allowing him entry into her world.
When his fingers found her pearl, a tiny, smooth bead nestled in its warm, slick folds, a sudden, sharp jolt of pure pleasure, like a lightning strike, coursed through her.
She arched against his firm touch, a silent gasp escaping her lips as the wave of exquisite sensation washed over her, leaving her breathless.
He slowly kissed his way down between her breasts, still slowly circling her pearl with his thumb. When his lips reached her nest of curls, she reached down to stop him.