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“Thanks, Clyde,” I hear her voice and bolt to standing, knocking over the stool and, consequently, a group of folders filled with music sheets.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter, dropping the flowers on her keyboard, then wince as several notes clang.
When I’ve finally righted everything the best I can, I stand and release a long breath. “Smooth.”
“Rowan?”
When I twist to find her in the doorway, dressed in those damn overalls and a simple undershirt, my heart stops. But seeing her hair in a messy bun without a stitch of makeup on her skin swells my chest to the point of pain.
“Hello, kitten.”
Her arms fall limply to her sides and her lower lip trembles, as if those two words have completely undone her.
There’s nothing stopping me from crossing the room and capturing her beautiful face in my hands. “I’ve missed you.”
Those green eyes widen with wonder when she gazes up at me. Then her tempting lips part and her hands clutch my shirt as I wrap my arms around her, pulling her into my body.
“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” she murmurs, peppering kisses across my eyelids, “and I don’t care.” She doesn’t slow her assault, moving to my cheeks, my jaw, then my nose. “I’ll take whatever you give me, for however long we have, damn the consequences.”
I love her so fiercely, so intensely in this moment that my heart might fracture under the pressure of it all.
“There are no consequences.” Unable to resist, I descend on her, ravaging her mouth and meeting her frantic kisses with equal fervor. Seeking. Needing. Fuck, I can’t get enough. “And you’re never leaving me again. Do you hear me? Never.”
She moans, and when her tongue snakes out in search of mine, I let her have it. My heart floods with elation at the way she possesses my mouth and how her heels hook around my calves as she tries to climb up my body.
I lift her with ease, pressing her against the wall once her legs are fully wrapped around my waist.
“Wait.” She stops me from reclaiming her lips. “What do you mean?”
I chuckle, amused by her dedication to giving me a future she’s convinced I could have without her, while still willing to have me in secret.
“You silly woman,” I murmur. Her lips are already swollen, and I watch with desire pounding through me as she wets the bottom one with her tongue. “There’s no lifetime, no future, no era where we don’t exist as husband and wife.”
Her mouth forms an adorably confused frown, and I rub my nose against hers, breathing her deep into my lungs. “I’m going to make you mine forever, and it’s going to be the greatest accomplishment of my life.”
I’m given a sweet, knee-weakening kiss before she asks, “But what about Sam?”
“I confessed everything to Patricia this morning, and thanks to a little hint in Thomas’s letter, she gave us her blessing.” I lower her to her feet to reach inside my pocket. “I’ve been in Seattle dealing with a disaster Lucas created for us, but that doesn’t matter right now. I’m really doing this. I’m making the manor mine… Ours, if you’ll have me?”
In her stunned silence, I steal another kiss before slowly kneeling before her.
“I never want to feel as lost as I have without you this week.” I gaze up at her shimmering eyes with an undeniable sense of rightness—the same longing I felt the night I saw her at the auction that hasn’t left me since. “I need you, Molly, in my house, in my bed, and as my wife. Will you marry me?”
“Of course I will.” She glows with relief and happiness as she pulls me up from the floor, and I slide her ring right back where it belongs.
“Good. Because I didn’t cancel anything.”
She blinks. “You mean… We’re getting married this Saturday?”
“Correct.”
“Rowan,” she huffs a laugh, “that’s insane.”
“I’d say at this point, that’s sort of our M.O.”
I tenderly capture her mouth, pouring every ounce of love I have for her into this kiss.
Love.
