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“I’ll put money down right now that he’ll have Fleur knocked up pretty much after she drops.”
“Stop it!”
“You’re all thinking it’s an accident, but he’s just a dirty old man.”
“Seriously! Stop!” I lean to the side so I can glare at him through my obvious smile. “That’s my brother…I don’t want to be thinking about when he decides to procreate with his wife. God, that’s as bad as that one time I almost walked in on my parents. Ugh.” I fake a retch that has him laughing harder.
It’s the best fucking sound I’ll ever hear, and that handsome smile…God, I’m wondering how on earth he doesn’t knock me up with that alone.
As though my thoughts are written all over my face, he winks at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll put a baby in you in good time.”
Oh my God. Dead. I’m fucking dead at his statement as he lifts one of my arms up in the air and slowly turns me to face him again. Even in the candlelight, the soft ruddiness of his cheeks makes my stomach flip.
“But first,” he whispers, pressing his nose to mine, “I get to have you all to myself for a while longer.”
“I like that plan.”
“Me too. We also need to get you ready to battle with Emily.”
Oddly, it’s nice to hear him talk about his grandmother with levity again. The last couple of months have been hard on him, and it took him a beat or two to ease off the anger. But we’re getting there. It’s part of the reason I think New York is a good decision. For me, for him, and for us.
“You’re smiling now, but wait until breakfast tomorrow. She’s going to be on top form.” He shakes his head as he presses a light kiss to my lips. “You want this, don’t you?”
Tracing his hands down my arms to my hands, he kisses me harder, teeth worrying over my lips as his fingers twirl with mine. The second his tongue dips into my mouth, the only thing I can focus on is the whisper of sweetness from the vodka he’s been drinking tonight along with the tang of tobacco from the celebratory cigars they had earlier. But the most wonderful thing of all is the taste of his affection. So moreish that I can’t get enough.
Cupping his jaw with both of my hands, I deepen our kiss as his hands trail over the curve of my hips to the top of my bum before he pulls back with a nip of my lip.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?” I ask, holding his stare. So blue that even in the dim light, it shines a cool silver.
“Want to do this with me?” His gaze flickers around us before he glances towards where my hand is cupping his jaw, and my eyes follow.
My heart stops.
“Well?” he asks, hands banding around my waist as he lowers down onto his knee.
Neither my heart nor my head knows how to function right now. I’m stunned as my gaze flits from his eyes to the horseshoe nail ring I thought I misplaced a few weeks ago. One brilliant diamond rests between the head and the tip. It’s been resized, and the rough copper is now plated in a smooth and shiny rose gold. It’s so simple but the most stunning thing I’ve ever worn on my fingers, and he’s already slipped it on because there is no choice or decision here. It’s a foregone conclusion.
Me and him.
“You are my peace and my salvation,” he tells me with a gravel to his voice that vibrates through me with all the longing and yearning that glitter in his eyes. “You have brought me hope and given me mercy. With you I’m a better person, not someone I need to be…you make me someone I like to be. I never liked being me before you, and that’s because there is no me without you.”
Taking my hand from his jaw, he strokes his thumb over my knuckles before depositing a light kiss to his ring. “My blood is your blood. There’s never been anyone I’ve loved before you, and there’ll never be anyone after you. You are the only love I will ever have…and I would really like to do all of this with you.”
“Me too.” The sob bursts from me because only he could make me adore something that I despised deeper than I thought. “I want to do all of this with you…and more. Everything.”
“You and me.”
“Yes, always. Forever.” Squeezing his hand, I try to tug him up to his feet. “Are you coming up or what?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he chuckles, standing and grasping the tops of my thighs as he hoists me up his body.
If the dress wasn’t so long and fitted, I’d wrap myself around him completely as he kisses me, spinning us in giddy circles, only coming to a stop when we’re both breathless. And although the world around us is spinning dizzy, he is my one and only focus. My beautiful moth. My dark sky.
“I love you, precious swan,” he tells me.
“I love you, my lord.”
