Burn - Edmund Bridgerton II's story

Chapter 12 - Breakfast for Two

The guest room of Lord Edmund Bridgerton the second's London residence was a mess. A couple of paintings had fallen down from the wall, every decoration and a flower vase that had been standing on the desk were now lying on the floor in pieces. The bedsheets lay in a heap on the floor as well and the deep green velvet curtains of the four-poster bed had been yanked off their holders and were spread out on the thick Persian rug in front of the fireplace, tangled up with arms and legs belonging to two naked bodies.

To anyone else the room would have appeared as a terrible chaos, but to Miss Amelia Fife, the possessor of the other one of the naked bodies, the room simply was a testimony of the homeowner's promise to make love to her through the night in every way possible. He had made love to her against the wall, thus the fallen paintings, and he had made love to her on the desk, thus the broken vase and porcelain decorations. He had made love to her in the most imaginative ways on the bed, finally nailing her against one of the bedposts while she had been tugging at the green curtains in her climax, making her in the end tumble down on the floor with both him and the ripped curtains wrapped around her. There they were still sprawled out, not yet willing to figure out which limb belonged to which body. It simply did not matter at the moment, as all they needed was to lay there on their sides, facing each other.

Amelia kissed Eddie in the same slow way she had hoped to do all night at Aubrey Hall, indulging the feeling that they no longer were in any hurry or driven by any uncontrollably fierce passions. Everything they had wanted to do to each other they had already done, now only remained the sweet surrender and an even deeper kind of intimacy between them than ever before. The fire was dying out, but it still cast a soft light on their bodies and gleamed in Eddie's eyes as he gazed gently at her and ran his fingertips from the curve of her hips up to her side and back down. Her body was a newfound wonderland he had been carefully studying all night, but still could not keep his fingers away from.

Eddie did not want to think about how carefully she had been studying his body in her usual curious way, but this time with her lips and tongue instead of her sharp mind and endless questions. If he thought about it, his body would probably get ready to go again, even though he was so tired, sore and aching that he would not have managed to get quickly up from the floor even if the Queen of England herself had suddenly marched in through the door. Amelia had stopped kissing him, shut her eyes and seemed to be falling asleep, so Eddie ran the tip of his forefinger over her freckled nose to get her attention again. She opened up her dark green eyes and met his big brown ones with the same fondness they radiated.

"Hey, you..." She hummed and kissed him again.

"Hey, yourself..." He purred and wrapped his arm around her waist, so she curled up tighter against him.

"Shouldn't you put more wood into the fire, we might get cold otherwise..." Amelia muttered into his bare chest and looked like she was about to fall asleep again.

"Oh no, we are not going to lay here on the floor all night. You are coming to my bed." Eddie stated, yanked at the curtain that had tightened around his hips and sat up.

"Why, let's just sleep here, or at most move to that bed..." Amelia complained in a tired voice and waved towards the guest bed. Eddie gathered up what little strength he had left in his body and stood up while lifting Amelia, still wrapped into the curtain, in his arms.

"My bed is much more comfortable. Here we go, come on now, priya." He murmured softly. Amelia looked slightly more awake and wrapped her arms around his neck when he carried her out to the corridor without closing the door behind him. The poor maid would in any case get a shock when she saw the room, so she might as well see it immediately.

"What did you just call me...? 'Priya'?" She wondered, with her legs dangling over his strong arm when he walked through the corridor towards his own bedroom door. It was lighter out here than she had thought, apparently the sun was already coming up somewhere in the eastern sky.