“You don’t want to hear about that,” she teases. “Mr. Sullen Bachelor?”
I choke on a laugh. “Yeah, about that…”
“What?”
“I’ve met a woman. And it’s…we’re going to… It’s serious. Details to follow.”
“What?” It sounds like she drops something, and there’s some delicate swearing. “You’re not joking?”
“No.”
“Had I known you would have gone and fallen for someone, I’d have insisted on coming along so I could come up and see her for myself.” Jenna’s the baby of the family, fifteen years younger than me, and ten years younger than Jacob. But after Jacob’s matter-of-fact reaction,thisfeels like I’m getting a dressing down from Mom.
And I love it. “I’m bringing her back to stay with me for a while. You’ll meet her.”
There’s some happy clapping to that, then I tell Jenna I love her and I have to go, because the woman in question has opened the back door of my cabin and is wiggling a bottle of beer in my direction.
Perfect afternoon just got even better.
We spend the rest of the day getting to know each other. More than once she stops me, pressing her hands to my cheeks, and asks if this is real. “You really want to marry me?”
“I’m thirty-six years old. I’ve spent eighteen years knowing an unwavering truth: that no person has ever tempted me to want more than a bit of temporary fun. Unwavering, Abby, until you knocked on that door. It is with even stronger conviction that I promise you my certainty about wifing you up will also never waver. You’re it for me.”
“That’s what you’re going to do? Wife me up?”
“Make it my mission,” I growl as I spin her around. “And I always achieve my mission-critical success goals.”
She giggles. “Good to know.”
“Now tell me something else about yourself. What is your favorite sweet treat?”
It turns out, my wife-to-be loves ice cream—the creamier the better, and I don’t pass up the opportunity for a blow job joke.
She loves blow jobs, too, sinking to her knees in the kitchen. “I just want to lick it,” she pouts when I tell her I don’t want to come anywhere but inside her until she’s knocked up. “I like the way it throbs on my tongue.”
My backside hits the counter, my hand landing in the spot where I put her water bottle after I found it.
Thank you, fate.
CHAPTER17
ABIGAIL
By Tuesday, we’ve slowed down to fucking four times a day. That’s how Justin says it, his voice getting a little low and slow when he saysfucking. Like he’s hoping it’ll make me blush.
It does, every time.
And he loves that pink flush. Loves the way I squeal as he pulls me close and fills his hands with my flesh. Loves when I twist it around, like it was a trap, and I play the eager, seductive teen. Which makes him the patient, giving man who cannot resist me—not that he really wants to.The Daddy I want.
It has been seven long years since I felt this kind of warm adoration. To experience it as an adult, from a lover, with that layer ofhe will be my familyon top, is mind-blowing.
Almost impossible to accept fully, even as we work through all the small pieces of what it will mean.
Can I move to California, or does he need to put in a request to transfer to Virginia, where other SEAL teams are based? That he put that forward as a sincere offer means the world to me.
But I’m thrilled at the idea of being an entire continent away from New York and the Golden Industries team.
I now understand why my mother ran away with my father—and the parallels are hard to ignore. Although my father was a senior officer when he married my mom, and Justin is a recon specialist who will be deployed in danger zones I don’t want to think about.