Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“You sure?” he teased.

“Yeah, baby, I’m sure,” I sighed, and then I took a breath. “So can I ask how long it takes for your retirement to go into effect?”

His lazy smile accompanied a rumbling sigh.

“What?”

“You said that like you weren’t dying for my answer.”

I growled at him. “Just tell me.”

“Well,” he began, his voice velvet and deep as he slid his fingers into the hair at the back of my neck, cupping my head, “it’ll take about nine months to a year to process my packet once I drop it.”

“Drop it?”

“Turn it in,” he clarified, easing me forward into a kiss of blatant ownership, languid and insistent at the same time.

I needed to know things, had to, but this—him treating me like I was utterly his, I just wanted more.

My shiver made him smile and ease back.

“No—”

“So once I turn in the packet,” he said, which silenced my pleading, “I won’t be sent out on missions anymore.”

My breath caught. “You won’t?”

He shook his head. “I’ll just have to do my one weekend a month drills and two weeks AT in the summer.”

I knew what that was, annual training, so I didn’t have to ask. “Will they have to schedule that ahead of time or can they just call you up and make you do that whenever?”

“They schedule it,” he assured me, leaning in to kiss me again, just a quick one, before he continued. “There’s no more of the no-notice missions for weeks or months on end, and they aren’t allowed to transfer me, either.”

It was too good to be true, and when I saw the slight furrow of brows, I tensed. “What?”

He squinted at me. “One thing that could happen is that my CO, or someone else, could ask me to withdraw my packet because they really need me and can’t find a replacement.”

I kept the fear out of my voice, but it still cracked just a little when I spoke. “Would you do that? Withdraw your packet?”

“If it meant the difference between men living or dying,” he said softly, “what would you want me to do?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Who told you life was fair?”

I nodded.

He folded me into his arms and tucked my face into the crook of his neck. “I’m really not worried about that possibility, M.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to be supportive when all I wanted to do was tie him to the bed.

“I promise you.”

“You promise what?”

“That I’ll get out. I will.”

I’d been holding my breath for a long time; it was only for a bit longer. I could wait it out. I could. I would. He was worth everything.

“You trust me?”

“Of course,” I said honestly and then realized I had things to say as well. “So…we should talk about Hartley, right?”

“Later,” he whispered. “We’ve got time now.”

I closed my eyes and relaxed against him.

“We should make the vacation a honeymoon.”

It took me a second and then I popped my head up in time to see his wild, wicked grin. “I’m sorry, what?”

He was laughing at me, and it only got louder when I shoved him to his back and climbed on top of him.

“Ian?”

“You heard me,” he said, still chuckling.

I took hold of his hands, keeping them over his head, pinned to the bed. “Could you maybe elaborate?”

“Why, yes, Miro,” he baited, rolling his hips provocatively under me. “We should go to a justice of the peace next week, get married, and go on a honeymoon. Doesn’t that sound good?”

It sounded perfect, and I would have told him so if every bit of air had not rushed from my body and my heart had not stopped beating.

“Love?” he said quickly, and I saw the playfulness leach from his face, replaced instantly with worry.

“Yes?” I answered with a voice that sounded like crushed leaves,

“You do still wanna marry me?”

“I do,” I managed to get out with a trembling breath. “More than anything.”

He exhaled sharply. “Jesus, you made my heart stop for a second.”

I knew the feeling.

His flashing grin was back fast. “So, yeah, next week?”

“Next week,” I echoed, feeling the happiness bubbling up to the surface.

“You’re all mine now.”

I had always been his, from the moment we met.

“Gimme kiss.”

Like he ever needed to ask.