Wearing only her shift, she carefully walked to the edge of the pond and dipped a single toe in the calm water. If she hadn’t been carrying their baby he would have probably picked her up and thrown her in just so that he could rile her up. God, he loved it when she was all riled up.
But she was pregnant, so he had to be good. With that in mind, he walked over to her and scooped her up in his arms before she could put up much of a fight. To his utter shock, she didn’t complain at all. Instead, she sighed with pleasure as she wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head against his shoulder as he carried her into the water.
Once he was chest deep, he pulled her closer and simply enjoyed having her in his arms. As he carried her through the water, he felt her shiver in his arms. Smiling, he looked down to tease her, but instead, he felt his smile slip as he lost himself in her baby blue eyes.
She was so damn beautiful, so kind and sweet. She made him so damn happy. He couldn’t imagine going a single day without seeing her, holding her, kissing her or showing her just how much he loved her. Every day he did everything in his power to show her how much he loved her, but he’d foolishly never told her how he felt, because he was terrified that she wouldn’t feel the same way.
He’d been so damn foolish.
It would hurt like hell if she didn’t return his feelings, but he didn’t give a damn. He loved her more than anything and he wanted to tell her. He wanted to-
“I love you, Robert,” Elizabeth whispered as she pulled herself up just enough so that she could brush her trembling lips against his.
For a moment he was too stunned to react.
She loved him?
Of course she did, he realized smiling smugly as he brushed his lips against hers. That was the only reason to explain why she hadn’t killed him with her bare hands by now and why she put up with all of his bullshit. It also explained why she’d agreed to his truce, agreed to leave everything behind and move with him to a new country where neither one of them had ever been before. It was so obvious now. She truly did love him, adored him really, but she would never love him as much as he loved her, he realized, still grinning because he was more than fine with that.
“I love you more, minx,” he said against her lips.
“Probably,” she easily agreed as she wrapped her arms around his neck and moved to deepen their kiss.
“Probably?” he demanded in mock outrage as he pulled away from her so that he could glare down at her.
“Definitely,” she said with an innocent expression as she leaned up to kiss him again, but before her lips could touch his he turned his head away.
With a heavy sigh, he carefully placed her on her feet. He rubbed his hands down his face as he said, “Run.”
“W-what?” she asked, sounding confused and more than a little excited.
He dropped his hands down by his sides, careful not to splash his wife in the face. “You have to the count of ten to run before I hunt you down and make you admit that you love me more.”
“You can’t be serious,” she said, biting back a smile even as she started to inch away from him.
“One.”
“Robert,-”
“Two.”
“Wait, let’s talk about this. I was just-”
“Three.”
“But,-”
“Four.”
“There’s no way that I’ll be able to-”
“Five.”
“Can’t we talk about this?’
“No,” he said, grinning in anticipation as Elizabeth noticeably swallowed and shot an anxious look towards the shore, “six.”
“Wait,” she said, taking a step away from him, her gaze shifting between him and the shore. “Can you start over?’
“No. Seven.”
She finally took a step away from him. “What exactly are you planning?”
“For you to scream your undying love for me at the top of your lungs,” he said with a shrug before he added, “eight.”
Her eyes widened with that announcement as self-preservation finally kicked in. With an adorable little squeal of excitement she turned around and moved to finally make her escape, but before she could take a single step he had her back in his arms where she belonged.
“Nine,” he said with a growl as he leaned down to kiss her.
“But you said that you’d give me to the count of ten!”
“I lied,” he admitted as he set his plan into motion.
For the next three hours he kept her on her back and her legs spread as he used his hands, mouth and the painfully hard appendage between his legs on her until she was screaming her undying love for him. Once that was done, he decided to show her just how much he loved her. He didn’t stop showing her until his voice was hoarse, he could hardly move and his minx knew just how much she meant to him.
Chapter 34
Three months later…..
“You spoil him,” Mrs. Brown pointed out with a smile as she carefully placed another apple pie on the table to cool.
“He deserves to be spoiled,” Elizabeth said, easily returning the older woman’s smile as she looked over the pies she’d made to surprise her husband.
For the past four months Robert had been working day and night, taking any job that he could get his hands on to make sure that they were well prepared for the coming winter. They’d heard that winters in New England could be especially harsh, so he was making sure that they were well prepared. When he wasn’t working on a job trying to earn more money for the coming winter, he was chopping wood, building a shed, fixing the barn for their horses, checking the roof, windows and fireplaces to make sure that they were properly secured, building shelves in the root cellar to make sure that they had plenty of space for their food. He was making sure that she and the baby had everything they were going to need.
He was working himself into exhaustion. Every time she pointed that out, he smiled and gave her a kiss as he told her that she was well worth it. He promised her that things would slow down in the winter and he would rest then, but she knew that he was lying. He already had enough orders for furniture, chests and a hundred other things to keep him busy during the winter.
“He’s going to be upset when he finds out that you were working,” Mrs. Brown said as she pulled another pie out of the oven.
“He’s not going to be upset,” Elizabeth said, knowing that was true.
Robert wouldn’t be upset when he found out that she hadn’t stayed in bed like the doctor had ordered, he would be furious, which was why she also made him some apple pastries so that he would be too busy eating to yell at her. He was such a hypocrite, she thought as she loaded a small tray with the pastries with the hopes that they would be enough to soften him up enough to take her for a walk.