: Part 3 – Chapter 25

From Washington D.C., Neil brought me to Scotland.

He’d told me he just wanted one weekend where we could rest and be together, without any distractions from work, or the myriad of other problems that had a way of taking one’s attention away from what you really wanted to be doing. He needed me all to himself, according to him.

He’d also said, that it was time for me to see his inheritance from the uncle he’d never met.

The whole idea of it still amazed me. Neil, a landowner, and from the looks of it, there was a lot of land involved.

“I can’t believe this,” I mumbled looking from the window as the car pulled into a long drive bordered with more trees.

“What can’t you believe, Cherry?” Neil was doing that thing where he liked to surprise me and gave virtually no information, just to torture me. Made me insane, but he sure seemed to be enjoying himself.

“This is a bloody estate with an enormous amount of land and, well, you made out like it was just an old house on a plot with some trees, not something out of Pride and Prejudice.”

“Is that Mr. Darcy’s house you mean?”

“Yes, it was named Pemberley, if you care to know.” I still hadn’t seen Neil’s house come into view yet, and was getting very impatient as I peered out the window.

“I’ll make a note of it.” He leaned over to give me a kiss on the side of my temple. “I know how you love your romance books. You’re always reading in bed.”

“And you’re always making a point to distract me when I’m trying to read in bed.”

“Damn straight, woman. Do you think I’m a moron or something?” He nuzzled my neck.

“Shhh.” I pointed stealthily in the direction of our cab driver with my finger.

“But I’m just kissing your neck,” Neil whispered, “that doesn’t make any sound.”

I continued looking out the window, and let out a scream about a minute later when our cab turned down what looked to be a private road.

“Who is needing a very firm “shhh” now, huh?”

I didn’t pay any attention to him. My eyes were riveted to what framed the road. Lining both sides of us were trees completely covered with white and pink blossoms. A surprise for November, but they were definitely blooming. The Autumn Cherry. It comes into bloom for a second time in autumn. All the way up the drive leading to his house.

“These are the autumn cherry trees you told me about…”

“Yes, darlin’. Aren’t they pretty?”

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t because my vocal chords had frozen. I nodded my reply to him with my hand firmly attached to the window of the cab.

Rivers of tears were streaming down my face.

The next minutes were a blur as I indulged in an ugly-cry moment. Neil seemed to know what to do with me, though. Thankfully, he took charge of everything else in his life so competently, and, it seemed, me as well. He’d always had an uncanny ability to know when he needed to—the part about taking charge of me.

He paid the driver and sent him away, before leading me up the stone steps of his house on very wobbly feet.

Mansion was a much more accurate description of what I was staring at.

Four massive, white stone pillars held up the façade, which framed a beautiful door painted in a rich shade of dark blue. Yellow and grey stone, trimmed with white bricks made up the rest of it. The house was flanked by colossal pine and oak trees on a lush green park, one that spread out for what seemed like miles.

He then greeted an older man, with graying hair, who appeared to be waiting at the top of the steps for us. Neil introduced him to me as Batesman, and the two of them had a small chat, while my knees felt like they would buckle at any moment. I made a valiant attempt to say hello and not frighten the poor man to an early death. Highly doubtful I could be successful on that one. Well, we would just have to wait and see if Mr. Batesman died in his sleep tonight, wouldn’t we? Wait, more importantly begged the question—Neil had a servant? In his Scottish mansion? On his frickin’ country estate?!

My head suddenly ached terribly.

I needed a ginormous glass of red and then a chaser of something much stronger. This was Scotland; maybe there were bottles of hundred-year-old Scotch down in the cellars left over from the smuggling days of Jack Sparrow and his ilk. I’d bet my sarcastic thought was closer to the mark than not.

I followed along as he led me by the hand, and felt more and more out of my element. My sense of security with him, of us, felt strangely threatened. This was all something new to me. A part of him I had no knowledge of, introduced into his life at a time when I wasn’t there. He’d learned everything of this place…without me.

I let him lead me along blindly, as I was no longer able to see anything of the inside of his magnificent house, my eyes so blurry with tears.

Neil knew what was going on with me, though. He always knew.

Without a word, he paused at the bottom of a huge staircase before scooping me up in his arms. He carried me up that marble staircase and brought me to a room with a four-poster bed made up with a plush white duvet.

He laid me back onto the soft, fluffy down cover and hovered over me, his eyes flickering over my face, reading me, understanding how hard it was to let go of regret. He must have regrets, too. I knew he had them, and that they were the reasons he forgave me for mine.

“I know what you need, Cherry,” he told me, as he descended. “Let me take care of you.”

His soft lips kissed, and his warm tongue licked away every tear on my face, until any sad thought that weighed upon my conscience was set aside for that moment. He stripped me out of my clothes slowly, piece by piece, until I was totally naked and he could trail his hands and mouth over me.

Until no part of my body was left untouched. Until he’d given me too many orgasms to count. Until he’d made me feel reassured of my place with him, in Scotland. Yes, my man knew me well.

He left the bed and stripped out of his own clothes. Less slowly than he’d undressed me. He was ready for me, well before his trousers landed somewhere on the floor.

When he returned, I sat up and pushed my hands on his chest, forcing him back down into the softness of the bed. “My turn.”

He smiled at me, his lips still glossy from what they’d been doing to me for the past glorious minutes, as realization dawned on his handsome face.

I got comfortable and took his thick cock in my hand, stroking up and down the velvet skin that sheathed the rock hardness underneath. I wrapped my mouth around the head of him and drew deeply, sucking to the back of my throat until I couldn’t take him any farther.

“Oh, fuckin’ fuck yes…” he growled, as I went to work on his beautiful penis.

And it was beautiful. Neil in the throes of passion was breathtaking to me. I wouldn’t say no to a picture or two if he ever offered. Golden male beauty with muscles honed to perfection, tight and straining beneath me, because of what I did to him. From what I made him feel. With all the love I could give to him with my whole heart.

I sucked him to the brink, until I was waiting for his release of semen to land in my mouth, when he pulled completely out of and away from me.

“No, I want—” he whispered harshly, before repositioning himself and lifting me under my arms. He hauled me back onto his lap, set me down onto his cock, and thrust inside me violently. He took control of his orgasm, as his mouth claimed mine, just as roughly as his cock had just claimed my sex. “Cherry, Cherry…Cherry—I love…YOU,” he chanted against my lips.

His hands gripped at my hips almost painfully, keeping our bodies fused together, his cock buried deep inside me, even after he’d laid back into the softness of the bed, and brought me with him.

After we settled down from the rush, he pulled the duvet over us to keep off the autumn chill. I moved to rearrange my body but he gripped my bum and kept us connected. “Stay like this with me.”

I touched his face and held it. “Why?”

“Because I want to be in you.”

“Why?” I had my theories about what he was doing.

His eyes looked to the left, betraying his untruth. “I love being inside you after. I love you.”

“I love you too, and I think I know what you’re trying to accomplish.” I rested my chin carefully on his sternum so I wouldn’t hurt him. “It’s probably not going to work though. You know I’m on the pill. You’ve seen me taking them.”

He sighed slightly, his expression giving up in defeat, that I had routed out his motivation for coming inside me, instead of letting me take him in my mouth.

“Well, I hope they fail at some point, because you’re the only woman who’ll ever be mother to my kids.”

Neil When I admitted to my caveman plan to knock her up so I’d never lose her again, she smiled. My Cherry Girl knew me so well.

“You don’t have to get me pregnant to keep me. I’ll stay either way,” she said sweetly, before resting her cheek to my chest.

I stroked up and down her back and pictured her and me with our future children. There should be a few, I thought. Boys and girls that looked like her, and never had to know a life without loving parents who were there every step of the way, helping them to grow, and become good people.

“I’ll still work on it, thank you very much,” I said. “I have a plan all sorted out, Cherry…and, as you’ve learned—” I coughed and muttered the words, “self-defense training classes” under my breath, “—I take my plans in regards to you very seriously.”

She giggled and snaked her hand down to my ribs for a jab.

“Oh, that’s gonna get you something for sure, beautiful girl,” I said to her, as I rolled her beneath me.

I kept my promise.

Over and over again.

Six weeks later.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” The unanimous cries of guests rose up, and then it got quiet as couples greeted each other with kisses to ring in the New Year. I didn’t care about any others, though. Just one person held my attention.

And my heart.

The party had everybody in high spirits, because the announcement had been made about BSI gaining the contract to secure the Royals at the London Games next summer. And it was a momentous accomplishment for the business. But, I had something even more momentous on my mind for that moment. The focus of which had everything to do with my Cherry Girl, who looked mouthwatering as usual.

She wore a chocolate-brown lace dress that hugged her shape in a way that should probably be illegal. Her sky-blue shoes and jewelry, the colour she loved so much, contrasting beautifully. Her unique, cherry-colored hair, arranged on one side, fell in a long wrap of curvy waves. I’d have my hands buried deep into it later. When I got her home and her pretty dress was nowhere in sight.

As she sat on a window seat cushion looking like a princess, she held my face in her delicate hand and returned my kiss.

“Happy New Year, Captain,” she said.

“Happy New Year to you, beautiful girl,” I answered against her lips.

My bones inside my chest felt as though they were going to fracture from the fierce pounding of my heart. I hadn’t believed I would ever do what I was about to do…in such a public manner. But, I was.

I went down to the floor on one knee and took both of her hands with both of mine.

A look of surprise came over her face, and then, a quick gasp as she became aware…

“Elaina…I’m going to ask you something. It’s a question I meant to ask you six long years ago and I did not. Now, for the second time in our lives, I am prepared to ask the question, and this time, nothing will stop me. You need to know something I’ve never told you about, because the time has come for you to hear it.” I pulled her hands up to my mouth and kissed them both. “You’ve always made me feel as though the reason I was born…was so I could find you, love you, and that you could love me in return. I believe that with all my heart.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she listened. Waiting on me patiently, as was her way.

I pulled out the heart-shaped, sterling-silver box I’d seen her eying in the antique’s shop in Washington D.C. and bought, just because I thought she liked it. It reminded me of her. Precious metal, finely wrought into a delicate design, but beautiful, bearing great strength to withstand the tests of time.

I held the box out for her, then popped the clasp that opened it.

“Elaina Morrison, this is our second season. Will you be my Autumn Cherry and bloom for me a second time, marry me, and be my wife? Will you make it possible for me to be able to live a happy life, with you, to achieve the reason for which I was born?”

Elaina I stared at what was nestled in the silver heart-shaped box. I looked at him, into the dark eyes I’d always loved—the colour of which matched the dress I was wearing—and answered the question he’d asked me.

“Yes, Neil McManus, I will marry you.” I reached a shaking hand out to touch his cheek, his jaw, his lips, and closed my eyes for just a moment to ground myself. “I want to tell you something, too.” I opened my eyes and traced over every part of his features, as beautiful now as he’d always been when he was just a boy of seventeen and winked at me over the dinner table. “On the night Ian brought you to us, I fell in love with you and knew I’d just met the boy I would marry someday. For me, it has only ever been…you.”

He smiled at me and took the ring out of the silver heart-shaped box. “May I?”

“Yes, you may.”

He slipped the aquamarine-blue diamond and platinum ring onto my finger, and then kissed me thoroughly, while still kneeling on the floor. I buried my hands into his hair and held onto my man.

My beautiful, brave, loving, caring man.

I pulled him up to his feet amid loud cheering and congratulatory catcalls, which were coming from well-wishers, who’d apparently been paying attention to what we were doing by the window. Didn’t care. Didn’t really notice much beyond my beautiful man and the shiny diamond, in glittering blue, on my finger.

Neil scooped me up and carried me out of that party in his arms.

Then, he took me home and made love to me in our bed.

Neil “So…now that I’ve got your agreement to have me, when will you let me make this merger official?”

I had Elaina snuggled up against the side of me, the whole warm, naked length of her connecting skin-to-skin with my body, like silver spoons in a drawer. “We just had a merger,” she teased.

“That sassy mouth of yours is something I hope never changes, beautiful girl.”

“I am making a note of that, Captain, just in case my sassy mouth gets me into deep water someday.”

I kissed her shoulder right over her tattoo. “You still haven’t answered my question, Cherry. When do I get to make you Mrs. McManus?”

She turned her body toward me and held my face as she liked to do. “How long was your final tour in the army?” she asked softly.

“It was ten months.”

“I will marry you in ten months, then.” She kissed me. “I want to marry you when the autumn cherry trees are having their second bloom in Scotland.”

I nodded at her logic, understanding why she’d chosen that time. And also, because I’m not sure I could have spoken any audible words in that moment, my heart very full and finally at peace.

Then she spoke some more words that I wasn’t expecting to hear. Words that just reaffirmed how much love we had for each other and how fate, once again, demanded its due, and this time, worked masterfully in all its wisdom.

“I’m going to give to you…those ten months back. The ones that I took from us six years ago. Ten months of being here with you every night. Ten months of waking up with you every morning. Ten months of our life together, of doing all the beautiful things, and the mundane ones, too. So you will know, that whether it’s ten months from now, or ten years, or any amount of years, nothing will change for me, Neil…I will forever be your Cherry Girl.”