Chapter 2

ChapterTwo

Blessing

Open your eyes. You have to get up.

I left the children at the orphanage without anything to eat, save a few scraps of week-old bread. My plan was to beg as long as possible, until I had enough to fill their bellies through Christmas, but I wasn’t expecting the temperature drop. One of the youngest kids is using my coat as a blanket, so I couldn’t bring it with me and…

Where am I?

All I remember is passing the huge estate on the edge of town, the interior lit up in a beautiful glow. I saw a man inside—a hard, mean man—but something told me he could help. The last thing I remember is him opening the door and shouting. My money…I must make sure no one takes the money. I have no other way to buy food.

I start to rouse myself, but the warmth of the bedding makes my movements lethargic. It has been so long since I was this warm. This comfortable. Lordy, these sheets must be woven from the finest of cotton. It’s glorious against my skin and I can’t help but moan.

“The angel wakes,” says a deep yet dry voice somewhere in the room.

Briefly, some cool air meets my exposed thighs and then I’m warm again.

Much warmer.

Because I’m being hauled up against a body.

A male body.

My brain is urging me to fight off the uninvited attention—where am I? Who is this?—but then I’m pressed up against the heat of his chest and I whimper, burrowing closer. I was wrong before. This is the warmest I’ve been in a long time. He produces heat like an oven and my chilled bones rejoice the closer I get to him.

“Would you like me to get on top of you?” murmurs the deep, unknown voice.

Maybe I’m dreaming.

Yes, I must be.

There are some very kind people in this town who donate regularly to the orphanage, but none of them would bring me into their beds like this. Maybe I’m in the final stages of hypothermia, delirious and sinking into oblivion. If so, I must fight against it. There is no one else to care for the kids. Only me. The money I spilled…I need to retrieve it. I need to reach the market before it closes for the night or they’ll go hungry again.

“Please, I have to get up…” I slur, my limbs refusing to cooperate.

“Right now, you only need to get warm.” A weight presses down on top of me and I make a hoarse, urgent sound, opening my legs so it…he can get closer. Goodness. This man is thick and heavy and warm, smelling of woodsy aftershave. He pushes me down deep into the mattress and I lift my knees around his waist, wrapping myself around him involuntarily, desperately trying to soak up his heat. Oh, it has been so long since I wasn’t freezing.

Wait, though. Wait. The moments are moving too quickly.

I’m in a strange man’s bed. He’s on top of me.

What are you doing, Blessing?

“Who…who are you?” I manage into his neck.

His chuckle is darker than I expected. At odds with his welcoming touch. “I wonder if perhaps you know exactly who I am, angel.”

I search my foggy memory bank. Even my thoughts are slower than usual. How long has it been since I ate anything? Days? “I…are you the man who lives in the big house?” I whisper.

Do I sense disappointment from him or is that my imagination? “Yes, I’m Edison Scrooge, the man who lives in the big house. But you knew exactly who you were coming here to meet tonight, didn’t you?”

Confusion muddles my thoughts even further, like trying to see through a blizzard. “I don’t know what you mean,” I say breathlessly, my hands tracing up and down his back, taking the chill from my palms. “I was collecting money to feed the children…and…and now I’m here…”

“Oh, is that right?” His skepticism is obvious, but his mouth is open and breathing hard against my neck. He tastes me with his tongue and groans. “You are really trying to sell this innocent beggar persona, aren’t you? Drop the act, angel. I know the truth.”

Now, I’m so confused, I can barely make sense of what he’s saying. “What truth?”

Slowly, his hands wind up the hem of my dress. The garment was already around my thighs, but he rucks it up to my hips now, eliminating one of the barriers between our private parts. Now there is only my thin panties and his underwear and oh…

Oh, my goodness.

What is that?

Something big and heavy and long presses to the valley of my sex and slowly, slowly, grinds down, an extended groan ripping up the man’s throat.

Edison.

I’m beneath Edison Scrooge.

The richest man in town—and the least generous, by all accounts.

“Tell me your secret out loud,” he cajoles in my ear, his lower body starting to move in measured rolls that seem to make his shaft stiffen more and more, his hands capturing my wrists and imprisoning them on either side of my head. “Tell me you came here to trick me into making you my wife.”

“Your what?” Now I’m waking up. “I’m only eighteen, sir. And I have no plans to marry. I was simply passing by, hoping for some kindness so I could afford to feed the children at the orphanage—”

His derisive snort cuts me off. “The children at the orphanage. Listen to you. How could you expect anyone to believe such a cliché sob story?” He drags his tongue up the side of my neck again, breathing hard into my hair. “You came here to entice me—and it fucking worked. I’m going to take care of you from now on. I don’t give a damn what anyone has to say about you—they’ve said much worse about me. But I need you to be honest now, Blessing. You’re not going to make a fool out of me.”

Pressure starts to build in my throat, prickles sprouting behind my eyes. “I truly don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

“Edison, baby. Get used to saying my name.”

For some strange reason, I do want to hear his name roll off my tongue. Perhaps because…despite his confusing accusations, he is the strongest, most handsome man I’ve ever seen up close. His close-cropped beard is well groomed, hugging the square curve of his jaw. Even in the dark, I can tell his eyes are light hazel, such a delicate color. They are at odds with the rest of him, which is far from delicate. He’s robust and muscular and…and…that part of him rubbing between my thighs is beginning to feel good.

Reallygood.

“Edison,” I whisper, that single word causing a languidness to unlock in my tummy.

His thumbs dig into the smalls of my imprisoned wrists. “That’s a good angel.”

My breath hitches in embarrassment when I start to notice a spreading dampness on the crotch of my underwear. Does he feel it, too? I hope not. It can’t be normal. I need to get out of this bed before he notices my unusual situation. I really should go. But he curses into my neck and bucks his hips harder this time and an encouraging gasp sneaks out of me. Before I can stop myself, I’m lifting my hips, begging silently for him to grind me back down into the mattress—and he does. Aggressively.

“See, you’re trying to play a virtuous virgin, but your body shows signs of experience.”

“I have no experience.”

“Liar.” He settles his forehead on mine and gazes down on me, his face flushed, eyes almost black now with what can only be male arousal. “A beauty like you couldn’t walk two blocks in public and stay pure. A man would break. A man would steal that cherry, damn the consequences.”

My confusion only deepens. “My what?”

“Your virginity,” he enunciates.

“I…yes,” I stammer. “I’m a virgin.”

“Impossible.” He releases one of my wrists, trailing his knuckles down the side of my breast, my ribcage and hip. He shifts his hips to one side and begins to yank down my underwear, his breath turning shallow. “Are you going to make me prove you’re lying or are you going to start being real with me?”

“I fear you’ve mistaken me for someone else, Edison—”

“You could never be mistaken for anyone else,” he rasps, his attention falling to the juncture of my thighs. To my sex. His hips keep my right knee pinned open, so there is nothing I can do to shield myself. He’s seeing my naked flesh. The wetness. There’s nothing I can do to stop it—and I’m not sure I want to. Not when he’s visibly overcome by the sight of me.

He likes what he sees. A lot.

And I’m powerless to stop a fresh surge of moisture from coating me there.

“Lord have mercy,” he chokes out. “That’s a hot little cunt.”

His words are unfamiliar to me, but something inside of me likes them. His obvious crudeness makes me shudder with excitement, even though I don’t know what he’s saying. I think he means he likes my sex. And I…can’t help wanting him to like it. I can’t help tilting my hips and letting my left thigh drop wider, his answering groan giving me goosebumps.

“Listen here, little girl.” He trails his right thumb down the seam of my flesh, his left hand still manacling my wrist on the pillow. “This is your last chance to take responsibility for coming here under the pretense of begging on behalf of some orphans, when your real motive was to land a rich husband.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I protest. “How would I even know you were looking for a wife?”

His thumb parts my wet core and teases me with a knuckle, fondling a spot that makes my hips wrench up off the bed, the breath fleeing from my lungs. While I’m reeling from the foreign sensations, he speaks to me in a hard voice. “Maybe you heard gossip about it at the church while you were stealing.”

Reality hits me at once.

Stealing. The church.

All the women downstairs in their evening gowns.

He’s been fed those lies about me—and he believes them.

Unexpectedly, his doubt regarding my character hurts. How can this man touch me so knowingly, yet condemn me at the same time? He’s the first man to touch me intimately and he believes me a thief? I’ve never stolen anything in my life. I’ve only made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was begging on the steps of the church one afternoon when the collection plate went missing, but I would never take money that wasn’t freely given. “I’ve never stolen a thing, Edison,” I say, begging him to look at me, to see the truth of my words. “Won’t you believe me?”

There is conflict in his expression. He wants to trust me, but the skepticism wins. “Very well. You want me to prove you a liar?” His touch travels lower, to the breach of my body, his middle finger nudging gently inside of me. “You want me to prove you’re not some innocent do-gooder who accidentally happened to pass out on my doorstep?”

“Yes,” I whisper. I’m not sure why.

Maybe I want to break through to him. Maybe I just want to be believed. Trusted. I don’t know, but I bite down hard on my bottom lip and try not to cry out when he pushes that thick digit deep into my body. His confidence slips almost immediately, a furrow forming between his brows. But he doesn’t stop. My channel stretches to allow his finger deeper and it’s definitely on the verge of hurting…hurting…

There’s a light tear inside of me and pain blooms in my abdomen.

Not all bad pain. Some of it is the sharp anticipation of what’s to come next.

Pain of…need, I think. Perhaps lust?

But the edges are jagged with inexperience, the ache of being invaded for the first time.

I cry out at the discomfort and Edison pulls his finger out of me quicky, holding it up to the light to reveal the red proof of my innocence. “No.” His chest starts to puff up and down wildly. “Blessing. No. Oh God. What have I done?”

I’m unprepared for the indignation that bombards me. It’s swift and righteous.

Finally.

I’ve been the subject of false accusations before and now that I’ve been vindicated, even if it came at a steep cost, I feel almost…powerful. Too powerful to let this man continue touching me. I don’t care how broken he looks now that I’ve proven myself to be honest.

Tears crowd tightly behind my eyes and I yank my wrist free, bounding out of the bed.

“Come back here, angel,” Edison begs raggedly, cradling his bloody finger to his chest like a prized possession. “Please lie back down and let this bastard beg for forgiveness.”

“I never want to see you again,” I sniff, pulling up my panties and running out of the room. A man with a doctor’s bag walks side by side with a man in spectacles. They regard me knowingly, obviously making assumptions about what I did with Edison in that bedroom.

“Blessing!” Edison roars in the doorway behind me, while jerking his pants up and engaging the zipper. “Do not leave this house. You live here now. You live with me.”

“Never,” I say, trying to pass by the two men in my path.

“Don’t let her by,” Edison commands, beginning to storm toward me. “But so help me God, if either of you lays a finger on her, I will snap them off one by one.”

He’s going to catch me.

The unholy fire in his eyes says he’s never going to let me go.

If I’m being honest with myself, there is a part of me that wants back into his arms, to surround myself once again in all that warmth and protectiveness. But the betrayal, the fresh accusations, the test of my innocence are too fresh.

Thinking fast, I kick the spectacled man in the shin. “Sorry,” I squeak when he doubles over. And I vault past him, sprinting at top speed down the hallway. On my way out the door, I pick up the hat full of money, wrap my arms around it protectively and exit the mansion as fast as my legs will carry me. Into the cold.

When I glance back once, I see the women from the church watching me leave from the windows. They are the ones who told Edison lies about me. Will one of them be his bride?

I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t give it another thought, so why does the possibility of Edison marrying another cause tears to burst from my eyes? There is no time to examine my complicated emotions now. I turn and continue to run determinedly into the night, resigning myself to the fact that I’ll never see Edison again in my life.

Although his anguished roar of my name from the doorstep of his home does cause me to wonder if I’m wrong…