“Hell, no. I’m doing it because I love you.”
“God, I don’t know. I feel like you’re asking me under duress, and you’ll hate me eventually because of it. I want you to really want to marry me.”
“Baby, I do.”
“Then why now?” she asked.
“This should have happened a few years ago, but I had it in my head that it would be worse if we were married and I lost you, and I’d never recover. Your friend, Brylee, pointed out that I might have already lost you and asked if it hurt less than if we were married. It finally sank in. It won’t matter if we’re married or not if I lost you. I’d be finished. There would be no way I would be able to stay alive and sane without you.”
She bit her lip and looked around. “I just don’t know.”
“Honey, you’re the sweetest, most compassionate person I’ve ever met. You would do anything to help your friends or even a stranger if they needed help. Can’t you find it in your enormous, giving heart to forgive me and give me another chance?”
God, he was right. If he had been anyone else, she would have given them the chance to explain and make amends—the fact it was Darian, the one person in the world that could destroy her, was why she’d try to run from instead of staying and fighting.
“Yes, I’ll marry you under one condition,” she said.
He exhaled. “What? Anything.”
“We get engaged now, but we set a date to get married at least six months from now. All the decorations you’ve already got done will still be here.”
“I’ll take you any way I can get you, baby.”
She watched as he pulled the ring from the box and slipped it on her finger. The fact that it fit perfectly was a good sign, she thought.
He stood and pulled her into his arms and held her for a long time. It felt like coming home.
She smiled when he tipped her head up, and then his mouth came down on hers with a hunger that always took her breath.
God, she needed him inside her more than her next breath. She needed the deep, bonding only sex could give them.
“Take me to bed, Daddy,” she murmured against his lips.
He lifted her in his arms and walked out of the ballroom, still kissing. They stayed like that up the stairs and through the hallways until he pushed the bedroom door closed with the heel of his shoe.
Larkin watched him as he started pulling off her clothes. Everything about this man appealed to her, and she’d never get sick of looking at him. The thought that she had just about lost him because she walked away without fighting was appalling.
“Baby, if you keep looking at me like that, I’ll be balls deep inside of you before we’re ready.”
“But I am ready, Daddy. I can’t wait another second.”
He chuckled.
Larkin’s brows snapped together when she saw Darian freeze with a shocked look on his face as he was pulling off her jeans.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He traced the edge of the scar she had from the emergency surgery. “God, baby. The thought of you in that kind of pain makes me crazy. Why didn’t you tell me you hadn’t been feeling good?”
“Because you were avoiding me, Daddy, and I didn’t know it was that serious. I really thought I hurt so bad because I thought I was losing you.”
He slid onto the bed beside her and cupped her cheek. “Jesus, that will never happen. You and I are going to get married, have a house full of children, and grow old together.”
Larkin blinked back the emotional tears. She’d cried enough in the last few weeks, and she didn’t want to cry anymore, even if they were happy tears.
She ran her fingertips down his cheek. “I love the sound of that.”
Darian leaned forward and gently kissed her lips before he moved down to kiss the scar.
“I don’t think we should make love until I talk to a doctor,” he said.
“When he took out the stitches, he said there weren’t any restrictions and that I’m healing very well. Please, Daddy. I need you to take every part of me and make me yours again.”
He studied her expression and then sighed. “I need the same thing. I need to imprint myself on your body again. If you feel any discomfort, you tell me right away.”
She nodded. “I will. I promise.”