The Perfect Arrangement (The Not So Saintly Sisters #4) - Annabelle Anders Page 0,43
murmured the words over and over again as his mouth trailed around her chin, his hands lifting her gown.
She clutched the sides of his head, holding him to her breast, comforting him in the only way she knew how, and opened her legs so he could settle himself between them.
Their lovemaking up until now had been an exploration of one another, a celebration. Even if everything else was a lie, this would always be real.
This lovemaking was frantic, compelled by the perils lurking between the them. She saw the future in terms of uncertainty. He saw no future at all.
But they were bound together, legally and by…something else.
And as their bodies came together, all of it fell away. He belonged inside of her. She arched her back and urged him deeper. A combination of panic and wanting and pain and…love. Yes, in that moment, it was love that drove them both.
And when white lightening shot through her body at the same time the warmth of his seed filled her, Lillian didn’t know if she felt joy or despair.
When she awoke the next morning, she was alone.
In the following days, though never as carefree and open with her as he’d been the week they drove back from Gretna Green, he came to her every night and his touch was always loving and passionate. Afterwards, they sometimes fell right off to sleep and other times discussed trivial events and household matters.
He wanted to know how she was getting along with Bernadette, did she miss her sisters, which events should they plan to attend. They never discussed anything farther into the future than a day or so. It was the one topic they could not agree on. For this reason, they avoided any subject that bordered on emotional intimacy. Because then they would have to acknowledge one another’s feelings, one another’s beliefs. And acknowledging them would then require some sort of commitment for the future.
They were able to be vulnerable with their bodies but not with their hearts.
Oh, but she liked him. She loved when he let his guard down, she loved watching him with his sister, she especially loved the evenings they spent together by the hearth, her reading a fictional novel and him going over various correspondence.
But their relationship was fraught with rules, and those rules created tension.
She would only pretend to read on some of these evenings, wanting to tell him that she was happy with him, but also afraid.
What would she do if he was to actually die? If some tragedy befell him? Was it possible that he could subconsciously fulfill his own prophesy?
Her fears were irrational, she knew, and yet he was so very adamant about his destiny that it was beginning to frighten her.
And other worries took shape as well. She wanted to conceive, she did! She wanted to give him the reassurances that he sought, and yet also hoped it would not happen right away. She was fearful that once she’d fulfilled that purpose, he would push her even farther away.
There were times when she could almost believe that their arrangement was not meant to be temporary––times she felt closer to him than she’d ever felt to anyone before, but come morning, when she awoke, she was always alone.
She knew what he was doing. He was protecting her, or so he believed. He did not want her to become attached to a man who was certain to die. As if she could stop herself from developing feelings for him.
And she knew that it was as hard on him as it was on her. He sometimes woke her with his nightmares. On those occasions, she simply held him and stroked his hair.
In a much more straightforward manner, Lillian had begun to develop a delicate friendship with his sister. She had taken Bernadette shopping, and to museums and Gunter’s. The two of them had visited Sophia and even her mother on a few occasions. Her relationship with her sister-in-law was moving forward, slowly, but it was growing.
Her relationship with her husband was at a standstill.
They could not go on like this much longer, however. It was exhausting.
On the third day of the third week of their marriage they were finally going to attend a social event as a married couple.
She fidgeted in her room. She hadn’t ever been overly concerned with the opinions of others, but she had married in haste and there was always the possibility that people had leaped to unkind conclusions.