By His Vow: Chapter 78

I wake with a start, my heart pounding as if someone just jumped out at me and scared the living crap out of me.

I blink, my vision of the small living room of my rental clearing.

Weird. I don’t remember lying down.

I was out in the sun and⁠—

There’s a noise in the kitchen and I sit up, realizing that I’m naked a beat before the reason for the noise appears in the doorway.

“Kingston.” His name spills from my lips like a plea, making my cheeks heat and my thighs clench.

He’s standing in a stream of sunlight wearing only his boxer briefs and looking like a fucking god.

Jesus, did he get hotter?

“Uh…” he starts, dragging my eyes back up to his face, a deep frown marring his brow.

He came for you…

“I can’t find any coffee,” he says, glancing back to the kitchen. “Where have you hidden it?”

Guilt twists up my insides.

Just tell him…

“Oh…um…I’ve actually been drinking tea.”

“Tea?” he asks in astonishment.

“Yeah. It reminds me of Aunt Lena, so…”

“Okay,” he says, accepting my reasoning without question.

I’m not lying. It’s true. She was a tea addict through and through. Drinking it here does remind me of her, but also…suddenly, I can’t stand the scent of coffee.

It’s a real fucking problem.

“Would you like one?”

I snap my attention back to him.

“O-one?” I stutter like an idiot.

“A cup of tea, Tate. Would you like a cup of tea?”

His eyes drop to my chest as he waits for my answer, his tongue sneaking out and swiping across his bottom lip.

Everything that happened from the moment I found him watching me in the garden to the point where I fell asleep in his arms comes back to me in a rush of color, pleasure, and confessions of love.

Holy shit.

He told me he loved me.

“Y-yes, please. I’m just going to clean up.”

The second I get to my feet, I discover just how necessary that is when his cum begins running down my thighs. Gross.

I move toward the stairs, expecting him to duck back into the kitchen, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just stands there, shamelessly watching me.

“What?” I ask, pausing at the bottom step to look back at him.

He scrubs at his rough jaw, his eyes working their way down to my feet and then all the way back up again.

By the time they meet mine, they’re blazing with desire, and it makes my temperature soar.

“I meant every single word I said earlier, Tatum.”

A small smile plays on my lips as I remember everything he confessed.

“So did I.” A laugh bubbles from my throat. “I can’t believe you’re here,” I explain when he frowns at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t be. I need you, baby.”

I shake my head, unable to believe he’s telling me these things.

“But you signed the papers,” I whisper.

He quirks a brow. The move makes him look so fucking cocksure. It does things to my insides that it really shouldn’t. “Did I?”

“The cottage sold,” I explain.

He nods, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Are you going to clean up or what?”

“Y-yeah. I’ll be back. And we need to talk.”

“Sure. I’ve got a few more things I need to say. Can you stay naked for it, though?”

My eyes drop from his to the fabric hiding what is arguably the best part of his body from me.

“You’re not, so why should I be?” I sass before taking off up the stairs, hoping that he might lose that scrap of fabric before I get back downstairs.

I pause when I get into the bathroom and look in the mirror. For the first time in what feels like forever, there’s a smile on my lips and a sparkle in my eyes.

“Damn you, Kingston Callahan,” I mutter, shaking my head.

I pee before walking over to turn the shower on.

Pulling my hair back up into a messy bun, I step under the stream of water. I stand there for a few seconds, letting the powerful jets massage my shoulders as memories of what Kingston said downstairs play out in my head.

The old romantic inside me is doing a little happy dance.

He told me he loved me, that he missed me, that his life wasn’t complete without me.

It’s the thing dreams are made of. The kind of thing that only happens in movies and books. Men don’t just drop everything and chase a woman across the world. It just doesn’t happen.

Well, apparently it does.

And for little ol’ me, too.

My heart flutters in my chest. It’s so at odds with how it’s felt for the past few weeks, I think there’s something wrong for a few seconds. But then I realize that it’s actually something very, very right.

I wash up before grabbing my razor to do some of the maintenance I’ve neglected for the past few days, because something tells me that that little session on the couch is just the beginning for us.

My insides tingle at the thought alone.

Once I’m happy that everything that needs to be hair-free is, I turn the shower off and reach for a towel.

Every one of my movements comes easier than they have since I first arrived here, and there is hope in my heart I haven’t felt for…nope, I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before.

He loves me.

Kingston Callahan loves me.

Just thinking it makes me smile and want to do a little victory dance.

I feel like a love-sick teenager again, only unlike a love-sick teenager, this is real. It’s my husband telling me that he loves me, not some lanky, acne-covered man-child.

He didn’t sign the divorce papers. His eyebrow quirk said that alone. Sure, that knowledge drags up a whole heap of other questions, but I don’t have the brain power to even think about them right now. All I want to do is get back down to him.

I want to step into his body, feel the strength of his arms as they wrap around me, and breathe in the scent of his skin under my nose.

Slathering on some moisturizer, I pull on a long tank that’s going to hide absolutely nothing with the short hem and wide arm holes before shaking my wild hair out and bouncing down the stairs like it’s the best day of my life.

Hell, it very well could be.

His scent fills the air down here, and one look at the couch where it all happened makes my thighs clench with desire.

Oh, how I missed that man and his magical dick.

I pause, listening, trying to figure out what he’s doing. But it’s silent.

“King?” I call as I walk toward the kitchen.

My flowers are now sitting on the side, and I can’t help but smile as I study them.

Turning away from them, I head outside, assuming that he’s making the most of the warm afternoon sun. But my heart drops when I step out into the small courtyard because it’s empty.

“King?” I call again, my voice sounding panicked.

My heart begins to race and my head spins.

He meant what he said to me, I know he did. I could see it in his eyes.

So where the hell is he…

I spin around, ready to race back inside, when something on the small table where I first found my flowers catches my eyes.

Stepping closer, I find a white envelope with my name written in his neat handwriting.

My hand trembles as I reach for it. I swear to god, if this is a goodbye letter after everything he told me since he suddenly appeared here and swept me off my feet—literally—then it might just be the end of me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to take it.

The past couple of hours—even those I slept through—have been everything.

His touch, his words.

“Fuck,” I breathe, holding the envelope at arm’s length as if it’s going to bite me.

I stand there for longer than I should, debating whether or not to open it.

Blowing out a slow breath, I force myself to calm down and see what he’s left for me.

It’s nothing bad.

It can’t be. Not after…

But despite trying to convince myself that everything is okay, it doesn’t stop my stomach from knotting up.

But not knowing is worse…

Tucking my finger beneath the flap, I pull it open and then pull the card from inside.

The back is blank, making my brows furrow in confusion, but not as much as when I flip it over.

Meet me at your favorite place in this village.

“My favorite place?” I whisper.

I love every part of this village and the memories it holds. But there is only one place that truly holds my heart.

I glance down at myself before running into the house to drag on some leggings and throw a zip-up hoodie over my shoulders to hide my exposed side boob.

In seconds, I have a pair of sneakers on my feet and I’m practically running from the front gate and down the street.

My heart pounds harder with every step as I try to figure out what he’s done, what all this means.

Surely, it isn’t what I think.

It can’t be. It⁠—

I round the final corner and my eyes lock on the cottage. However, I quickly discovered that it isn’t the quaint building and pretty yard that holds my attention. It’s the delicious man standing in front of it.

He nervously scans the street before him, searching for me.

My heart tumbles in my chest as I study him.

I’m sure there have only been a handful of times in his life that he’s been nervous, and right now is one of them.

I stay hidden in the shadows for another few seconds before my need to put him out of his misery gets too strong.

I take three steps forward, and the second I move into the light, he sees me.

His expression morphs from one of fear to one of pure happiness.

His eyes widen, the green sparkling in the sun as his lips pull up into the widest smile I think I’ve ever seen.

‘Tatum,’ he mouths as if he’s shocked to see me.

As I walk closer, he does the same. It’s as if we’re magnets, pulled together by something too strong to ignore.

After checking for cars, I pick up speed as I cross the road.

My need to know what he’s up to has me running straight into his arms. He instantly pulls me into his body and drops his lips to mine, kissing me as if he didn’t see me less than an hour ago.

“What are you doing?” I ask when he finally releases me.

Silently, he takes my hand and tugs me inside the cottage’s yard, closing the small gate behind us.

“Kingston?” I ask as we move toward the front door.

He brings us to a stop and turns to face me.

I fight to drag in the breaths I desperately need as his eyes bounce between mine, studying me closely.

“This place has been sold, we shouldn’t⁠—”

My words are cut off as Kingston thrusts a box at me.

It’s black velvet, much like the one that housed my engagement ring.

On instinct, I lift my left hand and glance down at my rings.

Kingston reaches for my hand and gently grasps my fingers.

“You never took them off,” he muses.

Shaking my head, I say two words that are so painfully true, that they cut straight through my chest, only in the best kind of way. “I couldn’t.”

“Fuck, Tatum.” He releases me before scrubbing his face. “This is for you,” he says, pushing the box closer. “You need to open it before I do something I really shouldn’t in Aunt Lena’s flower beds.”

I raise a brow at his confession.

“Baby, you’re not even wearing a bra,” he points out, his eyes dropping to my more than obvious nipples.

Wrapping my hoodie around myself, I find his eyes again.

“Please,” he says, pushing the box closer again.

I take it, muttering, “What have you done, Kingston Callahan?”

He shrugs but doesn’t say anything as I flip the lid and peel back some tissue to find⁠—

“A key?”

“A key to your cottage, baby,” he confirms as the world begins to spin around me.

I mean, I hoped when I found his note and then him standing here.

But—

“How? It’s my father’s. You can’t just⁠—”

“You served me, baby.”

“You signed them, didn’t you?” Emotion bubbles up my throat at the thought of no longer being married to him now.

“Baby,” he murmurs, stepping closer and wrapping his hand around the back of my neck.

His eyes hold mine and refuse to let them go.

“Nothing in this fucking world could make me sign those papers. Not a single fucking thing.”