"Yes. A billion times, yes." He didn't hesitate for moment. He got down on one knee and pulled out a jewelry box from his inside jacket pocket. Stretching it out to me, he said, "This isn't an engagement ring, because we've only been dating a month and I know that's too soon to get married, but it's not too soon for me to know that you're the girl I can see myself having a future with. In fact, you're the first and only girl I've ever felt that way about. So, if you'll accept this token of my love, I vow to be committed to you and only you from this moment on."
With trembling hands, I opened the black velvet box and gasped at the contents inside. It was a gold locket on a chain, and as I nodded my head yes vigorously, Ethan slipped the necklace around my neck as the crowd behind the press applauded noisily and the paparazzi went crazy, shouting out at him from below.
Ethan pulled me into his arms and I saw that tears were brimming in his stormy, gray eyes. Then we kissed, long and slow and deep — the kind of kiss that takes your breath away and makes everything around you disappear.
When we finally came apart, gasping for breath, Ethan held his hand up to the crowd and said, "No more questions. If you'll please excuse me, Kayla and I would like to be alone."
We hugged my family goodbye and Ethan assured them that Angela would get them back to the hotel and provide for all their needs. Then he whisked me out of the back door where his Ferrari was waiting.
"Where are we going?" I asked him breathlessly.
Grinning at me lovingly, Ethan said the words I'd been waiting to hear. "Anywhere you want, my love."
"Why don't we go back to your place?" I suggested, but he shook his head.
"I think you mean our place," he corrected.
Smiling happily, I kissed him and said "Okay, let's go home to our place."
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ethan
You see them everywhere: these lovesick guys who are completely wrapped around the finger of some woman. I used to pity them and thank God that I wasn't one of them as I went home every weekend with a different hot model.
My own father had been the most pitiful of them all, mooning over my mother when she left him and taking her back the moment she returned without a moment's hesitation. He spent all his time bending over backwards to make her happy, doing every little thing she ever wanted. I used to think guys like that were just sad; now I saw the truth, and it was just the opposite of what I'd always believed.
Men who were fortunate enough to find a woman they loved with all their heart, who loved them back, were the lucky ones. Jerks like me who turned their backs on love and spent their lonely lives wandering around, looking for companionship in empty, one-night stands were the tragic ones.
I had never known what true happiness was until I found Kayla Brandt and fell in love with her. Just seeing her smile was worth more than a thousand one-night stands, and hearing her laugh was the most wonderful sound in the world.
When she and I made love, the orgasms I had were more powerful and more pleasurable than the paltry ones I used to crave from women I'd pick up in bars, and the feeling I was left with after they were gone was one of profound emptiness. With Kayla, I would awake the next morning still holding her in my arms, feeling our heartbeats pulse as one, and I knew what it was like to truly be happy.
She had brought meaning to a life I hadn't even known was empty and given me a purpose I didn't even know I'd been searching for. Loving Kayla was my true reason for being and words couldn't express I grateful and happy I was to have her in my life.
Admitting this to the whole world live on stage in front of all the news cameras and microphones was something I thought I would have been terrified to do. Never, in my wildest nightmares would I ever have committed such an act; but now, I had done that exact thing and nothing had ever felt more right.
We rushed straight home and didn't even make it through the front door before we started kissing. The moment the door leading from my garage to the interior of my mansion closed behind us, I slammed Kayla against it in a passionate embrace as we kissed with starving mouths, eager to devour each other.
"Make love to me right here, right now," Kayla panted. There was a narrow table against the wall by the door leading out to the garage with a flower vase on it. She shoved it off the table and it hit the floor with a noisy crash. Then she hopped up on the table, eager for me to fuck her.
She reached out for me, anxious to take my clothes off, but I caught her hands in mine and held them fast.
"I committed to you today, but now I want you to commit to me," I said in a voice that was husky with desire.
"You have that," she said simply as if it were obvious. "I don't want to be with anyone but you."
"That's not the kind of commitment I meant, although that's good, too," I said, and she looked at me quizzically. "Now that we are in an official, monogamous relationship, I want an even deeper kind of intimacy. I want you to commit to being my sex slave."
Her eyes flew open wide and then narrowed into intelligent slits. "Isn't that what I've been doing every time I let you spank me during sex?"
"Yes, but no. Sadism and masochism can often times be a part of BDSM game play and corporal punishment is a great way to implement it, but agreeing to be my sex slave is much mo
re than just allowing me to spank you."
"How much more?" Her eyes were glistening and her nipples puckered visibly beneath her dress.
I could see she was intrigued, but still smart enough to find out exactly what she was getting into before she agreed, and it made me grin.