Will You Marry Me
I blink, finally tearing my eyes away from the books to look up at him. He’s got a bouquet of red and blue poppies in his hand, and his eyes are soft, reverent, as they take me in.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I took more than one flower as my favor.”
A choked laugh shoots out of me, and I press my trembling hands to my lips. They’re wet, and it’s only then that I realize I’m crying.
He reaches across the counter, his thumb coasting across my cheek, wiping away the tears as they fall. “Sweetheart” is all he says. It’s so achingly tender, slipping into all my most vulnerable places. “Don’t cry.”
I shake my head, hardly breathing. It feels like my heart has climbed out of my body and placed itself in Grey’s hand, completely his now to nurture or break. And I know there’s no getting it back. I’ve given him all my pieces.
“I can’t believe this is real,” I whisper.
This brings a smile to his face, because this line is familiar, but he’s usually the one saying it to me. In the mornings when he wakes up, thinking he’s dreaming. I say it into his skin, promise it into his ear, make sure he knows that it’s real, that I’m with him, that he’s not alone. That he never has to be alone again.
“It’s real,” he echoes like I’ve done so many times now. It’s a promise, a vow. It feels monumental this time, more than all the others.
Just like all those months before, when we were standing in my shop, the one on the other side of the french doors, he doesn’t ask me the question aloud. He didn’t ask me if I wanted him to be my fake boyfriend. He just waited for my answer, ready to let me decide how his future was going to play out. He’s always been waiting for me.
So just like back then, I say, “Yes.”
Finley is in mybed. My head is pressed to the mattress, and her hair is spread out across my pillow, the one she stole in the middle of the night. Just like every night. I tried switching to a stiff, flat pillow one time years ago, hoping she wouldn’t snatch it in her sleep if it wasn’t fluffy and down, but it didn’t stop her, so I switched back. I figured a couple of hours on a comfortable pillow was at least something.
Beside me, she stirs, body stretching, a sleepy moan slipping from her lips. I smile at the familiarity of it. And then she’s blinking awake, grinning at me in that way she always does. Soft, tender, sleepy. All mine. The one that makes my heart stop, even after so many years of waking up to it.
“Good morning,” she murmurs, moving to press a kiss to my lips, warm skin sliding against mine. The kiss is slow, lingering, the kind that always leads to more. A tongue tracing my lips, teeth tugging my mouth open.
My blood turns liquid, and my palms slide against bare skin, all the swells and divots I’ve memorized, the ones that feel made for my hands. Goose bumps prickle beneath their path. I take mytime, stopping at all my favorite places, all the ones that make her shiver and writhe.
My pulse hammers, blood rushing in my ears, when she climbs onto my lap, thighs nestling against my ribs. Her lips leave mine, only to trail across my jaw to my ear. “This isn’t a dream.”
She reminds me every morning, like she has since I confessed to her that I would wake up from dreams of her, desperate and wanting and empty. That it would feel like my heart was cracking in two to know she wasn’t there, that I loved her in a way I was sure she could never or would never reciprocate.
But even my dreams couldn’t live up to the real thing. Nothing compares to the way she rolls her hips against mine, sinking down onto me, fingers tightening on my shoulders. Her breath hitches in her throat, and a smile curves the edges of her lips, making all my thoughts narrow to just that noise, just that sight, just the feeling ofher.
I lean up, catching her collarbone between my teeth. “Even my dreams couldn’t come up with this, sweetheart,” I say into her skin.
Her smile widens, her eyes bracketed by lines I love to trace with my fingers.
Then I’m losing myself, whispering words that are muffled by her neck, the delicate slope of her collarbones, the curve of her chest. I’m tracing the faint stretch marks on her hips and stomach with the pads of my thumbs, trying to hold myself together, trying to make this good for her.
I’m so gone I barely register the knock on the door, but Finley stops moving, her body going rigid, her eyes flying to the door. We’re both quiet for a long moment, waiting to see if it was a phantom noise or if the person on the other side will decide they don’t need us right this second.
“Mommy?” the voice, diffused by the wooden door, asks, and Finley hangs her head, blond hair falling over her shoulders. Buther eyes catch mine, and she smiles in that long-suffering way she does every time this happens.
“Yes, Poppy?” Finley pitches her voice loud enough to be heard through the door, absentmindedly touching the poppy tattoo over my ribs. I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it.
“I’m hungry.” Her little voice makes my lips twitch, and my heart tugs painfully against my breastbone.
“We’ll be out in a second,” Finley says, moving in a way that has me holding a groan. Her hand lands on my lips, stifling the sound. “Shh.”
“You can’t expect me to stay quiet,” I pant. “When you’re doing—”
“I’m coming in,” Poppy says.
We both yellnowhen the doorknob starts to turn, our eyes flying toward the entrance to our room.
It immediately halts, and I can practically envision our daughter, pert nose scrunched in a pout, brows pinched over pale blue eyes. “Why not?”
