The dogs greet us merrily as we reach the upstairs floor, racing up to Arthur's ankles and darting about, chasing their tails and following us.
I laugh at their reaction, but Arthur's face is solemn. Only when we reach the bathroom and he's carefully lowered me back to my feet does he speak, and I realise the cause for his change in mood.
"Only the two of them left," he says softly.
He bends down and pets them, scratching them both behind the ears while I run the bath. A small shiver runs through me as my body only now registers how cold I am from the rain and floods. I swirl my hand through the hot water.
"I buried Bernice with Rudy, beside the stables," I say quietly. "She... it..." I take a small breath. "There was no need for it."
I hug both dogs myself and then lead them out to the hallway, closing the door. By this time the bath is half full, and Arthur takes my hand, holding it as I step into the water. He steps in behind me and pulls me down so that I am lying back against him — my spine against his chest, sitting in his lap. His legs are either side of mine. I tip my head back and he presses his lips to my neck. A new shiver runs through me, entirely unrelated to the cold. But even such a heavenly feeling cannot quell the fear setting into me once more.
"I shouldn't have done this," I whisper. "If he finds out you were here... Bernice was a warning."
"Changretta's not hurting you ever again," Arthur says, wrapping his arms around me. His thumbs stroke reassuring circles into either side of my ribcage. "I'd kill him for Bernice alone."
"If you kill him, his men will kill you."
He laughs. "I'd like to see them fucking try."
"This is no laughing matter, brave soldier."
He pulls me tighter to him. "Don't you worry about it a moment longer, my girl. I'm only sorry I didn't get here sooner."
"You were fighting a war," I point out. The bath is nearly full, and so I lean forward to shut off the taps. His hands glide against my body, still holding me as I move, and then taking me back once more. I sigh into him. "You were fighting a war, and telling all about how one day you might hold me like this."
He begins to kiss his way up my throat. "I spent every moment thinking about you."
"Surely not every moment."
"Bloody well close to it."
I smile. "I love your voice. You sound even more like someone from Birmingham than I expected."
His lips press to my ear, and goosebumps wash over me as he speaks softly. "You sound exactly how I thought you would. All posh and that."
I turn my head right to the side to look at him. "One of these days, I shall make you regret teasing me."
"I haven't even begun to tease you yet, sweetheart," is his reply. "Would you like me to?"
His hand moves down the length of my navel in the water. Every muscle quivers beneath his touch, and I feel his own breath quicken in response.
Everything inside my core clenches for him, begs for him. It's as though my body remembers we have so many years to catch up on. So many ways to explore each other, to show how badly we need each other.
I say, "I think I would like that very much."
His hand reaches the area between my thighs and I suck in a sharp breath, but he only skims over my mound, squeezing the flesh of my thighs before pulling my knee up and draping my leg over the side of the bathtub.
"For what it's worth," he tells me, "I love your voice, too. Even more, I'll bet." He moves his hand to my other leg and sends thunderbolts of aching need through me as he takes my thigh once more, and drapes that leg over the other side of the bath. I'm spread completely open for him, just below the surface of the water. Heat rises through me, as the warm water soothes the lingering bruising feeling there from how hard he fucked me last.
"I love your voice," he continues, our heads turned to each other, his free hand knotted into the hair at the base of my skull, holding me as he kisses me between sentences. "Love all those long words I can't fucking understand. I love how you look when you smile." He spreads me apart down there with his fingers, and I whimper for him. "Love how you look when you're all worked up for me like this."
"Arthur," I whimper, pleading.
"Shh." He brings a finger to my exposed clit and I cry out. "I know, sweetheart, I know."
I bring a hand up to clutch onto him as he tortures me with barely-there strokes.
"You are teasing me," I complain, completely breathless. "You wicked man."
"You want me to stop?"
"No." The word leaves me quickly, instantly, and with my head turned to his like this, I can see him grin.
"So bloody gorgeous," he murmurs before he kisses me.
He groans into my mouth as my clit swells for him, and his tongue presses against mine. My breathing leaves me in soft moans and I cannot control myself as his name falls from my lips.
"Oh, fuck yes," he breathes against me, unable to help himself as he rubs frantically into my clit.
"Going to come for me, my pretty girl? Go on. Let me fucking hear you."
"Arthur," I whine.
"Louder, sweetheart. Who do you fucking belong to?"
"Oh my god. You, I'm yours, I..."
He kisses me and groans into me as his fingers demand my orgasm, and I'm all too compliant as I thrash and tighten and cry out. I pulsate beneath his fingers until I have nothing left, and my head is spinning, my thoughts empty for everything except him and the way he makes me feel.
"You still sore from where I took you downstairs?" He asks me.
"Yes," I tell him. I pull my legs back into the bath. "But I want to take you again."
I see the battle play out across his face. "I don't want to hurt you," he tells me, caressing me so softly.
"We'll try it, and if it hurts, I'll tell you to stop."
He lifts us out of the bath and his cock is thick and long and hard for me. He presses me up against the mirror on the wall, my breasts sensitive against the cold glass.
"Watch daddy fuck you," he tells me, positioning himself at my entrance from behind. He grabs handfuls of my ass.
"You should have told me sooner," I say, between small pants for air. "I'd have called you that in all our letters."
His eyes roll back at my words, and he pushes slowly into me. "Fucking hell."
I groan with every inch I take. It stings a little, awakening the bruising once more, but somehow it feels heavenly and nurturing at the same time.
"You alright?" He asks.
"Yes."
He drives forward until I'm crying out against the mirror. My legs shake, and every time he goes deep I tighten around him, lost in bliss and my body begging for more.
"Look at you taking it all like a good fucking girl," he tells me.
He reaches a hand between my legs and rubs at my clit once more, my whole pussy ravaged by him. I'm so lost in the crashing waves of him fucking me that I can't even get words out at first.
"I'm so close," I finally manage to whimper. Tears form in my eyes, purely my body craving release.
"Come for me," he says, not slowing his pace with his cock or his hand. "Let me feel you, sweetheart."
I do as he says, so lost as I come undone around him I barely register as he releases into me. But finally I am spent, and my body slumps against the mirror as he pulls out.
Perhaps I'm not as spent as I think, as the dull ache already settles back in between my legs, already wanting him.
I'm completely insatiable.
"Had no idea you'd be so fucking filthy," he tells me as he wraps us both in a towel. "Should have guessed after you hid the photograph in my watch, mind."
"I have no idea what you're talking about, brave soldier," I say innocently, inhaling him deeply as I press my head against his chest. "Was that not a simple three-pump missionary position? Did I not merely cry, 'tally ho,' once the moment was upon us?"
I feel his chest rumble with laughter. "I'd love you just as fucking much even if it was a three-pump missionary each time."
I still, then pull back to glance intently at him. "Love?"
"Isn't it obvious?" He asks me softly, running a hand across the length of my jaw. "I love you. Of course I fucking do."
I'm wide-eyed as I search his own eyes, finding complete sincerity, and a slight glisten that betrays the depths of his emotion as surely as his words.
"I love you too, Arthur Shelby," I whisper in return.
He takes me in his arms and I feel it. Right here, in the bathroom with the dogs beginning to scratch at the door, and the last of the rain tapping the window, I feel the sense that my life will never again be the same. Never again will I be satisfied without Arthur Shelby by my side. Never again will I be apart from him without feeling a piece of myself is missing, also.
And that puts him in a great deal of danger.