Page 98 of Sheltered

“Yeah? You think so?”

I nodded. “The weather is gorgeous.”

“It’s nothing compared to you, though.”

I smiled and leaned my shoulder into him. Blaze wrapped his arm around me as I said, “You’re so good to me, boss.”

“Well, I should probably feed you then, so you don’t change your mind about that,” he returned.

It blew my mind that he ever thought that would be possible.

Blaze opened the basket, pulled out a couple of plates and a wooden board. What followed was a baguette, cheese, grapes, summer fruits, crackers, spreads, mini croissant sandwiches, and a bottle of wine.

“You didn’t skimp on anything, did you?” I asked him.

Blaze grinned at me, reached back into the basket, and pulled out a bouquet. “I tried my best.”

I took the flowers from him and held them up to my nose to inhale. “These are beautiful, Blaze.”

He got to work on arranging the food on the board and asked, “Hey, can you grab the cheese spreader in the basket for me?”

Without thinking twice about it, I looked inside the basket for the cheese spreader and couldn’t find it. But that didn’t mean I didn’t find anything.

My hands gripped the handle of the basket as my eyes shot to Blaze. He had the sweetest, most adoring look on his face. “Can’t find it?”

“What… What is that?”

Blaze took the basket from my clutches, reached inside, and pulled out what had left me in such a state of shock.

This couldn’t be happening.

This couldn’t be real.

Holding the open ring box in one of his hands, he used the other to hold my hand. “You’re trembling,” he said.

“Is this really happening? Am I dreaming?”

My voice was strained and didn’t sound like my own. I was in a state of utter disbelief.

Blaze was the best thing that had ever happened to me. He was about to make my dreams come true. If I was honest, he already had.

“It’s real, baby,” he assured me, his voice so calm and gentle. “You’ve been worried the last few days about something being on my mind, but now you know what it is. It was this, Harlow. It was about me realizing just how close I was to this moment, to being able to have the opportunity to make you mine forever.”

Tears welled in my eyes, and my fingertips gripped Blaze’s hand firmly. “Blaze,” I breathed. “I hope you weren’t worried about what the outcome would be.”

He smiled at me. “I love you, Harlow. I love you more than I ever thought was possible to love another person. If there’s anything life has taught me recently, it’s that it’s never smart to wait to do the things that matter. So, I’m not waiting any longer to do something that I’ve wanted to do since not long after I met you. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, baby. Will you marry me?”

I didn’t have to think twice about it.

Blaze was everything that I could have hoped for, and then some. I’d have been a fool to walk away from him.

“Yes, Blaze, I’ll marry you.”

He took the ring from the box, slid it on my finger, and didn’t hesitate to wrap me in his arms while he kissed me. From the very first kiss I had with Blaze in the rain, I knew just how easy it was to get lost in him. But there was not a single kiss that had me as lost as the one he was giving me now.

Maybe it was knowing that I’d gotten my wish. I would have Blaze forever, because he’d chosen me to be his. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, better than that.

Blaze brought his hands up to frame my face before tearing his mouth from mine. His eyes roamed over my face. “Do you know how much I love you? Do you know how much you’ve changed my life?”

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