31. Chapter 31

Cold.

So much cold, deep in her bones, it was the only thing in her mind, even though she knew, in a very distant way, that Callum had found her.

He was carrying her, clamped against his body.

Cold. Cold. Cold.

Freezing ice ravaging her muscles, tearing them apart from the inside out. Her teeth cracking against each other. Her stomach a hard rock of pain. Her eyes clamped tightly closed, her body shook so hard she felt like she was going to faint every time her eyes opened.

Cold.

Then suddenly, something enveloping her.

Soft, liquid.

Her muscles so tense, she couldn't feel what was really happening, and she still couldn't force her eyes to open.

Movement, a mass behind her.

Callum. Callum had her.

He was wrapped around her, and then he wasn't, but now his body wrapped around her again.

Then he was gone.

Hands moving around her body. Pulling. Tugging. Ripping.

Then suddenly, the warmth of the liquid around her flooding against her skin. Shocking it, almost like stinging embers from a fire.

"Wh—wh—wh—where?" It took monumental effort to get the air for the word out of her lungs, then formed on her spasming tongue and out past her clanking teeth.

"I brought you to the spring." Callum's lips moved against her ear and the heat of his breath singed her skin. "I couldn't think of anything else close. Even if I got you to the manor, water would have to be heated. This was quickest." His hands wrapped around her, spinning her, and he pulled her against the hard planes of him. "Just lean back on me."

She didn't consciously choose to do as instructed, because he just manipulated her body in place against the length of him. He sank her down into the water far enough at an angle so just her mouth and nose and the top of her head were in the air.

When she finally managed to open her eyes, the surface of the water around her rippled with her quaking.

His body propping her up from behind, Callum started rubbing his hands up and down her arms, pressing in on all the muscles, trying to force the heat of the water into her bones.

It took a long time.

What seemed like forever, but could have been fifteen minutes or fifteen hours. Yet his hands continued their pattern, up and down her arms, back and forth across her belly, down the outer muscles of her thighs and back up the top of her legs.

Until, finally, her fingers twitched instead of shook, and she curled them into fists and unfurled them, loosening the muscles. Doing the same thing with her toes.

Stretching her legs out and her toes touched onto calves.

Naked calves.

She wiggled the length of her body.

No clothes between them.

None.

"Y—y—y—y—y—you're naked." As much as her body had started to feel normal again, the core of her still spewed up freezing air that stuttered her speech.

"I am that."

She twisted her body to the side so she could lift her head out of the water and look up at Callum.

He sighed at her accusing eyes. "I'm not trying to trap you in here naked for my own nefarious purposes. I knew I was going to need to tear your dress off so the water could get to your skin—it was soaked anyway. I took off my own clothes so they would stay dry. After you're warm, you'll need something to wear back to the house."

Her lips parted, but she couldn't even get a "fine" out—only a pathetic grumble.

His hand lifted from the water, his warm thumb brushing wet hair away from her forehead as his eyes searched her face. "Damn, your lips are still blue." He spun her body on top of him so their front sides tangled against each other, and he leaned forward, pressing his lips to hers, sucking her lower lip between his teeth as his tongue ran over it repeatedly.

She knew he was doing it, but could only feel it in a numb, far off way.

Satisfied with her lower lip, he moved onto her upper lip. Back and forth his tongue went.

By the time he was done, she could feel the swipes of his tongue quite clearly and it was far more sensual than merely an effort to warm her lips.

At least to her. Maybe just a chore for him.

She tilted her head back, pulling her lips from his. "You're honestly not trying anything right now?"

He sighed like she had just stolen his favorite food from him, and his left hand under the water slid around her backside and squeezed. Another motion she felt perfectly clear.

"I don't think you're ready for me right now." He shook his head. "Hell, I'm not ready for you right now."

She studied his face. His jawline was taut—clearly had been for a long time for the strain of the muscles.

"What?" She lifted her hand out of the water, trailing the tips of her fingers along his jaw. "Wait. You are angry."

"I am bloody furious."

"Why?" Her brow furrowed, or at least she thought it furrowed. That part of her body was still slightly numb, even with the steam from the water bathing it in warm droplets.

His glare sliced into her. "I told you not to do a damn thing when I left."

"But I didn't do anything."

"You got yourself kidnapped, that's something." He closed his eyes, shaking his head, then adjusted his left thigh upward so she was sitting on it instead of slipping down his body.

His eyes opened, his stare eating into her as both of his hands came out of the water and his palms clasped onto the sides of her face. His voice hitched. "I know it wasn't your fault, but damn, you nearly shredded my heart into wisps of blood and ash when I learned you were taken."

Her breath caught in her throat. "I did?"

His fingers dug into the thick of her wet hair. "Hell, Nemity, of course you did."

"But—but I thought?—"

His look ran across her face, then he sighed. "You thought I didn't want you? Why would you think that?"

Her fingers moved onto his bare chest. "In the stables, you said you were confused."

"Just because I was confused never meant—for one second—that I didn't want you. I always have." His thumbs came forward, running along the outer edges of her lips. "What wanting you would mean for the rest of my life was what I was confused about."

"But you left, you told me to stop, and you left me."

"Yes, I told you to stop because I didn't want you to ask me to marry you."

Her head tilted back, her eyes narrowing at him. "You don't know I was going to ask that."

His right eyebrow cocked. "Were you?"

Her mouth clamped closed.

"Exactly, and I didn't want that. My ego would never survive that and I needed to talk to Thomas first."

Her stomach flipped. "Why? About my money?"

"Yes."

She nodded, the pang that shot like a hot dagger through her chest making it hard to breathe. She knew how this part went and it cut her to the bone, even though she knew it was part of the deal. It always was.

Dignity.

She could at least attempt to keep her dignity about her. She tried to tilt her chin up, giving him a slight nod, which was hard to do with his hands still cupping her face. "Thomas showed you all the numbers?"

"Numbers?" His brow furrowed. "No. I didn't have him show me anything. I told him I was going to marry you."

"You didn't ask him?"

"Hell, no. I am marrying you no matter what that ass says. I told him I was going to marry you—if you'll have me, of course. And then I asked him to put your fortune in a trust that you can access anytime you want, that you can control. He'll still oversee it, unless you request for someone else to. A solicitor or someone of the like."

"What?" She grabbed his wrists and pulled his hold from her, pushing herself back from him, her stare frantic on his face for she was sure she hadn't heard him correctly. "You—you don't want access to my money? But I don't understand."

"I have my own fortune, Nemity. I told you about my grandfather."

"Yes, but…"

"I was his only heir and I have no other family." Even though she still had a grip on his wrists, his fingers wiggled down onto her thighs, digging into the muscles as he spoke. "My grandfather's money just sits around, making more money. I don't really keep track because I rarely have to use it."

Her jaw had dropped and she was having a hard time bringing it back up to its normal position. "Then what were you confused about?"

He shifted his right leg upward so both of his legs were supporting her underwater and he wrapped his hands under her butt, pulling her closer to him. The length of his hard cock nestled into the crux of her and she had to force herself to pay extra attention to what he was saying.

"I was confused because you were asking me to give up everything I know how to do, everything that I am good at, that I was put on this earth for—no, correction, you weren't asking that of me—I was asking that of myself. And it is a slippery bog to traverse when one's life purpose suddenly changes on him."

"It has?"

He nodded, his silver-grey eyes level with hers as his face moved closer. "I want you and Georgette and Jacob to be my purpose. I want to put babes in your womb and make them my purpose. I want the honor of making you laugh on the hour, every hour, merely because the sound of it soothes my rotten soul."

Her fingers unclenched from his wrists, sliding up his arms. "Your soul isn't rotten."

"It is what it is." He shrugged. "And this. When you aren't laughing, I want to be arguing with you about trivialities, because it entertains me like nothing else."

Her mind started fully working again at the worst possible moment, for her folds were already aching, desperate to draw him deep inside of her.

Chewing on her bottom lip, she had to force her body into submission before she started something that would take all rational thought out of her head.

Her right hand went onto his chest, her fingers tracing the dark ink that marked him, a reminder that life was never as easy as she wanted it to be. "But if I marry you, Charley said every door in society will be closed to us because everyone now knows about you being Vanessa's gardener. Georgette and Jacob's futures are at stake."

His head snapped back. "You talked to Charley?"

"Yes. Yesterday. He was in a mad dash to get to me before I accidentally married you. He said all of London knows you're a low-class fortune-hunting charlatan."

His lips drew to a hard line as his jaw ticked, shifting back and forth. She could see how hard he was trying to restrain himself from a string of blasphemies flying from his mouth.

He cleared his throat. "And what did you tell him?"

"I told him I didn't know what to do, because if I don't marry you, Lady Agnes will take away Georgette and Jacob. Then I went on a walk in the woods to clear my mind and that was when those brutes grabbed me."

His nostrils flared and he gave a hard nod. "And before you were taken, did you clear your mind?"

His whole body tensed under her.

She flattened her palm on his chest. It calmed him, but only slightly. "No. But the one thing I did realize as I was walking was that it wasn't just Georgette and Jacob I stood to lose. It was you. And that was the one thing that would destroy me above all others. But at that time, I didn't even know if you would ever be back for how you left me in the stables. I'd thought I'd already lost you and I was plotting how I could possibly go after you and convince you to marry me—dignity be damned."

His fingers tightened into the flesh of her butt, pressing her harder into him. "That is admirable."

She shook her head, having to expel a calming breath just to keep herself from lifting up and impaling herself onto his shaft. "But don't you see? Charley is right about all the doors that will be closed to Georgette and Jacob—and our own children. It is wrong—we'll be outcast from society. There is no good outcome here."

Water sloshed behind her as his right hand came up from her backside, and he sank his fingers into the back of her hair, cupping her head. "When does choosing love equate to wrong?"

Her breath hitched.

His voice dipped to a low rumble. "If doors close because of my past, do you care?"

"I don't care, but that's a choice for me—I cannot make that choice for others. Cannot ruin Georgette and Jacob's futures."

"When did living under society's rules ever give you peace? You are wild, my love, and you need to remain so. The future will be what it will be." He held her head in place, his stare swallowing her whole as his eyes, his voice, vibrated with intensity. "Georgette and Jacob will have both of us, and we can love them. Any children we have, we will love and cherish them just the same. Beyond that, beyond us, who cares? They will grow up happy and healthy and loved, and that is more than most sons and daughters of the ton get to experience. Plus, we don't have to stay in England, we can go anywhere."

The edges of her eyes crinkled, her breath rapid as she stared back at him, silent. Fighting internally, her head opposed to her heart.

His look bored into her, the intensity burning a hole straight to her soul. "If you want to battle this, Nemity, just know I am not going down on this one. I will fight you until I am bones in the ground to convince you of this. We have what we need right here. Right here between us, right now. There is no other option. Not for me." His fingers tightened in her hair. "So I ask you, when have you ever led with anything but your heart?"

And there it was.

Put so simple it was laughable that she'd ever even spent a moment's worth of confusion on the matter.

She always led with her heart. She didn't know another way.

She nodded. "You're right. You're right. I just—I was listening to Charley and I should have been listening to my heart, except I'd thought you'd already shattered my heart, so there was that."

His hand slipped down from the back of her head to slide in against her chest, his palm slick over her heart. "Is your heart back together now, secure and fortified and protected by the largest of all the guardians?"

She laughed. "It is."

He grinned. "Then we go boldly forth—together. But I will tell you, between my fortune and yours, I don't imagine anyone with a working brain would close any door to us. Titles may rule in theory, but the money always does in practicality. It's been that way for a long time and the only ones that don't realize it are in the era of Lady Agnes."

She leaned forward, her lips meeting his in a heated kiss. "Thank you for pointing out I was being ridiculous. Plus, I like that you were a gardener once. I think it is to be celebrated. You can work on the gardens here at Springfell."

He laughed. "Apparently, your friend Vanessa didn't notice that I was an awful gardener—I think I ruined that family's entire plum orchard during that mission."

Her eyes went wide. "You didn't."

"I did." He chuckled. "But I accomplished the task set out for me."

"Vanessa's uncle?"

He shook his head, setting his forefinger over her lips. "I don't talk about clients."

She laughed, nipping at the tip of his finger with her teeth. "You already did. You know your secrets won't always be safe from me."

"I am deathly afraid of that very thing." He kissed her on the nose. "Marry me, Nemity Wheldon, and all my secrets are yours."

With that, she finally allowed herself movement and lifted herself up, settling the tip of his shaft against her entrance. Her hand cupped his jawline as she looked down at him, their lips almost meeting. "I would love to do that very thing."

She sank down onto him.

His cock filling her, thick and pulsating with the blood pumping through him.

He'd been a master of restraint the entire time they were talking, and it showed, for he was voracious in attacking her body.

His lips, his tongue ravaging every spot on her he could reach. Neck. Breasts. Mouth. Chest.

She started slowly, lifting and descending methodically around his shaft, reveling in everything he was doing to her body.

Doing it slowly because the delayed gratification with him was so rewarding.

Doing it slowly because she could breathe real breaths again, the weight of everything that had been pounding down on her shoulders finally lifted.

His teeth captured her right nipple, sending a pang of wicked pleasure straight to her core. With a groan, she dropped on him, her thighs clenching his body as she gyrated her hips, making him hit the sensitive spot on her inner wall.

Bloody insanity.

He chuckled into her chest and she arched her back, giving him full access to anything he wanted to touch on her body.

Invitation taken, his hands ran all over, taking in every inch he could find. His left thumb slipped down between them, running circles around her nub as he rolled her left nipple between his teeth.

She sank into the thick cloud of pleasure filling her brain, sank into the rising tide in her muscles as he brought her closer and closer to release.

Then he shifted forward on the bench deep underwater and pulled her legs free from his sides, wrapping them behind him. Angling his body straighter, his shaft burrowed deeper into her body, to places he'd never reached before and she lost her mind.

Her hands locked onto his shoulders and she rode him, hard, water sloshing everywhere, screams coming from both of them with every breath. His cock consuming her from the inside out with every buck of his hips.

A growl started deep in his chest, and he shifted, going savage as he grabbed her hips to hold her steady against his raw thrusts.

Sending her over the precipice, a scream stuck in her throat for how intense her explosion was, ripping apart her body into thousands of floating pieces.

Her inner walls contracted around his shaft, and his growl pitched deep into a roar as he slammed up into her, his cock expanding with surges.

Her hips continued to circle him, squeezing every last drop of pleasure out of this for both of them.

Until she was spent, her muscles falling to exhaustion, and she collapsed forward on him.

A peace like she'd never felt warming her veins.

She loved this man.

And she knew, down to the darkest speck of her soul, he loved her.

That he lived to protect her. To make her laugh. To be reason when she needed it. To be wild when she needed it more.

She knew that he would never let her drift away from him because she was his soul, just the same as he was hers.