My breath hitches.
He says, “I want to wake up next to you every day and see what life throws at us. Will you try?”
Will I try? I’d walk over hot coals for him.
The elation that’s been growing in my chest widens. My heart soars. “I love you, Jack. You’re worth everything.”
A smile grows, a bemused and awed expression on his face. “Thank God.” He leans in and kisses me softly, his tongue sweeping against mine. “I’m not perfect,” he breathes into my neck a few minutes later. “I can’t win a Super Bowl to save my life, I get flustered around new people, I watch too many K-dramas, and your pig hates me. I don’t have much to offer.”
I laugh, feeling giddy. “Romeo does not hate you. Dislike, maybe. And I kind of like your Porsche.”
He presses a soft kiss to my neck. “It’s yours.”
“I was joking!” I laugh as he stares deep into my eyes.
He holds my face steady with his fingertips. “I’ve never had this, Elena. I’ve never been with someone I couldn’t live without. I talked about fate before, and the more I dwell on it, it just makes sense that maybe there is a reason for everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“That sometimes, fate gives you a bad game, but in the end destiny straightens it out. And you win. You and I are going to win.” He gazes down at me, and I suck in a sharp breath, seeing a man who loves me with all he is.
He brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. “Even if that fate is nonsense, I would have found you. Somehow. Maybe at a bookstore. Maybe when I had a flat tire in Daisy in front of your house when I came to visit Timmy—I don’t know. We were always meant to be. There are too many things that brought us together. If destiny brought us together, that means she’ll fight to keep us together.”
He leans in and kisses me, hard and swift, and we get lost, me in the feel of him under my hands, him with his hand tangled in my hair.
He stands, sweeping me up into his arms, shouldering his way back up the steps.
I smile up at him. “Where are we going?”
He pauses at the back door. “I was just going to take you to bed, but now that I think about it, we could just go get married right now. I’m sure Patrick will do it. Laura mentioned being a notary once. We can get some witnesses.”
I nearly jump out of his arms. I wiggle down. “Are you joking?”
He nods, a vulnerable look on his face. “Kind of. I don’t know. It does seem fast. And insane. Definitely insane. But I’ve never felt like this. Okay, it’s too fast. Right. I’m losing it . . . but what if you leave? What if you wake up tomorrow and decide I’m too much work?”
There he is. My beautiful man who just had a jolt full of love and trust and faith shot at him like a cannonball, and he’s not quite sure . . .
“I think you’re just caught up in the moment, Jack.” I smile. “I kind of like it.”
I manage to open the back door, and he follows me, a focused look on his face.
“You can wear your Juliet dress, and I can wear this.” His tone is serious, all kidding gone, and I shake my head at him, my mouth opening, but nothing comes out.
We stare at each other.
I find my voice. “Mama will murder us; plus you have to apply for a license.”
“So that’s a no?” His face is extraordinarily intent, wolflike.
“It’s a ‘Can we have some great sex first and get on this later?’ Mama will want to plan everything.”
He grows still, amber eyes lit with a strange light. I think it’s love. He blinks. “I just asked you to marry me, and you said yes—is that right?”
I gawk up at him. A laugh comes from me. “Y-e-s. Sometime soon.”
He looks like a two-by-four just hit him. A little scared. But happy. A slow nod comes from him. “Deal. We’ll figure it out later. Bedroom now. I want to be inside you.” He leads us to my room.
I feel wired, taut, and tense, needing this, needing him. “Socks off,” I murmur.
He whips them off and tosses them behind his shoulder.
I bite my lip as he unzips his black jeans and shoves them down. His shirt is next.
“You gonna leave me here naked?” Hot eyes drift over me.
He helps me take off my sweatshirt, groaning as he palms my breasts. Sighing, I push at my leggings until they’re gone, and I’m standing in front of him in white lace panties.
“So pretty. So damn pretty.” His hand skates from my clavicle down the cleft of my breasts to the apex between my legs. There’s this look on his face. Awe. Reverence. Love.