Chapter 26
“My sweet wife.”
Helena’s heart throbbed in her chest as Evander greeted her, his handsome face shifting into a serene smile as he raked his eyes down her body.
“My dear husband,” she softly replied, closing his study door behind her. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Evander’s smile became seductive as he leaned back into his chair and laced his fingers behind his head.
“Nothing so important as to turn you away,” he replied. “Do you bring news? Have your mother and Alex returned for another skirmish of honor?”
Helena laughed softly as she traced her fingers along the shelf of books lining one of his study walls.
“You handled him so well,” she praised. “Even though he has done nothing but call you names from the start.”
Evander shrugged.
“He is just a boy. Name-calling is something they all do. And I believe we both enjoyed the bit of play,” he replied.
“Well, I am afraid you will have to continue your mighty battle against Alex another day,” she playfully replied. “I have come simply because I missed my husband.”
She had spent the better part of the morning trying to shake off Letty’s warnings.
Yet despite her efforts, despite recalling how passionately Evander had greeted her when she accidentally interrupted him the day before, she could not quite silence the feeling that had been building for weeks now.
She could feel that Evander was keeping something from her, and she had to find out what.
“Well, I am particularly glad you have come then because I happen to be missing my wife,” Evander replied, his blue gaze growing warm and dark as she settled into his lap.
His hands dropped from the back of his neck and settled around her waist. Pleasure and desire rushed through Helena as he held her close and kissed her lips. She sighed, sinking into his body, and reveled in the way his tongue and lips led her into a deep, lazy kiss.
She was dazed and humming with need when he drew away, and she could not help but bite her lower lip and smile as she turned away from his lustful gaze to look down at his desk.
“So, what are you working on today?” she asked, reaching for one of the many papers covering the top of his desk. “Have you finally made enough money to buy out the King?”
Beneath her, she felt Evander grow tense, and before she could read what was on the paper she was holding, he gently plucked it from her hands and moved hurriedly to sweep them all into a drawer.
Helena’s heart dropped as she watched him.
She had thought that what they had was special.
That he hid nothing but the demons of his past, which she had already seen glimpses of.
Yet if it was so, why would he hurry to hide his correspondence?
“Nothing so adventurous, I am afraid,” he replied, turning her so that she straddled his lap and faced him. When she was seated to his satisfaction, he pulled his leather gloves off and set them aside. “Just the boring, usual accounts that need to be tended to.”
He smoothed his palms up her corseted waist to the scooped bust of her ice blue gown, sending flames licking through her veins.
“Though I must confess, I would much rather be tending to you,” he rasped, trailing his fingertips over the bare flesh of her cleavage.
He leaned forward, pressing his lips to the plump flesh of her breasts, and Helena shivered in anticipation as his kisses made their way toward her collarbone.
She swept her fingers through his dark hair, down his back, and smoothed her palms up the front of his shirt as his lips pressed languid kisses up the column of her neck.
Heat bloomed in her core, and she shifted her hips, loving that when she did so, she could feel his cock, already strained and rigid beneath his trousers, pressing against the apex of her thighs.
With a quickness that made her gasp, Evander gripped the nape of her neck and slammed his lips down on hers in a needy kiss.
She responded with equal passion, nipping at his bottom lip, then sweeping her tongue seductively over the small hurt before she suckled it into her mouth.
Evander released a feral groan into her mouth at her boldness, and in a flurry of movement, he had her off his lap and sitting atop his desk, his hands pushing up her skirts and parting her thighs wide.
In turn, she reached for his cravat, hoping that the urgency of the moment would keep him distracted. She barely hooked her finger into the knot there, though, before Evander muttered a curse against her lips and gently pulled her hands away from the fabric.
“Please,” she breathed, trailing kisses down the corded column of his throat. “You have no idea how much I want to touch you, to kiss every part of you, scarred or not.”
Evander let out another groan, only this time it sounded more tortured. He pulled back, his glazed blue eyes finding her green ones, and she felt guilt spear through her arousal as she saw that such torture existed in his gaze as much as it did in his voice.
“I love that you think so,” he rasped, still holding her hands tight. “But you have no idea of what I have spared you from. I… A maid walked in on me once. She thought that I was still boxing with Toby, but I had finished early. She took one look at me and screamed so hard she fainted.”
He shook his head, the hurt of that memory vivid in his eyes.
“I do not ever want to risk such a reaction from you,” he went on, his deep voice pleading for understanding. “You cannot possibly know how much that would destroy me.”
Helena frowned, torn between allowing their moment of passion to be ruined by her insistence, or once more letting him lead her away from what she wanted most.
“Very well,” she whispered at last, tugging her hand free from his grip.
She slid her palm down his shirt, reveling in the feel of his hardened muscles that lay just beneath.
Then she went further, past the waistband of his trousers and down to the apex of his thighs, and smoothed her palm over his impressive bulge.
Pleasure surged through her as Evander’s eyes screwed shut and he let out a moaning breath as his entire body trembled.
“Is this part of you scarred?” she asked, gently rubbing her palm up and down his length.
“No,” he gasped, then seemed to struggle to swallow. “No, it is not.”
“Then I see no reason to keep this part of you hidden from my touch or sight any longer,” she whispered, sliding her hand up to his waistband.
She waited for Evander to stop her, but her confidence grew as his hands only dropped to her thighs and his grip tightened there as she loosened his breeches and pulled them down.
Her gaze still locked on his, she tentatively touched her bare fingertips to his rigid, mushroomed tip, and swirled her fingernail across the drop of dew that had gathered there.
Pleasure and power surged through her as Evander let out a feral moan and tightened his grip on her thighs. She then dared a glance down, and she blushed at the sight of his impressive length and girth.
“Tell me…” she coaxed, brushing a soft kiss across his forehead as he bowed his head to the pleasure. “Tell me how to touch you.”
It seemed to take Evander a moment to find his voice again.
When he did, he guided her steps, telling her how to wrap her fingers around his shaft and slowly work him.
She barely passed her grip over him thrice before he reached down and pulled her hand away, and laid her down atop his desk until her hips were hanging over the edge and her knees were balanced atop his shoulders.
“I thought I was allowed to touch you,” she pouted.
“You are,” he panted, lining himself up to her already slick entrance. “But if I let you continue, I will spill, and I cannot allow that when I can have you like this.”
As he said the last word, he surged his hips forward in one brutal thrust, seating himself to the hilt in a single stroke, and a cry of pleasure broke from Helena’s lips at the sheer fullness of him.
She let her head fall back, letting Evander take complete control as he withdrew almost entirely, only to drive back into her again, harder, deeper, filling her so completely each time that she could feel him in the pit of her stomach.
The desk groaned beneath them with the force of it; papers slid off the edge and scattered to the floor.
“So beautiful, so perfect,” he muttered between grunts, his hips never once slowing as he buried himself in her over and over. “Now look at me.”
Helena’s lashes snapped open at his command, and a surge of liquid heat rushed through her as she took in the look of pure, ravenous need on her husband’s handsome face as he pounded into her, each thrust stretching and filling her until she thought she might come apart around him alone.
“I feel you, sweetheart,” he panted, sliding a hand up to her throat in a way she now loved. “I feel how close you are. Do you think you can be a good little wife and let go for me?”
Helena tried to answer, but every time her lips attempted to form a word, a moan broke out instead, punched from her lungs each time he sank fully into her.
He squeezed her throat when she did not reply, and the pressure he applied, paired with the relentless, driving snap of his hips filling her again and again, nearly had her bursting right then and there.
“Say it,” he gritted out, driving into her so hard the desk legs scraped against the floor. “Say it, sweet angel, I need it.”
“Yes!” The feral plea was almost too much, and the word yes barely escaped her lips before her climax came barreling hard through her core, clenching tight around him as he stayed buried deep, and her single word turned into a drawn-out scream of pleasure that Evander quickly echoed, his own release tearing out of him with one final, punishing thrust that seated him to the hilt and held him there, shuddering, as he spilled inside her.
Fresh arousal came tunneling through her as she watched her husband’s muscles tense beneath his clothes through heavy-lidded eyes, and then he bowed forward, draping his body over hers as he feathered kisses along her neck and muttered praises to her flesh.
Dizzy and exhausted from her brutal taking, Helena simply draped her arms around his back as she tried to catch her breath and listened to Evander try to catch his.
“Did I hurt you, love?” he asked, raising up on his forearms several minutes later. “That was much rougher than I intended.”
A pleasure-drunk smile split across Helena’s lips as she lazily let her head roll from left to right.
“Look at me,” he coaxed, gently gripping her jaw. “Let me see.”
Though it took effort, Helena slowly opened her eyes for him. Her heart quivered as she saw the concern written across Evander’s face. He was always so worried about hurting her, even if she was certain he never could. Not physically, at least.
He searched her eyes, as if looking for any evidence of pain she might be trying to hide, and when he finally decided there was none, his face once more slipped into a mask of pleasure, and he gingerly helped her up into a seated position.
Several rapid knocks sounded on the door just as their lips connected in a kiss, and they both froze.
“Is the door locked?” Evander muttered.
Blushing, Helena shook her head. He pulled away with a muttered curse.
“I am busy!” he barked at the door. Helena jolted at the sharp bark of his voice, then slapped her hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle.
Evander smirked as he looked down at her, but it faded into a frown as someone shouted from the other side of the door.
“Too busy for us, brother?”
Evander groaned as he pressed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to hers.
“I will be with you in a moment!” Evander responded.
“Why are you not opening the door? Are you naked?”
“It is Adrian and Damien,” he muttered despondently. “They will open the door and rush in if I do not stop them.”
Helena blushed at the thought of being caught in such a delicate situation. She pressed a quick kiss to his lips and then gently pushed him back.
“Go,” she urged him. “Distract them. Take them somewhere else for a bit while I attend to myself.”
Evander’s dark brows pinched as he frowned.
“I do not like leaving you so quickly after this. You are not a toy for my amusement,” he told her.
Helena’s love for him deepened at such words, and she gave him a soft smile.
“You may care properly for me later,” she promised. “In our bed.”
Evander’s frown shifted into a wicked smile, and after giving her another quick yet passionate kiss, he grabbed his gloves and hurried to the door, opening it just enough so that he could slide through before closing it again.
For a moment, Helena stayed on the desk, letting herself revel in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Then, when she heard their voices fade from outside the door, she slid off the desk and adjusted her dress.
She was smoothing her mussed hair back into order when her gaze dropped to the two rows of desk drawers, and she stilled. Her eyes flicked up to the closed door, then back down to the drawers.
I only want to know he is not hiding anything from me, she told herself. That is all. Nothing more.
She wanted to trust Evander. Wanted to feel safe in his promises. Yet Letty’s warning nagged at her. Giving in to her moment of insecurity, she reached down and pulled open the bottom one.
It was not the one Evander had swept his papers into earlier.
Instead, a neat bundle of letters, tied with ribbon, sat alone in the otherwise empty space, and something about the soft blue of the stationery tugged at her before she could say why.
She lifted the bundle out and untied the ribbon, and when she unfolded the top letter, her breath caught in her throat.
I know this hand.
It was her own handwriting looking back at her. Her own words, written years ago to a man she had never met, who had never come the day he promised he would.
These are mine. Every one of them.
She sank into his chair and read further, needing to be certain. It could not be. It could not possibly be. But by the time she reached the bottom of the page, there was no more room left for doubt.
It was you. It was you all along.