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By the time she spins back to me, I’m down on one knee, careful not to disrupt any of the food or drink on the blanket around me. In my hand is a pink velvet box that Talia’s eyes are locked on, the beautiful green depths wide and glassy with unshed tears.
As she watches, I open the soft box to reveal the sparkling white gold ring inside. Her bottom lip wobbles, and she gasps, her hands flying to her heart.
“Talia,” I begin, emotion filling my voice. She’s turned me from the gruff, stony man the Navy taught me to be into a man who would do anything to see her smile. Strangely, I don’t resent the softness she’s brought out in me. I can’t, it’s hers. I’m hers, and she’s mine in every single way.
“Trey…” she breathes, then pauses, letting me continue.
“From the second I walked into that steam-filled bathroom and found a beautiful stranger in my shower, you changed my life,” I say with a laugh, echoed by her breathless giggle. “You swept me up in a whirlwind of powdered sugar and cherry shampoo and that gorgeous blush.” I grin as she rewards me with that pink flush of her cheeks I love so much. “And I knew from thestart that you were meant to be mine. You aremine. I thought I was happy with my routine, but now I realize how wrong I was. Because I didn’t even know the meaning of happy until I found you. And now that I have, I can’t ever let you go.”
I reach my free hand out to her, and she steps forward, putting her left hand in mine and smiling down at me.
“Talia, my sweet girl. Will you marry me?” I pull the ring free of the box and hold it over her hand, waiting to slip it onto her finger.
“Of course, I will,” she says without hesitation, her voice thick with emotion that’s echoed by the frantic thud of my heart. “Yes, Trey. I’ll marry you.”
With a grin so wide my cheeks hurt, I slip the band onto her finger. A perfect fit.
The radiant cut diamond glints in the light of the fairy lights, but she’s not looking at the ring. Instead, she’s staring at me. I rise to my feet, and she jumps into my arms, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me in for a kiss. I catch her, one arm around her waist, the other hooking around the thighs she’s wrapped around my middle, squeezing her close to me.
She’s warm and sweet and so soft as she leans into my chest, her lips on mine, our tongues sweeping against each other in a slow dance that carries so much love with it.
Talia breaks the kiss first, her chest rising and falling fast with her rapid breaths. She squirms to get me to put her down, but I refuse, instead lowering us both to the picnic blanket with her in my arms, so she’s sitting in my lap.
She unwinds her arms from my neck to hold up her ring, squealing with excitement.
“Almost as pretty as my girl.” I watch her turn her hand this way and that to inspect the jewel.
“It’s gorgeous,” she gushes, eyes shining with love. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned.”
I chuckle at that, leaning forward to kiss the sensitive skin at the crook of her neck. “And you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned,” I tease her, nipping her neck.
“You don’t own me,” she replies with a bit of sass, but the way she wriggles on my lap, grinding herself against me in the process, shows us both exactly how much she doesn’t mean that.
“Oh, is that right, sweet girl?” I growl softly against her skin, my hands tight on her hips. She moans a little, hands grabbing my shoulders. “Do you need a reminder of just how much you belong to me?”
“Yes,” she replies immediately, the word breathy with another small moan.
In the next second, I flip us so she’s on her back beneath me, the picnic blanket bunching up around our bodies as I push my thigh between her legs. She bucks her hips, arches her back, and gasps while I kiss her again. Her ring catches in my hair when she runs her hands through it, only making me even more feral for her. My girl. My cupcake. My soon-to-be wife.
I spend the rest of the evening ignoring my plans of champagne and strawberries in favor of something—someone—far sweeter.
EPILOGUE
TALIA
Two Years Later
“Those are for your cake, Lucy!” I say in a baby voice to the little girl shoving a handful of chocolate chips into her mouth with chunky fingers.
My daughter giggles at me, with a chocolatey grin that’s impossible not to smile back at. Her blue-gray eyes crinkle at the sides, and her chubby cheeks curve with her happiness. “So cheeky,” I add, tickling her sides and making her laugh harder.
I scoop her up from the counter, checking she hasn’t gotten chocolate all over her new party dress, and clean her hands and face quickly.
“Let’s go find your sister, all right?” I ask Lucy, settling her on my hip.
“Ooh Powey!”Lucy agrees, shouting her twin sister’s name. Lucy hasn’t quite mastered theLsounds in her sister Polly’s name, but if I’m being honest, the way she pronounces it is socute that I kind of don’t want to teach her how to say it properly.
When we found out we were expecting not one but two baby girls, Trey and I decided to name them after our moms. Lucy, after my mom Lucille, and Polly, after his late mom Paulina. Their names are a homage to all the love that came before them, and the girls are the happiest, most loved babies on the planet, so it fits perfectly.
