“Scarlett, can you hear me? Scarlett? SCARLETT!”

“Stop… shouting… in… my… ear,” Scarlett croaked as she opened her eyes. With a gasp and a groan she promptly turned her head to the side and spit up an entire lungful of water. Sputtering, she rolled back and found herself staring up into a pair of achingly familiar blue eyes.

Wolf eyes, she thought dazedly as her head spun. “What – what happened?”

“You tell me.” Owen was crouched over her, his face as white as the clouds that were rolling lazily by overhead. Like Scarlett, he was soaked through to the skin. “I heard you shout and by the time I got down to the pond you were… you were gone. You were gone,” he repeated as his fingers dug furrows into the soft green grass. Water collected on his dark lashes and spilled down his cheeks as he gazed down at her.  “I thought you had drowned.”

Scarlett had thought she’d drowned as well. “You – you saved me.”

“Of course I bloody well saved you.” His gaze was fierce as he stared down at her. “I will always save you. Now what the devil were you doing? Going for a morning swim?”

She may have been too weak to lift herself up, but she wasn’t too weak to scowl at him. “Yes, that is precisely what I was doing. Going for a swim with all of my clothes on!” For a dashing hero Owen was remarkably dense. “Someone pushed me in, you idiot.”

He scowled right back. “Only you would be ungrateful enough to call the person who rescued you an idiot.”

“Kiss me,” Scarlett demanded.

“What?” he said, clearly taken aback. “Why?”

“Because I want to make certain I haven’t died and am dreaming all of this.”

His blue eyes narrowed. “I can assure you that you’re not dreaming.”

“Kiss me anyway.” Reaching up, she curled her arm around his neck and yanked his mouth down to hers. After a moment’s hesitation he kissed her, gently at first and then with more and more passion until she was forced to flatten a hand against his chest. Under normal circumstances she would have enjoyed such an arduous advance, but having just narrowly escaped drowning she found her body wasn’t quite up to the challenge.

“I – can’t – breathe,” she gasped.

“You’re a vexing woman,” Owen growled as he lifted his head. “I hope you know that.”

“So I have been told.”

“You need to get into some dry clothes before you catch a chill.” Lifting her effortlessly off the ground, he held her cradled against his chest as he carried her back up the hill to the house. When they reached the front door Felicity was there to greet them, having watched their approach from the front window in the parlor.

“What happened?” she gasped as her gaze flitted from Owen to Scarlett. “You – you are soaking wet!”

“Isn’t it o-obvious?” Despite the warm air Scarlett’s teeth began to chatter. “I f-fell in the p-p-pond.”

“Someone tried to kill her,” Owen said flatly. Tightening his grip around her shivering body, he stepped past Felicity and headed straight up the stairs.

“Her bedchamber is the last door on the right,” Felicity directed as she hurried after them. “I will have the maids start readying a hot bath. Is there anything else I can do? Should I call for a doctor?”

“I’ll take care of her,” Owen snapped.

“But–”

“It is all right, Felicity.” Looking up, Scarlett felt a slow warmth begin to spread through her limbs as she saw the unspoken concern in Owen’s clenched jaw and the fear that was still radiating from his hard gaze. Despite everything that had happened between them – her betrayal, his accusation, the hateful things they’d both said to one another – there was a part of him that still loved her. There had to be.

Of course I saved you. I will always save you.

“Owen will take care of me.” 

“Very well.” There were a plethora of questions in Felicity’s soft violet gaze, but she kept them contained. “I will be in the library with Darcy and the children if you–”

With a kick of his heel Owen closed the door in Felicity’s face.

“That was rude,” Scarlett chided.

“You need to rest.” Walking through the dressing room and into her bedchamber he closed that door as well, effectively sealing them off from the rest of the household. “Can you stand?” When she nodded he set her carefully down on her feet but remained behind her with his arms spread, ready to catch her at a moment’s notice. Tucking a wet tendril of hair behind her ear, Scarlett turned to face him.

“You saved my life.” She lifted her hand to his chest and felt his heartbeat. It was slow and steady, but when she flattened her palm against his cold skin it gave a sudden jump. “Thank you.”

Owen’s scowl returned. “What was I supposed to do? Leave you to drown?”

“You could have.” Through the damp fabric of his shirt she could see his dusky nipples, their points hard and erect. Her own breasts tingled in response as lust unfurled inside of her belly, filling her with a fiery heat. Her hand crept upwards, fingers sliding up the taut line of his throat to where his pulse throbbed. “I do not think anyone would have blamed you.”

“As a Runner I am honor bound to save those in distress.” He inhaled sharply when she leaned up on her toes and pressed her lips to the side of his neck. “What are you doing, Scarlett?”

 The pond may have washed away his scent, but he still tasted like her Owen. 

“Warming myself up,” she murmured in a throaty purr. “Don’t you want to get warm with me?”

He captured her slender wrist in his hand, gently pulling her hand away even as naked desire darkened his gaze. “We shouldn’t.”

She tilted her head back. “Since when has that ever stopped us before?”

“You nearly drowned. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“My mind has never been clearer. I want you, Owen. In my bed,” she whispered silkily, her mouth brushing against his ear as she rubbed herself shamelessly against him. “And in my body.”

“Lettie…” His expression tortured, he released her wrist but kept his arms at his sides. 

“Don’t think.” She began to undo his wet shirt. For every button that her nimble fingers slid free she kissed his bare chest, slowly working her way down towards his navel. “Just feel.”

Owen’s held breath exploded in a long, loud hiss when her tongue flicked beneath the waistband of his trousers. He pulled her roughly to her feet. For a moment she feared he was going to push her away, but with a groan of surrender he fisted his hands in her hair and yanked her against him, devouring her mouth in one fell swoop.

Their tongues met, heat sliding into heat. Scarlett heard the unmistakable sound of tearing fabric. Dimly she registered it was her own dress being ripped from her body, but she didn’t care. Anything to get closer to Owen. To feel his skin against her skin. To feel his heart pounding against her heart. To feel the shudder rack through his body when she slid her hand inside of his trousers and wrapped her hand around the hardest, hottest part of him.

He brought his hands beneath her thighs and scooped her up. She locked her long legs around his waist as he carried her across the room and dropped her onto the mattress. Leaning up on her elbow she watched him as he undressed, marveling at the hard lines and ridges of his body.

There were scars on his skin that she’d never seen before, evidence left behind from the war he’d fought and the life he’d lived. Scarlett’s breath caught when she saw a long, jagged scar that ran the length of his ribcage. The pain he must have felt… was it any wonder the man he’d become was harder than the boy she’d known? While she’d been off flitting from ballroom to ballroom he had been fighting on some distant battlefield, shedding blood for a king and a country that had never given a damn about him.

“From a bayonet,” he said gruffly, following her gaze down.

“Does it still hurt?” she whispered as she reached out and traced the puckered flesh.

“No.”

Running her fingertip along his hipbone and down across his sleek flank, she beckoned him onto the bed. “Then come here.”

Owen needed no other invitation. He lowered himself onto the mattress with a panther’s grace, muscles coiling and bunching as he held his body poised over hers. Filtered sunlight caught in his hair, turning the tousled strands from dark mahogany to burnished amber. Capturing her lips in another drugging kiss that left her head spinning, he bit her plump bottom lip before following the curve of her collarbone with his tongue.

When she felt his mouth at her breast she gasped and arched her spine, head falling back amidst the pillows as he licked one nipple, then the other. While Rodger had always thoughtlessly hurried in his eagerness to find his own pleasure, Owen lingered, treating Scarlett’s body as if it were a canvas and he a painter with all the time in the world.

He brought color to her body with broad strokes and light, teasing nibbles. Soon she was writhing beneath him, her breath coming in short little pants, her eyes glazed with lust and desire. When he dipped a broad finger into the honeyed depths of her womanhood her hips shot off the mattress.

“Do you like that?” His husky laugh brushed against her navel as his head descended between her silken thighs.

“Yes,” she moaned when she felt his tongue part her blonde curls. “Oh yes.”

Owen toyed with her for what felt like hours. He brought her to the brink again and again, but always pulling her back at the last possible second. Only when she felt half mad with passion did he lift himself above her and slowly, so slowly she nearly screamed, slide his pulsing length inside of her in one smooth, easy thrust until he was sheathed to the hilt.

Her nails dug furrows in his back as he withdrew and then plunged forward again. Sweat glazed both of their bodies as they moved in tandem with one another, straining towards the same blissful peak of oblivion.

Scarlett reached it first. With Owen’s name on her lips she tumbled over the edge, her entire body convulsing in one long wave of pleasure. Throwing his head back he followed her with a deafening roar that echoed through the bedchamber.

When it was finished – when both of them were too sated and too weak to even lift their heads – they laid together side by side with their limbs entwined and their hearts beating to the same steady rhythm.

This, Scarlett thought as she languidly drifted in that warm, cozy space between sleep and awake, this is what true happiness feels like.