“Can You Make Me Come Tonight — The Mail Order Bride Asked… The Virgin Mountain Man Whispered, ‘I…’”

Chapter 5

She guided his hands to her shoulders, and he touched her like she was made of glass.

Every movement was tentative, every breath a question. He kept pausing, his forehead pressed against hers, his breathing ragged.

“Is this all right? Am I hurting you?”

“You’re not hurting me, Elias.”

“But I’m so heavy—”

“You’re not.”

She had to pull his hips down. Had to dig her nails into his broad shoulders. Had to silently demand that he stop treating her like something fragile and start believing that she wanted him there.

It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t seamless. It was interrupted by fumbled limbs, whispered directions, and his profound, breathless apologies every time he thought he shifted his weight too heavily. He was so terrified of crushing her that he held himself rigid, his arms trembling with the effort of restraint.

“Elias,” she said, her voice firm but gentle. “I need you to stop holding back.”

“But I’ll hurt you—”

“You won’t. I trust you.”

Those three words stopped him cold. He looked down at her, his eyes searching hers in the darkness.

“No one’s ever said that to me,” he whispered.

“Then let me be the first.”

He lowered himself slowly, letting his weight settle against her. The contact was overwhelming — the heat of him, the sheer size of him, the way he trembled as he finally surrendered to the moment. She felt the tension drain from his shoulders in stages, felt the precise moment he stopped thinking and started feeling. When he buried his face in the crook of her neck with a deep, tearing groan, Margaret felt a strange, quiet victory.

She hadn’t just endured. She had guided. She had given a lonely man a piece of humanity he had convinced himself he didn’t deserve. And in return, he had given her something she had never expected.

Safety.

Absolute, unwavering safety.

Afterward, they lay in the darkness, the fire having burned down to glowing embers. The wind still howled outside, but inside the cabin, the silence was different. It was warm. It was shared.

Elias was sprawled beside her, one massive arm draped across her stomach as if he was afraid she might disappear if he let go. His breathing was slow, deep, still carrying the aftershocks of what had passed between them. She traced idle patterns on his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly.

He was quiet for a long moment. “I’m thinking about how I almost didn’t write those letters. I sat on the porch of the general store for an hour, holding the paper, trying to find the words. I almost threw it in the fire.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.” He turned his head to look at her. “I kept thinking about how empty the cabin felt. How the silence was getting worse. How I didn’t want to die alone on this mountain with no one to remember I was ever here.”

“You’re not alone anymore.”

His arm tightened around her. “I know.”

“Margaret?” His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.

“Yes?”

“I didn’t know it could be like that.”

She turned her head to look at him. In the dying ember glow, his face was open, vulnerable, beautiful in its raw honesty.

“Neither did I,” she said.

And it was the truth.

He pressed his lips to her hair, a gesture so tender it made her chest ache. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you.”

She smiled in the darkness. “You already are.”