Page 91 of Claimed By Her Forbidden Duke
It is just physical, he thought as he panted above her.Just physical,he repeated silently as he leaned down to kiss her, desperate.
He took her, chasing that desperation, and he told himself again and again that this was the last time.When he made Penelope climax a second time, and then a third, filling the room with her sweet cries and wanton shouts, he almost believed himself.
* * *
Penelope didn’t remember falling asleep there, wrapped up in the sheets, having moved from Julian’s bed to the one they had claimed during their first night together.
All she recalled throughout her blissful haze was Edmund’s arms around her, not even pulling out of her as he picked her up from that bed to take her to another. She had smiled, she remembered that, and she remembered being cleaned, an apology muttered for not being able to draw her a bath, and that a warmth had embraced her afterward.
A warmth she now realized was Edmund’s arms.
She turned to look up at him and ignored the pang in her chest at how jolting it felt to wake up in his arms, to see his face slack, vulnerable in sleep when he held himself so rigidly around others.
Penelope reached out to brush his dark hair back, exposing dark lashes that covered his gray eyes. She had never noticed the freckle on the line of his jaw. Without thinking, she kissed it.
Edmund tensed in his sleep, his mouth moving ever so slightly. She paused, wondering why she had felt the need to make such a tender gesture when he was not awake to see or feel it.
Turn back around, she told herself.Fall back asleep. Even better, leave. He will bear no consequences for staying here. You will.
It was the right thing to do—to perhaps leave a note and sneak out before dawn—but her body was still boneless from the multiple times they had coupled, and his arms were so, so warm.
It was an embrace Penelope had been waiting her whole life for and had never known she needed until it was there.
But that was an absurd thought, one that didn’t align with a temporary agreement. So she ignored the comforting embrace, turned her back to him, put more distance between them even though she craved the press of his skin on hers, and told herself she would get up in a moment. Just one more moment…
She was awoken by harsh breaths on her bare shoulder. Not the sort that Edmund had loosed in pleasure. No. These sounded… panicked, the ones that Penelope often let out when Finley was close to catching her doing something he didn’t approve of, or when she could not stop herself from looking at her bedchamber door when she dressed, hoping it did not open.
“Edmund,” she whispered, slowly turning to face him.
His face was no longer slack but tight, pinched. His mouth moved more now, and there was a furrow between his eyebrows that hinted at distress.
“Leave.” The word came out as a snarl that got choked off as he jerked, his hand curling into a fist on the sheets.
Again, he said the word, but this time it sounded like a plea.
Penelope froze, realizing he was still in the throes of sleep. He let out a cry, his shoulders curled inward, and a strangled groan tore from his throat. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dampening his hair and making it look black.
She did not think about the late hour or the fear of having fallen asleep again. Her focus zeroed in on the man caught in a nightmare. Was this was happened when he trapped everything inside him? It crept up on him through dreams and broken recollections?
“Edmund,” she said again, harder, but he did not stir.
His face was contorted—utter pain etched on it. He let out a ragged breath, more panic ebbing in. Finally, she moved to touch him. Her hand covered his shoulder, as much as she could encompass, and she pushedhard.
His eyes flew open, and he had that clenched fist lifted in a second. Despite her fear, Penelope didn’t flinch back. Wide eyes stared back at her, unseeing, as storms gathered in them, as Edmund dragged himself from the throes of a nightmare and looked around himself.
He let out a long breath that sounded thoroughly winded, as though he had been struck, and he immediately dropped his fist, cursing.
“You should leave,” he said quickly, his voice hoarse. From sleep or the nightmare’s chokehold, she didn’t know. “In fact, I would like?—”
“Do not tell me what to do.” Her response startled her, and him, for his eyes snapped back to her as he pulled himself up. “Not right now. You must know I will not leave you like this.”
“Like what?” His laugh was cold, containing nothing of the man who had held her as she trembled through her releases hours ago. “A broken man reliving everything he deserves to be burdened with? Penelope, you are too good to endure being around such a thing.”
“This is why we have taken measures to never fall asleep here,” she guessed, and a tinge of guilt flashed across his face. “Drop your mask, Edmund. I am right here, and I will not leave.”
His face was strained, the cold anger that she knew had only been a front to push her away, and he looked back at her defeatedly.
“I… I cannot begin to voice it. The things that plague me when I close my eyes. I endured them for seven years, and yet I must still endure them. I cannot express how I made it out alive, but some nights my mind drags me right back there and it takes too long to piece myself back together as a man who escaped.”
