He pressed the tip to her entrance and she realized just how much of him was meant to go in her and grew alarmed, but then –
He pushed into her slowly and she pressed her lips to keep herself from crying out at the sharp sting of pain. It throbbed and she couldn’t tell where her own sensations stopped and the feeling of his began as she tried to convince herself she was going to be all right –
“Breathe,” he ordered.
She inhaled and tears filled her eyes.
“Are you all right?” His voice was careful, and she noticed that he had gone still.
“Yes,” she murmured after a moment, noticing the pain had faded. “I am all right. You may – go on.”
He moved again, extracting himself slowly and pressing into her at the same pace, watching her face with rapt attention. She felt the discomfort begin to ease into something else, something that gathered warmth low in her belly, and she exhaled.
“How do you feel?” he asked her after a moment.
“It's strange,” she managed eventually. “It is...it feels much more difficult because it is you doing this.”
He paused. “Should I be offended?”
“No. It is –” She searched for the word. “It is merely that you are very...present. I can tell that you are trying to be delicate with me – which I appreciate but you are rather… much. Too much of a person to handle, I suppose.”
He gave a short, quiet exhale – not quite a laugh – and dipped his head to her ear, and she felt the gentle catch of his teeth at her earlobe, brief and deliberate, and the shiver that moved through her was entirely involuntary.
“Is that so,” he said against her ear.
“Don't be smug about it,” she told him breathlessly, and this time he did laugh, low and warm, and then he began to move in earnest and she stopped being able to say anything at all.
He thrust in and out of her with the same controlled, considered rhythm he had brought from the start and Phoebe found herself being slowly and thoroughly taken apart by the warmth of his hands and the steadiness of his body and the quiet sounds he made against her throat.
She felt hot and full, each time he plunged into her, could feel the way her walls clung to him, could feel his member throb within her as the pleasure built steadily. She held onto his shoulders and stopped thinking about things she had convinced herself were necessary for her survival that evening.
She let herself simply feel it.
Moments later, she was completely lost in the warmth and press of him and the ache that had been building crested and flooded through her like a tide. Distantly, she heard him hiss and his member pulsed in her, filling her with his seed.
They remained joined for a moment, their breaths mingling noisily in the air with the heat of the moment lingering.
And just like that, it was done.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Afterward, the room was very quiet.
The glow of the fireplace was lower now, casting a soft light around the room. Phoebe lay on her back, her breathing settling, staring up at the canopy above her bed – because there was nowhere else to look, not while she was so aware of Edward beside her. Her mind was fixated on everything, the warmth of him, the slight rise and fall of his chest she could see out of the corner of her eye.
He had not moved away. She had half expected him to leave once the deed had been done and the fact that he hadn't was something she was choosing not to question. Instead, he had settled next to her on his side, leaning against a hand that had been propped up to support his form and somehow she knew he would be too handsome to stare at directly if she chose to look at him then.
His hand moved suddenly and she felt it settle on her hair before she even understood what was happening. He was stroking it,slow and idle, the way one might absently pet a cat. And he did it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Well done,” he commented quietly.
Phoebe blinked without shifting her gaze from the object of her fixation.
She was not entirely sure how to receive that. The part that had been starved of being seen and acknowledged by others aside from her family for many years felt something warm move through her at the words, a soft, involuntary pleasure she could not quite suppress. And then there was another part of her, the wary, more watchful part, that was already noting that his statement was the sort of thing one said to someone who had completed a task properly. In a way, it felt like a stern reminder that what they had done was simply fulfil a clause in their agreement, and nothing more.
She was not sure which feeling she was meant to acknowledge, so she said nothing and remained still.
He seemed content with her decision and his hand continued its slow movement through her hair. Gradually, she grew aware of the odd pull of his nearness, the particular warmth of lying beside someone when the room had grown cool. Despite her better judgment, she felt herself settle – felt her body lean toward the solid stability of him.