“But on the continent, Bridget? You needed to protect yourself from me? I have been chasing a lie for the past three years, so how do you expect me to accept that your words now, in this moment, are not more lies?”
“Faith?” She paused, taking a deep breath, her chest rising and straining against her dark dress. “When I saw you in the hospital, and I knew Bournestein had your friend—I took that leap of faith to save him. Without hesitation. Knowing the risk. Because it was you, Hunter. No matter what Aldair had done to find himself in Bournestein’s clutches, my faith was in you.”
Hunter shook his head. “I don’t know that it’s enough, Bridget.”
Her eyes searched his, her voice cracking. “You cannot have faith in me? Faith in the love you once had for me? Faith in the love I had for you?”
The line of his jaw flexed, hardening. “So show your faith now, Bridget. Leave the hospital. Be done with St. Giles. Be done with Bournestein.”
“You want me just to walk away from the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“That’s absurd, Hunter.”
“Why?”
“I—I cannot.” Her head shaking, she shifted in the chair, both of her hands clutching the glass as her chin dropped. Her look went to her lap, her knuckles turning white as she squeezed the tumbler as though it was her only lifeline.
“You can.” His voice turned brutal. “You are choosing not to. You are choosing Bournestein. Choosing a life of lies and a life that is killing you if you insist on staying on at that hospital.”
“No, I am choosing my father.”
“Your father has nothing to do with this, Bridget.”
Her eyes lifted to him, meeting his ire with her own. “He has everything to do with it, Hunter. You killed him.”
{ Chapter 9 • To Capture a Warrior }
“What?”
“You killed him, Hunter.” The words spat out as she jumped to her feet, sending the chair to tip over behind her. “You killed him and saved me. So I am the only one left to do his work.”
He glared up at her. “Bridget—”
“No.” Her hand waved in front of him, her words shaking. “I know you didn’t put a bullet in his head, Hunter. But you made a choice. My father died and I should have instead. So I am the only one left to fulfill his dream. You pushed me out that window, Hunter. You did. He was there, right next to me. You should have pushed him out. Not me. Instead you killed him.”
Hunter stilled.
One heartbeat. Two. Three.
His mouth opened, his words stretching to a raw whisper. “You blame me for his death, Bridget?”
She couldn’t look at him. For how much she still wanted him, for how she had given her heart to him years ago, this one thing had always festered deep in her soul. Hunter had both saved her and sentenced her father to death in the same moment.
Her gaze stayed riveted on the dark baseboards in the corner of the room as words sped through her lips. “Why save me, Hunter? He was so much more important. You knew that. It was why they sent you to protect us. He needed to live.”
Hunter stood from the bed. “No. You needed to live, Bridget.”
He moved in front of her, his hand going under her chin and lifting her face to his. She could only afford a quick glance up at his dark eyes, then had to look away, her gaze flickering past the dark hair curling around his ear.
“What you didn’t see that day, Bridget, was your father’s face. You were screaming, but I wasn’t looking at you. I was looking at your father. He shook his head at me and pointed at you. I saw the man’s heart breaking right in front of me. The possibility of you dying. His heart being torn apart at the thought. He needed you to go first. To be safe. To live. You were the most important thing. Not him. He knew it. I knew it. My life. Your father’s life. They didn’t matter.”
He clasped her face between his hands. “You were always the most important thing, Bridget. From the first moment I set eyes on you. You—you were, you are, the most important thing.”
His mouth closed, his words heavy in the air. And he waited, watching her.
His words started to sink into her mind and his fingers tightened along her face as he waited. Waited, breath after breath, for her to come to the conclusion he knew she needed.
She needed to forgive him.
She needed to forgive herself.
Her eyes closed to him.
What had happened wasn’t her father’s fault.
Wasn’t Hunter’s fault.
Wasn’t her fault.
It was the fault of the thousands of things that conspired to put the three of them together in that one place and time together.
The fault of an impossible choice foisted upon this man she had fallen in love with.
This man that was strong enough to make that choice.
She managed to open her eyes to him, finding his intense look, the three rogue silver blue flecks in his left eye.
He stared down at her, unflinching from her gaze.
She had to forgive. Forgive all of it if she was ever going to find her way out of the darkness her life had become.
The edges of his eyes crinkled in that moment. Crinkled because she didn’t even need to say it.
He saw it in her eyes, just as she saw it in his.
She forgave him for the choice he never should have had to make. Just as he forgave her for everything she had done to survive—even the part about trying to forget him.
His head shifted in a slight nod as his fingertips curled along her temples. “You were the most important thing to him, Bridget. I saw that in the first thirty seconds in that infirmary. That is how I know your father would not have allowed this now—would not have allowed you to open this hospital, to run it, if he could have seen what it is doing to your spirit.”
Her chest heavy with his words, she shook her head, sending his hands away from her cheeks. “Even with that, Hunter, you want me just to close the hospital? Just like that? Abandon the people? The ones who need it the most?”
“No, I want us to find another way.” He grabbed both of her upper arms. “Another way it can remain open, help people, but without the onus of the world’s ills falling upon your singular shoulders. I want it open without you having to play a devil’s dance with Bournestein.”
Her head jerked backward and she stilled, her mouth agape as she stared at the white cut of his linen shirt above his waistcoat, transfixed for long seconds at the rise and fall of his chest.
His fingers pressed into her arms. “What is it?”
It took three long breaths before she could force her wide eyes up to him. “You said ‘us.’”
His mouth clamped closed, his jaw shifting to the side before he parted his lips. “It has never been anything but ‘us’ for me, Bridget. Never. I always knew you were alive. Somewhere. It has always been ‘us.’”
Her hands lifted, her fingers trembling as she clasped them to his face. “I thought you had abandoned me.”
“I didn’t. And I would never. It will always be us for me.”
A sharp intake of breath and her palms pressed into his skin, curling along the line of his jaw. “Kiss m—”
His lips were to hers before the words made it fully into the air between them. Hard, but with a softness that let her lips mold to his. His mouth parted, his tongue delving, tasting, and she was instantly transported back to the days when he had kissed her like this. When his skin, his tongue had lit her world in a frenzy of reckless wantonness. It had been hard to find those secluded moments alone, but they had—in the shadow of the partially hidden cove near the sea, along the back walk of the hospital between the evergreen hedges, in the stairwell.
Anytime they were alone with a semblance of seclusion, he was touching her—kissing her like only the moment they were in existed.
Those had been the best moments of her life.
And she was back, drowning in them instantly, the way his right hand ran up her arm, his fingers cur
ling around her neck as he tilted her head. His thumb moving to the tip of her chin, then dragging downward, reveling along every curve in her neck.
She wanted this. Wanted it with everything she ever was.
His mouth left hers, trailing along her jaw to her neck. His breath hot, his lips didn’t stop with his ragged voice. “Hell, Bridget, you taste the same.” His lips moved downward along her neck, pushing aside her dress to reach the line of her collarbone. “Do you remember this?”
She nodded, her fingers moving to curve into his hair.
“And this?” The tip of his tongue swirled a circle along her skin.
“Yes.” The word came out in a gasp.
“This?” His left hand moved upward along the side of her ribcage, his thumb caressing the side of her breast.
She leaned into his touch, the core of her quickening. “That most of all.”
He drew slightly away, leaving her neck to find her eyes. “I have never stopped loving you, Bridget.”
A smile lifted the corners of her lips. “And I never got to tell you how much I loved you, Hunter.” She reached up, tracing the white line of the ragged scar along his cheek. “I love this scar. I love all the scars on your body because they gave me time to fall in love with you—strike that—I think I loved you from the moment you burst into that field infirmary and tossed all those rifles onto the floor.”
Her hand moved to cup his face. “And I don’t want what we’re doing in this moment to stop. I want to be fully in these seconds, minutes—have what we never could on the continent. Us alone. Just us. Our bodies together like they have always needed to be, but never could. I want you Hunter, all of you.”
His lips came down on her hard, stealing her breath.
He had held back before, held this raw passion until she was able to accept it. But now she was more than ready, and she welcomed the strength of him on her body, her lips plumping with his onslaught.
His fingers worked down the buttons along her spine, layers of her clothes disappearing to the floor around her feet.
Her head spinning, her body vibrated under Hunter’s fingers as they travelled along her skin, dipping along curves as he simultaneously pulled pins from her chignon to set her hair free. He pulled from her lips and with her breath in the open air she was surprised to find not only were her clothes disposed of, but he had lost most of his as well, with only his buckskin breeches on—the flap hanging haphazard, half unbuttoned. When had he lost his waistcoat? His shirt? His boots? Had she done that?
She stared at his bare skin, marveling at how time could heal the ravages of bullet wounds. Her fingers drifted to the scar of the bullet that had pierced his side and touched the skin, no longer raw, no longer ragged and weary. He was stronger than ever, this man she had fallen in love with a long time ago.
He grabbed her chin, drawing her attention upward from his torso.
“Before we do this, Bridget, you need to know.”
Her heart stilled. “Know what?”
His dark eyes pierced her. “That you are the one—the one I have waited for, never forgot, searched for, and longed for until it drove me nearly to my grave. You are the one that I am determined to marry as soon as I possibly can, if you will have me. You are the one that I want to bear my children. You are the one that I want to die next to, after years of love and laughter and tears and smiles. All of that. You need to know.”
She couldn’t draw the slightest breath, couldn’t conjure the slightest thought. Only love. Love for this man that she had thought lost to her.
What she did manage to do, was nod. Nod with tears in her eyes. Nod until his lips came down upon hers again and he was picking her up and setting her onto the bed.
His breeches disappeared before he moved over her on the bed and she had to gasp a breath when she looked down. As respectful as they were in the hospitals, she had nonetheless seen the male anatomy numerous times. But never in full, glorious, taut fashion—and never on Hunter.
He set his left hand onto the bed next to her head for support, and it drew her attention to his face. He paused for a moment, looking down at her as his right hand moved along her brow, sweeping errant locks of her hair to the side. The touch so gentle, fighting against the exertion of restraint in his muscles.
Strain that she felt in her own body. She wanted him on her, wanted to feel his skin on hers like never before.
She reached up, hooking her hand along his neck and drew him downward to her.
He pounced on the invitation, his lips going to her neck, and then trailing his tongue downward along her neck. Onto her chest. His tongue circling her right nipple.
The wetness, the perfection of it sent spikes through her lower belly and into the core of her. He moved to her left breast, not satisfied until the peak was tight and straining as well.
He paused, his head turning, shifting to look at her left arm. His thumb landed on the long scar that ran up from her elbow. “This, this is my favorite part of your body.” His head dipped as he traced the line of the long-healed scar from the window glass with his lips. “I hate that it happened, but it marked you as mine long ago, whether either one of us knew it.”
“I knew it.” Her fingers curled into his hair and his lips moved to the center of her, finding her flat belly and lighting her nerves with every caress of his tongue. She shifted under him, her hips lifting. “Hunter, more, all of you.”
He chuckled and moved his legs between hers, parting her thighs wide. His fingers dipped downward, finding the spot that was already pulsating, begging for his touch. Instant fire in her veins, her hips squirmed, both pressing him onward and adhering to his rhythm of long, circular strokes around her nubbin.
His mouth went back to her breasts, his tongue matching his pattern, and the pressure that built along her core was too much to bear. Too much to deny.
He sensed it, and his fingers sped, bringing her higher and higher, the bridled pounding demanding release.
She grasped the back of his shoulders, his neck, her nails fighting to find anything to hold onto as her breath went out of control. Arching into him with all her strength, begging him with every exhale, she hit release in the moment that he entered her. Full and whole and filling the chasm that was desperate for release.
Pain tangled with pleasure and he stilled, letting her body vibrate around him, letting the initial pangs subside. Then it was only wave after wave of pleasure left rolling through her body, deep in her abdomen down through her legs.
He withdrew in a long stroke, his member sliding back into her smoothly, slowly. Repeating. Again. Faster and faster to match the waves still making her body shudder every other second.
“Bridget.” His growl of her name filled her ears, his body tightening above her, his shoulders tensing under her fingers, and she could feel his own release deep within her, filling her.
Glorious, what his body could do to hers. What her body could do to his.
He sank down onto her, his chest covering her, the salt of him on her lips.
Just as they were always meant to be.
He was hers.
And she finally believed it.
~~~
“You are making me ponder, Hunter.”
Hunter’s hand paused in midair above the tendrils of brown hair draped over Bridget’s bare back. He cleared his throat, setting his voice as neutral as he could manage. “Ponder what?”
“Of how I can give up the hospital, but keep it open.” Bridget’s words came soft and hesitant, her breath warming his chest. “But I don’t want to disappoint his memory.”
“Your father’s?”
“Yes.”
His breath lodged in his lungs. “Truly? You are considering it, Bridget?”
She nodded into his chest. “I feel weak for even thinking it. But you recognized what I have been afraid to admit.”
His hand hovering in midair dropped lightly onto her back, his fingers curling into the hair fallen between her shoulder blad
es. He knew how hard it was for her to speak the words. Words that meant the world to him. Words that meant she would be safe—both in body and spirit. “That you cannot continue as you are?”
“I cannot.” She exhaled, her head nuzzling into the dip lining the center of his chest. “But I cannot leave the hospital immediately. I would need to ensure Marjorie and Randolph can continue it. Possibly find another physician to help oversee it. But the cost of running it is more vexing—the patients have nothing to give. I support it as much as I can with my father’s estate, but even with that, Bournestein’s contributions are a necessity to the hospital. Especially if I expand it as planned. There are so many people that need it to exist in that location.”
“And Bournestein’s support of the hospital will not continue if you are not there?”
“I don’t believe so. And I fear what he will do to the place.”
Hunter’s fingers absently twirled tendrils of her hair as his mind churned. Here, after years of searching, was the woman he would happily die for, finally in his arms. Finally. Something he had believed would never happen. A hope he’d given up for dead.
And here she was. Naked, in his arms, and every fiber of his being once again became hers. Every thought. Every action. She was his purpose again—a fact he could not defend against. So he openly accepted the responsibility.
She shifted slightly above him, and he could feel the scab along her side from the dagger. He had checked it over when he had dragged her on top of him on the bed. It was healing fine—but damn—it had scared him to death when it was gushing blood.
It had been the worst thing he’d ever seen. Her blood on his hands—her blood on his hands because of him.
Hell, he wanted her safe. Safe and far, far from Bournestein’s clutches. But she wasn’t an easy woman to guard—especially when she bucked every time he became overprotective.
“Then we will figure out a plan, Bridget.” His head dipped down to kiss the crown of her head. “I said ‘us’ and I meant it. Let me help—let me find a way to support it. My commission is more than we need and I believe I can find other benefactors.”
Logan’s Legends: A Revelry's Tempest Regency Romance Box Set Page 18