Edward’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
“What you came here for.” She put her hand on her sash.
“Sophia.” It was the first time he had used her Christian name. It felt intimate in a way he had not anticipated, more vulnerable than he would have liked.
She looked up at him. “If we are to be married in truth, I suppose we should dispense with titles. At least in private.”
“Edward, then.” He inclined his head. “When we are alone.”
Sophia pulled the sash free and let it fall. The robe parted, revealing the thin nightgown beneath, the outline of her body visible through the fabric.
Just as she began to slide the robe from her shoulders, Edward crossed the room in three strides. His hands caught the edges of her robe and pulled it back up, covering her. His fingers brushed her collarbone, and heat shot through her.
“Stop.” His voice was strained. “Stop.”
She stared up at him, confusion warring with something that felt dangerously like hurt. “What are you doing?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I know what you expected from this marriage.” She kept her voice steady, though her heart raced. “There is no need to be coy about it now. I am your wife; I understand my duties.”
Edward’s grip on her robe tightened. “I am not going to touch you.”
The words landed like a blow. Sophia stepped back, pulling free of his grasp. Her throat tightened.
“You mentioned wanting an heir.”
He nodded, his expression pained.
“So, because I am an old spinster, you cannot bring yourself to touch me?” The words came out sharper than she intended, edged with the insecurity she had carried for seven seasons. “I am aware that I am not what you would have chosen. That this marriage was born of nothing but necessity. But I did not expect you to find me so repulsive that you cannot even?—”
“Repulsive?” Edward’s eyes widened. He stared at her as though she had begun speaking in tongues. “You think I don’t want to touch you?”
“What else am I supposed to gather from this?” Sophia gestured between them. “You come to my room. You ask about the curtains and the soup. And when I try to give you what… what a wife is supposed to give, you tell me to stop.”
Edward made a sound low in his throat. Something between a groan and a laugh, though there was no humor in it. His hand came up to grip the back of his neck, the muscles in his forearm flexing beneath the rolled sleeve of his shirt.
“The problem, Sophia, is not that I do not want to touch you.” His voice dropped, rough and strained. “The problem is that I want you too much.”
She blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”
Edward closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they burned with something she had never seen before. Something dark and hungry and barely leashed.
“I have not stopped thinking about you.” The words seemed to tear themselves from him, raw and unguarded. “Since the balcony. Since I kissed you, and tasted you, and felt you tremble in my arms. I have thought of nothing else.”
Sophia’s breath caught.
“I lie awake at night imagining what it would be like to have you beneath me.” He stepped closer, and she could feel the heat radiating from his body, could see the rapid pulse at the base of his throat. “To feel your skin against mine. To bury myself inside you and hear you cry out my name.”
Her knees went weak. She gripped the bedpost to steady herself.
“I think about your mouth.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “The sounds you might make when I kiss my way down your throat. The way your body would arch into mine if I touched you the way I want to touch you.”
Heat pooled low in her belly. Her skin flushed, warmth spreading across her chest, her neck, her cheeks. No one had ever spoken to her like this. No one had ever looked at her the way Edward was looking at her now, as though she were something precious and dangerous all at once.
“I burn for you, Sophia.” His voice was a rasp now, barely controlled. “I have burned for you since the moment you walked into that ballroom and looked at me like I was nothing more than a problem to be solved.”
She found her voice, though it emerged breathless. “Why is that a problem?”
