Hot tears rolled down Jiya’s cheeks, her heart rejoicing in her chest. She was laughing and crying and saying his name and making no sense. But she somehow found the ability to turn and look at her mother—to find she was crying, too. Even though she still looked slightly pissed.
“It certainly took you long enough.”
Andrew’s shoulders drained of tension, his breath releasing in a rush. “She deserved the best man I could be. It took me a while to find him.”
“And you’ve found him now?”
“Yes.” Andrew leaned down and kissed Jiya’s forehead. “I’ll always be my best when I’m with her.” He took a ring box out of his pocket, kneeling down on one knee, and Jiya’s legs turned to jelly at the sight of her breathtaking Andrew, so fiercely determined and brimming with adoration. She crammed her fingers to her lips to keep a cry from escaping. “Jiya Dalal. You’re holding my soul in your hands. Marry me. Cook breakfast with me every morning. Let me hold you and make you safe. Forever, sweetheart. Keep me grounded while I watch you fly.”
A hiccupping sob escaped her. “Yes.”
Andrew let out a rushed of sound, like a tire deflating, and slipped the ring on to her finger. When she looked at it for the first time, she could only make out the twinkle of a diamond through her tears, but truthfully, it could have been from a gumball machine and she would have said yes to this man. Andrew Prince was her soul mate, her best friend…and now her fiancé.
And as he rose to his full height, his hand sliding over her right hip and squeezing just a touch, she wanted to devour him. Inside her head, she could hear her breaths like echoes coming from a cave. If he’d proposed, there was obviously nothing stopping them from being together now. Physically. His rule was no longer valid and her body responded with a swelling of lust.
Andrew shifted on his feet in front of her, licking his lips and dropping his mouth to hers, delivering a chaste kiss in deference to her parents who were watching them like hawks.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning at breakfast, then?”
She buried the knowing smile that tried to dance along her lips. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.” He kissed her cheek, then lifted her hand to drop another one on her knuckles. “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Dalal. I promise to make her happy.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Dalal sighed, laying an arm across Jiya’s shoulders. “I think you will. Good night, Andrew.”
“Good night.”
Andrew closed the door behind himself and then she was standing in the hallway with a ring on her hand, rain pelting the windows of the house. And she was back to believing that Andrew showing up to propose had all been a dream. She was suddenly desperate to prove to her psyche that it had been real—and even more desperate to touch the man she’d just promised to marry. “I’m going to turn in early,” she murmured to her parents. “I’m suddenly exhausted.”
Her father patted her arm. “You’ve had an exciting night.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are.” Her mother’s voice was dry, letting Jiya know she’d only succeeded in fooling one of her parents with her claim of being tired. “We’ll begin planning your wedding tomorrow.”
Jiya held her mother’s clear approval to her chest as she jogged down the hallway to her room. Before she even walked over the threshold, she knew Andrew would be standing at the window. The rain had soaked him even more thoroughly, plastering his hair to his forehead, but the way he watched her was so hot, it was a wonder the rain didn’t turn to vapor. With his harsh breaths fogging the glass, he crooked a finger at her and she went.
She ran to the window, threw it open and was dragged through the opening before she’d grasped his intention. Their bodies fell together in the small breezeway between their houses, mouths open and hungry on each other. They stumbled in their enthusiasm to taste, to touch, to get as close as possible. Her back landed on the outside of Andrew’s house and he growled, thrusting his hardness up between her thighs, yanking her knees up so he could do it again and again with more insistence, his mouth taking over her neck, cleavage, throat.
“Did you just agree to marry me?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
Andrew moaned her name, rolling his forehead side to side in the crook of her neck. “I’m out, Jiya. It wasn’t pretty, but I’m out. You’ll have an honest man from now on. I’ll make you so proud to have me as a husband.”
“I’m already proud. I love you.” They kissed hard, then sank into a raw, wet dueling of tongues, only breaking away to suck in oxygen. “Take me inside. I need you. Please, I need you.”