“I will always protect you. I want you. Nothing will change that. I am your parachute or safety net or whatever fucking metaphor you want to use. I am here for you.”
A weight lifted from her chest and she could breathe easier. “We haven’t talked about the future.”
“I wanted to give you some time. You’ve been through so much.”
“Idiot,” she told him. “I don’t need time. I need you.”
His gaze narrowed. “Your butt is going to pay later for calling your Dom an idiot.”
She grinned. “I’m counting on it.”
His hand travelled around her throat. “I’m going to collar you and marry you.”
She raised a brow. “Don’t you think you should ask me?”
“And give you a chance to say no?” He looked horrified.
Laken scowled. “What am I going to tell our children when they ask how you proposed?”
His hand dropped to her stomach. “Children, huh? How many?”
“I don’t know, 2 or 3?”
He nodded. “I think two is a nice number. No more though. I’m a selfish bastard; I want some of your attention on me.”
“Whew, I thought you might say you wanted another Jones clan. Ten might be a few too many.”
“Ten is definitely too many,” he told her, a dark look briefly crossing his face.
She cupped the side of his face. “Duncan? Are you okay? Your brothers left rather quickly.”
Eli and Kellan had left as soon as they could. A brief goodbye and they’d been gone.
“They hate being here. It brings back all the bad memories.”
“But surely there must be good memories. What about when your Mom was alive? What was she like?”
He gazed over her head. “She was beautiful and kind. Mostly I remember her laugh and her hugs. She had a great laugh. It was full and loud and it made you smile no matter what.”
“She sounds wonderful.”
He glanced down at her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “She’d have loved you. I can’t help thinking that if she had lived things would have been different. My father wouldn’t have drunk himself to death; my brothers wouldn’t be spread out across the globe, trying to chase their own demons away.”
“How come you came back?”
“For you, sugar. I came here for you.”
She leaned her forehead against his chest.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“Damn straight.”
Epilogue