23. Chapter 23

Her look lifted to him, her blue eyes as hard as ever, disbelief vibrating in the purple that ringed her irises. "You are a silly man if you think I want to touch you right now."

"I don't want you to touch me, but I do want you to look." He pointed to his tattoo, the only thing he'd ever bothered to mark himself with. "Look at the ink on my chest."

Her eyes didn't dip downward. "I've seen it."

"Look at it again."

She glared at him for a long moment, then her gaze dropped to his chest, to the intricate round emblem tattooed on the left side of his chest. "And?"

His forefinger touched the ink, just above his heart. "Look at this closely. You cannot see it with just a courtesy glance at the curves and swirls, but look closely on the middle ring of it. It is faded, but tell me what you see."

Her lips pulled to the side as she stared at it. She glanced up at his face, and then took a step closer, leaning in toward his chest. Her eyes squinting slightly at the faded black design.

He stared down at the top of her head, his fingers curling and uncurling at his sides.

Heaven help him, he wanted to touch her. Wanted to feel her skin under his fingertips, wanted to feel her pulse thrumming along her neck.

She shuffled another step closer, studying the tattoo. Close enough that her breath wisped across his skin and he nearly broke, needing to grab her, needing to crush her into him after the last days he spent going mad looking for her, not knowing whether or not she was safe.

"This ring?" She reached out and touched his chest with the slightest brush of her forefinger drifting across the ink.

"Yes." His muscles straining, the word came out pained for all he wanted from her in the moment but knew he couldn't have.

"It—oh—there are letters in the ring."

"Yes."

Her forefinger dragged down around the circle, finding the first letter, then up around the circle, tracing the letters.

The softest exclamation vibrated from her throat before her finger made the circle around the emblem. He knew it was hard to make out, the letters so flourished it took concentration to decipher each one. But it was there.

She looked up at him, her brow furrowed. "Guardians of the Bones?"

His chest lifted in a heavy sigh, making the full of her palm touch onto his chest.

Her hand snapped away, but she didn't move backward, only stared up at him, waiting.

"Yes. Guardians of the Bones. It is what I am. I am a guardian for hire. It is what I have been since I was fourteen years old and I was big enough to be mistaken for a man."

Her brow furrowed, a frown setting on her lips. "But you said you were in the army. You said you were a spy."

"I never said I was a spy, that was your word. But I was in the army in all those roles I talked about. I was there protecting the sons of England's finest aristocracy from their own dreams of grandeur on the battlefields."

Her brow still perplexed, her head angled to the side. "So people hired you to protect them? Why is that such a secret?"

"It's a secret because we protect the people that don't need or believe they need protecting—the ones that would refuse it. Most often, the people who hire us don't want the people we're protecting to know who we are. So we are footman, or maids, or governesses, or drivers, or?—"

"Gardeners."

He nodded. "That one was a bit different, because I was actually hired by Vanessa's father to sort out what his younger brother was scheming. The best way to dig into anybody's life is to be the person they don't give a second thought to. In that situation with Vanessa's family, a gardener was a good position to go in as. I had free access to anywhere on the grounds—no one questions anything of a man always walking around with shears in his hands and boxwood cuttings clinging to his shirt."

Her eyes went wide as her mouth parted with an intake of breath. "Vanessa said—she said her uncle disappeared at the same time that you did, never to be seen again. Does that mean…"

Her voice trailed off as a flash of fear flickered in her eyes.

Shit.

Fear he never wanted to see in her. Fear of him.

But he couldn't hold back the truth from her, not now.

His voice went grave. "I made him disappear. He was trying to kill his mistress's husband and leave the country with her and the money he stole from his older brother. I got there just as he was about to kill the husband, stopping him, but it turned ugly."

"Ugly for Vanessa's uncle?"

He nodded, his face solemn.

Her head dropped, a long breath exhaling from her and she took a step away, facing the brook, her arms curling around her middle.

He could only stand in silence, watching her mull over what he'd just told her. Watching her judge the weight of his soul.

Her stare on the lazy water drifting by, it took long moments before a choked whisper eked from her. "Am I safe around you?"

"You will always be safe because of me."

Her head turned, her gaze intense on him. "What does that mean?"

"It means that Thomas hired me to investigate some things for him. I am one of the best investigators in the Guardians. But then Thomas shifted my duties to you when you were abducted. The most important thing to him was to have me keep you safe. You were never supposed to know who I really was." He paused, rubbing his forehead. "No one is ever supposed to know who I really am, for everything I've been working on for Thomas for the last eight months would be at risk. Our identities are always kept secret for the safety of all the Guardians."

She nodded, taking in the information. "Do you make a lot of people…disappear?" Her voice shook, even as her gaze remained intense on him.

A slice deep into his soul, the monster that he was bleeding out with the cut.

He steeled himself, meeting her gaze. "I do what I have to when it is warranted to keep the people I have been hired to keep safe, safe. That is my job. That is what I am good at. That is what I am paid to do."

"A mercenary, then." She heaved a sigh, tilting her head back and looking at the sky through the tree branches above. "You said eight months—so you are not really friends with Charley?"

Her gaze dropped to him and he shook his head.

"Does Charley know that?"

He shook his head.

"Why? What has Charley done that could possibly warrant Thomas hiring someone like…like…"

"Like me?"

She swallowed hard, nodding.

"That, you'll have to ask Thomas about. What I have even told you right now is beyond a betrayal to the job. A betrayal to the code all the guardians live by."

She heaved a sigh. "And that is what I am, just a job to you?"

"I wanted you to be just a job to me." He took a step toward her, his voice rough. "And I fought damn hard to stay within those lines. The whole of this would have been a lot simpler if you were just a job. But you're not. And I was an idiot to think you could be. Ever since I met you, all I have wanted was to keep you safe. And then all I wanted was you."

Her breath hitched, her stare digging into him.

He could see it in her, her mind warring with her heart, with her body, with her instinct.

She wanted to believe him, she just didn't know if she should. He couldn't blame her wariness with her history of abandoned engagements.

Her lips pursed. "All of this…all of what you're telling me. It could still be lies. Merely lies you're telling me."

"Then why in the hell would I be here?" His hands lifted at his sides. "Why would I have torn apart this earth trying to find you?"

"You don't want to lose your job with Thomas? With the Guardians?"

He shook his head. "Thomas was the one that dumped you in the middle of nowhere. And when I found him at the tavern in Stenton, I quit. I'm not working for him. Not anymore. Not after what he did to you. The ass can figure his own mess out."

Her jaw dropped. "You quit?"

"I did." He stepped in front of her, daring to set his hands on her shoulders as he centered his stare on her, intention in his voice. "When you left me in London—for one second I thought to let you leave. Thought that was the moment I should let it all go. Let it be the end of whatever this is between us."

"Why didn't you?"

"I imagined never looking at your face again." His fingers curled up onto her neck. "Never hearing your laugh. Never arguing with you. Never touching you. Never leaning in and having the scent of your citrus and honey hit my brain and send a surge to my groin. Never hearing your moans when I have your body twisting under my hands. Never watching ecstasy chase across your face when I make you come. Never feeling the frantic beat of your heart under my palm right after. Never seeing that soft smile on your face, when I know, for just that one moment in time, you are in complete and utter peace in my arms."

His head dropped, his forehead meeting hers.

This was what he got for living in lies for the past fifteen years. He had a hard time knowing what the truth actually was until it hit him like a shovel in the face. That was what he felt in the middle of Vauxhall watching her run from him.

Devastation.

True devastation, like he hadn't felt since he was seven.

His hand lifted, his thumb running along her cheek. "I imagined all of that and there was no question in what I was doing next. I wasn't about to let you go. I don't think I'll ever be able to, not unless I want to be half a man. A hollowed-out shell that moves throughout life without a beating heart. For that's exactly what I was before you. A carcass of a man, pretending to be everything I'm not."

"Callum…" Her hands lifted, settling onto his bare chest—the caress of an angel. Yet he could still see the doubt in her eyes.

"Nemity, this is the moment. This is the moment I need you to look for that light in my eyes and hear what I am telling you. For it is the truth. That I have even told you what I have of me could be a grave mistake."

Her countenance reflecting the seriousness of his words, she nodded. "Are you telling me all of this so I have power to wield over you?"

"You already have power over me that I would rather you not. And yes, this is even more, as much as it kills me to do so. I will give you all the power in the world over me if it will make you believe in this truth that is standing before you now. Even if it wrecks me. Even if you use it to destroy me."

She gasped a breath, her hands moving up his chest. "You know I would never use this to destroy you."

"I don't know that." His words cracked, rough. "But I damn well have to trust it."

With a soft mewl, she pulled herself up and kissed him. Kissed him hard and frantic and full of intention.

Hell. He needed her. Needed her more than anything in this moment.

The undeniable force between the two of them took over and while a snippet of his brain said they couldn't do this here, he couldn't bring himself to listen to it and he picked her up, walking toward the willow tree with its long branches.

Her legs wrapped around him as he set her back against the tree, one hand supporting her while the other went in a flurry to her skirts, baring her legs, her sex to him.

Without breaking the kiss, her hands went just as ferocious to unbutton his trousers, freeing him.

No time for soft caresses or languid kisses, the raw, voracious need pushed both of them onward and he plunged his shaft into her.

He lost his breath. Damn.

She was already soaked for him and he pulled out, slick with her need. He lifted her slightly, adjusting his angle for his shaft to grind against her at just the right spot with every thrust, and he went feral. He drove into her relentlessly, dragging his cock against her folds with every stroke. Pulling shuddered moans from her lips even as his mouth stayed locked on hers.

He needed this. Every one of her breaths. Every one of her moans. Every one of the shudders ripping through her body.

He needed all of them because she was his, whether she knew or not. She was.

Her shuttered eyes opened to him, begging silently, and he took it for what it was. She was so damn close, yet she wanted to drag it out.

He held on admirably, until her leg muscles turned to iron around him and she curled toward him. He drove into her, deeper than he thought possible and a choked scream warbled from her mouth. Her body shook, her inner walls contracting hard along his cock as the release hit her.

Two more drives and he lost all control, devouring her as he erupted deep within her.

Shattering his body and all the last vestiges of control he pretended to have.

He collapsed against her. Unable to grasp onto any solid thought in his head, other than one pounding desire.

He'd found her.

Now he just had to keep her.