“That’s my greedy girl,” he grunts, finally giving me the hard fucking I crave so badly. The bed rocks in a steady rhythm, but it doesn’t make a sound like I expect it.
“Tank.” I demand an explanation between the panting breaths and canting hips of a second orgasm on the brink.
He bites my shoulder before responding. “A little WD-40 goes a long way.”
My eyes roll in equal measure of ecstasy and sarcasm. Of course, the bright engineer in him had to find a way to make a quiet bed because he knows I make too much sound. I can’t help but laugh. Tank can’t help but move faster, forcing me to keep up.
He rolls us over to cover us with the blanket and keep me warm in his arms. I snuggle deeper, expecting to sleep, but Tank rolls again, putting me on top.
“What’s up, big guy?” My hands find his shoulders and his hands hold my hips, keeping us connected.
“I was serious before,” he grunts.
“So I get a shitty goodbye followed by a shitty proposal.” I make a move to get up, but he’s clamped his fingers tight into my flesh, making me hiss.
“Bea, look at me. Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say? You’ve made all the big decisions and expect me to meekly go along because it seems like a good idea.”
His chest expands and exhales.
He flips us over again, trapping me.
“Beatrice Nicole Brennan, will you marry me? Be my wife. My partner. My everything.”
“Tank.” I pause, wiggling to get out from under him.
Elbows cage me in. A knee slips between mine but he keeps his arousal off me, mostly. He can’t help the way it bobs and rubs against my tummy like it wants back in. Lust. This is lust, I tell myself, unwilling to say it might be love, though I suspect it is.
“I know I love you. I had to lose you once to realize it. Anything I do isn’t the same without you.”
My brain is a swirling mess of details—some that correspond, some that contradict—while my heart, that useless organ, is beating hard and heavy saying do it, do it. I don’t believe in angels and devils dictating choices; no, I have a body full of organs that can’t make up their damn mind beyond biological necessity.
And still, I open the door to possibility.
“I’m gonna need you prove it to me. Make it all happen—the wedding, the details, all of it.”
“And?” Tank leans in close, his massively beautiful cock rubbing against me, this time definitely not accidental.
“I’ll marry you, Henry Edward Andrews,” I sigh.
He bites his lip to keep from smiling. “Because?”
“I love you too.”
4
Tank
My hand shakes a little as I knock on the door to Mr. and Mrs. Brennan’s house. I know Bea isn’t home, and this isn’t how I’d planned on meeting with her parents. There isn’t an ideal damn thing about this situation, but I’ll do anything to get what I want, and what I want is my Honeybee. I watched her leave for work an hour earlier from when I dropped her off. Like a stalker, I sat in my car in the freezing cold morning watching her walk down the sidewalk and into her house, closing the door. With barely restrained patience, I waited until she showered and left again, giving me a wink and a saucy wave as she walked down the sidewalk to the coffee shop where she works. She wouldn’t let me drive her to work, and while I know it’s only a few blocks away, it gutted me letting her go off on her own to a job she’s had all summer.
There wasn’t much that unnerved me in basic training—not muggy weather, mosquitoes larger than my hand, or lobbing grenades for target practice. Sitting outside her house though, that scares me shitless.
Bea wasn’t kidding when she said I had to plan everything down to the last detail with zero guarantees that she would show up. Some would say I’m crazy to do this, insane to let Bea have this kind of hold over me, but she’s the light in my life I didn’t realize I was missing until it was gone. I’d do anything for her. Case in point, I have standing appointments for the cake baker, florist, and pastor. Her family is my first stop and I don’t know exactly what she’s explained to them.
“You gonna come inside, boy, or hang out like a weirdo in the street?” one of the aunts calls from the upstairs window, and I nod my head to her.
&