A weak laugh came from the bed. “I
He took a deep breath. The baby needed food. His baby. He couldn’t help grinning. His minx was making him a father again, hopefully giving him a little girl to spoil this time. He hugged the pitcher to his chest and brought it over to her.
“Here. Drink this and I’ll get dressed and have Mrs. Brown send some food up.” He frowned as he looked at the door. “I wonder why they haven't checked on us by now.”
“Probably because we scared them away,” she said as she took the pitcher from him. She almost dropped it. Her arms were so weak, but she couldn’t drink lying back this way. She got up on her knees with great difficulty. The only thing that mattered was the water. She didn’t care about being ladylike or anything else. She drank greedily, not caring about the water that spilled down her chin and down her chest and stomach. She was so thirsty. When she had her fill, she placed the now empty pitcher on the bed. Her eyes met Robert’s intense gaze and she knew that things were about to take a turn for the worse.
“Oh no,” she whimpered.
Robert stared at the water dripping down his wife’s breasts. He licked his lips. Every part of him save one was protesting the sight. He followed her frightened eyes downward. He was more than ready to go again. It felt like he hadn’t had her in years instead of minutes.
Elizabeth threw a pillow at him so she could scramble off the bed, desperate to make an escape. It was like that piece of his anatomy was in charge. He crawled after her. She didn’t bother with a nightgown or a wrap as she ran to the door and started pounding on it.
“Mrs. Brown!”
“Oh, thank the lord!” came Mrs. Brown’s worried voice from behind the door. “We were afraid you’d both perished.”
She looked back to see her husband trying to escape from the tangled sheets his foot got caught on. “We will if you don’t help.”
“Mrs. Brown, listen I haven’t much time. Can you arrange for a large tray of food and drink to be delivered,” she looked over her shoulder to discover that Robert was close to getting free, “and water for a bath as well. Please!”
“Certainly,” Mrs. Brown said, sounding amused.
“Robert?” James suddenly said as he joined Mrs. Brown in the hall.
A soft growl behind her was the only answer. Elizabeth slowly turned around, plastering her back against the door. James knocked on the door. “Robert? Come down with me to the tavern, I’m bored. Robert?”
“I’m busy,” Robert answered in what sounded mostly like a snarl.
James’ answer was a pained sigh. “Come on, you’ve done your duty. Let’s go.”
A loud whimper escaped Elizabeth as he pounced on her. He was handsome, wicked and all hers. No matter how tired or weak she was at the moment he still had this strange affect on her body after all these years and in that moment, she wanted him more than anything.
“Robert?” James asked, sounding unsure.
Robert couldn’t answer at the moment. He was busy licking the water from Elizabeth’s skin. She was pinned tightly against the wall, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her legs around his waist.
In one quick move, he was sheathed inside her. He wrapped his arms around her, protecting her from the door as he thrust inside her. The door groaned its protests as its hinges and frame were put to the test. If the position hurt Elizabeth, she wasn’t saying.
Just the opposite, in fact.
She demanded him to move harder and faster. At that moment Robert didn’t care that his brother and Mrs. Brown were standing outside the door or that he was on the verge of starvation. He only cared about her, about his minx. He slammed into her, once, twice, three times and then she began screaming his name and doing her best to milk him dry.
“Lucky bastard,” he thought he his brother mutter, but he didn’t really care as he lost himself in the woman that he loved.
“Happy anniversary, Mr. Bradford,” his minx said minutes later as she pushed him to the floor to give him his gift all over again, making him wonder if he should call another truce before they ended up killing each other.
Epilogue
Present Day Massachusetts
Fifteen minutes until the party……..
“The end,” his father said with flourish as he shoved a bite of pizza in his mouth, making Jason wonder when they’d ordered out and how he’d missed that.
“Hey!” Trevor gasped in outrage as Jason reached over and snatched the slice he’d been seconds away from devouring out of his hand. “You bastard!”
“Thanks,” Jason said, finishing off the slice of pizza quickly before he wiped his hands off and gently picked up the necklace that was finally finished and placed it in the small wooden box that had taken him less than an hour to make and stain.
“About time,” his father grumbled as he stood up and grabbed two pizza boxes off the counter and headed for the door. “I’m starving.”
“We would have been done a lot sooner if you hadn’t embellished the story,” Trevor pointed out, grabbing the other two pizza boxes and followed.
“I didn’t embellish a damn thing,” his father snapped over his shoulder.
“Really? Not even when you said that Robert wasn’t nearly as good looking as you?” Trevor asked, chuckling.
“I had to give you a visual! A good story teller does that sort of thing!”
“Grandpa did a better job of telling that story,” Trevor pointed out as Jason reluctantly followed after them, his attention on the small box in his hands as he prayed that he did it the justice that it deserved.
“You ungrateful bastard!” his father snapped in outrage.
“Ungrateful? You made me pay for lunch and then you wouldn’t even share the chicken fingers!” Trevor snapped.
“I needed sustenance!”
“No, what you need is-”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” his father suddenly demanded, cutting Trevor off. It took Jason a moment to realize that his father was talking to him and that both men were now frowning at him.
“To the party,” he said, returning the frown. “Where else would I be going?”
His cousin and father both shook their heads, sighing in exasperation as his father gestured for him to sit his ass down on the couch. “You’re not going to the party.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jason demanded, wondering what the hell was wrong with the men in his family. For the past two hours they’d been snapping at him to move his ass so that they wouldn’t be late for the party and now they were purposely trying to make them late.
“This party isn’t for you,” Trevor said, giving him a gentle, okay, not so gentle shove, towards the couch. “Your job is just to sit here and wait.”
His father nodded in agreement as he gestured for Trevor to leave. “We’ll check on you from time to time,” his father said, opening the door. “We’ll bring the kids and Haley’s grandmother back in a week unless you think that you’ll need more time.”
“More time for what?” Jason asked in confusion as he watched his father head out the door.
