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Chapter 15
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2021-09-02 07:29:59I’d just settled into a soothing hot, lavender scented bath when, instead of relaxing, my stomach suddenly churned like it was making butter and my brain tried to beat its way out of my skull. I thought back over my day and realized that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Even breakfast wasn’t the usual for me. I’d had such a rigorous night of love making with Lance that I was almost too exhausted to lift my fork to my mouth.
Because he enters my room after I’ve fallen asleep and wakes me with his lovemaking, my body and my mind don’t connect enough for me to have the presence of mind to speak to him about overdoing things. Especially because my fickle body tended to encourage him to do more and more. I needed to broach the subject when his hot, tantalizing nakedness wasn’t coupled with mine and I could think more clearly. I needed to speak with him in the light of day.
It was my intention
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I was bedridden well into the afternoon before my limbs were steady enough to support me. Lance was good enough to carry me to the tub so that, with Jasmine’s help, I could bathe away the sweat and vomit in a most welcomed rose scented bath. He surprised me by depositing me into the tub and then leaving to wait outside of my bedroom door until Jasmine called him back in to carry me back to bed. After so many nights of passionate love making, I was sure that he knew every inch of my body. His display of polite chivalry where my modesty was concerned felt out of place.He sat with me for a while during the day and even played a few games of checkers with me.To both my surprise and annoyance, Jasmine never left the room. I longed for the privacy needed to speak on certain topics with him. At one point, I suggested that she go rest while Lance was with me, but he claimed the necessity to exercise propriety for his mother&rsq
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I stood on the opposite side of the drawing room door and debated on what to do. In the short time that I’d allowed her, Jasmine had done her best to get me dressed in something easy to put on, but presentable as well as fashioned a hairstyle that was passable for daytime entertaining. After peeking through the crack of the not fully closed door and seeing how glamorous Lilith looked from behind, I questioned my wisdom in hurrying downstairs.I put my ear close to the small opening to listen to their conversation.“My dear Lance, we would have made such a wonderful couple,” Lilith said in a pouty voice that made my skin crawl.I could have sworn that I saw Lance shudder. “I am sure that we would have, Lilith, my dear, but you know that my heart has always been with Esmerelda.”“Is it your heart?” she asked, “Or, is it the fact that the Sleuth family carries powerful magic?
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Jasmine timidly roused me from my getaway slumber to dress for dinner. Part of me wanted to send her away, but my mind wouldn’t release the last sentence that I’d heard Lilith speak. Just what family secrets was she talking about? I groaned as I pulled myself off the bed to freshen up before she assisted me with attire that was suitable for attending the evening meal. I’d never find out the truth about this family and what they were up to if I didn’t go down to dinner and mingle with them.Since Jasmine was the only person who knew that I’d slipped downstairs and eavesdropped on Lilith and Lance’s conversation, I could carry out the ruse of being ignorant about it all while I sought out the information that I needed.She’d supplied me with warm water in my wash bowl. Unfortunately, by the time I’d managed to get my reluctant body off the bed and functioning enough to walk to the w
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Wanting some private time with me, Edward escorted me back to my room after a long and exhausting dinner party. We’d barely entered it before he began to explain why some people who possessed magic glowed like they did. It had to do with the strength of the magic within them. If they did not use it often or to its capacity, their shine was stronger than if they did.“You and my father both glow, but it is close to your body,” I observed.“As we age, we have a better ability to control the magic within us. The younger ones- especially those close to the age of thirty- tend to have their magic cause their shine to extend further,” he explained.“Why do they have different colored shine?” I asked, using his terminology instead of saying that they glowed.“It has to do with the magic lineage,” he said with a smile. “The color identifies the clan.”&ldq
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The guests were all abuzz with excitement and anticipation of an impromptu wedding ceremony. The only guest not in attendance was Lilith. Jason was missing amongst the crowd, but, then, I didn’t consider him a guest. He was family, after all. It was just as well that he wasn’t kept abreast of what was happening. I wouldn’t put it past him to challenge Lance right there in the middle of the ceremony.Even though I came from a time where pre-marital sex was accepted. Loose sexual behavior was still frowned upon. The fact that I’d been sleeping with one brother while bonded by a marriage contract to another being openly discussed by strangers was completely humiliating. I hated Jason Northrup for playing such a dirty trick on me. I hated him even more for going public with it. I hoped that my sudden wedding totally destroyed his plans and knocked him right on his ass.Lance was waiting at
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I was eager to be alone with Lance. Not only because it was our wedding night, but because I wanted to speak with him in private about what I suspected was going on between his mother and his uncle. I also wanted to run my theory about Lilith’s gift of poisonous bath salts past him.Since I had no desire to ruin the mood for the evening, I decided to wait until after we’d exhausted ourselves by making love before broaching my theory about his brother being sired by his uncle with him.“If what you are saying is true,” he mused, “it would answer a lot of questions.” He sat up and ran his hand through his thick hair. “I cannot believe that my father and I missed this. Now that you have shed light on the matter, it is obvious. There have been so many signs. The most prominent one is the way my uncle favors Jason over me for no apparent reason.”“Now, you know the r
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The sun was winking ‘good morning’ to the world as it pushed itself away from the horizon by the time Lance returned to our bed. I had the question of what he’d discovered about the bath salts on the tip of my tongue, but it quickly rolled to the back of my throat as he kissed me long and hard while his hand explored and teased my womanhood in a way that immediately made me forget everything except the pleasure that he was giving me. It was as if he knew my body better than I did. His hands kneaded my well-formed breasts and his lips suckled my hardened nipples in a way that made me wild with ecstasy without him having to do anything else. When he finally did move down between my thighs and his tongue found my sensitive nub, I was sure that I’d go insane before he took pity on me and entered me fully. I had to swallow the screams of ecstasy that were coming at such a rate as to almost sound like a song in the wind. At one point, I covered
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I stared into the pitch of night as I lay, naked, beside my sleeping husband. Our sex was a bit more aggressive and experimental than on our honeymoon night, but it was fulfilling and pleasurable. He’d opened my eyes to ways to pleasure ones partner as well as positions to assume during the process that I would have never thought possible. I found it fascinating how the same sexual acts, when performed with Lance, could seem natural and lovely when it felt so distasteful and wrong with Jason; even though I thought that he was Lance. My subconscious must have recognized the difference even if I didn’t.I surprised Lance by initiating some of the acts that Jason and I did. It wasn’t that I was into wide sexual variety so much as they were things that Jason had done to me and I wanted the memory of doing them with Lance to wipe out the memories of doing anything with Jason. I found the things that Jason had disgusted an
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I awoke the following morning feeling satiated and happy. With a smile on my face and my eyes still closed, I reached for my husband, but his side of the bed was empty. Sitting up with a start, I looked around the room. There was no sign of him. Memories of Jason’s many sex filled visits in the night while he impersonated Lance - only to have him gone by dawn- came rushing back to me. Although I knew that Lance left for a different reason, it only slightly buffered my disappointment.With my brows knit together, I pulled the cord on the wall to summon Elsie. She’d barely opened the door when I snapped my demand for a bath to be made ready for me. The bed was filled with our sex. I used the time it took for the bath to be readied to burn the scent of it into my memory.I’d just immersed my body into the tub when my mother entered the room. She looked at the torn night gown as it lay where Lance had
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Elsie had just prepared me for bed when Lance knocked lightly on the door. She gave me a knowing smile as she swung it open and slid past him into the hallway.“Come in,” I said with a timid voice that surprised me.“I feel nervous,” he chuckled as he strode across the room and stood before me. “I fear that I have lost your favor for good.”At first I looked away. The little girl in me wanted to punish him, but the woman in me felt differently. Taking his face in my hands, I said, “I don’t know how to behave or how to feel. I’m angry and hurt and I truly don’t understand your ways.” I pulled his face to him and kissed him hard. “Don’t ask me why, but I’ve loved you almost from the minute I met you. Devil take me, but I can’t help it.”He grinned that same boyish grin that he’d worn through most of our marriage cer
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Feeling dejected and disillusioned with the Northrup family, I sat in the drawing room of my parent’s tobacco plantation home. It felt both good to be there as well as a bit odd and uncomfortable.I was admittedly stunned when my new husband opted to send me off in exile without him. He tried to explain that it would only be for a short time while he smoothed things over with his mother, but it didn’t sit well with me. Not one bit. I was of the opinion that he was cowering to her. Having assumed that I’d married a strong man, I found this fact disconcerting. The way that he and his father bent to her demands was outrageous. It was the type of behavior that I’d be hard pressed to encounter in modern times. Not from something as simple as upsetting the woman by pointing out her wrong doings.I was even more surprised to discover that Bart and Jason remained in the house while I was sent away.&n
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I stared into the pitch of night as I lay, naked, beside my sleeping husband. Our sex was a bit more aggressive and experimental than on our honeymoon night, but it was fulfilling and pleasurable. He’d opened my eyes to ways to pleasure ones partner as well as positions to assume during the process that I would have never thought possible. I found it fascinating how the same sexual acts, when performed with Lance, could seem natural and lovely when it felt so distasteful and wrong with Jason; even though I thought that he was Lance. My subconscious must have recognized the difference even if I didn’t.I surprised Lance by initiating some of the acts that Jason and I did. It wasn’t that I was into wide sexual variety so much as they were things that Jason had done to me and I wanted the memory of doing them with Lance to wipe out the memories of doing anything with Jason. I found the things that Jason had disgusted an
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The sun was winking ‘good morning’ to the world as it pushed itself away from the horizon by the time Lance returned to our bed. I had the question of what he’d discovered about the bath salts on the tip of my tongue, but it quickly rolled to the back of my throat as he kissed me long and hard while his hand explored and teased my womanhood in a way that immediately made me forget everything except the pleasure that he was giving me. It was as if he knew my body better than I did. His hands kneaded my well-formed breasts and his lips suckled my hardened nipples in a way that made me wild with ecstasy without him having to do anything else. When he finally did move down between my thighs and his tongue found my sensitive nub, I was sure that I’d go insane before he took pity on me and entered me fully. I had to swallow the screams of ecstasy that were coming at such a rate as to almost sound like a song in the wind. At one point, I covered
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I was eager to be alone with Lance. Not only because it was our wedding night, but because I wanted to speak with him in private about what I suspected was going on between his mother and his uncle. I also wanted to run my theory about Lilith’s gift of poisonous bath salts past him.Since I had no desire to ruin the mood for the evening, I decided to wait until after we’d exhausted ourselves by making love before broaching my theory about his brother being sired by his uncle with him.“If what you are saying is true,” he mused, “it would answer a lot of questions.” He sat up and ran his hand through his thick hair. “I cannot believe that my father and I missed this. Now that you have shed light on the matter, it is obvious. There have been so many signs. The most prominent one is the way my uncle favors Jason over me for no apparent reason.”“Now, you know the r
