Dangerous Exile by K.J. Jackson
{ Chapter 30 }
“It is done?” Ness’s look jerked up from the soap and washcloth in her hands as Talen walked into her room at Washburn. It had been dark for hours now, and she’d finally broken and pulled herself away from worrying at a window, her stare locked on the front drive to Washburn. She’d had the bath readied in a hopeless effort to calm her frayed nerves.
“It is.” He closed the door behind him, dodging around the plump pink damasked chair that had been shifted away from the fireplace when the copper tub had been moved into the room. The deep circles under his eyes didn’t escape her notice. He looked exhausted by what had happened that day.
“I wish I had come.” She twisted the washcloth in her hands. “Seen that witch dragged into that place.”
Talen pulled off his tailcoat and waistcoat, tossing them onto the chair, then wedged off his boots. Standing straight, he rolled up the sleeves of his lawn shirt as he walked across the rest of the room and bent down behind her, resting on his heels.
He leaned over the edge of the copper tub and set his lips to her wet neck as he reached around her and plucked the washcloth from her fingers. “One, I’m never letting you near another one of those monstrosities for as long as we live. And two, I did it myself, dragged her into the asylum, so my mind and your mind can be assured it is truly done. Clayborne signed all the paperwork.”
She involuntarily shuddered, the mere thought of a madhouse still striking innate fear deep in her gut.
But Talen knew what she needed, and the last thing she needed was to be delivering the dowager to the Devlon Asylum for the Insane. Though he’d always been like that. Always known, since the moment she showed up at his doorstep, what she needed.
“How is your arm?” she asked. The bullet from the dowager’s pistol had gone clean through his upper arm. The wound had been cleaned and wrapped, but she knew it still must sting.
“It is nothing.” His fingertips prodded her to lean forward in the tub and he dragged the washcloth against her back, sending ripples of pleasure up her spine.
As much as she wanted to revel in his hands moving over her wet skin, worry made her glance over her shoulder at him. “You are at peace with the fact that the dowager is in that place and not with a noose around her neck for all she has done?”
His knuckles that had been lazily tracing upward along the bumps of her spine stilled. “Her fate in that place will be torture for her mind, day in and out, so am I at peace with it?” He shrugged. “I am coming to that point.”
He fell silent as he collected her hair, twisted it, and draped it forward over her shoulder. The only sounds in the room were droplets dripping from the cloth into the water as he washed the expanse of her back.
“I’m sorry.”
Sorry? The worry balling in her gut intensified. Ness shifted in the water, half turning so she could fully see his face. “Sorry for what?”
“Sorry that I didn’t see the dowager for what she was. Sorry I didn’t remember her or my uncles or that time all together—if I had, I could have stopped her. If I had, you wouldn’t have been in danger.”
“Except I’m not in danger from her. You saved me. You protected me when I most needed it. I saw how you froze in that cottage. Saw the horror of the past reach out and take a hold of you.” She reached up, pressing her palm along his cheek. “But you fought your way through it. You fought to me. You swore you would keep me safe, and you did. I think this proves you are not death, Talen. That I wasn’t wrong when I trusted you with my life.”
His light blue eyes seared into her, searching for salvation. “Was it enough?”
“I am here, naked in front of you. Unharmed.” A soft smile lifted the corners of her lips as her left arm, unwrapped and whole, lifted up from the water. “Healed. I think it was more than enough.”
His eyes closed for a long breath and she could see the demons still swirling in his head. See how lost and scattered he still was when all she wanted was for him to fight his way back to her. To want to fight his way back to her.
But maybe she wasn’t enough. Maybe she’d ruined everything. Maybe the past and what he’d suffered would always haunt him, shadowing everything she could offer him.
Her hand on his cheek lifted, her thumb brushing along the edge of his eye. “I never got to tell you last night—and I should have turned around and come back into your room the moment that I left…”
Her head shook, fear taking a hold of her, and her hand slipped from his face. Maybe he’d reconsidered everything they were together. Everything she wanted with him. But if she didn’t tell him everything now, she would be giving up without a fight.
And that’s not who she was anymore.
Her look dipped down to the bathwater between them for a breath, then she lifted her face to him. “But I didn’t. I didn’t turn around because you’re stubborn and it makes me want to strangle you, and yet I am just as stubborn. And I was scared. Scared by what I did to you—brought upon you. All those memories.”
Her heart thundered in her chest. “So I cede. I thought I wanted something for you because it would help you, but I don’t want it if you don’t. I cede because I don’t care if you’re an earl or if you’re a fishmonger. I never did. I don’t care. I only want you. Talen Blackstone. I love you. Not who you could be. Not who you were. You. Do not doubt that.”
His head dropped forward, hanging for a long moment and avoiding her gaze.
His silence, his avoidance, stole every last bit of her resolve, her hope.
His gaze lifted to her, his light blue eyes storming. “If I find a place with you, Ness, which is where I want to be, I have to give up what I am in London. Give up what I am at the Alabaster.”
A flicker of relief shot through her chest. His hesitation wasn’t that he thought her fickle. That he thought her love depended upon his station in life. “Which is what?”
“An arse. A man with little compassion. A man with loose integrity. A man not deserving of a woman like you.”
Her throat clenched. She turned around fully in the tight tub, shifting to balance on her knees. “Talen, you don’t need to give up anything for me.”
“But I want to. That is the difference. I want my place in this world to be with you. With you where I can laugh and be free and not be constantly glancing over my shoulder, searching for the next man trying to take me down. I want simple. I want a life where seeing you puts a smile on my face and I don’t have to fight it, don’t have to hide it in order to keep you safe. I want to lie under the night sky with you in peace.”
Her eyes went wide, the spark in her chest exploding. “You want to be my hero, don’t you?”
The right half of his face lifted, close to pained. “Maybe I do.”
She splashed forward in the tub, her hands clasping around his face. “Talen, you already are. I’ve just been waiting for you to admit to it.”
He reached out, grabbing the full of her wet body and yanking her out of the tub, dragging her onto him as he stood, soaking his shirt, his trousers. His lips found hers as her slippery feet found traction on the wet floor.
His kiss hard, desperate, but giving way to the resignation that this was it. There were no excuses. No sense of searching for penance. He wanted what he wanted.
And he wanted her.
Her head went light with the realization, hope for a future with this man finally finding actual roots. Roots that would grow.
He pulled away slightly, his breath a caress against her face. “Then I admit it. I want—no—I need to be the hero you deserve.”
She laughed. “Except you don’t. You don’t need to be a hero. You don’t need to be an earl. You just need to be you. The man that made me fall in love with him despite my reservations—my mistrust. The man that held me and pointed out the stars. The man that thought I was worthy of being taught how to fight on my own. The man that knows me, my body, like no one else. The only man that I trust.”
His lips found hers again as he crushed her body into his once more, but she was having none of it, her hands slipping between them, fast with the fall front of his trousers and yanking the lawn shirt off his torso.
A growl shook his chest that she’d dared to break their kiss for even a second. A growl that was soothed the moment she wrapped one leg around his waist, then the other, lifting herself onto him.
The bed had its place, but this wasn’t it. This was carnal, the need for him to be inside of her crushing.
She ground her folds against him, his swollen cock already long and hard for her, just like she liked him. Her hands clasped around his neck and she pulled up as he lifted her by the waist, setting her directly on his member and thrusting upward.
The length of him to the hilt in one ragged thrust.
His mouth dropped to her neck, her chest, his tongue finding new spots to ravage as she arched backward against his hold on her back, her hips writhing.
She needed this fast and hard and he was always one to satisfy. His raspy chuckle into her skin told her he knew exactly what she wanted.
His hand slipped from the small of her back to her waist and he lifted her again, her thighs hitching onto his hip bones so she could balance herself.
Perfect.
She lifted and dropped, riding him at her own frantic pace until he slipped one hand between them, his thumb sliding into her folds to find her nubbin and increase the friction.
She yelped, her breath no longer her own, the pressure building harder than it ever had before, deep within her. Upward and another devastating plunge downward. For how hard she stretched backward, he held her stable on him, driving farther into her with each stoke. Until she was splintering, screaming, as she shattered into a thousand shards of light firing through her body.
Her contractions wrenched him along with her, his body shuddering as the wet heat of him exploded, burying into the depths of her.
Her body quaking, she fell forward onto him. Her arms draped over his shoulders and her ankles locked behind him as her face nestled into the crook of his neck and shoulder. As she rode the ebbing waves, her fingers spread across his back, reveling in the fluttering of his muscles, the shivers that ran across his skin every time her sex contracted on his cock.
She wasn’t moving.
He wasn’t either.
Their bodies entwined, both of them refusing to let the other go. Neither would move for the chance of breaking the perfection of how their bodies fit together. Their souls.
Until finally, Talen broke and staggered three steps backward to land in the pink chair, though he refused to let her body leave his, his cock still firmly within her, her breasts still heaving against his chest. She curled her legs up on either side of him, straddling him, not willing to break away either as her left hand moved to splay upon his chest, her right locked firmly around his neck.
The only motion he made to ease the crushing hold he had on her was for his left hand to drag up her spine, his fingers entwining in her loose hair, dragging through wet strands over and over.
She let it go on for minutes before she broke the silence, her words into his neck. “You are still worried.”
His hand stilled in her hair. “How do you know?”
“You have different silences.” She turned her head slightly to see his profile. “This one, when your hands are playing in my hair, it means you’re silently working a problem you’re worried about.”
“The men Gilroy hired. Your father.” He said it simply, not hiding the truth of what was going on in his mind.
Her fingers involuntarily curled against his chest. “It is not resolved.”
“No.”
She pulled up, finding that unease had creased his brow. “It does not worry me.”
“How?”
“One, you’re worrying about both of those things, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s to trust you when you say you’re going to keep me safe.”
Her forefinger and middle finger tapped on his chest as she locked her eyes with his. “Two, the only happiness I’ve had in the last four years has been when I am with you. It is the only place in the world that I trust. And I’m willing to gamble anything on that. Blindly, going into it with nothing but reckless trust that you won’t hurt me. Always protect me. Maybe that’s idiotic. Maybe that’s the naivest thought in the word for me to have after the men that I have suffered under. Maybe I should be sailing off to a forlorn island to hide and live in a solitary cottage with nothing but a dog and a cat and cow for the rest of my life.”
His bottom lip jutted up. “An island like that sounds somewhat idealistic.”
“It’s not. It’s not, because you’re not in it. I don’t want that. I want you, Talen. Always. And I will fight for that.”
“You don’t have to fight, you don’t have to gamble anything, Ness.” His right hand slid along the side of her head, burying deep into her wet hair. “You have me. I love you. And I need you to want this with me. Want a future with me. Want children. Want a life we decide upon together.”
She nodded, a smile cutting across her face so hard it hurt her cheeks. “That—that I can do.”
He pointed north. “The last day’s ride to the border? If your arm is up for it, we will take horses and forget about the damned carriage and the damned muddy roads. Hell—even if you’re not up for it I’ll drag you onto my lap and change out the horse every hour to get you up there.”
Her right hand tightened around his neck, her eyebrows lifting. “We leave at first light and you can be mine by nightfall?”
“As long as there is a willing blacksmith, or farmer, or clergyman, aye. And you can be mine.” His face suddenly went serious. “But I jest—we only go if you have the energy.”
“For you? Nothing could hold me back.”
He smiled at her, one of his rare smiles that made heat pool in her chest, spreading out to every limb.
The rasp in his voice vibrated with pride, with intention. “I always knew you had a warrior’s spirit.”
She chuckled. “Thank you for showing it to me.”
“Thank you for letting me find it.”
She nuzzled her face into his chest, utterly content that he was her true place in the world. Finally found, finally secure.
Finally hers.