Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Celestine’s lips were all over Edward’s body. She attacked his neck, his chest, his mouth with a hunger that was insatiable. And between each kiss, she moaned Edward’s name in a way that made his legs tremble as his blood turned so hot that he felt the fire consume them both.
His hands were everywhere. He gripped her waist. He squeezed her thighs. He pulled her hair. They wrapped her bosom, still above her dress, and she moaned harder. His lips then found her neck, he licked and he sucked, she ran her hands through his hair and started to grind her hips.
Between his thighs, Edward hardened so that it hurt him. His manhood pressed against his pants, and surely she felt it? In fact, he knew that she did, because she started to grind her hips faster as her lips found his mouth once more.
He moved his hands to her buttocks. He pulled her into him. He held her so that he might never let her go.
“What are we doing?” he asked between kisses.
“Exactly what you’ve always wanted,” she said. “What we both want.”
She pulled back and there was a wicked and knowing smile on her face. Her eyes lit up so that he did not have to ask what was on her mind. And then, as she looked down at him, she slipped her hands to his breeches and began to undo them…
That was when Edward started awake.
He was covered in a warm layer of sweat, the type that drenched through his clothes and left a puddle in his bed. His sheets were soaked too. His breathing was so heavy that his chest hurt. Most of all, that which he noticed first, was the painful throb between his thighs.
“What on earth…”
Edward looked to the window. The curtains were drawn but a thin slither of light pushed through the gap, telling him that morning had arrived.
He sat there alone for a few minutes, trying to clear his head and forget the dream that had woken him.
Of course, the more he tried to forget the dream, the more vivid it became.
Even now, he could still feel Celestine’s body on his.
He could still feel her hands attacking him.
And he could still taste her lips, as well as her skin, as she hurriedly undid his breeches…
No!
Edward threw back the soaked bed sheets and climbed to his feet. Then he raced across the bedroom and opened the curtains, letting the morning sun blind him as if it might burn away his thoughts and his pesky desires.
He stood by the window, looking across the estate, desperate to focus on anything but his dream… anything but Celestine… and anything but the terrible mistake he’d made last night.
It wasn’t a mistake. It was the only thing that I could do!
Kissing her had certainly been a mistake, however. Even Edward could not deny such an obvious truth as that. He had not intended to do so. He had told himself that he did not want it. But when the moment came, alone as they were, the last time they would be so, and even Edward was only so strong.
No doubt that kiss was what brought his dreams.
It made things difficult, as he wanted to escape that dream but he tasted Celestine on his lips in a way that was too real.
He remembered too, her soft moan as they kissed, how her body had tensed, and the obviousness of her enjoyment because when he pulled away, she had followed him… she had not wanted the kiss to end.
And neither did I.
Edward’s blood still burned hot and no amount of staring out the window was going to change that. His manhood still throbbed painfully, his body trembled. He needed to remove Celestine from his mind and the idea that came to him was not a pleasant one, but it was all that he had.
With the idea in place, he strode from his room.
It was minutes later that Edward slowly lowered himself into the cold waters of his bath. When he’d told his staff what he wanted, they looked at him as if he had lost his mind. Thankfully, they did not glance downwards, because if they had, they likely would have seen the true reason.
But the cold water was like a slap across the face. Edward winced as it took him, and he breathed in deeply as his manhood softened and his boiling hot blood cooled.
The dream was expected, really. A natural consequence of a most strange evening.
Alone in that bath, the cold water making him shake, he shut his eyes as he pictured last evening, willing himself to believe that he had done the right thing.
Truly, it had gone as well as could be expected, and he had no doubt that by the end of today the entire ton would know of their fight. Thus, when he announced the end of the engagement, it would not be shock that rippled across London, but acceptance. He and Celestine were done.
He forced a smile. He forced the belief that he had no choice. He forced himself to think of anything other than Celestine…
“Edward!” the door flew open suddenly.
His eyes shot open and he gasped as Millicent swept into the bathroom. Her eyes were wide in panic and shock and it wasn’t until she was half in the room that she seemed to realize what she was doing.
“Millicent!” he cried. “What are you –”
“Is it true?” She stopped short and turned around, putting her back to him. “Is it true, Edward?”
“Is what true?”
“What people are saying of you and Celestine? That you and she… they say that you fought last evening. Some are even saying that you are ending your engagement.”
Edward groaned. I forget sometimes how quickly the rumor mill turns.
“Who told you that?” he asked.
“That is not an answer!”
“Millicent…” He softened his voice. “You are no longer a little girl, so I will not treat you as one. Yes, it is true. Last evening, Celestine and I had a fight that was unavoidable and –”
“What did you do?” she demanded.
He winced. “It was a long time coming, Millicent. While on the surface, it might have seemed that she and I were good for one another, I see now that this is not the case. We discussed at length our courtship and we decided together that it could not continue. It was nobody’s fault.”
“Buy why, Edward?” she whined, still not facing him. Her voice echoed across the tiled room. “I liked her. She was… she was so nice, and good for you. I thought you were in love?”
“Sadly, things are not nearly that simple.”
“They are,” she said stubbornly. “You just won’t admit it.”
Those words cut a little too close for Edward’s liking.
When the engagement first started, he’d had no doubt that its end would be a welcomed thing.
He did not want to marry, and neither did Celestine.
What was more, he had been certain that two people more different did not exist, and so the ending of their false courtship would be something they both raced toward.
As it turns out, I did not know Celestine nearly as well as I thought. Or myself, for that matter…
It was getting harder for him to justify what they had done. On the surface, it made perfect sense, but deep down in those places he refused to visit, a voice niggled in the back of his mind that he had made a horrible mistake.
Celestine was not who he thought. What was more, he was different when he was with her. He liked who he was. He liked what she made him. And now that he was alone again, he was terrified to return to what he had been before this whole thing began.
Did he really want to be alone forever? What had once sounded like a blissful state of being, and a future that was to be coveted, suddenly felt sad and sorrowful and not something to be sought.
“I am sorry, Millicent,” he said. “But it has happened, complaining will not change it, and as a woman –”
“Stop using that as an excuse!” she snapped as she turned and scowled. “This is not about me, Edward, but you. You…” She sniffed as her eyes turned watery. “You were happy with her, I know you were. Far happier than you were before you met.”
“No,” he said as his stomach twisted into knots. “I was not.”
“Liar,” she snarled before turning and storming from the room.
Edward sunk back into the cool waters of the bath. He tried his best to push away the doubt that consumed him. This was for the best… he had done the right thing… Celestine was better off…
They were excuses, weak ones, and they made little difference.
Worst of all, as Edward sat alone in that bathtub, as he fought against demons that were unrelenting and vicious, his mind turned back to that kiss.
It had been more than just a kiss. What it was, he knew, was an announcement of how he felt about Celestine. Putting aside the desire. Ignoring the attraction. That kiss was perhaps the first honest moment he’d shared with Celestine, and even he could not lie about what it meant.
I think… I think I have made a terrible mistake.
Worst of all, it was too late to do anything about it, and that became Edward’s new reality, one that was even colder and more uncomfortable than the cool waters of the bathtub.