Page 75 of Where We Left Off

I nod and tilt backwards so that I can look at him. He sees my face and pulls an adoring expression, stroking the backs of his fingers over my salt-stained skin.

“I need to say the important bits now though, okay?” he asks, before pressing a kiss to the tip of my cheek.

“Okay,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around his waist.

He smiles at me and says, “I’ve loved you forever baby, and I have no intentions of stopping. You made me a better man than I ever thought I could be, and I want to live the rest of my life withyou. Only with you. So please will you do me the honour of being my lawfully wedded wife?”

I pull his lips down to mine and he instantly exhales with relief and pleasure, sliding his tongue against my own with long unhurried strokes.

After a minute he murmurs against my mouth, “Is that a yes, baby?”

I laugh and bite my lip. “Yes,” I say excitedly, butterflies fluttering in my stomach. “Definitely, definitely yes.”

He draws my mouth back to his, and he fills me so deeply that I feel him everywhere. I gasp at the intensity.

“Need to get this ring on you,” he murmurs, pulling away only so that he can get back down on one knee, take my shaking hand in his, and slide the diamond up my finger. He bows his head and kisses the back of my hand, and my legs tremble at the sight. He gets back to his feet and lifts me so that I can wrap myself around his waist as he walks us back up the shore to the chalet.

As soon as we’re back inside with the door clicked shut Tate is ripping the clothes from my body, growling as he crowds me backwards towards the bed.

“Only the ring,” he says as he tugs his pants down my legs, his teeth grazing the insides of my thighs. “Want you wearing only the ring.”

When I’m suitably stripped he moves to undress himself but then I suddenly realise, “Wait, my socks!”

We both look down at the baby pink bed socks on my feet and Tate breathes out a laugh, pressing my naked skin against his jacket and jeans.

His hands roam to my ass, kneading roughly as he says, “Okay, the ring and the socks – you’re not getting cold feet on me, baby.”

I crawl backwards up the mattress and I watch him as he tugs the clothes off his own body. Coat: gone. Shirt: gone. Whenhe gets to his belt he studies me with hooded eyes, gauging the fast-paced heaving of my bare chest. The buckle jangles as he unsheathes the leather tongue, and he yanks his button open and his fly down. My eyes trace over the ink on his bicep and the letters on his hand, and I squirm agitatedly on the soft quilt. He pulls his jeans and briefs down over his hips and I sink my teeth into my lip in anticipation.

He takes a condom from the box on the floor and leans his body over mine, the hard leather and denim digging into my thighs. “Want me to keep them on?” he whispers as he pulls my hips down to meet his.

I nod slowly like a woman possessed, and then I run my left hand languidly across my throat. His eyes flash down to the ring and a flame ignites behind his irises. He interlocks our fingers and presses our hands down into the bed, using his other hand to bite open the foil packet, sheath himself in the condom, and then align his body against mine.

I move my free hand to his cheek and I caress it sweetly. He meets my gaze and presses a slow kiss to my lips.

“I love you so much, baby,” he murmurs. “I can’t wait to make you my wife.”

I kiss him again, running my fingers up the thick column of his neck and into his hair. “I love you too.”

Then, with one more kiss, he rolls his hips into mine and we pick up where we left off.

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