Chapter Seven #2
Poppy almost felt a rush of relief to be reminded of that and at the same time she felt a lurch of disappointment.
She pulled her hand free. She was tempted to ask what would happen when it burned out but she didn’t have to because she knew.
Caius would go back to his life and pick up where he left off and leave her to get on with the running of her country.
He’d pay lip service to the marriage for five years and then he would divorce her and she would be a single parent. History repeating itself, except she vowed not to put her child through a whirling door of stepfathers.
The thought that something different could exist, something real, hovered in the air like a shimmering, delicate bubble for a moment and then the air was pierced by a sharp, strident sound, making Poppy jump.
Caius cursed and apologised, picking up his phone, which had been lying on the table. ‘Sorry about this, it’s Cass. I told her I needed to talk to her. I want to tell her about the baby before the press release goes out.’
Poppy waved a hand. ‘Go ahead. I should probably check in with Stephen.’
Caius stood up and went out into the garden to take the call, his voice deep and warm. She felt jealous for a moment, of his sister for making him sound so warm. She was pathetic.
Poppy ignored his instruction to leave the plates and cleared up, still a little stunned that Caius had put together a meal.
She went back up through the chateau and into her private office, a pretty bright room during the day and cosy in the evening. She messaged Stephen to check all was OK and got back a voice note.
All is well here, everyone is still buoyant after the wedding. How are marital relations? Have you succumbed to his wicked charms again? I know I would—
There was the sound of Stephen’s partner in the background. ‘I am here, you know, in the room.’
Poppy smiled. Stephen went on to say that they were ready to push the button on the press release announcing the pregnancy.
They knew that there would be no disguising the timing but at least this way the gossip would be less lurid if they were already married.
Poppy took a second to think and then sent back a text message.
Go for it, send out the release x P
She threw the phone down and sighed. This was it, no going back. She’d made her bed and she would have to lie in it. Her skin prickled hotly at the thought of lying in Caius’s bed again.
She longed to be the kind of woman who could feel confident enough to be waiting for Caius in his bed, but the thought of him returning to his room and seeing her there and looking at her as if she was not welcome had her making her way back to her own bedroom.
She washed and got changed and into her nightclothes, the silk vest top and shorts. She caught sight of herself in the mirror in the bedroom and turned sideways. The bump was definitely growing. Those little flutters kept coming and going. She put her hands on it, unable to stop a small smile.
‘That’s what you were doing last night.’
Poppy looked up into the mirror to see Caius reflected behind her, standing in the adjoining door between her room and his.
‘I did knock,’ he said. ‘But you’re engrossed.’
Poppy felt breathless. ‘It’s hard not to be, it’s such a strange sensation.’
‘May I?’
Poppy nodded and watched as Caius came in and stood behind her. She looked up at him in the mirror. He was so tall. He came right up behind her and he pulled back her hair, so it lay behind her shoulders.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he breathed. ‘I don’t know how I didn’t see it.’
His blue gaze tracked down over Poppy’s body. Her hands dropped away as he slid his hands around and put them on her belly. They were so big, they covered every inch of the burgeoning bump. Warm. Turning her blood molten.
‘Can you feel the butterflies now?’
Yes. But not from the baby. She shook her head. ‘It’s stopped now.’
Their eyes met in the mirror. Blue and green. She looked very pale next to him. His hands moved upwards, pushing the silk vest up, until he cupped her breasts. Between Poppy’s legs a pulse throbbed and she could feel the moist rush of desire.
‘Look at yourself.’
She tore her gaze away from him to look and her legs nearly buckled. Her breasts overflowed Caius’s palms. Fingers trapping her nipples. She looked so…bountiful, sensual.
He squeezed her flesh and she could feel his erection pressing against her. ‘You still want me…’
He smiled in the mirror. ‘Yes, Poppy, I still want you.’ The smile faded. ‘Right now, I can’t imagine not wanting you.’
Caius couldn’t believe he’d said those words out loud but they’d fallen out before he could stop them. He saw how Poppy’s eyes widened. But he couldn’t take them back because that was how he felt…right now. As if he couldn’t imagine touching another woman again.
Not when his hands were full of her and he was so hard it hurt. He took his hands away from her momentarily and went to lift her top up and off. ‘OK?’
She nodded, lifting her arms up. Now she wore only her shorts and they sat just under the small bump.
Caius came close again and massaged her breast with one hand while sliding the other one around, over the bump and then down, under the shorts, dislodging them.
‘Spread your legs for me, Poppy.’
She did, and he explored down, through the springy curls around her sex to where she was hot and slick and so ready that he almost exploded there and then.
He watched her as he moved his fingers in and out, while squeezing her breast. Her breath came faster, and her skin flushed. Her eyes looked glazed and her mouth opened. She was biting her lip and her hips began to move, pressing her ass back against him, against his straining cock.
She brought her arm up and hooked it around Caius’s neck, and her hips were undulating now as he thrust into her, deeper and deeper until she stopped and gave a keening cry as her inner muscles clamped down hard on his fingers.
Caius couldn’t wait. He had to be in her right now or he would die. He removed his hand and pulled down her shorts and then turned her around as he undid his jeans and pushed them down, releasing his straining erection.
‘I need to be in you, now, Poppy.’
She went over to the bed and got onto it and lay back, spreading her legs.
He could see where she glistened from her orgasm.
From his fingers. For a second Caius had to wonder if in fact she’d been some kind of sorceress all along and she’d bewitched him.
She looked like an earth goddess with her curves and the one holding his child.
It made him feel feral with a need to possess and also something else, a need to protect.
Somehow, he got naked and he came over her, guiding his aching, throbbing flesh to the centre of her body and sinking in slowly, mindful of her relative inexperience.
But she raised her hips, forcing him to go deeper.
He cursed. ‘Poppy, I don’t want to hurt you.
’ Or the baby, came into his mind. Of course, it was natural to care about the baby, he assured himself.
He just hadn’t ever expected sex with the mother of his child to feel so… intense.
He sank into her, to the hilt, and then pulled out, and back in, until every limb was shaking with the need to pound into her, slake his lust. She wrapped her legs around him. ‘Take me, Caius, I’m not some delicate little flower.’
The tiny fraying piece of control he’d been clinging onto snapped. Caius pulled out and said roughly, ‘Get on your knees, Poppy.’
She did, and she looked at him over her shoulder and he had no idea how he didn’t spill there and then, but he managed to wait until he plunged into her tight sheath again, and he held her hips as he drove into her, over and over again until she was crying out and he reached under and found that little cluster of nerves and cells and pinched it.
Poppy screamed as her body fell over the edge and the spasmodic contractions of her orgasm sent Caius flying so high he wasn’t sure he’d ever come back down to earth again.
Eventually he did, collapsing back onto the bed and pulling Poppy into him. He felt the heavy slackness in her body. She was as spent as him. Normally he’d never countenance pulling a woman close after sex but he didn’t usually feel as though he’d been through an earthquake.
And this was different. Poppy was his wife. The mother-to-be of his child. It was more or less sanctioned. It wasn’t as if he had to be careful around her. They knew what this was. A temporary glitch in the mainframe.
And then he felt her breath feather over his skin as she asked sleepily, ‘Is it always like this? Now I know why you liked it so much.’
Caius couldn’t stop a half-grimace, half-smile at her innocent question. He knew it would be easy to tell her, yes, it’s always like this, but he couldn’t. He said, ‘Truthfully? No. This is…rare.’ Unprecedented. ‘We have a very potent chemistry.’
She huffed a laugh against his chest. ‘Just as well it’ll burn out. I don’t think I could survive if it was like this for ever.’
For ever. The word caused a twisting sensation inside Caius.
There was no such thing. And yes, he was thankful this would burn out too, the sooner the better, because he was in danger of forgetting who he was, on this little island in the picture-postcard chateau with a queen who was confounding him at every turn.
The days after that night seemed to pass in a bit of a blur. A sex blur. It was as if Caius had awoken something inside Poppy, a part of herself that had been locked away, pushed down, denied, not given room to breathe…and now she couldn’t stop breathing, taking massive gulps of air.