The Duke's Masked Wife

Alessandra crawled across the bed to her end to lie down. Her body felt sleepy once again and she could no longer stay awake to ask Edgar any more questions about Jennifer or talk about what they would do tomorrow. The sooner she fell asleep the sooner she could prepare for a day of painting with Edgar.

As her head touched the pillow, Alessandra closed her eyes hoping to fall asleep as easily as she did in the carriage. However, minutes passed and Alessandra found herself still awake. She was most definitely sleepy but it was not easy to fall back to sleep.

"Alessandra," her eyes squeezed shut after the bathroom door squeaked open and Edgar called her name. "I know that you are not sleeping, Alessandra. You are laying too perfect for you to be awake. You move around in your sleep."

"I do not," Alessandra disagreed with Edgar's words. She believed each time he mentioned it, it was an attempt to tease her.

"You go to sleep at the edge of the bed to avoid being so close to me but then you roll over to my side during the course of the night or I have to stop you from rolling off your side of the bed. You cannot tell me otherwise when I have seen it with my own eyes. It is quite comical," a faint smile formed as Edgar remembered how fun it had been to watch her sleep.

"I have never fallen off my previous bed and it was much smaller than this. I can't help thinking you are a liar, Edgar," said Alessandra. She never had any issues with the way she slept until now. Then again, she had never paid much attention to what position she ended up in the morning.

"I can't help thinking you have started the habit of being closer to me at night."

Alessandra felt the bed sink slightly as Edgar either laid or sat down. She kept her eyes closed desperately wanting to fall asleep. "I do not- Edgar!" Her eyes opened wide and she exclaimed his name when an arm snaked around her waist.  "W-What are you doing?"

"You will end up rolling around in the middle of the night. I am doing this for your protection," he pulled her body back against his own.

Alessandra's body tensed up feeling Edgar's bare chest against her back. His buff arm remained around her waist to keep her from leaving and for some reason, Alessandra felt unable to breathe from just his touch. She could feel every inch of his toned body thanks to him only wearing trousers to bed. It was certainly a mistake to wear thin clothes to bed when they were laying so close to each other.

"Breathe Alessandra. I am already a suspect in one death. Imagine how hard it would be for me to plead my innocence that you died just from me holding you. We are simply going to sleep. That is all," he reassured her. She was too tired for him to try anything even if it was just to tease her and there was still a wall between them. "Go to sleep."

"It is harder to fall asleep when we are this close. At least release me a little. We are too close if I can feel your breath against my neck when you speak and…" she trailed off, unable to say what else she was feeling.

"And?" Edgar wanted to hear what else she had to say even though he had an idea what it might be.

Alessandra mustered up the courage to speak, "I can feel you pressing against me."

She did not know a lot when it came to intimacy but thanks to her conversation with Mario, she was well aware of what was pushing against her buttocks because of their closeness. Alessandra felt a wave of awkwardness and pleasure at the same time. There was a feeling she had never experienced before and she wanted to run away from it.

"It is a natural reaction to a woman being this close to me. It would be odd if it did not happen with my wife this close to me. It will go away shortly but I will not let go of you, Alessandra. You deserve to be tortured as much as I am," Edgar said right before he inched back to provide a little space between them.

'When am I never tortured when it comes to Edgar? He is the one who removed his clothes in front of me a moment ago," Alessandra thought.

It was not easy to suddenly be around a man as good-looking as Edgar without any clothes and she was slowly adapting to it because he was her husband but Edgar was making it hard for her.

"If you were feeling tortured it was not my fault," Alessandra replied.

"Do you know how entertaining it is when you do it unknowingly? Mark my words, Alessandra. When this wall between us comes down, I will thoroughly torture you."

"I do not want to be tortured, Edgar."

Edgar chuckled, knowing she had no idea what he meant. "Believe me, you'll enjoy it. Now close your eyes and go to sleep. You had a long eventful day and there is no telling what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully, it is not the town guards bringing us more annoying questions to answer."

Too tired to find a way for Edgar to release her, Alessandra closed her eyes once again to fall asleep. Her heartbeat calmed down as she got accustomed to Edgar's warmth. Once she stopped overthinking, she found being close to Edgar to be comforting.

Laying like this, she didn't have to fear someone coming in the middle of the night to take her back to her father's home. They would have to pull her away from Edgar's strong grip to take her away. Listening to Edgar's steady breathing, Alessandra eventually drifted off to sleep.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Edgar commented then closed his eyes to fall asleep.