Chapter 22
“It’s just up ahead,” Elle told Alec as they strolled through the cursed woods. Though she supposed that wasn’t really a fair moniker now. The woods hadn’t really cursed her after all. They had given her a new family, the love of her life, everything she’d always wanted but had never quite found back home. She was still a little pissed it had taken her from the land of flushing toilets and Pop Tarts, but she figured it was a pretty decent trade off in the end. She smiled at Alec and he caught her glance.
“What are you grinning about?”
“Oh just thinking about the way I woke you up…”
Alec stutter stepped and she laughed loudly, the sound echoing among the trees. They’d formally announced their engagement and Jocy was already planning ceremonies for both Elle and Alec, and Rose and Percy. They’d be officially married in a few months, but Alec had been all too happy to say fuck etiquette—the two of them had spent almost every night together over the past two weeks. No one at Pembroke seemed to care, and if rumors were spreading about the two of them being together before they were married, well, none of them could really give a fuck less.
Elle’s lips curled as she recalled that morning, kissing down his stomach while he dozed, him waking groggily just as she closed her lips around his cock. The adorable sleepy look had disappeared within seconds as she held his gaze, twirling her tongue around the head before sucking him deep.
“Christ, Eleanor!” he’d rasped, arching his hips off the bed, sending him deeper into her throat. She didn’t mind, merely moaned in pleasure, and sucked him harder. He tangled a hand in her hair, and she licked and sucked and driven him crazy. When she’d reached downward and began to rub herself, his eyes had bulged. “You aren’t…are you…” After that, words had failed him and it was just a stream of groans and grunts until they both came hard, her against her own fingers and him on her tongue. It had been amazing and now, she longed to do it again, had half a mind to drop to her knees right here, but she stopped herself. Barely. They were out here for a reason, after all. She needed to behave…for now.
Over all, he had taken the time traveling news better than she could have expected. It was a bit rocky there at the beginning, but really, she hadn’t taken it all that well at first either. He would retreat into his thoughts sometimes and she could see his mind working, trying to make facts and science as he understood them make everything make sense, but he would always come back out again, always assure her that he wasn’t going anywhere.
And he loved asking her questions about the future, particularly fascinated with the medical and scientific discoveries that would occur over the next couple of centuries. Elle wished she knew more about all of that so she could give him more of what he craved, but he seemed perfectly happy to hear about the state of the world, methods of travel, sports—anything and everything. He loved looking through her photo albums, particularly the ones of her in barely-there bikinis on spring break trips, and they would sit and listen to music together for hours. He was fond of The Beatles, Eric Clapton, and Ed Sheeran.
“Oh of course the Brit is a fan of the Brits,” she’d teased, rolling her eyes.
“I cannot help it that we are—and remain, it seems—superior,” he’d teased right back.
“Do I need to remind you of how the Revolutionary War turned out, Lord Kentworth? It literally just happened like, yesterday.” He’d launched himself at her across the floor of the gazebo then, tickling her until she was breathless and then doing other things that left her equally breathless for entirely different reasons.
He pulled her to him now, yanking her from her thoughts. He pressed his body firmly against hers and curled his fingers into her hips.
“Mmm, I believe I’ve forgotten what happened. Could you remind me?”
Elle smiled and moved her hand between them, brushing her fingers along his erection, almost purring in delight and desire. They had been all but insatiable since that first day in the gazebo, and she didn’t see how that could possibly change anytime soon. She wanted him—desperately—what felt like all day, every day. He moaned quietly and bit at her lower lip just as she began to unlace his pants, deciding that their research expedition could wait after all, but then he stiffened and jerked his head up.
“Do you…do you feel that?” he asked, brows furrowed. He swung his gaze around them.
“Feel what—” She broke off when she felt it too. The rippling static electricity shivering up her spine. “Oh my God,” she whispered. She hadn’t realized how close to the twisted trees they’d been, but now she could see them just around a small thicket of briars. Alec moved towards them, almost as if he were in a trance.
“This is it, isn’t it? This is the place. I feel it, just as you described.” His voice was filled with wonder. He reached towards the carving on one tree and Elle’s heart stopped beating. If they were feeling the weird static, then it meant the magic was firmly in the “on” position. What would happen if he…
“Alec, no!” she screamed, flying at him. He grunted when she collided bodily with him, knocking him off balance. She channeled her inner Bobby Boucher and took him to the ground, knowing she’d only been able to do so because she’d taken him by surprise.
“Elle, what the devil is wrong with you?” he demanded as they tumbled through the leaves and underbrush.
“You can’t go near it. It’ll take you…fuck, I don’t know where it’ll take you!”
He sat up, that analytical look in his green eyes, nearly the same color as the leaves around them, and she ran her hands through her hair. What in the fuck did this mean? What was going on?
“You said you’ve come here before, since you arrived?” She nodded. “And Jocelyn and Callum as well. They’ve visited.” Another nod. “And none of you have ever felt this…this strange shocking sensation?”
“No, never. I felt it before I was brought back, but not since then. We assumed it was a one-way door.” His eyes widened and he smiled.
“Then you could go back,” he said simply. “Elle, you could go home.”
***
You could go home.
Alec’s words had echoed through her mind as they made their way out of the woods. She couldn’t stop herself from looking over her shoulder, as if the twisted trees would somehow be following them like a villain in a horror movie.
You could go home.
It kept repeating over and over in her head, so loudly she could barely even keep up with the conversation after they rushed into the house and told Jocy and Callum what had happened.
“How is this possible?” Jocelyn asked. All eyes turned on Elle and she realized the question had been directed at her. She shrugged and chewed on her thumbnail. They went around and around, theorizing why it was finally working, wondering what it might mean, arguing over what they should do, but Elle couldn’t focus on it. Her mind was a million miles away. A million miles, and about two hundred years.
When she’d first been brought back, all she wanted was to go home. She’d begged for it, bargained for it, prayed for it despite the fact that her praying was admittedly rusty. But now? Now, everything she loved was here. Why was she finally being given the chance to go home—possibly anyway, seeing as how they couldn’t even be sure when the doorway might spit her out again—now? When things finally felt right after so, so long of everything feeling off.
And yet, a part of her still longed for her own time, for the only life she’d known, the one she should have had. Not the one with Ashton, of course, but the one in the time she was meant to be in, the one where she had her job and her house and Starbucks and the internet.
Why was the doorway suddenly working again, when it had had the Sorry, We’re Closed sign firmly in place for decades? Was this all some cruel joke? Callum thought that the magic gave them what they needed, took them where they were meant to be. So, did that mean that she wasn’t actually meant to be here? No, no, no. She knew that being with Alec was so fucking right, she just knew it in one of those ways you couldn’t explain, something so deeply rooted in your very being that there was no questioning it.
She rubbed her temples, trying to think of everything they’d discussed during her research. They believed the magic had given them each what they’d been asking for, whether outright or in their hearts…
She jerked her head up.
”What were you thinking about?” she asked Alec, clearly interrupting but not caring.
“What do you mean?” he frowned.
“When you felt the shocks, the weird tingling sensation, what were you thinking about?” Her cheeks heated remembering what they had been doing the instant he’d felt it. “Other than the, uh, obvious,” she added hastily and giving him a pointed look.
His lips curled into a lazy, crooked smile that looked so damned good on him it should be illegal.
“Other than the obvious…” he echoed, his eyes skating down her body. Callum cleared his throat and Alec shook himself. “Apologies,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I was thinking…” his brow furrowed, “well, I was thinking about how badly I wished I could find a way to make the doorway work for you again, so that you could go home.”
That must be it! The magic was responding to Alec’s need to give Elle what she wanted. Or what he thought she wanted. What she maybe wanted? God, she didn’t know and her head was spinning and she wanted nothing more than to drown out all of her whirling thoughts with some really good tequila right about now.
They continued the discussion for what seemed like hours, maybe days, and Elle’s mind wandered. She thought of home, wondering what had happened to her house. Had it been sold? Was it still just sitting empty since she was probably listed as a missing person? What about her things? Probably in a storage container somewhere. She thought of all the comforts she’d been missing: cars and power and central heating and air; online shopping and fast food and the overall emphasis on personal hygiene in the world; television and music and her right to vote. She thought of Ashton, of her friends—or acquaintances or whatever they might be—of her clients. If she did go back, how would she even explain her absence without sounding like she needed a little T-O in a facility somewhere?
“—nor?”
She looked up to find everyone staring at her again. It clearly wasn’t the first time they’d said her name.
“Sorry, what?”
“It’s a risk, but is it one you’re willing to take?” She knew what they were saying now, they’d been over and over it: it was risky because there was no guarantee that it would take her back to her own time.
“I…” Was she? At the thought of leaving Alec, her heart clenched painfully.
“Elle, it’s what you want, isn’t it? What you’ve wanted since you were brought here? You could go back where you belong,” Alec said softly, sitting beside her and taking her hands in his.
“Why would you want that?” she asked, yanking her hands away. He’d been talking all day about her leaving, about her going back where she belonged, and she was so exhausted and confused and hungry—ok, hangry, really—that she just snapped. “Why are you so eager to send me away? Are you really totally fine with never seeing me again?” she demanded, standing up as rage burned her chest. He reared back, blinking rapidly.
“Elle, Wh—”
“No. No, this is bullshit, Alec! I thought you loved me, I thought you wanted to marry me. Why are you so ok with me leaving, after everything we’ve been through?” Beneath the anger, there was pain, and it made her voice break slightly at the end.
Alec…smiled at her. That stupid, perfect, charming, melt-the-panties-right-off-your-ass-cheeks smile that she hated and loved and wanted to smack off of his face.
“Why the fuck are you smiling?!” She actually stamped her foot like a child.
“You really haven’t been paying attention to anything we’ve been saying, have you?” He rose and slid his hands along her cheeks, tunneling his long fingers into her hair. “Eleanor, if you think I could possibly live without you, then I have done an abysmal job of showing you just how much I love you and shall strive to remedy that for the rest of my life.”
“Then why—”
“I’m coming with you, of course.”
Now Elle blinked, unable to process the words.
“You…you would come with me? You would leave everything?”
“Without a moment”s hesitation.”
Elle let herself imagine it. Alec with her in 2020, learning to drive a car, watching Netflix, spending hours reading medical journal articles. And she could see it. She could see it all so clearly it took her breath away. Whatever other obstacles there would be if he went back with her—and good lord would there be obstacles—she didn’t care. They would figure it out because they would be together and really, that’s all that mattered.
“Elle, I love you, in this time or any other. So long as I am where you are, then that is where I am meant to be.” He brushed hair away from her face and kissed her.
Pulling back, he smiled at her shell-shocked expression and shook his head ruefully.
“So, when are we leaving, love?”