Well, my dear readers, here we are, at the last chapter of this story. I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Thank you so, so much for taking the time to read this, and for sticking with it until the end.

Like I mentioned in the beginning, this was the first fic I have ever posted (and the first one I have ever written in English) and you have all been so nice and supportive! Thanks for boosting my confidence ?

If you liked this and want to come back sometime, don't forget to bookmark it. You'll easily find it again and it will boost traffic, which helps me too ?

Be sure to check out the end note, for I may have a little surprise for you.

Warning for this chapter: There is more smut in here xD

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Chapter 25

The first rays of sunlight fell on Margaret's face and slowly roused her from her deep slumber. She lay there for a long moment, eyes still closed, unsure of where she was.

Something felt different. There was a strange sensation of something soft and warm touching her. Slowly she blinked and let her eyes wander about the unfamiliar room in sleepy confusion. Then, the memories of last night started coming back.

So, it had not been a dream. She had really married John Thornton and they had spent the night together. The memory of it sent tingles all over her body and she suddenly felt incredibly warm.

Last night in his arms had been unlike anything she had ever imagined. They had been so intimate with each other – there had been such trust between them and he had opened himself to her completely, enabling her thus to do the same in turn.

Now, as they lay in his bed together, she was very aware of the fact that she was still completely naked, as was he, his body close to hers, touching her side, one arm draped across her abdomen.

Slowly, carefully, so as not to wake him, Margaret turned her head to find his face close to hers. He appeared fast asleep, his eyes closed, his features more relaxed than she had ever seen them. He looked younger somehow, innocent. His hair was falling into his forehead and she fought the urge to reach out her hand and brush it back gently.

She found herself observing him closely, noting the faint stubble on his cheeks and chin, a tiny, almost invisible scar just above his right eyebrow that she had never noticed before, the way his lips were parted slightly as he breathed evenly, peacefully.

'I am the only one who gets to see him like this' she mused with a little smile, trying to imagine what his workers would say if they ever caught a glimpse of their stern master in this state of slumber. Margaret remembered the day she had first seen him, as he had stood up there on the iron landing, looking down over the weaving room, just moments before he had beaten up Stevens and scared the wits out of her.

Had anyone told her back then that she would ever share her marriage bed with this man, Margaret would have regarded them as completely insane.

While she was still watching him, he breathed a small sigh and his arm, which was still sprawled across her body, tightened a little, pulling her towards him, as he nuzzled his face into her shoulder.

She carefully turned towards him and put a gentle hand on his bare upper arm, watching a small smile appear on his lips. "Tell me this is not a dream", he murmured sleepily. She kissed his forehead tenderly before replying: "It is not."

John slowly opened his eyes and found himself face to face with the woman of his dreams, lying there naked beside him, with the light of the morning sun dancing on her skin. The sight was enough to send shivers down his spine.

He could not refrain from moving towards her and wrapping one leg around hers, bringing their bodies into full-length contact with each other. A surprised chuckle escaped her lips, before he covered them with his own.

They kissed for a beautiful eternity, but it might just have been a few minutes, he could not tell. Her hands touched his chest, then her right hand slowly moved around him under his arm, to his back to draw him even closer.

He was already half-hard again, and as she moved, her hips made contact with his manhood, making him moan. He slipped both his hands into her hair, letting her soft curls glide through his fingers, before he started to gently massage her skull. He saw her eyes drift closed with a sigh.

"Should we not be getting up?", she panted after a while. "We have all day", he murmured into her neck between kisses. "There is no rush."

Margaret could not believe that once again he was making her feel so wanton. It had only been a few hours since they had lain together, and yet her body was once again flushed with desire.

Now that she knew what it felt like to be joined with him, to have him move inside her, she was gripped by a strange yearning to feel it again. 'What has become of me?' she thought to herself, as she gave in and let herself fall into his kisses, his touches, letting her hands move all over his skin.

She wanted to learn everything about him, wanted to explore which little spots on his body made him gasp and moan and shiver with desire. Her shyness from last night seemed to have left her completely, as she became more daring, touching her mouth to his neck, letting her tongue dart out to flick across the base of his throat. She was rewarded with a loud gasp of her name.

His hips had started grinding against hers, as they were kissing and she felt his now hard organ rub against that place between her legs which was once again hot and so wet that she felt a bit of it drip onto her inner thigh.

His hands were on her breasts again, stroking, squeezing lightly, tantalizing her nipples with his fingers and she felt herself let go of everything around them, shutting off her mind, as she closed her eyes and let herself sink into the oblivion of just feeling. Feeling him all over herself.

The minutes passed as their movements became frantic, their ragged pants grew louder, her legs opened to him, one of them wrapping around his body to bring him closer to her as he kept grinding his hips against hers, rubbing his tip across her folds and the tiny nub that sent jolts of longing through her.

And then he entered her with one swift movement and she groaned out, as everything around her fell away. There was no pain this time, it was only bliss and a desperate longing to get more of it. Both still laying on their sides, he started driving himself into her fervently.

"You – feel – so good", he gasped into the crook of her neck and she felt her hips move of their own accord, meeting him, needing him even deeper inside her. "John – please", she sighed, as she clung to him. He turned them slightly so he was lying on top of her and kept pushing into her, until the pressure became too much to bear.

She felt her whole body tense up, her breath caught in her throat, her eyes rolled back into her head, and then with a guttural cry everything inside her erupted and she lost control, surrendering herself to him completely once more, her cries and groans filling the air, as her inner walls clenched around him forcefully.

He pulled out of her as her breathing slowed and her head gradually stopped spinning. But he was not done yet.

He got up on his knees and held his hand out to her, pulling her into a sitting position. She looked at him questioningly, her breathing still slightly laboured. "Margaret, can you turn around?", he asked in a low, trembling voice, his eyes filled with hunger, as they bore into hers.

A little unsurely she turned, facing away from him and a moment later she felt him move to kneel behind her. He gently pulled her back against him so her back connected with his front. His right cheek came to rest against her left one from behind, and his arms came around her, holding her to him.

She caught her own reflection in the window, and her breath caught at the sight of it. Kneeling on the bed in an upright position, completely naked, her face flushed with need, her locks an unruly mess, she could barely recognize herself.

She felt his warm breath against her neck as he bent his head to kiss a hot trail downward from her cheek to her shoulder. His hands moved to her breasts and started kneading them gently. "Oh!", she breathed as her head rolled back, coming to rest against his shoulder.

Still unable to tear her eyes from the reflection in the window, she watched herself tremble with need, leaning against her lover, She saw John's hands move across her skin, almost as thoug he was worhsiping her. His right hand slowly travelled down her abdomen until he once again touched her between her legs.

"John!" Her hips moved forward, her legs parting slightly, still kneeling in front of him. His fingers started a slow circling motion, and she felt herself tremble, barely able to keep her body upright. Then he moved and she gasped in surprise as she felt him enter her from behind, pushing up inside her.

The sensation was similar to the one before, yet different, their changed position having him enter her at a slightly different angle, hitting a particularly sensitive spot inside her that made her quiver and moan.

He grasped her hips with both his hands and started guiding her movements – up and down against him. She quickly picked up what he was trying to show her, repeating the movement of her own accord, as she lifted herself up onto her knees, and then pushed down and back against him.

They soon found a rhythm, starting slowly, enjoying every small movement, as he stroked her insides and she engulfed him in her wet warmth, taking his breath away. Gradually they started moving faster, their need becoming greater with every thrust.

Margaret's breasts bounced up and down with every push, her mouth hung slightly open as she moaned without restraint.

John buried his face against the back of her neck, his eyes closing as any coherent thought left him and he surrendered himself to the desperate need that filled his body, rendering him senseless.

And then her body stiffened, her toes curled, her upper body fell forward with a guttural cry, her hands fisting the bedding. He leaned over her, one hand on her left breast, the other between her legs to touch her centre, as he plunged into her time and again.

Margaret's inner walls contracted around him, and she let out a scream, as she shattered in his arms, burying her face in the mattress. A mere minute later, she heard him groan out her name. He lost his rhythm, as his whole body shook with the force of his release, washing over him.

For a long moment neither of them moved. Eventually, she managed to lift her upper body up from the bed, only to collapse back against him, the back of her head against his shoulder, their cheeks touching, their breaths mingling, as she felt his chest rise and fall heavily against her body.

"Oh John!", she panted. "What are you doing to me?" A small smile played across his lips, as he was still struggling for air.

A few minutes passed until they had regained their senses enough to move. He gently touched his lips to her shoulder briefly, before pulling out of her and collapsing down onto the bed. Margaret felt something wet trickle down her upper leg and looked down to find a white, slightly sticky liquid oozing out of her body. So, this was what his seed looked like, she thought to herself, before sinking down to the bed beside her husband, and snuggling up to him.

"Is it always like this?", she whispered in awe. "I think it is for us", he told her softly.

"How are we ever going to get out of bed again?", she chuckled. "I don't know", he murmured with a silly smile on his face, still dazed from their lovemaking.

She propped herself up on her elbow and looked down into his face. "I did not know one could – you know – do it – like that. From behind, I mean." He gave her a cheeky grin. "Oh, there are plenty of ways to do it, Margaret. I hope we will be able to explore every single one of them."

She raised her brows at him suspiciously. "Do I want to know how you acquired this knowledge?" He looked at her innocently. "You really think me that debouched, dearest? I did not put them all into practice. But when one grows up amongst mill boys, one is exposed to certain information. These lads talk about things that would make any decent woman faint."

She turned serious, pondering his words. "I think there are many things about your upbringing that I do not know or understand", she confessed. "It feels like you and I grew up worlds apart."

He regarded her for a moment with a slightly concerned look in his eyes. "Does that bother you, Margaret?", he then asked a little unsurely. She quickly rushed to reassure him, placing a gentle hand on his bare shoulder.

"No, John. Not in the way you think. I don't care about the social class you grew up in. You did not choose it, and you moved past it a long time ago. In fact, I would marry you a hundred times over, before accepting the proposal of someone like Henry Lennox, who has spent his life basking in his family's money, looking down upon others with arrogance."

He smiled at that, visibly relaxing at her words. "It is just that I fear that there are many things about you that I might never understand", she told him. "How am I to know you truly, if I cannot relate to your experiences in any way?"

He shook his head slowly. "Do not fret about it, dear. There are many things I do not know about you either. This is all still new to both of us, but we have the rest of our lives to get to know each other."

She smiled at that prospect, as she let him pull her into his arms and hold her close in a comforting embrace.

Her fingers ran along his arm absentmindedly, until they accidentally came across the burn scar, and she felt him flinch. She had touched him there before, but they had been too caught up in the throes of passion for either of them to be consciously aware of it.

Now, Margaret drew back her hand guiltily. "Did I hurt you?" He shook his head slowly. "No, it doesn't hurt, it's just sensitive."

Her hand hovered above his skin for a moment, until he took it in his and carefully placed it back on his arm. "It's alright, you only took me off guard." His skin was slightly wrinkled and felt very tender, and Margaret barely dared to move her fingers, for fear of causing him pain.

"Can you tell me about it?", she asked eventually. There was a moment of silence. She searched his face, only to find that he was staring off into the distance with a bleak look, and when he finally spoke, his voice sounded strangely detached.

"No one really knows how it happened. They say it was an accidental flame. There were about three hundred and fifty workers in there that day, many children amongst them. I cannot recall much; it was all utter chaos. Everyone was panicking. We tried to get out as quickly as we could, but many paths were blocked by fire and smoke. The last thing I remember is that the ceiling came down on us."

There was a strangely empty expression in his eyes, like he was speaking the words but not feeling them. Maybe it was self-preservation, she mused. She was certain that the event had left him emotionally traumatized, and knew she had to tread carefully and not probe into these things too much, letting him share what he felt ready to share, without pushing for more.

"How did you get out?", she whispered. "I do not know", he confessed. "I lost consciousness when I was hit by a piece of burning timber. That's how I got this", he nodded towards his arm. "It's a miracle the injury was not more severe, I think. I was only a few yards from the door, and I suppose someone must have pulled me out. The others, who had not been as fast, were not so lucky."

He looked away, wiping his hand across his face in a quick motion. Margaret said nothing, she just held him, determined to give him the time he needed.

For John, it was a strange feeling to say these things out loud. It was the very thing he had always avoided at all costs. It had not been too hard, as there had never been anyone interested enough to ask him about his past.

Speaking of it made his insides quiver dangerously, as if some strong and vicious emotion was lurking deep within him, struggling to get to the surface.

For now, it was being muted successfully by the numbness he always felt whenever he thought back to those days. He knew he had to keep holding it in, for he was not sure he would survive the force of it, should it ever come out and overpower him.

But if she kept holding him like this, touching him so gently, looking at him with so much feeling, he was afraid he might lose it and it scared the hell out of him. He had only been this close to her for a few hours, and he already felt himself on the verge of sharing some of his more unmentionable feelings.

It was a strange effect she had on him, and he did not know where it would lead him. And then, before he could hold back or reconsider, he said something he had never planned on telling anyone:

"Sometimes-", he murmured, his voice a bit shaky,"-when I think of these things, it is like I am being transported back to them, and the memories are so vivid, that I live through them once more, as if I was right there again."

He felt extremely raw and vulnerable, admitting these recurrent recollections to her.

Margaret looked at him intently, giving him her full attention, very aware that he was opening up to her, sharing something deeply personal.

John heard himself continue: "It often makes me feel helpless and out of control. It is what happened that day when we first met, when I dismissed that worker who had been smoking inside the mill. I saw the pipe in his hand, and suddenly I was inside that burning mill again, running for my life, seeing people die around me – and I lost control, Margaret."

He was panting slightly, as the memory washed over him. "It was like I was watching myself do those things – beating up that man – and I could not stop myself. To this day I am so sorry you had to witness that", he admitted.

"I know I terrified you with my actions. I terrified myself. I am not a violent man. I had never lost control like that before. To have had this be your first impression of me has tortured me ever since."

He stopped speaking, looking at her almost fearfully. Margaret lifted her hand and gently brushed a strand of hair out of his face.

"I had suspected as much on the day you told me about the mill fires, in my parent's sitting room", she said slowly and it felt like a huge weight was lifted off his chest at her understanding tone. "I could tell from the look in your eyes that something bad must have happened to you, but I had no idea how deep it really went."

To Margaret, it felt like everything had somehow come full circle. Here she lay with the man she had been so scared of that day, the man she had painted to be a monster in her mind for such a long time. How wrong she had been about him, how blind.

Margaret knew she could not blame herself for it, she could not have known. But now that she did know, everything made perfect sense to her, like scales had fallen from her eyes.

And there was something else: She had just witnessed the struggle he had gone through in telling her all of this, how much pain it had caused him to put it all into words, to lay his vulnerability bare before her. It was an act of faith towards her, and she realized that it made her love him even more.

"John, thank you", she told him in a soft voice. "You cannot know how much it means to me that you would confide in me like this. What happened back there, at the mill, when we first met – I have forgiven you for that a long time ago. Please, do not torture yourself over it. I know you were not yourself that day, and I understand."

His eyes met hers with a relieved little smile.

"Do you want to hear another story?", he offered generously after a moment. "Anything you would like to share", she replied, slightly curious.

He quietly held out his right hand to her, his palm turned up, and for the first time she noticed a crisscross of thin white lines there. Margaret furrowed her brow and looked up at him questioningly.

"What happened?" John looked away with an embarrassed little smirk. "This one was stupid, really", he confessed. "I smashed my hand into a wall while holding a brandy glass."

Her eyes widened in shocked disbelief. "John, why on earth would you do such a thing?!" "I was pretty angry and desperate", he shrugged. "I believed the love of my life to be lost to me forever, after I had seen her in the arms of another man at a train station."

Margaret stared at him for some seconds, as realisation slowly dawned on her. The day of her mother's funeral...the bandage she had seen on his hand...

"John!", she cried out in dismay, grabbing his hand and holding it between both of hers. "You did this because – of me and Fred?"

"Well, I had no idea he was your brother", he defended himself. She lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed a gentle kiss to the scar, feeling tears sting her eyes. "I am so sorry", she breathed.

"Oh, don't be!", he whispered, searching her eyes with a reassuring smile. "It was not your fault, Margaret. And just like all the other things, it is over and done with."

He brought his face close to hers, until they were only inches apart and Margaret felt herself being drawn in by the earnestness in his eyes, unable to look away.

"Whatever happened in the past, it does not matter anymore. What matters is that we are here now."

He gently cupped her face with both his hands. "Looking back, my life often felt like that dreadful mill building I had escaped from", he whispered.

"Like everything had burned down, leaving only smoke and bleak nothingness. But you have raised me from the ashes, Margaret. You have given me a new life. And I cannot wait to share every moment of it with you."

And with that, he closed the distance between them, and the world once again melted away in an earth-shattering kiss.

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END NOTE:

And so they lived happily ever after...or did they?

You see, before I go, I have got a little confession to make:

At the end of this story, I was faced with some loose ends (mainly the aftermath of John's past and how the couple was going to work through it together), which I had deliberately not tied up, because it would have messed up the pacing of the fic.

So, I was basically faced with two options:

1, I could have continued this beyond their wedding, but to me, this would have changed the tone of the story drastically and would have been a distraction from the original idea of it.

2, I could have opted for just ending it, leaving some things open for all of you to use your own imagination.

But well, being the self-indulgent piece of sh** that I am, I wanted to explore this, so I went for a third option: I wrote a 46k-word sequel to this story, filled to the brim with fluff (yes, I actually wrote some fluff, can you believe it?), smut and tons of hurt/comfort, (really, you should prepare yourselves for a soppiness-overload) exploring John's emotional healing process, after I ripped the man to pieces in this story.

I will start editing and posting it chapter by chapter /

You may decide for yourself whether you want to read this sequel or dream up your own version of how things would have gone on from here. Either is fine (although I should mention that if you enjoyed the adult stuff in this story, there's more where that came from, and you may also get the chance of revisiting some of the events Birdie relayed to Margaret in this fic, in depth, and in John's own words).

Either way, thank you all again for your continued support of this story!

And whether you loved it or hated it, this is your moment to shine and leave one last comment down below ? ﾟﾤﾗ

Tom