Page 84 of Property of Kevlar

Everyone was safe.

Pete was gone.

“You want to come with me?” he asked.

She peered up at him. “Me?”

Who else would he be asking? They were alone. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment.

He nodded. “You’re my old lady. I figured you could help decorate it.”

A laugh bubbled up in her chest as she peered at him. “Your what?”

He took hold of her face and brought her closer to him. “My old lady.”

She continued to giggle. “Who are you calling old? I’m only twenty-seven. You remember that, right?”

“So what?” His lips brushed against hers when he spoke in a barely audible whisper. It made her entire body tingle with anticipation. Considering his injuries and her experience, they hadn’t been intimate in a while. She wasn’t sure he was ready, or she was, for that matter, but damn, did she want to be. She’d have to run it by the therapist.

“I don’t know what that means,” she admitted breathily.

He grinned. “Mine, Kitten,” he explained. “It means, if you’ll have me, you’ll be mine, and I’ll be yours. No one in my club will lay a finger on you, and they will protect you with their lives. You’ll be my queen.”

“Why does this sound like a proposal?” She laughed nervously.

He hummed as he offered gentle but brief kisses. “It kind of is.”

Startled, her eyes widened, and she pushed off him to get a better look at his face. “What?”

“It’s not a ring or anything. Not legally binding,” he said with a shrug, his hands resting on her hips. “But in my world, it might as well be.”

Her mouth fell open. A variety of sounds left her as she stammered, attempting to wrap her brain around what he’d said. “Are you asking us to be officially dating or something like that?”

“Yeah,” he said on a chuckle before dipping his head down and kissing her neck. “Something like that. You’re my old lady, and I’m your old man. Committed. No one else. What do you say?”

“You’re crazy.” She laughed. This was insane. They barely knew each other. “You haven’t even told me your real name.”

“Weston,” he said without hesitation. “Weston Hubert Oberlin.”

“Hubert?” She gasped. Who looked at a baby and picked Hubert?

He rolled his eyes with a grin. “Family name.”

Blinking rapidly, she wasn’t sure she could digest all of this. “Well. Nice to meet you, Weston Hubert Oberlin.”

As his name left her tongue, she considered it. She’d never met a Weston before. Studying him, she cocked her head to the side. It suited him. Weston. An original name for an original man.

“I like it,” she said. “It’s better than Kevlar.”

He shrugged. “If you say so. One means I’m bulletproof. The other is just something my parents picked when they were stoned.”

“Does anyone call you Weston anymore?” she asked.

“My sisters.”

And now her. “Can I?”

He pursed his lips as though contemplating her request. His arms tightened around her, and her heart fluttered.