To Love and Protect (Must Love Diamonds 4)
He gave a slight smile of confirmation as he bent his head for a feather-soft kiss on her lips. “As I said, extremely inconvenient. But now…I’ve been falling head over heels in love with you since you nearly castrated me in the hospital stairwell.”
“Let me be the first to say, thank God I didn’t.”
He chuckled, and the movement of his body rocked him inside her. “You’d be the second, actually.”
Grinning, she lifted her knees to settle him deeper, loving the feel of him inside her. A reach of her hand combed her fingers through the hair falling over his forehead as she met his gaze. “I love you, too, Dev. I always have, although what I felt for you at sixteen is a mere shadow of how much I love the man you are now.”
Dev leaned down to capture her lips once more, his slow, deep thrusts speeding up, rekindling sensations that had her moving with him as she chased that earlier wave of pleasure. She was close, so close, and when he reached down between them, his touch made her come undone seconds before he followed her over the edge.
By the time she could think straight again, he’d shifted his weight to lay beside her, and she tilted her head toward him on the pillow. “Is it always like that? Because, oh my God.”
He grinned. “If it’s done right it is.”
“Good thing you’re OCD.”
His chuckle shook the bed. “I’m not really, but I can be on this.”
“Yes please,” she quipped.
A little while later, she lay with her head pillowed on his chest as he combed his fingers through her hair. “You hungry?” he asked.
“Getting there, but I don’t want to move just yet.” She was relaxed and content, and lying with him felt like the most natural thing in the world. It was a moment she wanted to savor for a little longer.
He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “You good with everything?”
She shifted her position to look at him with her palm on his chest, chin on her hand. There was just barely enough light left for her to see his face. “Better than good. You?”
“Same.” A smile curved his lips as he brushed his knuckle across her cheek. “Is it too early to talk about where we go from here?”
Her heart thumped against her ribs. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
His smile faded, and those gorgeous blue-green eyes of his grew somber and serious. “I’ve never said I love you to anyone else. And I didn’t say it to you just because the heat of the moment.”
“Me neither.”
“Good, because I want more than our first date. I want to be with you for anything and everything. I want to go to bed with you each night, and wake up with you each morning.”
“Wake up with me?” she teased, her heart soaring with happiness. “Aren’t your military hours going to get in the way of that?”
“Military hours haven’t been a thing for me for months. You, however, were just too damn tempting.”
“So, it was my fault you were getting up before dawn?”
“One hundred percent. But now, I don’t have to anymore.” His gaze lowered slightly. “Assuming we’re on the same page, that is.”
“If you’re asking me to move in with you, the answer is yes. If you’re asking me to be your girlfriend, the answer is yes. Pretty much whatever you ask me, the answer is yes.”
His eyebrows arched high as a smile played on his lips. “Whatever I ask?”
“Yes.” She held his gaze. “I trust you, Dev, so you don’t scare me with that little smirk of yours.”
It widened to a grin, and then just as quickly, his expression sobered. “What if I asked you to marry me?”
Geezus. “Are you asking?” she asked breathlessly.
“No, not yet. When the time comes, I gotta do that right.”
“Well, I definitely won’t argue that,” she said. “But just so you know, when the time comes, the answer is yes.”