She shakes her head, and Lena steps around me deliberately. I can tell by the especially evil sparkle in her eye that she’s fucking with me on purpose.
“What did you say your name was?” she asks Harrison, and I roll my eyes at her attempt at flirting.
“His name is Harrison, and he knows not to fuck with you.”
“Cap!” Lena shrieks. “Why do you have to be such an ass?”
“Only way I know how to be, honey,” I say to her before turning around to my downright fucking gorgeous lady love. “Except with you, Rube.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Life with you is going to be interesting, isn’t it?”
My chest constricts and my breathing stops at her mention of the bone-breakingly long commitment. We’re talking forever and ever here.
She notices my reaction to her comment and bites her lip as I walk over to her slowly.
“Ruby,” I say as she frets, worrying her lip into a deeper cherry color that makes me feel weak.
“Yes?”
“Hearing you say life that way…hearing you imply we’re going to be together forever… It makes me feel…”
“What? What does it make you feel?” she asks nervously.
“Fucking…incredible.”
Her face softens instantly, all the tension gone and replaced by a bright, heart-stopping smile. “I’m ready to live it all with you, Ruby. The happy, the sad, the good, and the bad.”
“You’re sure?” she asks. I smile.
“Oh, baby. Let’s get the hell out of here so I can prove it to you.”
Ruby
I’m on my back in the middle of Cap’s bed, and Cap is everywhere.
On top of me, inside me, mingling in the very air I can hardly catch a breath to breathe.
My toes are curled and my head is back, and the feel of his lips skating across my neck as he pushes inside me again is so goddamn good, I moan.
“Cap.”
He nods against my skin, flexing the tips of his fingers into the flesh at my sides and groaning. “You feel so fucking perfect, Ruby. We feel perfect together.”
I nod, because I sure as hell can’t do anything else as his cock grinds against my most sensitive spots both inside and out.
He is, without a doubt, the most skilled lover I’ve ever had. And according to him, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to get to keep him forever.
It seems unbelievably lucky, but dear God in heaven, if he keeps this up, I’m just going to be content to cherish it while it lasts.
I thought it would be harder to get into that headspace after the way he left things last time, but everything about him is different this time around.
He’s attentive and direct, and every other word out of his mouth has been a promise to love me forever.
The Cap of old was a lot of things, but he was never about false promises. Even with everything else that’s changed, I have no reason to believe that to be any different now.
His breath feels warm on my neck as he grabs my hips and pulls them up to meet his with every stroke.
As much as I try, I can no longer keep my eyes open.
And that’s a real shame…because Cap’s naked body looks a whole hell of a lot better than the back of my eyelids.
I moan as he grunts territorially into my neck and nips at the skin there. My nerves tingle, my heart is racing, and a delicious burn zings through the bottom half of my body as my climax teases.
I’m so close, so fucking close to falling over the edge, when he stops.
And I open my eyes to look right into the caramel brown of a man who’s no longer a stranger at all.
It’s a stark reminder of how far we’ve come.
From libraries and proverbial orgasms, to bedrooms and the brink of real ones.
“Cap,” I say, and even to my own ears, my voice is almost offensively breathy. I am a shameless hussy in my time of need, and there’s no going back. “What are you doing?” I ask desperately.
His face is paved with emotion, tortured with whatever is on his mind.
“Cap?” I say again, but this time, it’s more about him and less about the orgasm.
“Marry me, Ruby,” he says suddenly, and I’m so goddamn shocked, my vagina spasms so hard, I go into immediate free fall.
My head falls back, my spine arches, and I’m riding a wave of euphoria never before experienced by humans—I’m sure of it.
Cap’s raspy, amused chuckle vibrates against me and through me and into the deepest parts of my body I never even knew existed. We are, in that moment, as physically and spiritually one as I imagine any two people can ever be.
When I finally flutter my eyes open, I’m not even sure whether the last thirty seconds of my life really happened or not.
“Marry me,” Cap says again without hesitation, but this time, he’s holding an obnoxiously huge, oval diamond on a white gold band in front of me.