“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” I murmur in her ear.
“Well then, Mr. Stone, why don’t you take me to bed?” she asks in a sultry whisper.
Not needing to be told twice, I sweep her off of her feet and carry her into the bedroom, and she snakes her arms around my neck, leaning against my chest. This is exactly where she’s meant to be, right here, next to my heart.
As I pause next to the bed, I say, “I’m so glad you’re staying right here with me, Meg. I don’t ever want to be away from you again.”
Her jade eyes are wide and a little glassy with unshed tears as she bites her bottom lip and then says, “Don’t worry, babe. You’re stuck with me.” Her lips press against mine hard, and I hold her even tighter. When she lets go, I see a hint of mischief in her eyes as she says, “Best mistake you ever made.”
EPILOGUE
MEGHAN
My feet ache as I finish dropping off my last round of beers at my final table on my first night back at the club and make my way across the dance floor to return my tray and clock out for the evening. As I cross the dance floor, that woman with the long, blonde hair who is always twirling around comes right at me. I remember the time she knocked me into Hunter and made me spill a drink all over him. It was both a wonderful and awful event, and now, as she comes flying toward me, I’m not sure if I should thank her or give her a hard shove into someone else.
I decide that I’m above trying to hurt her, so I just smile at her and say, “Cute shoes.”
She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t speak. Instead, she twirls back in another direction, wreaking havoc wherever she lands. She is like a hurricane, but if that’s what it had taken to get me together with Hunter, then so be it.
Not that I’m sure we’re even together. I mean, I am still staying with him, and we are doing an awful lot of fucking, which is amazing, but…what we are exactly, I am not sure.
Tonight, I am too tired to think about it. I make my way to the bar and drop off my tray, untying my apron and dropping it in with the dirty clothes hamper. “See you, Carter,” I say, patting his arm.
“Hey! How was your first night back?” he calls as he pours a beer. “Did you have fun?”
“It was great,” I admit, compelled to stay and talk to him for a moment. I have missed all of my friends while I was on bed rest for nearly two weeks recovering from my run-in with Mr. Nyx. “But I’m exhausted. I’m glad he didn’t give me a full shift tonight.” Four hours had been enough for my first night back.
“I hate to break it to you, but Hunter said to tell you he wants to talk to you in his office.” Carter shrugs and goes back to what he was doing. I wish him a good night and continue on my way, biting my bottom lip.
As I head toward Hunter’s office, I think this can’t be much of anything. I mean…he will see me in his apartment in just a few hours, so what does he want now? Maybe he just wants to make sure my first night back went well.
I don’t bother to knock on his office door. Instead, I just walk in, and the moment my eyes land on his desk, I think of the first night we spent together. He’d made me come so hard on the corner of that desk… Shaking my head, I remember to say something to him. “Yes, dear?” is all that comes out of my mouth, which makes him chuckle.
“Hey, how was it?” he asks. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “It was fun. I’m a little tired, but I’ll recover. Carter said you wanted to talk to me?”
“Yep, that’s right.” His smile fades as he rocks back and forth slightly from heel to toe, his hands pushed down deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Meg, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it.”
My gut tightens into a painful knot as my mind runs wild with all of the things he could be about to tell me. Did someone call and tell him my mom was dead? Did a staff member get into an awful car wreck? Does he want me to move out of his apartment? “What is it?” I ask in agony, irritated that he’s made me wait.
“Meg…you’re fired.”
I continue to stare at him for several seconds, waiting for the punchline, waiting for him to tell me he’s just joking around. But he’s not moving. He’s not even blinking, and when I read his expression, it actually looks like he might be serious.
“What the fuck?” I ask, anger building up inside of me. Is this his way of getting rid of me? Of kicking me to the curb? Of…breaking off whatever we have together? I can’t believe what I’m hearing, and hot tears fill my eyes.
Before I can say anything else, though, I realize that Hunter has dropped to one knee, and there’s a black box in his hand. “What’s that?” I ask.
“Well…I was hoping that you’d marry me.” The confident man who just fired me a few seconds ago is gone, and instead, there’s this vulnerable version of the man I’ve found in my arms late at night kneeling before me with a diamond ring so big it looks like a rock sitting there in the open box.
“Marry you?” I repeat. “You just fired me…and now you want me to marry you?” Something tells me I am missing something. Something important. I do realize that the question he’s asking me is a sincere one, and now the tears that are slipping down my cheeks are of disbelief and joy. “Yes, I’ll marry you,” I say as I step closer to him. “But you’ve got a lot of fucking explaining to do.”
Hunter takes the ring out of the box and slides it on my finger. It fits perfectly, and I can’t even believe that this is real. This gorgeous diamond is mine—but even more importantly—so is the amazing man who gave it to me.
So why the fuck is he firing me?
“Meg,” he begins, still on one knee, “from the moment I first met you, I knew that you were special. Not only were you by far the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen, but you were smart and fiery in a way I’d never experienced before. The way you argued with me that first night when you spilled that drink on me told me right away that you were special. But then, I did something really fucking stupid—”