Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Ella

"Come on, chérie ," Riggs says a minute, an hour, an eternity later.

He shifts and scoops me up in his arms, keeping the blanket around me as he starts carrying me down the beach.

"I can walk," I rasp, my throat so raw the words are barely distinguishable.

"I know you can," he murmurs, but he doesn't put me down, just continues holding me as he tromps through the sand and snow, making his way to the parking lot.

The closer one that was full when I parked earlier in the day.

"My car?—"

"Knox took it home," he tells me, gaze coming down to my shocked one for a moment before focusing back on the path, carefully climbing the stairs that will take us to the lot. "My car's here, baby."

I see it now, the medium-sized SUV parked just a couple of spots away.

He approaches it without breaking pace, pulling the handle once to unlock the door, and then again to open it. "It's cold in here," he murmurs as he settles me on my seat, buckles me in, and then covers me with the blanket. "But it'll warm up fast, I promise."

I nod, even though I'm not feeling the cold, not really, not with the gentle way he held and carried me, the careful way he'd set me on the seat and buckled me in.

Fingers on my cheek, my jaw. "I'm here," he says softly.

My lungs inflate in a rush, hearing the rest of what he's left unsaid—that he loves me and that he's not going anywhere.

I want to believe that…but how can I?

"There's time yet," he murmurs, cupping my jaw, kissing my forehead. "We have a lifetime ahead of us for me to prove it to you."

I want that, perhaps more than I want my next breath.

And that has panic sinking its claws into my belly.

I shove it down, cover his hand when he begins to pull away from me, needing him to know that I really mean it when I say, "I'm so sorry about last night. And I promise you that will never happen again."

His big hand shifts, dipping into the strands of my hair, and he just holds me against him for a long moment. "Thank you for saying that, chérie ," he rumbles.

One more moment being held by this man.

And then he's pulling back, rounding the hood, sitting in the driver's seat.

A press of a button and the engine turns on. Another and the heat is blasting. And then we're driving out of the parking lot, snowflakes hitting the windshield in tiny, fluffy flurries as we wind our way through the quiet roads and up into the hills surrounding the lake.

Not driving to my place.

But to his.

My pulse picks up as we pull into his driveway, pausing for a moment as the garage door rolls up. The snowfall is increasing, icy confetti swirling all around the outside of his SUV.

"Stay there," he orders quietly once we're inside, turning off the engine, popping open his door and coming around to tug mine wide.

The soft shush of the snow landing on the concrete behind us makes it seem like we're the only two people on the planet. "Let's go inside where it's warm, chérie ," he says as he reaches over and unbuckles my seat belt, lifts me from the warm leather and into his arms.

He hits the button to close the garage and then pushes into the house, pausing only to stomp his boots on the thick rug just inside the door.

And suddenly… I'm fighting back a sudden surge of nerves.

I've been to Riggs's house before.

But this feels like something big.

Like he really isn't going to hold last night against me.

And I don't know if it's that or the long hours of the day closing in on me. I don't know if it's the stress of my dad and all the feelings that churned up. I don't know if it's the guilt for how I acted with Kit, the awful shit I said to everyone, or the drunken disrespect I so carelessly tossed at the man I've fallen for…

I just know that I'm suddenly exhausted.

I don't protest as he sets me on the edge of his mattress and disappears—hell, I hardly see his bedroom at all. White walls, one of which has a huge TV mounted on it, a couple of doors dotting the others.

And a big ass bed.

Normally, I'd bounce on the mattress, make a joke about checking the durability of the springs.

But…I just don't have it in me.

Especially when Riggs reappears and gently tugs the blanket from around me. It lands soundlessly on a chair tucked into the corner next to a floor lamp and small bookcase.

A tiny reading nook, I realize.

"Here, baby," he murmurs and I tear my gaze from the cozy space, from the small insight into what this man does in this room, to see him holding up a T-shirt.

He kneels in front of me, tugs off one boot and then the other, tossing them against the wall. The next moment, he's lifting me from the mattress enough to shimmy my pants down, sending them in the same direction as my shoes.

I shiver and he moves a little faster, unzipping my coat and pushing it down my arms, tugging my sweater and thermal I'm wearing beneath it free.

"This comfy to sleep in?"

A slow blink at his gorgeous eyes before I process where his fingers are brushing.

My bra.

Mutely, I shake my head, and a second later, he's opening the clasp, sliding the material off my torso, down my arms.

The cold barely hits me before he's covering me in a tee that smells like him.

Spice and man and Riggs.

I inhale and then again when he lifts me and tucks me beneath the covers. The cool bite of the sheets makes me shiver again, but not for long because he's crawling in behind me the next heartbeat, pulling the blankets over us, drawing me flush against his chest, and wrapping his warm, strong body around mine.

My eyelids droop again.

"Sleep, chérie ," he orders softly.

I shouldn't.

I need to keep apologizing.

I need to make it up to him.

I need to find a way to?—

" Sleep , baby," he says, rubbing a hand lightly up and down my arm.

I need to?—

But then I lose my battle with sleep.

And darkness pulls me under.