Page 49 of When I Fall In Love

“Leave it. It will float to the other side and someone will pick it up.” I’m already rowing, getting us away from the current and into calmer waters. I’m careful—her face is right there—but I push as hard and fast as I can. We’ve drifted more than a hundred and fifty yards away from my house on the open lake, and I’m rowing into the wind. But I do this almost every day and although I’m also wet and the wind slices through me, this is nothing. I need to get my girl to safety.

By the time we get to shore, she’s stilled, almost frozen. I jump out and beach the canoe with one hard pull. She’s huddled tight, legs tucked close to her chest. I hold out my hand to her, and when she places her hand in mine, she feels like death.

No. No-no. No death here. I bend over and ease my arms underneath the fold of her knees, and she manages to wrap her arms round my neck. With Beth cradled close, I rush around the house. The deck doors are locked, and right now I have no clue where my house keys are, but I can open the front door with a code.

“We’ll be inside soon,” I murmur as I barely manage to punch in the code with a finger while still holding her. Once the door clicks open, I push it wider with my foot and step inside. Thank God I left the heating on this morning. This time of year it’s always an on and off business. I kick the door closed and leave a wet trail as I take the stairs two at a time to my bedroom, not caring that my feet are probably leaving mud prints on the cream upper-floor carpets.

Once in my bathroom, I ease her down gently. “Beth?” Her eyes are closed and she’s barely standing straight. “We need to take these wet things off.”

“Hmm.” She leans into me, hands blindly groping.

I start stripping her without further ado as I can’t wait for her head to catch up here. She holds on to me wherever she can find a grip but it’s weak. She needs warmth but I can’t dunk her in the warm shower or even the bath. That would be too much of a shock to her system. As soon as she’s in her underwear, I get scared. Her lips are still blue, her skin is deathly pale, and now her knees are buckling. “Here, sit on the edge of the bath. I’m going to take everything off, okay?”

“Yes.” She shivers under my touch as I unclasp her bra. “Hunny?”

“Yes?”

“I’m so… so cold.”

“I’ve got you, Bee. Just hold on.” I reach for a towel with a curse because I haven’t bothered to switch on the towel rail’s heater yet. Her nipples are puckered and her whole body is a minefield of goosebumps. I wrap the towel around her before I go on my haunches to strip off her panties. She helps me by lifting her hips and my breath catches on seeing her naked sex, bare and pure, and I want to kiss her right there on the seam that starts and ends where I’d wanted to go so badly less than an hour ago.

I straighten and watch her as I strip. She’s swaying, clutching the towel with white-tipped fingers. Her teeth are clacking. It’s hardly the time to bother with drier boxers. At least the ones I have on are only wet in patches and mostly dry. I scoop her up in my arms before she can collapse to the ground and carry her to my bed. I make her sit down and fetch a T-shirt from my closet.

Shit. If only I’d unpacked my winter clothes from storage, I could have given her something thermal. I take the towel from her and ease her arms into the holes and pull the T-shirt over her head. It will have to do for now. “Get between the covers.” I throw the towel over the pillows to catch the water still dripping from her hair.

She leans back and I help her edge deeper into the bed so I can get in next to her. As soon as I’ve pulled the comforter up to our chins, I fold her into my arms. Her nipples, hard and unyielding, press against my chest as I ease her head to my shoulder and gather her to me. I reach for her thigh and hook it over mine, pushing my leg between hers to get as much skin on skin. I cup her head and tuck her close under my chin and nudge the comforter even higher so it can cover the crown of her head.

“Now we just stay like this a while until you’ve warmed up a bit, okay? And then I’ll make you a cup of something warm.”

It takes a while for her breathing to become less shallow, for the stiff coldness to seep out of her muscles and for her to relax completely into me. For a moment it seems she’s fallen asleep, but then she snuggles deeper into me as she rides her leg up mine, exposing her sex to my upper thigh. God. She’s warm and slick with moisture that has nothing to do with her dunk in the lake.

“What have I done?” she moans into my neck.

I blink, then stop short of pressing a soft kiss to her head. I need to keep my cool here. Up until this moment I had everything mostly under control but it’s becoming a battle I’m losing way too fast.

“Well, technically, you turned too fast and then tried to catch your balance by shifting your feet. Classic rookie mistake. For next time in this weather, always stay close to the shore… and don’t go out without proper gear.”

“At least I had perfect timing.”

“For what?”

“For you to come rescue me.” Her lips tickle the hairs on my chest and I smile. “But that’s not what I meant,” she whispers. “What did I do coming back to Ashleigh Lake?”

The tone of her voice rips straight through my heart and I freeze up under the weight of that question. My cock is already rock hard and nestled into her soft belly and she doesn’t seem to care. It can’t be helped. Beth is, after all, mostly naked in my arms. We’ve been here before, even though it was years ago. We used to be in each other’s arms like this a lot. But her question… her voice makes me grow quiet and doubt everything that led up to this moment.

She sighs when I say nothing and her breath rolls over my skin, sparking goosebumps over my pecs. Her fingertips are cold but no longer like ice, and every delicate shift of her hand on my chest lets loose a riot of sensations. When she circles my nipple with a fingertip, I let out a groan. “Bee.”

“You’re cold too,” she whispers and presses herself even closer to me, her lips sliding up my neck as she looks up.

I gather stray hairs from her cheek to stroke them away from her face and look into her eyes. “You’re still cold?”

“I’m so cold but it’s inside of me, in my heart. There where nobody has warmed me for years.” She blinks and a lone tear runs down her cheek. “You’re the only one who’s ever been able to warm me there, Hunter. And God knows… I… I’ve missed you so much.” Her voice breaks and now tears are flowing freely.

I kiss her tears, knowing this must all be part of the shock of falling into the lake. “I missed you too, Bee, so much it almost broke me.”

“We’re not kids anymore; we’re not the same people we were sixteen years ago.”

“No,” I murmur as we stare into each other’s eyes. “But we’re hopefully better people at least.”

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