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Ronnie’s own smile stretched her lips. “Never would. Never will. Now if you’ll excuse us.”
She held out her hand to me.
I looked at her fingers, clean and free of scrapes and bruises and blood.
“Take my fucking hand, Pratt,” she ordered.
I did.
We’d just walked through the door, out into the muted dawn light when Lila began her chat. Francis, it seemed, was joining in.
I wrapped my arm around Ronnie and brushed my lips against her temple. “I love you, Ronnie. Marry me?”
Chapter 6
Fuck. I hadn’t meant to just blurt that out. What the fuck did I do now?
Ronnie looked up at me, her expression unreadable. “How about we start with a shower first and go from there?”
Fuck. What kind of answer was that?
Ronnie smiled, shaking her head slightly. “Idiot. Of course I’ll marry you. But let’s leave the proposal for a time when you’re not covered in blood, what do you think?”
I half laughed, half snorted. “Good idea.”
The proposal hadn’t blindsided me. Ever since I’d met Ronnie, I wanted to be with her forever, and despite what my violent tendencies might convey, the notion of marriage filled me with a warmth and joy I could never describe. But in my head, I’d always planned on seducing Ronnie with roses and chocolates and long, languid orgasms before I asked her.
Popping the question minutes after dealing out more pain and brutal punishment than I ever had wasn’t exactly ideal.
“Hey.”
Ronnie smoothed her arm around my back and gave me a gentle squeeze. I looked down at her again, ignoring the faint pain in my ribs from the pressure. I’d need medical attention, but it could wait until Lila finished with Rufie.
“Hey,” I echoed Ronnie with a smile.
She met my gaze, her eyebrows dipping a little in a frown. “Don’t freak out on me, okay?”
I gave her cheek a soft kiss. It hurt, but I was more concerned with getting blood on her face. “No freaking out.”
“Good.”
We crossed the warehouse’s weed-infested parking lot to Fluffy’s truck. “You got the keys?” I asked Ronnie as she dug out something jingling from her jeans’ pocket.
“I do. I made Fluffy give them to me.” She unlocked the doors with a press of a button. “I also made him let me drive.”
Wincing at the stabbing sensation on my right side, I opened the passenger door. “How?”
She grinned at me before tapping her nose and almost fucking skipping around to the driver’s side.
I raised my eyebrows at her.
“I’m a dog person, Lucas Pratt,” she answered over the hood. “You should know that. Once I had Francis on my side, Fluffy had no hope. Strange name for a Marine, by the way. One day you need to tell me how he got it. He wouldn’t say, no matter how often I asked.”
Even as I chuckled, I made a mental note to really have a talk with Fluffy about the job he’d done protecting her. I wasn’t pissed. I had no doubt if it came to Ronnie’s safety, dog-person or not, Fluffy wouldn’t have let her get hurt. Like his Doberman, I’d seen the Marine in action, and it was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.
It took us almost an hour to get back to the safe house. I directed Ronnie, my head once again roaring. The repeated pipe to the jaw had done a good job of almost scrambling my brains, it seemed. Fuck.
Ronnie didn’t make a comment about the derelict house, nor the hidden room I led her to. What she did do was help me undress and get me into the shower.
