“Are you kidding me? I have everything I’ve ever wanted. With you.”
“I sure as fuck am glad you feel that way,” he says, before dropping to one knee.
Oh my God.
My purse and flowers fall to the floor, and I bring my hands to cover my shocked expression.
“Briar,” he starts, looking up at me with a mix of love and hopefulness and fear. “I don’t know how to do this shit,” he admits. “All I know is that my best side is your worst creation. Everyt
hing good in me is because of you. I’ll never deserve the kind of love and loyalty that you’ve given me since you were just a kid, but I promise to spend every fucking day trying, if you’ll let me. Will you marry me?”
Tears are streaming down my face, and swallowing past the lump in my throat, I say, “I will marry the shit out of you.”
He laughs, flashing that perfect smile of his, before producing a ring from his pocket and sliding it onto my finger. It’s a gorgeous, pear-shaped diamond. It’s nothing too ostentatious. It’s perfect. I’m about to tell him how much I love it, when cheers and screams and applause coming from my right have me spinning around, my hand flying to my heart. My mouth drops open in shock to find my brother, Nat, Adrian, my mom, and Dare. They’re all here, in my living room. I look back at Ash, and he simply shrugs in response.
“I told you I’d visit soon!” Nat shouts, tears shimmering in her big brown eyes.
“How did everyone get here?” I ask, swiping away the tears from my cheeks. There weren’t any cars in the driveway.
“Dare’s friends brought us. Left our vehicles at his house, so you’d be surprised.”
“Well, mission accomplished.” I laugh.
We spend the next hour or so hugging, gushing, crying, and catching up, before Ash kicks everyone out and leads me to our bed.
“Are you ready to be Mrs. Kelley?” Ash asks, kissing up my thighs. I squirm under his touch, biting my lip and nodding my head. My heart feels so full in this moment. He continues peppering kisses up my stomach, chest, neck, and lips, before placing the last one on the scar on my temple. The one that serves as a constant reminder of what we almost lost.
“I love you, Bry,” he says, settling in between my thighs. I feel him hard at my entrance, and I shift my hips, trying to take him into my body.
“I love you, too.”
“Now shut up, so I can fuck my fiancée.”
I laugh out loud, but it morphs into a moan as he pushes inside me, proving that sometimes, bad habits lead to good endings.
And beginnings.
The End
Stalk me! I like it.
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Confession/Story Time
This is probably going to end up being a pretty lengthy confession/love letter/explanation. I literally feel like I’m going to vomit at the thought of sending all of this information out into the world, but, it’s time.
Let’s start with the history of Charleigh Rose. Back in the beginning of 2016, one of my close author friends asked me if I wanted to write short, steamy stories under a pen name. Those novellas were completely different from her brand, and I wasn’t necessarily wanting to put my real name on anything, either (more on that, later).
I had already been writing a story for a couple of years, by that point (Dare’s story, actually), but had never published anything. I thought it would be a fun way to sort of get my feet wet, so to speak. So, then came the Savages. I loved writing those books, and learning the ropes of self-publishing and all that jazz, but ultimately, I knew it wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in.