“Is this why you wanted to see Paul?” I whisper as my gaze flits over the walls, over my art. “So you could get my artwork?”
His arm loops around my waist, hugging me close to him as he places his face against the top of my head and kisses hair, inhaling as though he wants to draw parts of me into himself.
“That was one of the reasons,” he says ardently. “I know you said you don’t want to display them, but I wanted you to see how incredible they look framed and on display… for our eyes only, of course. Are you mad?”
I turn and stare up at him, his features made hazy by my tears.
“Mad? I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my whole life, you crazy handsome man.”
He chuckles, kissing my forehead, the imprint warm and tantalizing as it charts its passage across my body.
“Wait a sec. You said this was one of the reasons? What was the other?”
He takes a step back, and sighs, as though with a great effort.
It’s like letting me go is harder than what he did in the basement, more difficult than beating up that jerk Zane with his hands behind his back.
“I needed to ask Paul a very important question,” he says.
“Yes…”
He bites down, releases, bites down again. Contemplating his next words carefully.
“What’s wrong? I’m not used to seeing you like this.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he says quickly. “No, not even close. Nothing will ever be wrong again, not with us… I hope.”
“You hope?”
He smirks. “I guess I should probably stop stringing you along, eh?”
I giggle and nod, aiming a sassy pout at him. This man has done magical things to me. Once, I used sassiness as a defense mechanism, but with my man, it feels so perfect to let this side of myself out just for the sake of it.
“Yes, I’d say so.”
“I love you, Rosie,” he says passionately. “I loved you from the moment I saw you. I’ve thought about this a lot – as I waited to speak with Paul, as I got this place ready – and I’m certain of that. The second I laid eyes on you, I fell in love, completely and deeply and like nothing I’ve ever felt before. No, that’s not right.”
I grab his hand, ravenous for his touch, needing to be close to him right now.
“What isn’t right?” I whisper, voice croaking, happiness, and the future and family and all the things that make us, us, whirling through me.
“It isn’t just that I’ve never felt this way before,” he goes on. “It’s that I didn’t know a man could.”
He pauses, and I step forward, sliding my hands up his arms and pressing down on his shoulders.
On his firmness, his security, his safety.
“You know I love you too, right?” I’m losing my battle with the tears. My voice is a trembling wreck. “I love you so freaking much. I’ve wanted to say it, but…”
“But shooting first in this situation seems risky as hell?”
“Yep,” I say, laughing, joyous feelings frolicking in me, relieved he understands exactly how I feel.
Of course, he does.
We’re made for each other.
“I love you,” he says, wrapping his arms around me, crushing our bodies together. “I love you, I love you.”
Our lips find each other, magnetized, made for each other – like our every cell, our every atom, our everything.
I moan as our mouths part, our tongues stroking each other.
But then he takes a step back with an unsteady breath.
“You’re so distracting, you know that?”
I giggle. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Paul said yes,” he goes on. “Not about you being a distraction.”
We both smile.
Yes.
He smiles.
“But to the other question I asked,” he finishes.
My belly fills with butterflies and my legs go wobbly and suddenly holding back the tears feels like a joke.
“So I’m free to tell you how I feel. To tell you that I want to be with you every single second for the rest of our lives. That I want to roar to the whole damn world that you’re mine, you belong to me. That I want – I need, Rosie, I need so damn badly – for you to be my wife.”
All the love in the world bursts out of me, prompting a sob to glide up my throat and explode out of me.
It’s an eruption of happiness like I’ve never felt before, so consuming all I can do is stare and stare as I tell myself this is real, this is happening.
We’re really going to be together.
He lowers himself to one knee as his hand slides into his jacket pocket.
“Rosie Williams… my sweet Rosie…”
He takes out a ring box and opens it, showing me a glittering diamond set within an elegant band. The diamond is large and elegant at the same time, a beautiful combination, dazzling in the candlelight.